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Election shenanigans

I put the latest info on Trump's phone call to Raffensperger in this comment.

According to experts, Trump’s conduct has potential criminal exposure:

A federal statute makes it a crime when one “knowingly and willfully … attempts to deprive or defraud the residents of a State of a fair and impartially conducted election process, by … the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held.”
A Georgia statute similarly provides that a “person commits the offense of criminal solicitation to commit election fraud in the first degree when, with intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a felony under this article, he or she solicits, requests, commands, importunes, or otherwise attempts to cause the other person to engage in such conduct.”
…The hard part for prosecutors would be proving Trump’s state of mind, because the statutes require proof of knowledge and intent. Prosecutors would have to show that Trump knew that Biden fairly won the election, and Trump was asking for Georgia officials to commit election fraud. And it’s not clear prosecutors could make that case.

At least 12 Republican senators plan to challenge Biden’s Electoral College win on Jan. 6, when Congress is set to officially count the votes. The effort is being led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and includes Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), John Kennedy (R-La.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), and Mike Braun (R-Ind.), as well as new Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.). Separately, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) is pursuing a similar plan.

"Congress should immediately appoint an Electoral Commission, with full investigatory and fact-finding authority, to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the disputed states. Once completed, individual states would evaluate the Commission’s findings and could convene a special legislative session to certify a change in their vote, if needed," the senators said in a joint statement. “Accordingly, we intend to vote on Jan. 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not ‘regularly given’ and ‘lawfully certified’ (the statutory requisite), unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed."

Their plan is not going to succeed in preventing Biden from taking office, as majorities in both the House and the Senate would need to support a challenge against a state’s electoral votes. For an objection to be made, at least one member of both the House and Senate would need to submit it in writing. Then, the House and Senate separately convene to consider the issue. Debate is limited to two hours for each objection. After debate concludes, the House and Senate vote to uphold the objection and throw out the state’s votes. If the majority of the House AND the majority of the Senate does not uphold the objection, the state’s electoral votes are counted as cast.

Vice President Mike Pence’s role is simply to preside over the joint session, opening and presenting the certifications from each state. In his absence, the Senate pro-tempore Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) will lead the session. At the end of the process, the presiding officer announces who has won the majority of votes for president and vice president.

The most immediate danger from Trump and Cruz’s doomed election gambit is rightwing terrorism and general violence: Trump, in particular, is inciting his supporters to swarm D.C. on Jan. 6. “JANUARY SIXTH, SEE YOU IN DC!” Trump tweeted last week. Four rightwing rallies are scheduled, including one headlined by George Papadopoulos and Roger Stone.
The Proud Boys and other extremists are planning to attend the rallies and may set up an “armed encampment” on the National Mall, according to the Washington Post. On social media platform Parler, the leader of the Proud Boys said that members will be there “incognito” and may “dress in all black” to impersonate leftwing protestors.

Enrique Tarrio: "The ProudBoys will turn out in record numbers on Jan 6th but this time with a twist...We will not be wearing our traditional Black and Yellow. We will be incognito and we will spread across downtown DC in smaller teams."

Rep. Louie Gohmert has more explicitly tried to incite violence, saying the failure of his legal challenge to the election means “you gotta go the streets and be as violent as Antifa and BLM.” (clip)

At the same time, pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood suggested that Pence could “face execution by firing squad” for “treason” if he doesn’t go along with the attempt to subvert the election.

Obstructing the transition

Biden’s transition director has accused the Office of Management and Budget of stonewalling the incoming administration’s team. OMB Director Russ Vought is not allowing key staff to meet with the transition team to help prepare the president-elect’s first annual spending plan, a move that could delay major proposals. Vought pushed back on the charges, saying that his agency needs to focus on finalizing the Trump administration’s regulations before the president leaves office.

“OMB leadership’s refusal to fully cooperate impairs our ability to identify opportunities to maximize the relief going out to Americans during the pandemic, and it leaves us in the dark as it relates to Covid-related expenditures and critical gaps,” [Biden transition Exec. Dir. Yohannes] Abraham said.

Earlier last week, Biden himself said Trump officials are not cooperating with his team, singling out the Defense Department for obstructing information on crucial national security issues. “Right now, we just aren’t getting all the information that we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas. It’s nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility,” Biden said. The Defense Dept. finally scheduled meetings with the incoming team this week, after not briefing the transition for weeks.

The timing of the resumption in meetings is notable because it comes after the one year anniversary of the U.S. assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani on Jan. 3. NATO officials are reportedly worried about the lack of coordination from the Trump administration: "We need the incoming Biden administration to be fully briefed and ready to deal with these very dangerous issues facing NATO's security."

Sabotaging the Biden Administration

U.S. Agency for Global Media CEO Michael Pack is taking steps to keep control of Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia during the Biden administration. As chairman of the boards of Radio Free Europe and Asia, Pack and his fellow members have added binding contractual agreements that will make it impossible to remove him or other pro-Trump allies from the board in the next two years.

In other words, although President-elect Joe Biden has already signaled he intends to replace Pack as CEO of the parent agency soon after taking office in January, Pack would maintain a significant degree of control over the networks.

The State Department is likely to designate Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism “as an 11th hour effort to create hurdles for the incoming Biden administration.” The label, which requires the approval of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, would undo a major accomplishment of the Obama administration. To take Cuba back off the list, the Biden team would need to conduct a formal review, a process that might take several months.

Such a designation would impose restrictions on US foreign assistance, a ban on defense exports and sales, certain controls over exports and various financial restrictions. It would also result in penalization against any persons and countries engaging in certain trade activities with Cuba.

The Trump administration has been rushing to finalize a myriad of rules before Biden’s inauguration. Since Election Day, the Trump administration has issued about three to four times as many new regulations as it did during other periods of Trump’s presidency. Rules that haven’t been finalized or taken effect can be suspended by an incoming president, which Biden has said he intends to do. By contrast, rules that are finalized can take months, or even years, to undo.

“As a general rule, it takes at least as much process to undo or modify a rule as it does to put the rule in place,” said Jonathan H. Adler, a professor and an administrative law expert at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. “The Trump administration is magnifying that challenge for the Biden administration.”

Trump loyalists are urging the president to stymie Biden’s efforts to rejoin the Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal. Sens. Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham are working to get the agreements submitted to the Senate for ratification, requiring a two-thirds vote, with the goal of failure. While such an outcome wouldn’t prevent Biden from rejoining the accords, Cruz and Graham hope it would make their resurrection more problematic.

A vote against them would signal GOP opposition to the world and, they hope, undermine any unilateral action by Biden to rejoin the agreements. One senior congressional aide told RCP that sending them to die in the Senate “would be the final nail in the coffin.”

Further reading: “Biden To Be Saddled With Trump’s Payroll Tax Deferral Mess,” Forbes.
Further reading: Biden will inherit a backlog of tens of thousands of visa requests from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — and a bureaucratic tangle that refugee advocates say President Trump ignored or made worse.

Trump money and properties

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance is employing forensic accounting specialists to examine Trump’s finances and business operations. Vance is looking “for anomalies among a variety of property deals” and trying to determine “whether the president’s company manipulated the value of certain assets to obtain favorable interest rates and tax breaks”.

The analysts hired by Vance probably have already reviewed various bank and mortgage records obtained from Trump’s company as part of the ongoing grand jury investigation, and they could be called on to testify about their findings should the district attorney eventually bring criminal charges

In yet another shady business deal connected to Trump, the United States sold the ambassador’s residence in Israel for more than $67 million. The person who bought the residence is none other than Trump mega-donor Sheldon Adelson. The property only became available due to Trump's controversial decision to relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to contested Jerusalem. Furthermore, State Dept. representatives reportedly lied to Congress about the sale, perhaps to hide that Adelson purposefully overbid.

For now, there is no alternative residence for the ambassador, David Friedman, Trump’s former lawyer, who currently uses a suite at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel or rooms at the former Jerusalem Consulate General when he spends nights in Jerusalem… As a result, the United States appears likely to end up leasing the residence it has owned since 1964 from the GOP-affiliated casino mogul.
“It is very strange that we are now paying Sheldon Adelson,” a congressional aide told The Daily Beast. “It is not above board. We have a number of questions. Did they get two independent appraisals? Was it a sweetheart deal? Was Adelson the highest donor? Was there a reason to sell it now?”

Trump’s businesses have taken in $10.5 million of donor money over the course of his presidency. $8.5 million came from the Trump campaign and related entities that Trump controls directly; $2 million came from other Republican candidates and committees. The biggest beneficiary was Trump’s NYC hotel, taking in $3,039,979 over the four years of his presidency, with $891,003 of that in just the final four months of the campaign.
Trump’s DC hotel is ramping up room prices and requiring a two-night minimum stay for two key events this month, as the president tries to squeeze more profit out of his office. On Jan. 6, when Congress is set to formally count the votes cast by the Electoral College, room rates are listed at over eight times the price of surrounding dates. Trump is encouraging his supporters to attend a protest of Biden’s win on the 6th. A room during the inauguration costs five times the normal rate, at $2,225 per night.
Trump’s Turnberry Resort in Scotland posted a £2.3 million ($3.1 million) loss in 2019, marking the sixth year in a row it has failed to turn a profit under his ownership. Since Trump took over the historic property in 2014, its losses now total nearly £45 million ($61.5 million).

The fact Turnberry remains in the red comes in spite of significant tranches of payments it has received from the US government during Mr Trump’s single term in office… the US Secret Service spent nearly £25,000 to accommodate its agents at the resort during business trips by Mr Trump’s son, Eric, an executive vice-president of the family firm. Since Mr Trump’s election, the property has received close to £300,000 from the Secret Service, US State Department, and US Defence Department

A Florida state lawmaker is calling for Mar-a-Lago to be penalized - and possibly shut down - for flouting coronavirus restrictions during a New Years Eve party. While Trump and the first lady did not attend, son Don Jr., attorney Rudy Giuliani, Rep. Matt Gaetz, and Fox News personality Jeanine Piro were captured on video among the maskless crowd. Guests paid as much as $1,000 for access to the ballroom to be entertained by Vanilla Ice.

