Trump told his supporters to go to the Capitol.  Now they are attempting to breach the building. Hearing that some protesters are inside the Capitol building.

Get to a teevee if you can.

Ya’ll, there’s live pardons out there.  You can print one for yourself or gift one to a friend who has done something horrible, like actually rooting for the Astros.

Just click right here.  Open it in a PDF and add the name of your choice.  You might just keep one in your pocket for things yet done because you never know.

This guy does not get one.

Thanks to Randall for the heads up.

Thought it hasn’t hit the major networks yet, Decision Desk just called the race for Ossoff.  With that win, the Dems are at 50.  With Harris as President of the Senate, Dems take control.

Written by Elizabeth Moon — 

Over the four days of the Christmas weekend, national reports of COVID-19 deaths dropped and appeared to be low–lower than the previous weeks’ low points.  Were there really fewer deaths?  No.  There were fewer *reported* deaths because the sources that should have been reporting them…weren’t.  The same is true of the New Year’s weekend, and for the same reason.

In the midst of the overall surge, some county and state health departments (including the county health department in my county) had gone right on taking their weekends off, catching up in mid-week, and then–for Christmas–closing down as early as the day before Christmas Eve, and not returning to full duty until Monday.  Same thing for New Year’s.  That means at the height of a pandemic a county health department can be shut down eight of fourteen days in that two week period.  

In normal circumstances, not reporting births & deaths for 2/7 of the days is no biggie (they’ll tell you), but in a pandemic, with over 3 1/2 million citizens dead of it, and thousands dying every day, it’s a very big biggie.  This pandemic has been mishandled by the the Trump Administration, GOP leadership in Congress, GOP governors and legislators, right down to county health departments, including downright lying about its extent, its dangers, and its effects on the country as a whole. 

Through January 4 (reported January 5) we had 354,000 reported dead of COVID-19…that we know of.  Why suspect there are unreported COVID-19 deaths?  Because GOP-dominated states do not want more deaths reported and have taken steps to ensure they’re not.  Some states (Florida and Texas, among them) do not report the deaths of those who aren’t *resident* in the state.  Do they report COVID deaths to the dead person’s home state?  With the correct cause of death?  Maybe.  We don’t know.  Do the states of residence report them as COVID deaths?  Maybe.  We don’t know.  

GOP-dominated states make every effort not to report as COVID deaths those that can possibly be reported as having another cause, or contributing cause.  Some states have told hospitals and doctors not to fill out death certificates listing COVID as the primary cause of death even when it is, but to list either co-existing conditions or symptoms: respiratory failure (patient couldn’t breathe), heart failure (heart stops beating), kidney failure, etc.  What caused these failures?  The virus’s attack on those organ systems.  Without COVID, those people would not have died in that way, at that time. They would not have had to die alone, blocked from their families, from any human connection, for days or weeks.  

The GOP–used here for the mass of Republican elected and appointed officials running the federal and some states’ governments, plus its related think tanks and media outlets–did not just try to hide the facts about how many people died of COVID-19.  They did everything possible to deny that the pandemic was a pandemic, that this nation had more cases than any other, that its symptoms were often serious and lasted longer than the longest cold or flu.  They lied outright about the effectiveness of social distancing and masking, and encouraged people to resist all ordinances that tried to make those effective preventive measures required.  They labeled less desirable (to them) groups–Blacks, “Hispanics,” the elderly, the disabled, the poor–as unimportant and not worth the effort to prevent *or care for* the illness. And they encouraged their adherents to do the same.

What is needed in any emergency is clear, honest communication. 
Instead, the GOP spread conspiracy theories, lies, half-truths, and diddled with the statistics to manipulate the population, encourage reckless and dangerous behaviors, and all for political and economic gain for themselves.

Okay, to every damn one of you who donated to send those kids to Georgia ….

Look the dickens at what you did!

Glen says you’re all heroes and you should strut a little today.  I say you should strut a lot. You sent 15 kids and they got voters to go vote.

It’s early and there’s no graphics yet but I am calling these two races BLUE.

You ruined Mitch McConnell’s life.