State Rep. Omari Hardy: “My constituents are not snowbirds like @DonaldJTrumpJr & @kimguilfoyle. My constituents live here. This is their home, and they're going to have to deal w/ the consequences of a potential super-spreader party at Mar-a-Lago long after Junior & wife leave here on their private jet.”

Are you ready for a Donald J. Trump Airport? According to the Daily Beast, Trump has been asking aides about the process of naming airports after former U.S. presidents.
Further reading: “Jared Kushner’s family real estate business wants to raise at least $100 million in capital through Israel’s bond market… Kushner has helped spearhead a series of moves that have been applauded by the conservative pro-Israel community, including moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv and recognizing Israeli sovereignty in disputed areas such as the Golan Heights. Kushner also has close ties to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.”

Miscellaneous

The Census Bureau missed it’s end-of-year deadline to produce numbers that determine representation in Congress and the Electoral College for the next decade. The agency is working toward Jan. 9 as an internal target date for completing the current stage of processing records. "If we miss Jan. 9, it's hard to envision that we would get apportionment done before inauguration," a Census employee told NPR.

The final timing of the 2020 census results' release could undermine President Trump's efforts to make an unprecedented change to who is counted in key census numbers before leaving office… If the first census results are not ready until after Trump's term ends on Jan. 20, it would be President-elect Joe Biden, not Trump, who would get control of the numbers, which are ultimately handed off to Congress for certification.

9/11 and the Mandela Effect

Putting Bond's revenge against Quantum at the centre of Quantum of Solace

Saw the post mentioning that no one has attempted to give Quantum of Solace a rewrite and decided to give it a shot. It was actually harder than I thought. Rewatching it I think many of the film’s issues comes from the director writer than writing. I think the generally plotting of the film is fairly decent, especially giving the ongoing writer’s strike at the time. The main issue is that there’s effectively two films going on: One in which Bond is hunting down Quantum seeking revenge for Vesper and one in which Bond goes rogue in order to stop the CIA financing a coup d’etat in Boliva. My main goal was to try better merge them into a more cohesive story. In particular I want to give Vesper’s former lover, Yusuf Kabira, (ie the reason she betrays Bond and then gets murdered in Casino Royale) more of a role, rather than just having him be relegated to a single scene at the end of the film.

The Changes

· Making Yusuf Kabira, Vesper’s former lover, a major character, effectively serving as the main henchman of the film
· Changing Camille’s backstory. Instead of being a Bolivian agent she’s the daughter of the current Bolivian president and she’s has also been seduced by Kabira. Quantum’s plan is to expose the relationship between the President’s daughter and a foreign agent, thus creating a political scandal that will pre-empt a coup d’état by General Medrano.
· We cut Dominic Greene and the Plot To Steal Bolivar’s Water entirely. We give most of Greene’s role to Mr White.
· Finally, we are going to play up the whole Bond Versus the CIA thing. Lets try and use Jefferey Wright more and give Felix a bit of a redemption arc

The new plot

We are going to cut the opening car chase entirely and start with Bond driving into the Sienna safehouse having captured Mr White at the end of Casino Royale. Waiting inside the safehouse are M and another agent called Yusuf Kabira. Bond can greet Kabira saying something like “How was Bolivia?” and he replies with something witty like “Very stimulating”. The interrogation goes the same way as the original as Kabira is revealed to be a double agent and helps Mr White escape. Bond chases Kabira across the rooftops of Sienna. They can briefly fight but Kabira is able to escape. Cut to the opening title sequence.
After the titles we see MI6 investigating Kabira’s London apartment. In a secret compartment they discovered files on Vesper Lynd including photos of Kabira and Vesper together. Bond is visibly shaken by this information and M asks him if Bond can be trusted to keep his feelings separate from his job. Bond assures M he will. He also suggests looking into Kabira’s recent mission in Bolivar. When they do, they discover that Kabira was having frequent meetings with a mysterious woman at a particular hotel and will soon meet her again.
Kabira meets the mysterious woman, who we learn is called Camille, in the hotel in Santa Cruz, Boliva. The two are clearly lovers. They go to their room but are ambushed by Bond waiting for them there. We then basically get the scene from the end of Quantum of Solace where Bond reveals who Kabira is to Camille and shows her the necklace he gave to Vesper, identical to one Kabira’s given to Camille. Camille is obviously shocked by this revelation. At gunpoint Bond orders the two of them into a car to drive to an airfield where MI6 is waiting to arrest Kabira. In the car Kabira taunts Bond about Vesper. The car is soon stopped by members of the Bolivian military led by a General Medrano.
Bond now finds himself being captured as he is separated from Kabira and Camille and taking to a different site. There he discovers Felix Leiter and several other CIA agents. Initially Bond is pleased to see an ally but quickly realises that Felix and the CIA are working with Medrano and Kabira. Leiter tries to justify himself saying that things are more complicated than they seem, and that MI6 has no business getting involved in Bolivia. He also reveals that Camille is the daughter of the Bolivian president. He pleads with Bond to go back to London and forget about what he has seen. Bond refuses and escapes leading to a chase between Bond and the CIA. Bond is able to make his way to the airfield where he leaves Bolivia, dejected after failing to capture Kabira and avenge Vesper.
We then see Leiter meeting with White and Medrano. This pretty much resembles the scene from the original film where the CIA strikes a non-interference deal with the pair in exchange for the USA gaining access to Bolivian oil. After Leiter leaves, Medrano tells White that he has held up his end of the bargain and accuses White of unnecessarily delays. White argues that they need the support of the other partners of “his organisation” before they can go ahead, and Medrano replies that perhaps he should speak to White’s partners in person.
MI6 discover that Medrano has booked a ticket to see an opera in Bregenz, Austria and Bond goes to investigate. We then get the scene from the original film where the leaders of Quantum have their meeting during the Opera. Medrano is also at the meeting and we hear the Quantum members give their assent to go ahead with Medrano and White’s plan to expose the relationship between Camille and Kabira (who will be presented as a British spy) thus creating a political scandal which will cause a crisis allowing Medrano to seize power. Afterwards Medrano will allow Quantum to take control of Bolivia’s oil fields. With Medrano is Camille who is clearly being held there against her will. When she excuses herself to go to the bathroom Medrano sends one of his men to watch her. Camille still attempts to escapes and Bond intervenes helping her but blowing his cover in the process and gets caught in a very public shoot out with Medrano’s men. Medrano and the other members of Quantum escape.
We then cut to London where we see M getting a dressing down from the foreign secretary in the aftermath of the shooting in Austria. The foreign secretary tells M that the Prime Minister has bowed to American pressure and order that all MI6 operations in South America be terminated. With no choice M calls Bond and orders him to return to England but Bond of course refuses. M once again asks if his desire to get revenge on Kabira for Vesper’s death is affecting his decision-making. Bond hangs up.
In a safehouse Bond and Camille watch as news of Camille’s relationship with Kabira makes international headlines and the crisis Medrano and White engineered begins to take shape. Bond and Camille open up to each other, with Bond hinting at his past with Vesper. They resolve to return to Bolivia and attempt to prevent Medrano’s coup d’état. Without MI6 aid Bond turns to Rene Mathis who, after being acquitted of being a double agent following Casino Royale, is living in retirement in the south of France. Mathis agrees to help them, and they use his private jet to fly to Bolivia.
As they reach Bolivian airspace two American fighter jets begin tailing them, ordering them to land. Bond, Mathis and Rene agree that their only option is to abandon the plane only to learn there’s only one parachute onboard. Mathis tells Bond and Camille to escape while he leads the Americans away, sacrificing himself. Bond tries to protest. Mathis tells Bond that Vesper did love him. As Bond and Camille cling to each other with the parachute they see Mathis’ plane get shot down.
Once they land, they make their way to Bolivia’s capital La Paz. Felix contacts Bond for a meeting, effectively offering a brief truce. Camille tells Bond its a trap, but Bond decides to go anyway. They meet in a bar and Bond is able to convince Felix that Medrano will betray the CIA and give Quantum access to the Bolivan oil fields. Felix tells Bond that they are currently being watched by other CIA agents and as soon as Bond leaves, they will try to kill him. Felix gives Bond a location to go to if he survives. Evading the American agents Bond goes to this location and discovers Felix has left him a file detailing the CIA’s involvement in the impending coup d’état.
We then see tanks rolling into La Paz as the Medrano’s coup d’état begins. Medrano arrives at the state television station to announce his takeover. Bond and Camille race to the station to try to stop him. Fighting their way through Medrano’s men they are confronted by Kabira. Bond and Kabira get locked in a one-on-one shootout as Camille goes to take on Medrano alone. She finds the studio where Medrano is broadcasting the announcement of his new rule. His men have all left to stop Bond leaving Medrano all alone. Camille shoots Medrano and starts showing the Felix’s evidence of the CIA’s involvement.
Mr White, watching this unfold, orders the broadcast be stopped by any means necessary. The tanks outside the television station suddenly begin firing on the building, reducing it to rubble.
We cut back to Bond and Kabira who are now fighting hand-to-hand. As the building starts to collapse Kabira becomes trapped under falling debris. In desperation he reaches out to Bond. Bond holds out his hand, only to drop Vesper’s necklace in front of him. He leaves Kabira to die. Finding Camille, the two escape the collapsing television station.
They go to the Bolivian Presidential Palace as the Bolivian military either retreats or surrenders around them. There Camille’s family is waiting. The two kiss before parting ways.
Cut to a few weeks later Bond meets Leiter on the National Mall in Washington D.C. Leiter tells Bond that Mr White and the other members of Quantum have all gone underground and can’t be found. Bond asks Leiter if he’s been reprimanded for the whole Bolivian affair and Leiter replies he’s being sent on a dead-end assignment to San Monique. The two part as friends. As Felix leaves Bond receives a call from M about his next mission.

A series of trips to Las Vegas by September 11 hijackers became the object of the largest investigation in the city. The reason behind these trips remains a mystery.

On September 11 of 2001, 19 men hijacked four planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and into an open field in Shanksville PA. These men were al-Qaeda terrorists doing the deeds in the name of a holy war against the West and not much about the attack remains a mystery unless you subscribe to the inside job theory, which isn't my case. What authorities haven't been able to explain is the hijackers' several trips to Las Vegas despite what has been dubbed to be the broadest investigation in city. All these trips happened within a few months before the attacks, but the men behind them left very little evidence of their activities in the area.
TIMELINE
May 24 - Marwan Al-Shehhi, the pilot who crashed the United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Towers of the WTC, arrived to Las Vegas from San Francisco and rented a room at Travelodge as a walk in customer. Once there, he called eight other motels.
May 25 - Al-Shehhi walked in the St. Luis Manor, a hotel that wasn't on the call list. At 12:52 pm, he rented a different car, but didn't return the first car until 3:58pm. The unaccounted mileage in both vehicles summed up to 29 miles. FBI believes that these unusual patterns were a conscious attempt to avoid detection.
May 27 - Al-Shehhi made it to New York.
June 7 - Ziad Jarrah, pilot of the United Airlines 93 that crashed in Shanskville while on its way to the Capitol Building, arrived to Las Vegas and rented a car at 3:13 pm. He was accompanied by an unidentified man described as "middle eastern looking". When Jarrah asked for directions to Circus Circus Hotel and Casino, the a rent-a-car employee tried to give him an answer but was interrupted by the unidentified man who suggested another route. The man's knowledge of the address suggests that he was familiar with the area or that he had been in Las Vegas before.
June 10 - Jarrah took a flight to the Baltimore Washington International Airport leaving his rented car with a mileage exceeding 200 miles and no trace of his Las Vegas whereabouts .
June 28 - Mohamed Atta, pilot of American Airlines Flight 11 that crashed into the North Tower of WTC and leader of the hijackers, arrived to Las Vegas at 2:41 pm and rented a car at 4:25 pm. At 6:40 pm Atta established an account at Cyberzone internet café and used the computer for one hour and thirty five minutes.
June 29 - Atta checked into Econo Lodge Motel at 1:01 pm. He logged in at Cyberzone again at 2:21 and 6:21 pm. Once done, the FBI believes he went back to his hotel.
June 30 - Atta accessed his Cyberzone accounts at 1:56 pm, 6:30 pm and 9:33 pm. The mileage analysis indicated that he returned to his hotel afterwards. This day as well as the day before, Atta had placed several call to Al-Shehhi as well as to two different number in Houston, TX. One number was unassigned and the other one belonged to a mobile salesman.
July 1 - Atta returned his rented vehicle at the airport at 5:12 am and took a flight to New York that connected in Denver. The vehicle had 73 unaccounted miles of usage which the FBI believes would cover a round trip to the Hoover Dam.
July 31 - Waleed al-Shehri, hijacker of the Flight 11, took a flight from San Francisco to Las Vegas where he stayed for 45 minutes while waiting for another flight to Miami. It is unclear to me whether this was a tactical flight - the hijackers were believed to take flights to study their trajectory as well as entrance to the cockpit-, or just a connection.
August 13 - Hani Hanjour and Nawaf al-Hazmi, pilot and hijackers of the American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon arrived to Las Vegas at 11:18 am. At 11:58 am, Atta arrived to Las Vegas to and rented a vehicle at 1:46 pm. The FBI assumed that the three men met, but no activity from Hanjour and al-Hazim was recorded from that trip. Atta accessed a room at the Econo Lodge at 2:55 pm and connected at the Cyberzone at 11:26 pm, getting back to his room at 12:46 am.
August 14 - Atta returned his rented car at 11:09 am leaving no unaccounted mileage and took a flight outside Las Vegas. Hanjour and al-Hazmi boarded a flight at 11:29 am.
THEORIES
A) Al-Qaeda was looking to target Las Vegas area
As noted in Atta's first trip, the unaccounted mileage added up to a round trip to the dam from his hotel. However, Atta's vehicle was not among the recorded license plates in the parking garage of the dam. If the hijackers had connections in Las Vegas area, which seems to be the case with Jarrah, Atta might have traveled to Boulder City or any other town close to the lake and gotten to the dam with someone else in a different vehicle. It should also be noted that both Atta and al-Shehhi stayed in hotels close to the Stratosphere, a hotel and casino located in the highest building of the city. Being known as the Sin City, Las Vegas could have been a attractive target for jihadists looking to rebel against what they perceived to be the westernization of their home countries and culture.
B) Hijackers were exchanging information with other Al-Qaeda members
The FBI emphasized the short duration on hijacker's trip to Las Vegas saying that it was just long enough to exchange information. Authorities believe that Atta was not only looking at flight on the East coast but he also kept in communication with Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a potential 20th hijacker who had been denied entry to the United States and acted as an intermediary between Al-Qaeda and the other hijackers. Jarrah's mystery companion and the complete lack of evidence of his whereabouts point to possible terrorist acquaintances residing or staying in Las Vegas that are yet to be identified. The FBI summary mentions two persons of interest: Lotfi Raissi and Zakaria Hassan Ibrahim.
Raissi started attending the Sawyer School of Aviation in 1998 one month after Hanjour quit. Two days after Jarrah left Las Vegas, Raissi arrived to the city with his wife and stayed there until June 18. His stay didn't overlap with that of the hijackers and he claims he went to Las Vegas to celebrate his honeymoon. On September 21, Raissi was arrested near Colnbrook, UK, where he had been living at the time of the attacks. Prosecutor Arvinder Sambei claimed that the FBI had footage of him celebrating an event with Hanjour and that his flight logs from March 2000 to June 2001 were missing. It has also been claimed that Raissi was training five of the hijackers. No such proof was presented to the courts and the man in the footage turned out to be his cousin and not Hanjour, as it had been previously claimed.
Hassan Ibrahim had previously been convicted for trafficking in fraudulent passports and visas. He was the person to provide Mir Aimal Kansi, CIA headquarters shooter , and Mohammed A. Salameh, perpetrator of the 1993 WTC bombing, with fake documents. He was reported to have spent most of July in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, not much information about this individual is accessible so I could not verify if any connection between him and the hijackers was formally established.
C) Hijackers went to Las Vegas as a final pleasure stop before committing suicide
This theory was briefly mentioned by Evan Thomas, journalist, and quoted by criminologist Adam Lankford in his psychological autopsy of Mohamed Atta. According to the author, Atta and the other hijackers - Hanjour and al-Hazmi - might have visited Las Vegas because maybe " they wished to be fortified for their mission by visiting a shrine to American decadence".
While not much is known about Hanjour and al-Hazmi, Atta has been alluded to by the people who knew him as a sexually repressed man who experienced extreme discomfort around women and the mildest hint of sexuality. When years of repression build up an uncontrollable sexual urge, the individual might end up participating is risky sexual activities. Nevertheless, the circumstances of the trip make sex and gambling very unlikely motives. Their stays were short, happened across different months and there was no evidence of them visiting casinos or any similar venues. Strippers supposedly identified al-Shehhi as one of their patrons, but evidence was not conclusive. Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that a quick visit to the strip club was anything more than a fun opportunity while pursuing a bigger goal.
I personally believe that the hijackers visited Las Vegas to coordinate the attacks with other members from Al-Qaeda who flew under the radar (no pun intended).
SOURCES:
Las Vegas investigative summary
Theories on why 9/11 hijackers visited Las Vegas
David C. Henley: 9/11 hijackers visits to Nevada remain a mystery
Wikipedia entry for Mir Aimal Kansi
Wikipedia entry for Mohammed A. Salameh
Cracking the terror code
EDIT: Thanks for the awards people!

Trumps Russian Ties

Trump has been in Russia's pocket a long time here is more reading for those interested in the history.
Trump was over a billion in debt and the Russians bailed him out.
► Trump was first compromised by the Russians in the 80s. In 1984, the Russian Mafia began to use Trump real estate to launder money. In 1987, the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations, Yuri Dubinin, arranged for Trump and his then-wife, Ivana, to enjoy an all-expense-paid trip to Moscow to consider possible business prospects. Only seven weeks after his trip, Trump ran full-page ads in the Boston Globe, the NYT and WaPO calling for, in effect, the dismantling of the postwar Western foreign policy alliance. The whole Trump/Russian connection started out as laundering money for the Russian mob through Trump's real estate, but evolved into something far bigger.
► In 1984, David Bogatin — a convicted Russian mobster and close ally of Semion Mogilevich, a major Russian mob boss — met with Trump in Trump Tower right after it opened. Bogatin bought five condos from Trump at that meeting. Those condos were later seized by the government, which claimed they were used to launder money for the Russian mob. (NY Times, Apr 30, 1992)
► [Felix Sater](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Sater } is a Russian-born former mobster, and former managing director of NY real estate conglomerate Bayrock Group LLC located on the 24th floor of Trump Tower. He is a convict who became a govt cooperator for the FBI and other agencies. He grew up with Michael Cohen--Trump's former "fixer" attorney. Cohen's family owned El Caribe, which was a mob hangout for the Russian Mafia in Brooklyn. Cohen had ties to Ukrainian oligarchs through his in-laws and his brother's in-laws. Felix Sater's father had ties to the Russian mob. This goes back more than 30 years.
► Trump was $4 billion in debt after his Atlantic City casinos went bankrupt. No U.S. bank would touch him. Then foreign money began flowing in through Bayrock (mentioned above). Bayrock was run by two investors: Tevfik Arif, a Kazakhstan-born former Soviet official who drew on bottomless sources of money from the former Soviet republic; and Felix Sater, a Russian-born businessman who had pleaded guilty in the 1990s to a huge stock-fraud scheme involving the Russian mafia. Bayrock partnered with Trump in 2005 and poured money into the Trump organization under the legal guise of licensing his name and property management.
► In July 2008, the height of the housing bust, Trump sold a mansion in Palm Beach for $95 million to Dmitry Rybolovlev, a Russian oligarch. Trump had purchased it four years earlier for $41.35 million. The sale price was nearly $54 million more than Trump had paid for the property. Again, this was the height of the recession when all other property had plummeted in value.
► Semion Mogilevich was the brains behind the Russian Mafia. Mogilevich operatives have been using Trump real estate for decades to launder money. That means Russian Mafia operatives have been part of his fortune for years. Many of them owned condos in Trump Towers and other properties. They were running operations out of Trump's crown jewel.
► So many Russians bought Trump apartments at his developments in Florida that the area became known as Little Moscow. The developers of two of his hotels were Russians with significant links to the Russian mob. The late leader of that mob in the United States, Vyacheslav Kirillovich Ivankov, was living at Trump Tower
► According to a Bloomberg investigation (3/16/2017) into Trump World Tower, “a third of units sold on floors 76 through 83 by 2004 involved people or limited liability companies connected to Russia and neighboring states.”
► In 2013, Federal agents busted an “ultraexclusive, high-stakes, illegal poker ring” run by Russian gangsters out of Trump Tower. They operated card games, illegal gambling websites, and a global sports book and laundered more than $100 million. A condo directly below one owned by Trump reportedly served as HQ for a “sophisticated money-laundering scheme” connected to Semion Mogilevich.
► The Russia Mafia is part and parcel of Russian intelligence. Russia is a mafia state. That is not a metaphor. Putin is head of the Mafia. So the fact that they have been operating out of the home of the president of the United States is deeply disturbing.
► Rudy Giuliani famously prosecuted the Italian mob while he was a federal prosecutor, yet the Russian mob was allowed to thrive. Now he's deeply entwined in the business of Trump and Russian oligarchs. Giuiani appointed Semyon Kislin to the NYC Economic Development Council in 1990, and the FBI described Kislin as having ties to the Russian mob. Of course, it made good political sense for Giuliani to get headlines for smashing the Italian mob.
► A lot of Republicans in Washington are implicated. Boatloads of Russian money went to the GOP--often in legal ways. The NRA got as much as $70M from Russia, then funneled it to the GOP. The Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee lead by McConnell got millions from Leonard Blavatnik. In the 90s, the Russians began sending money to top GOP leaders, like Speaker of the House Tom Delay. Craig Unger's book alleges that most of the GOP leadership has been compromised by RU money.
► At the Cityscape USA’s Bridging US and the Emerging Real Estate Markets Conference held in Manhattan, on September 9, 10, and 11, 2008, Donald Trump Jr. was frank about the tide of Russian money supporting the family business, saying "...And in terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets."
► Eric Trump told golf reporter James Dodson in 2014 that the Trump Organization was able to expand during the financial crisis because “We don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.”
► It's believed that Russian oligarchs co-signed Trump’s Deutsche bank loans.
► Alex Navalny has insinuated Paul Manafort passed along Trump's campaign information to the Kremlin via Kilimnik. In a 25-minute Youtube video (Russian with subtitles), Navalny shows footage of Deripaska with Russian deputy prime minister Sergei Prikhodko on his yacht in Norway in August 2016. Based on that footage, he alleges that information about the Trump campaign must have passed between the two. Senate Intelligence Report I believe concluded Paul gave the information to known Russian asset but that we have no proof this asset gave the information to the Kremlin? Im hoping someone in the comments has some more on the Paul Manafort accusation to perhaps clear this bullet up in a future edit.

Trump now gleefully takes cues from Putin:
► Trump went against American intelligence on North Korean missiles. He told the FBI he didn't believe their intelligence because Putin told him otherwise. “I don't care, I believe Putin"
► Trump met in secret with Putin at the G20 summit in November 2018, without note takers. 19 days later, he announced a withdrawal from Syria.
► Trump refused to enforce sanctions legally codified into law - and in some cases reversed standing sanctions on Russian companies.
► He has denounced his own intelligence agencies in a press conference with Putin on election meddling - and publicly endorsed Putin's version of events.
► Demanded Russia get invited back into G7
► Pushed the CIA to give American intelligence to the Kremlin.
► Withdrew from the Open Skies treaty

EDIT -
First want to say thanks for taking the time to read the post. Please take the time to also VOTE this election. Also thank you various users for the rewards and support.
On to actual edits :)
Firstly I've removed the link to Trump / Russian bounties allegations. Which was the last point in the post originally due to its lack of factual evidence.
Second I've changed a few points wording.
Third I've added a new bullet at the end that was passed a long to me yesterday by another user in another thread about Trump and his campaign manager.
Fourth I'd like to point out that this post is a collection of points from various other users in other threads and I personally don't want to take any credit for this post as I'm just carrying the torch with this post of several users before me who compiled many of these points.

Newt Gingrich - Why I will not accept Joe Biden as president

ANALYSIS/OPINION:
A smart friend of mine who is a moderate liberal asked why I was not recognizing Joe Biden’s victory.
The friend made the case that Mr. Biden had gotten more votes, and historically we recognize the person with the most votes. Normally, we accept the outcome of elections just as we accept the outcomes of sporting events.
So, my friend asked why was 2020 different?
Having spent more than four years watching the left #Resist President Donald Trump and focus entirely on undoing and undermining the 2016 election, it took me several days to understand the depth of my own feelings.
As I thought about it, I realized my anger and fear were not narrowly focused on votes. My unwillingness to relax and accept that the election grew out of a level of outrage and alienation unlike anything I had experienced in more than 60 years involvement in public affairs.
The challenge is that I — and other conservatives — are not disagreeing with the left within a commonly understood world. We live in alternative worlds.
The left’s world is mostly the established world of the forces who have been dominant for most of my life.
My world is the populist rebellion which believes we are being destroyed, our liberties are being cancelled and our religions are under assault. (Note the new Human Rights Campaign to decertify any religious school which does not accept secular sexual values — and that many Democrat governors have kept casinos open while closing churches though the COVID-19 pandemic.) We also believe other Democrat-led COVID-19 policies have enriched the wealthy while crushing middle class small business owners (some 160,000 restaurants may close).
In this context, let’s talk first about the recent past and the presidency.
In 2016, I supported an outsider candidate, who was rough around the edges and in the Andrew Jackson school of controversial assaults on the old order. When my candidate won, it was blamed on the Russians. We now know (four years later) Hillary Clinton’s own team financed the total lie that fueled this attack.
Members of the FBI twice engaged in criminal acts to help it along — once in avoiding prosecution of someone who had deleted 33,000 emails and had a subordinate use a hammer to physically destroy hard drives, and a second time by lying to FISA judges to destroy Gen. Michael Flynn and spy on then-candidate Donald Trump and his team. The national liberal media aided and abetted every step of the way. All this was purely an attempt to cripple the new president and lead to the appointment of a special counsel — who ultimately produced nothing.
Now, people in my world are told it is time to stop resisting and cooperate with the new president. But we remember that the Democrats wanted to cooperate with Mr. Trump so much that they began talking about his impeachment before he even took office. The Washington Post ran a story on Democrat impeachment plots the day of the inauguration.
In fact, nearly 70 Democratic lawmakers boycotted his inauguration. A massive left-wing demonstration was staged in Washington the day after, where Madonna announced she dreamed of blowing up the White House to widespread applause. These same forces want me to cooperate with their new president. I find myself adopting the Nancy Pelosi model of constant resistance. Nothing I have seen from Mr. Biden since the election offers me any hope that he will reach out to the more than 74 million Americans who voted for President Trump.
So, I am not reacting to the votes so much as to the whole election environment.
When Twitter and Facebook censored the oldest and fourth largest newspaper (founded by Alexander Hamilton) because it accurately reported news that could hurt Mr. Biden’s chances — where were The New York Times and The Washington Post?
The truth of the Hunter Biden story is now becoming impossible to avoid or conceal. The family of the Democrat nominee for president received at least $5 million from an entity controlled by our greatest adversary. It was a blatant payoff, and most Americans who voted for Mr. Biden never heard of it — or were told before the election it was Russian disinformation. Once they did hear of it, 17% said they would have switched their votes, according to a poll by the Media Research Center. That’s the entire election. The censorship worked exactly as intended.
Typically, newspapers and media outlets band together when press freedom is threatened by censorship. Where was the sanctimonious “democracy dies in darkness?” Tragically, The Washington Post is now part of the darkness.
But this is just a start. When Twitter censors four of five Rush Limbaugh tweets in one day, I fear for the country.
When these monolithic Internet giants censor the president of the United States, I fear for the country.
When I see elite billionaires like Mark Zuckerburg are able to spend $400 million to hire city governments to maximize turnout in specifically Democratic districts — without any regard to election spending laws or good governance standards — I fear for the country.
When I read that Apple has a firm rule of never irritating China — and I watch the NBA kowtow to Beijing, I fear for our country.
When I watch story after story about election fraud being spiked — without even the appearance of journalistic due diligence or curiosity — I know something is sick.
The election process itself was the final straw in creating the crisis of confidence which is accelerating and deepening for many millions of Americans.
Aside from a constant stream of allegations of outright fraud, there are some specific outrages — any one of which was likely enough to swing the entire election.
Officials in virtually every swing state broke their states’ own laws to send out millions of ballots or ballot applications to every registered voter. It was all clearly documented in the Texas lawsuit, which was declined by the U.S. Supreme Court based on Texas’ procedural standing — not the merits of the case. That’s the election.
In addition, it’s clear that virtually every swing state essentially suspended normal requirements for verifying absentee ballots. Rejection rates were an order of magnitude lower than in a normal year. In Georgia, rejection rates dropped from 6.5% in 2016 to 0.2% in 2020. In Pennsylvania, it went from 1% in 2016 to .003% in 2020. Nevada fell from 1.6% to .75%. There is no plausible explanation other than that they were counting a huge number of ballots — disproportionately for Mr. Biden — that normally would not have passed muster. That’s the election.
The entire elite liberal media lied about the timeline of the COVID-19 vaccine. They blamed President Trump for the global pandemic even as he did literally everything top scientists instructed. In multiple debates, the moderators outright stated that he was lying about the U.S. having a vaccine before the end of the year (note Vice President Mike Pence received it this week). If Americans had known the pandemic was almost over, that too was likely the difference in the election.
The unanimously never-Trump debate commission spiked the second debate at a critical time in order to hurt President Trump. If there had been one more debate like the final one, it likely would have been pivotal.
This is just the beginning. But any one of those things alone is enough for Trump supporters to think we have been robbed by a ruthless establishment — which is likely to only get more corrupt and aggressive if it gets away with these blatant acts.
For more than four years, the entire establishment mobilized against the elected president of the United States as though they were an immune system trying to kill a virus. Now, they are telling us we are undermining democracy.
You have more than 74 million voters who supported President Trump despite everything — and given the election mess, the number could easily be significantly higher. The truth is tens of millions of Americans are deeply alienated and angry.
If Mr. Biden governs from the left — and he will almost certainly be forced to — that number will grow rapidly, and we will win a massive election in 2022.
Given this environment, I have no interest in legitimizing the father of a son who Chinese Communist Party members boast about buying. Nor do I have any interest in pretending that the current result is legitimate or honorable. It is simply the final stroke of a four-year establishment-media power grab. It has been perpetrated by people who have broken the law, cheated the country of information, and smeared those of us who believe in America over China, history over revisionism, and the liberal ideal of free expression over cancel culture.
I write this in genuine sorrow, because I think we are headed toward a serious, bitter struggle in America. This extraordinary, coordinated four-year power grab threatens the fabric of our country and the freedom of every American. - Newt Gingrich

Source: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/dec/21/why-i-will-not-accept-joe-biden-as-president/

WATCH LIVE: Gov Edwards COVID-19 Press Conference at 2:30 PM on 11/24

Louisiana is backed in Phase 2 (modified)

LINKS TO WATCH

This conference was announced last Thursday

Pre-Conference Question - What do you think he'll announce?

A harsher lecture on being a GOOD NEIGHBOR?
Modified Phase 3 ala New Orleans?
Moving back to Phase 2 or 1?
Or will it be an unexpected Stay At Home order?
Some other option?

Summary

^{NOTE: The summary of this press conference is transcribed LIVE. The summary may contain spelling and grammatical errors which until it is able to be corrected once the conference concludes.}
^{NOTE: The summary may contain spelling and grammatical errors.}
Gov JBE

Anyone who has been paying attention to the news whether internationally, nationally, or state you know COVID-19 is going in the wrong direction unmoving very fast in the wrong direction.
Louisiana is experiencing the third surge of COVID-19.
Nov alone the US has had more new cases than in any other months and hospitalizations are at a record high nationally. Higher than other surges.
Yesterday the US added more than 169,000 new cases in one day and 898 deaths.
This week's WH Coronavirus Taskforce Report shows 474 new cases per 100,000 people last week we had 172 new cases per 100,000 people. The national average is 356 cases per 100,000.
So this is the first week in many weeks that LA has had more new cases than the national average.
Today we report ___ new cases and sadly 39 additional people have lost their lives to the virus for a Toal amount of ___ deaths. Reporting 1,052 hospitalizations, not the first of the month we had less than 600. Today we are up 40 than yesterday with more than 350+ net new COVID19 hospitalizations. 113 patients on mechanical ventilators.
- When we see what's happening in state and across all regions we have to be very cautious about hospitalizations and maintain the capacity to give life-saving care to covid and non-covid patients.
- Trajectory we are on it is imperative we take action now.
If we could flip a switch and get 100% adherence to mitigation measures to all measures we are still 2 weeks from seeing changes.
We are in for a rough patch, and the degree we flatten the curve and are successful will depend on eery Louisianan.
We are stepping a step back to a revised Phase 2. So Phase 2 with some modifications.
- We got out of the prior surge by moving to Phase 2.
What does that mean?
- Will get into that later...
Wants to get ahead of the Thanksgiving Holiday and the extended holiday season.
Data includes info thru Friday, Nov 20.

Dr Kanter

Thanks National Guard, GOSHEP, and the LDH for working very hard and working over the holiday.
Gating Criteria Slides:
- What we are seeing is as concerning as it has ever been. We were lucky to have a reprieve from the rest of the countries rise in cases for a few weeks we are now where a large portion of the country is.
- Top left shows % of patients coming into ER departments across the state with symptoms suggestive of COVID-19 you can see the prior spikes and now it is increasing again.
- Top right show new cases on a rolling 7-day average you can see the first and second spikes and now the increase we are on which is almost identical to where we were going up in the second spike and clearly we have not hit the top yet.
- Bottom left you can see the % positivity dated back to the date of collection and that is increasing as well up to 8.1% now will be posted on the dashboard tomorrow. You will see testing volume is also increasing. There is more COVID so more people are getting tested due to more exposure plus the increase around testing around the holiday. An increase in testing volume has no bearing on testing positivity. An increase in positivity and testing volume is a strong signal we are experiencing a lot of COVID.
- Bottom right is the amount of hospitalized patients with COVID19 you can see the two spikes and now a sharp increase. It is a rate of increase that our hospitals cannot stand for very much longer.
Region analysis - every region across the state are seeing similar increases.
- Region 1 Orleans - increase across the board.
- Region 2 EBR - increase across the board.
- Region 3 River parishes - increase across the board.
- Region 4 - increases across the board.
- Region 5 Lake Charles - increases across the board.
- Region 6 Can LA - increases across the board with a very sharp increase in new cases and hosp.
- Region 7 - increase across the board.
- Region 8 - increase across the board.
- Region 9 - increases across the board.
A month ago it was a mixed bag with some areas plateauing or increasing.
Now the entire state for all gating criteria is increasing, (only Can LA is plateauing for COVID-like illness reports).
Still have capacity across the state but this is a lagging indicator so if you act when hospitals are at capacity it is too late.
- People waiting a long time to get a bed. One ER had to use recliners in the ER while people waited for a bed to open up.
- Rural/smaller hospitals are having a difficult time transferring patients to other locations. Not every ICU bed is equal and some conditions require more expertise from an advanced center. Only a handful exist across the state. Even if a rural hospital has an ICU available if a patient presents with needing an advanced team and there are none available they may have to wait a couple of days before they get transferred in. That's a delay of care and has consequences.
- Hospitals are stretched and already at staffing capacity. A nurse may typically care for 4-5 patients may now be caring for 6-7.
- These things have consequences and it is just the beginning because we haven't hit capacity yet. This is a warning we have to act now. There are things we are working to preserve in the state and the ability to access normal hospital care is one of those priorities. We do not want to have to delay scheduled procedures.
The path ahead is dangerous. This is a dangerous time for Louisiana.
The trajectory we are on is dangerous. We are on a similar trajectory as before.
- Now it is flu season so we have extra patients in the hospital.
- Weather turning cold so more people indoors = more transmission.
- Peak of the holiday season coming up so there's a temptation to gather. Gathering = more transmission.
- Previous increases we were not in lockstep with the rest of the country. Every other state is seeing runs on hospital care and demands of their hospital staff at the same time we are. If we need to ask for help, it may not be there this time. In fact, we don't think they will be available because they will be caring for their own state's patients.

Questions for Dr Kanter about data

Related to Halloween? Seems people are willing to gather for Thanksgiving. Are we going to see a worsening 2 weeks after Thanksgiving
We are already seeing just about as steep of an increase as we can get it really can't get much steeper than that. I don't know, looking back to Halloween, it was part of it. I think increases from other states was bleeding over into our particularly in Northern LA. Plus we are tired, COVID fatigue is real, and it's easy to get complacent. Even without Thanksgiving coming ahead we will continue to get worse. I don't know how much worse it gets with Thanksgiving. I cannot emphasize this more than enough if you need to make a decision for your family talk to someone who has had it, experiencing the disease, or someone who has worked in the affected healthcare facilities during those two surges.
How much is being driven by small gatherings indoors and if so it doesn't seem restrictions matter than much
Small gatherings have been a larger component than months ago, there is no question about that but that is just one slice. We continue to see a lot of cases tied to bars, restaurants, events, and churches as well. Mitigation measures are going to be significant in their effect but not absolute. The other side is that people really need to make responsible decisions when no one is looking. No one will police who parities but I want families to take it seriously and know what the real risks are and make an informed decision. The more families are informed the more they will be likely to say for this year, for my family, it is just not worth it.
Gov. JBE

We have already been told that for example if we will request help from he Fed gov in respect to medical care to Louisiana there are 12 individual and discrete things we have done first before we can be considered.
- Strong indication we cannot count on that.
- Difference between Spring and Summer surges when we did have medical personnel available from requests to the Federal government at that time.
- Partially important for Northern and Central LA. I do not know how hard it will be to go back in the gating criteria for those regions but if you go to Region 6. If you look right at the summer surge we never got those numbers as far down as we wanted to we never got those numbers down to where we wanted to. So the baseline of going into the third surge is much higher relatively speaking to the state as a whole. So we are already in a much more difficult place.
- Statewide the non-COVID patient population is higher now than it was in the Spring or the Summer.
- Region 7 you will see the right of the summer surge the numbers did not come down to be even close to where they were before the summer surge started. So they have a very high baseline of cases.
- Region 8 the same thing.
Our numbers are worse and they are getting worse everywhere so I hesitate to bring up regions 6,7, and 8 because people might think that's the only places we need to be focused on. That is not true, but I will tell you its a particular concern if you are in Central or Northern LA because you have such a high baseline going into this.
- While we need adherence to restrictions everywhere it is particularly acute in Regions 6,7, and 8.
Breakdown of Phase 2 (modified) will become effective tomorrow and last 28 days (4 weeks) expiring on Dec 23:
- Statewide surge requiring a statewide effort.
- Follows the White House Coronavirus Task Force recommendations.
- Last time we had such a large single-day increase was in July -- which is when we took action through implementing Phase 2 and the mask mandate -- and collectively the people across Louisiana responded and we bent the curve.
  - Time for us to rise again and meet the challenge before us.
  - With the Holiday season before us we really gotta pay attention to this now so we do not overburden our hospitals to not deliver care. I do not want to have hospitals have to cancel elective surgeries or medical procedures want. Delayed non-emergency procedures and surges often transmit into emergencies later on. Do not want doctors to have to make crisis care decisions pitting cases against one another due to a lack of resources.
  - We have avoided crisis care during our previous waves because we worked together to flatten the curve.
  - If there was ever a time to step up and be a good neighbor, whether it is to your actual neighbor or to someone in LA you have never met, that time is now.
  - People do not stop having car accidents because of a pandemic. There are still critical care needs apart from COVID.
  - Do it for the medical professionals as well who have been overworked since March.
  - To keep schools open.
  - Encouraging all employers public and private to maximize the use of telework where possible.
  - Ask families to engage in safe holiday-related activities. When you gather with those outsides from your household the more times you do it the more you roll the dice and the more likely it is that you or multiple people get sick. With community spread the dice are loaded against you. I ask you not to do this, especially during the holidays. It is what the CDC and LDH recommend.
  - Start planning now for a safe Christmas and Hanukkah.
- Reduction in gathering sizes for businesses & houses of worship
  - 50% for occupancy with social distancing and masks for restaurants, coffee shops, cafes, gyms, casinos, and video poker, and non-essential retail businesses.**
    - Essential is determined by the Dept. of Homeland Security.
  - 75% for occupancy with social distancing and masks for churches and places of worship.**
- Reduction in gathering sizes at bars other restrictions remain in place.
  - Bars in parishes with greater than 5% must close to indoors consumption can have outdoor seating of up to 50 people, seated and spaced out, and masks mandated.
  - Bars in parishes with less than 5% can allow indoor consumption up to 25% occupancy seated and spaced out; outdoor consumption encouraged and masks mandated.
- Reduction in gathering sizes at event centers
  - Indoors limited to 25% occupancy, make required up to 75.
  - Outdoors limited to 25% occupancy, masks required, up to 150 where social distancing is not possible.
- Reduction of sporting event occupancy
  - Limited to 25% occupancy.
When LDH updates the two-week case incidence numbers tomorrow there will be some parishes where bars close, that were going to happen regardless of these changes because those parishes would have exceeded the 10% that was previously required.
- Now allowing outdoor seating.
Statewide mask mandate remains in effect
- It was a critical part of slowing the spread in the summer and is a critical part now.
  - Now we know wearing a mask also reduces transmission to you as well as those around you.
Doing everything we can to keep schools open.
- Local decision how schools do this.. if they are in person, vertical, or hybrid.
Do not have an expectation that by Dec 23rd we will reduce restrictions a couple of days ahead of Christmas.
- All data indicates we in for a couple of rough months.
- No one should believe we will relax restrictions around that time.
- I hope and pray, and believe, we will not have to put more restrictions in place before then.
  - Will be dependent on if the people of Louisiana embrace the mitigation measures and flatten that curve again. If we stay on the current trajectory we will be forced to put more restrictions in place.
Everyday households need to stick together and reduce interaction with those outside of their household.
- Any activities that do take place should take place outside rather than inside.
- Odds are 20x higher to catch the virus indoors than outdoors when the same activity takes place.
We are expecting rain this week perhaps staying with us through Thanksgiving and after.
- Even if you planned the safest possible event with it intended to be outdoors there is a good chance you will not be able to do that.
  - Now is your opportunity to adjust your Thanksgiving plans.
  - Do not have people from different households come indoors together. The virus doesn't care if you are a relative.
If you want a Christmas without loved ones in the hospital, or worse, you need to be extremely careful on Thanksgiving and every day.
Next few weeks would normally be holiday party time - office, block, family, etc.
- Holiday parties are a recipe for disaster now. Asking people to forgo those parties.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel, it is not a high-speed train heading in our direction, I believe in a few months we will be able to put the pandemic behind us. Next month we can start vaccinating in small numbers and will take some time to get to the general population. Do not get in your mind we will have to mask up and physically distance forever. There is an excellent chance that next Thanksgiving will be the best one ever. While there is COVID fatigue and I know it is real, it is also real that we are looking for renewed interest and compliance for a finite amount of time. I hope it inspires people to do what is required and know they won't have to do it forever. The next few months are critical. We need everyone to be on the same page.
Holidays are about showing your love for those you care about. The best way to love someone right now is to give them COVID. So like it says, "pass the pie and not COVID" that is our mission. That is the mission for everybody in Louisiana.
- Follow the commonsense public health measures, the restrictions, and mitigation measures.
  - They work and have worked before.
  - Mitigation measures: wear a mask, stay 6ft apart from that outside of your household, wash your hands for 20 seconds, stay home when sick, and protect the most vulnerable from this disease (65+ in age and those with co-morbidities).
Thanks to all public health workers.
- Owe a debt of gratitude for those who have worked so hard for months now. We should not make it harder than it needs to be. We should all do our part.

Questions

Epidemiologists in Louisiana say we may be getting diminishing returns on our introduction of restrictions than what we previously saw. Are you concerned that the impact of the introduction of these restrictions will be more gradual and the implications that may have
I am concerned about an awful lot as it is related to COVID19 and this pandemic. There is not one easy decision I have made nor one that has brought me joy. I am convinced that if the people of Louisiana will embrace these mitigation measures and restrictions, be patient and selfless, and ensure compliance that we will flatten the curve again. That is what I know. There are no magic tricks to be worked here. The only way to stop a surge is with restrictions and mitigation measures. So with the numbers increases here and around the country as they are the sense of urgency that you see coming out of leaders in Washington right now, as seen with Vice President Pence and the Coronavirus Task Force the other day, everyone should understand that this a very very serious situation. We have to do our part in order to slow the spread. It has to be a collective effort. No one should say is 99% of the people do it that's good enough I don't have to personally do it... that doesn't work. We all have to see it as a common effort that we all play our part. If someone would have presented a better option to flatten the curve I would have taken it. I know we have COVID fatigue here and around the country. If there was something other than wearing masks, washing your hands and staying home when you are sick, and so forth I would embrace it. It doesn't exist. That is why you hear this coming out of Washington and all the other healthcare workers how important these are. So let's do it. Let's flatten the curve again. I feel very comfortable that in several months, not sure when we will have enough of our population vaccinated that I believe we can start putting in the rear view mirror. Until now and then we have to do what is necessary. I do not know if there is another surge after this one, I pray not, but we know we are surging now.
Are you trying to change the way enforcement has been handled on these public health issues. Obviously the problem is people aren't following previous guidelines.. so are you making changes to enforcement?
We will continue to work with businesses of all types and venues to ensure that they understand that the restrictions are what rules they have to abide by. Individuals and businesses can get more information at opensafely.la.gov and you will get more information. Will there be enforcement? Yes, there will be, but I am going to say what I've said back in March and every time since then, if the people in Louisiana insist we enforce our way through this we are doomed to failure. There are 4.66 million Louisianas and 10s of thousands of business and quite frankly we cannot enforce our way through this. We are going to be asking people to comply, do compliance visits, respond to complaints, and where people refuse to come int o compliance you can expect enforcement. That will not get us through this surge. That will not protect the health of our fellow Louisianans, it is better than not doing any enforcement. We need to have people doin this because it is the right thing to do. They need to embrace it, not because it is pleasant but at the end of the day this about people's lives are talking about. We are doing our very best to strike the balance between lives on one hand and livelihoods on the other. When it comes to economy, to business, to employers, to livelihoods, the best thing we can do is put this virus behind us.
Are the rules for temporary conditional permits allowing bars to operate as restaurants remain in effect?
Yes and we currently have 372 bars using conditional permits to operate as restaurants. They are not a hybrid, they are not part bar or part bar. They operate as restaurants if they are operating properly and they follow all rules for restaurants. For other establishment that continue to operate as bars they need to follow the way we outlined bars operate today.
What are you doing for your Thanksgiving celebration. You have a son who is coming home from college because LSU is going virtual for Thanksgiving
Yeah I have a son who actually lives here in Baton Rogue and he will likely be coming home to spend some time with us. I will tell you we will stay in baton Rogue at the mansion and have a Thanksgiving meal that consists of the immediate household. We will gives thanks because even during this pandemic which has been so tough on people, even after the 3 hurricanes that hit this year, we have so much to be thankful for. God has truly blessed us. Thanksgiving is a day to give thanks and that is important to me and my family and we are going to do it, but last year I remember my 84 year old mother came, my 6 siblings all came with their spouses and children and grandchildren. We had 80 or 90 people. You will not be seeing that this year and you will not see it at Christmas either. I hope and pray that if you are with me on Thanksgiving Day of 2021 you will see that. I believe that you will, but between now and then we all have to do our part.
Did you tell Legislative leaders about these new restrictions before you came out here today? What was their response?
Yes, I did. You need to know that I routinely send data and information to the Speaker and to the President. We have complete transparency on the data we are relying on because we update it every day aside for Saturday. We also have sent Legislative leadership, and I believe every member of the Legislature, every White House Coronavirus Task Force report whenever we get them. This morning in a addition to those things we presented all gating criteria slides to the Speaker and the President. We talked about where we were especially in light of our hospital capacity and our need to go back to a modified Phase 2 in order to flatten the curve again. They asked some questions, expressed concerns to makes sure whether the Fire Marshall or ATC will work with proprietors and bar owners to maximum extend possible so they can know hat is expected of them and be given an opportunity, if they are operation in good faith -- of which the overwhelming majority of businesses are -- to come into compliance. That has been our approach throughout the pandemic. We have always bent over backwards to make sure individuals know what the rules give them every opportunity to come into compliance and only after persistent shortcomings/refusal to do any real enforcement actions like citations take place. I assured him our approach would not change.
Does the influx of new vaccines change our prognosis at all
We have a draft plan in Louisiana that we continue to update and revise daily. The reason it is a draft plan is that we still don't know the day that we will get the first vaccines nor the number of doses that will be there. I have every expectation that around mid-December we should receive some doses of the Pfizer vaccines first. We don't know how many it could be as few as 30,000 or might be 60,000 we do not know for sure. We think the first doses of the Moderna vaccines would come weeks later, perhaps with a smaller number available initially. We continue to work with our federal partners. We were on the phone with Azar yesterday and talked about the logistical aspects of Project Warpspeed. Once the vaccine gets the EUA from the FDA we will have the vaccine in route to our location(s) of choice in 24 hours. The first shipment will be prioritized to healthcare workers, then high-risk groups (nursing homes, assisted living centers, congregated shelters), then the list expands from there out. Ultimately we want to get to a place where we put a call out to the general population they can go to their health unit (hospital, doctor's office, or pharmacy) and get the vaccine. This is not a one and one vaccine, it requires a second dose, depending on the manufacturer that could be between 21-28 days later. More vaccines may come only over time and some of these things may change. I do not want talk of the vaccine, it is critically important and no one is more excited than I am, but I do not want the talk of the vaccine to cause people to not pay attention to what is imperative right now. That is why you hear Dr. Birx, Dr. Fauci, Azar, talking about the term of bridging to the vaccine and needing to double-down on measures until the vaccine is widely available. The vaccine will not be here in the numbers we need soon enough to reverse the trajectory and numbers we went over today.
I do want to mention I have every confidence that when the FDA issues that EUA that that vaccine will be safe and effective. I hope my fellow Louisiana will embrace the vaccine. A vaccine saves 0 lives but vaccination can save a lot of lives. The vaccination requires the vaccines and an individual to receive that vaccine in two injections. So please understand the FDA has not cut out any steps required to evaluate the safety and efficacy of these vaccines. In fact, the trial sizes were 5x-6x more than one would normally see in a trial. They took steps consecutively instead of sequentially to make this vaccine thereby shortening its time for production. They started the mass production while trials were still happening. So if that authorization comes they have the vaccine to distribute and more to be distributed and you don't have to start that manufacturing process up from the beginning. So I really want people to embrace this and understand they will be safe and effective once the call goes out to start vaccination.
Does the state have enough cold storage for the vaccines or does the state have to put in some money for that?
We've identified the cold storage capacity that we need pursuant to our plan to administer the Pfizer vaccine. Its a combination of cold storage capacity and dry ice. We will be in good shape there. This is why you have to have really good hard work going on hard in advance. That way working with hospitals and universities you are able to identify all the cold storage you have, where is available for these vaccines and then you plug that into your plan. That will not be a limiting factor in terms of receiving the vaccine. Logistically it makes it more complicated because you have to receive it at those sites and distribute it from there. They are still evaluating how long the vaccines remain stable once they thaw out. We will be all over that so we will make sure if that vial falls out it will be administered while it is stable and making sure that people come and get the second dose as well.

Closing remarks

Thank you for continuing to cover this. We do not anticipate another press conference until next week, date unknown.
As I mentioned awhile ago, despite how difficult this year has been for all of us both individually and as a state, there is a lot for us to be thankful for. That is always the case. So Thanksgiving is about giving thanks for the blessing we enjoy and I would encourage people to find ways to have a celebration that is safe so we can be thankful for the blessings we have while being mindful of the dangers of this pandemic. There are dangers if we insists on celebrating the holidays as we have in past. I cannot strongly encourage people to be patient. I know you are tired of this but be patient and love your loved ones by making sure you do not expose them to unnecessary risk. We close to them through the phone, FaceTime, and other ways. Let's look forward to getting together without restrictions and mitigation measures. Unless between now and then we are too risky with our behaviors and we'll be lamenting the fact that we didn't do what we were asked to do. That some of our loved ones won't be with us when the time comes to celebrate in person. When that next birthday, Thanksgiving, or Christmas happens. I encourage everyone to do their part. You've done it before. We can do it again. I am not asking for you to do this forever. There is finite time I am asking for. I cannot tell you when, but I believe in several months we will be putting this in our rearview mirror, but it is not today. In fact, it is not in our rear-view mirror it is in our grill and it is a nasty nasty situation here in Louisiana like it is around the country. We do not have a moment to waste. Everyone has to do their part. If we do, and I'm sure we will, we will get through this. I have every confidence of the people in Louisiana. They have always inspired by their kindness, goodness, and generosity and I believe they will do it again. So let's work together. Let's save lives. God bless and thank you.

COVID-19 Megathread #6

This post is updated daily.
You can also follow the Reddit Live thread here.

COVID-19 has now infected more than 215,956 people. There have been 8,757 confirmed deaths and 84,080 confirmed recoveries attributed to the virus.

Recent Updates
Note: These are the updates from the last 48-72 hours.
MARCH 18 -

United States: President Trump signed into law a coronavirus relief package, which provides free coronavirus testing and ensures paid emergency leave for those who are infected or caring for a family member with the illness. The bill also provides additional Medicaid funding, food assistance and unemployment benefits. The "third phase" coronavirus response bill is expected to pass later this week. Read more here.
United States: President Trump announced that home foreclosures and evictions will be suspended “until the end of April.” Read more here. He also invoked the Defense Production Act, which gives the government the authority to control the production and distribution of scarce materials deemed "essential to the national defense." In his executive order, Trump specifically cites protective equipment (presumably face masks) and ventilators as meeting the criteria in this provision. Read more here.
United States: Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart and Ben McAdams become first members of Congress to test positive for coronavirus. Read more here.
United States: King County in Washington State is building a 200-bed field hospital on Shoreline soccer field amid coronavirus outbreak. Read more here.
United States: The New York Stock Exchange said starting March 23, it will temporarily close its historic trading floor and move fully to electronic trading. This is the first time the physical trading floor of the Big Board has ever shut independently while electronic trading continues. Read more here.
United States and Canada: US President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have agreed to close the US-Canada border to all non-essential travel in an attempt to curb the spread of coronavirus. Trade will not be affected. Read more here.
Canada: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced a massive $82-billion aid package to help Canadians and businesses cope with the global COVID-19 pandemic, including income supports, wage subsidies and tax deferrals. The package includes $27 billion in direct supports and another $55 billion to help business liquidity through tax deferrals. Read more here.
Japan’s Hokkaido, the nation’s prefecture with the highest number of coronavirus infections, will end its state of emergency over the epidemic on Thursday. Read more here.
Europe: The European Central Bank launched an extra emergency bond-buying program worth 750 billion euros ($820 billion) in the latest attempt to calm markets and protect a euro-area economy struggling to cope with the coronavirus epidemic. Read more here.
France: French police handed out over 4,000 fines Wednesday to people found violating an order to stay at home, on the first full day of a lockdown aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus in the country. Read more here.
Portugal’s President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa declared a state of emergency to combat the coronavirus pandemic. The new measures allow Prime Minister António Costa's government to restrict movement of people, temporarily suspend the right of workers in vital sectors — such as health, civil protection, security and defense — to strike, and ban protests and social or religious meetings Read more here.
Brazil: Davi Alcolumbre, the head of Brazil's Senate, became the latest high-level political figure to test positive for coronavirus on Wednesday. Read more here.
Chilean president Sebastian Pinera declared a 90-day state of catastrophe Wednesday to address the spread of COVID-19 in the country, which has 238 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus. By law, a state of catastrophe puts the armed forces in charge of public order and security and enables military control of the movement of people and goods. Military officials will be able to issue direct instructions to public employees and local governments and establish measures deemed necessary to maintain public order, including curfews. Read more here.
Africa: Sub-Saharan Africa records first coronavirus death. Read more here.
Both the United States and the United Kingdom have confirmed cases of coronavirus within their jails.
Europe: This year's Eurovision Song Contest has been canceled in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, organizers confirmed on Wednesday, marking the first time that the much-loved competition has ever been scrapped. Read more here.
Australian airline Qantas and its subsidiary Jetstar will suspend scheduled international flights from late March until at least the end of May due to the coronavirus crisis. In a statement posted on its website Thursday, Qantas Group announced that 60% of its domestic flights would also be cut, and two-thirds of its 30,000 employees would be temporarily stood down. Read the announcement here.
RyanAir, Europe’s biggest low-cost carrier, said it expected “most if not all” flights to be grounded, apart from a small number to maintain connections between the UK and Ireland. Read more here.

MARCH 17 -

United States: A plan developed by the federal government to combat the coronavirus reportedly projects the pandemic will last 18 months or more and could feature multiple “waves.” Read more here.
United States: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin raised the possibility with Republican senators that U.S. unemployment could rise to 20% without government intervention because of the impact of the coronavirus. Mnuchin discussed the scenario with the lawmakers on Tuesday as he proposed an economic stimulus of $1 trillion or more. Read more here.
United States: Treasury and IRS to delay tax payment deadline by 90 days. Read more here.
United States: The U.S. military is preparing Naval hospital ships for deployment, and is looking to open its labs to help test civilians for coronavirus. The Pentagon also plans to distribute equipment. Read more here.
United States: White House requests and additional $45.8 billion in emergency funding due to coronavirus. The request comes on top of the $8.3 billion in emergency funding passed by Congress just two weeks ago and underscores just how dramatically financial demands at federal agencies have grown in a matter of days. Read more here.
United States: Schools are likely to be closed for the rest of this school year according to Governor Newsom of California. Ohio's governor has made similar statements. Read more here.
United States: Are Hospitals Near Me Ready for Coronavirus? Here Are Nine Different Scenarios. | There is a tool in the article that allows you to see your area's hospital capacity. See the interactive tool here.
EU: Leaders of European Union countries have agreed to close the EU’s external borders to most people from other countries for 30 days in a new effort to slow the coronavirus pandemic. Movement within European Union member nations will be still be allowed. Read more here.
Spain: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced a package of measures worth a total 200 billion euros ($219 billion), between loans, credit guarantees, benefits and direct aid, to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus epidemic on the economy. The package represents about 20% of the country’s gross domestic product; 117 billion euros for the package will come from the government, with the rest to come from private companies. Read more here.
Scotland: No new jury trials will take place in Scotland for the foreseeable future due to coronavirus. Read more here.
Bolivia will close its borders to non-residents and suspend all international flights to combat the spread of coronavirus. The measure will remain in place until March 31. Read more here.
Australia declares emergency, warns coronavirus crisis could last six months. Read more here.
Euro 2020 has been postponed by one year until 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic. Read more here.

MARCH 16 -

A Phase 1 clinical trial evaluating an investigational vaccine designed to protect against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has begun at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (KPWHRI) in Seattle. Read more here.
The European Union will ban all nonessential travel into the bloc for at least 30 days. Read more here.
France has instituted a lockdown and will deploy 100,000 police to enforce the lockdown and fixed checkpoints will be set up across the country. Under the new measures, soldiers would help transport the sick to hospitals with spare capacity and a military hospital with 30 intensive care beds would be set up in the eastern region of Alsace, where one of the largest infection clusters has broken out. Macron also announced he was postponing the second round of local elections on Sunday. Read more here.
United States: President Trump held a press conference today, where he said that the U.S. may be able to get the new coronavirus outbreak under control by July or August at the earliest. He also said his administration may look at lockdowns for “certain areas” or “hot spots” in the nation, but said he wasn’t considering a full national lockdown. Watch the press conference here and/or read about it here.
United States: The Department of Health and Human Services experienced suspicious cyberactivity Sunday night related to its coronavirus response. The suspicious activity HHS was not a hack but it may have been a distributed denial of service -- or DDOS -- attack. Read more here.
United States: Six Bay Area counties announced “shelter in place” orders for all residents on Monday — the strictest measure of its kind yet in the continental United States — directing everyone to stay inside their homes and away from others as much as possible for the next three weeks. The directive begins at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday and involves San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Marin, Contra Costa and Alameda counties — a combined population of more than 6.7 million. Read more here.
United States: New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut institute regional rules that ban gatherings of over 50, and close casinos, gyms, and theaters. Read more here.
United States: The Ohio primary has been postponed. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) announced late Monday that his administration will order that polls be closed on Tuesday due to a health emergency. Read more here.
United States: Dow Plummets Nearly 3,000 Points as Virus Fears Spread. Read more here.
Canada is closing its borders to noncitizens because of the coronavirus pandemic. U.S. citizens are exempt from the ban “for the moment." Read more here.
Israel is preparing to open four hotels across the country as quarantines sites for confirmed cases of coronavirus, Minister of Defense Naftali Bennett announced Monday night. The hotels will be used to treat people exhibiting mild symptoms of the virus. Read more here.
Finland closes schools, declares state of emergency over coronavirus. Daycare centres are to stay open but parents were asked to keep their kids home if possible. Read more here.
Sudan’s ruling sovereign council closed all airports, ports and land crossings and declared a public health emergency on Monday over fears about the spread of coronavirus. Read more here.
Idris Elba has tested positive for coronavirus along with several other celebrities. See Idris' tweet here.
Amazon will hire 100,000 warehouse and delivery workers in the United States to deal with a surge in online orders, as many consumers have turned to the web to meet their needs during the coronavirus outbreak. Read more here.
The Peace Corps is telling its volunteers around the world that it is suspending all operations globally and evacuating all volunteers in light of the spread of the new coronavirus. Read more here.
United States: The College Board has cancelled the May SATs. Read more here.

Tracking COVID-19

Vox is keeping track of COVID-19 infections for each U.S. state here.
John Hopkins University has a live trackemap of the global spread of COVID-19 here.
Today's situation report from the WHO.
The CDC's COVID-19 Situation Summary.
There are tons of travel bans globally right now. CNN has put together a full list here.

Reputable Sources for Information:

My Dad and some Q shit he got sucked into

Both of my parents gladly voted for trump both times. They're conservative evangelical christians worried about taxes. Nothing special but their religous inclinations make them prime candidates for any conspiracy really though.
Got this little diddy from my father at 6 am.
Below written by Newt Gingrich A smart friend of mine who is a moderate liberal asked why I was not recognizing Joe Biden’s victory. The friend made the case that Mr. Biden had gotten more votes, and historically we recognize the person with the most votes. Normally, we accept the outcome of elections just as we accept the outcomes of sporting events. So, my friend asked why was 2020 different? Having spent more than four years watching the left “resist” President Donald Trump and focus entirely on undoing and undermining the 2016 election, it took me several days to understand the depth of my own feelings. As I thought about it, I realized my anger and fear were not narrowly focused on votes. My unwillingness to relax and accept that the election grew out of a level of outrage and alienation unlike anything I had experienced in more than 60 years involvement in public affairs. The challenge is that I — and other conservatives — are not disagreeing with the left within a commonly understood world. We live in alternative worlds. The left’s world is mostly the established world of the forces who have been dominant for most of my life. My world is the populist rebellion which believes we are being destroyed, our liberties are being cancelled and our religions are under assault. (Note the new Human Rights Campaign to decertify any religious school which does not accept secular sexual values — and that many Democrat governors have kept casinos open while closing churches though the COVID-19 pandemic.) We also believe other Democrat-led COVID-19 policies have enriched the wealthy while crushing middle class small business owners (some 160,000 restaurants may close). In this context, let’s talk first about the recent past and the presidency: In 2016, I supported an outsider candidate, who was rough around the edges and in the Andrew Jackson school of controversial assaults on the old order. When my candidate won, it was blamed on the Russians. We now know (four years later) Hillary Clinton’s own team financed the total lie that fueled this attack. Members of the FBI twice engaged in criminal acts to help it along — once in avoiding prosecution of someone who had deleted 33,000 emails and had a subordinate use a hammer to physically destroy hard drives, and a second time by lying to FISA judges to destroy Gen. Michael Flynn and spy on then-candidate Donald Trump and his team. The national liberal media aided and abetted every step of the way. All this was purely an attempt to cripple the new president and lead to the appointment of a special counsel — who ultimately produced nothing. Now, people in my world are told it is time to stop resisting and cooperate with the new president. But we remember that the Democrats wanted to cooperate with Mr. Trump so much that they began talking about his impeachment before he even took office. The Washington Post ran a story on Democrat impeachment plots the day of the inauguration. In fact, nearly 70 Democratic lawmakers boycotted his inauguration. A massive left-wing demonstration was staged in Washington the day after, where Madonna announced she dreamed of blowing up the White House to widespread applause. These same forces want me to cooperate with their new president. I find myself adopting the Nancy Pelosi model of constant resistance. Nothing I have seen from Mr. Biden since the election offers me any hope that he will reach out to the more than 74 million Americans who voted for President Trump. So, I am not reacting to the votes so much as to the whole election environment. When Twitter and Facebook censored the oldest and fourth largest newspaper (founded by Alexander Hamilton) because it accurately reported news that could hurt Mr. Biden’s chances — where were The New York Times and The Washington Post? The truth of the Hunter Biden story is now becoming impossible to avoid or conceal. The family of the Democrat nominee for president received at least $5 million from an entity controlled by our greatest adversary. It was a blatant payoff, and most Americans who voted for Mr. Biden never heard of it — or were told before the election it was Russian disinformation. Once they did hear of it, 17% said they would have switched their votes, according to a poll by the Media Research Center. That’s the entire election. The censorship worked exactly as intended. Typically, newspapers and media outlets band together when press freedom is threatened by censorship. Where was the sanctimonious “democracy dies in darkness?” Tragically, The Washington Post is now part of the darkness. But this is just a start. When Twitter censors four of five Rush Limbaugh tweets in one day, I fear for the country. When these monolithic Internet giants censor the President of the United States, I fear for the country. When I see elite billionaires like Mark Zuckerburg are able to spend $400 million to hire city governments to maximize turnout in specifically Democratic districts — without any regard to election spending laws or good governance standards — I fear for the country. When I read that Apple has a firm rule of never irritating China — and I watch the NBA kowtow to Beijing, I fear for our country. When I watch story after story about election fraud being spiked — without even the appearance of journalistic due diligence or curiosity — I know something is sick. The election process itself was the final straw in creating the crisis of confidence which is accelerating and deepening for many millions of Americans. Aside from a constant stream of allegations of outright fraud, there are some specific outrages — any one of which was likely enough to swing the entire election. Officials in virtually every swing state broke their states’ own laws to send out millions of ballots or ballot applications to every registered voter. It was all clearly documented in the Texas lawsuit, which was declined by the U.S. Supreme Court based on Texas’ procedural standing — not the merits of the case. That’s the election. In addition, it’s clear that virtually every swing state essentially suspended normal requirements for verifying absentee ballots. Rejection rates were an order of magnitude lower than in a normal year. In Georgia, rejection rates dropped from 6.5% in 2016 to 0.2% in 2020. In Pennsylvania, it went from 1% in 2016 to .003% in 2020. Nevada fell from 1.6% to .75%. There is no plausible explanation other than that they were counting a huge number of ballots — disproportionately for Mr. Biden — that normally would not have passed muster. That’s the election. The entire elite liberal media lied about the timeline of the COVID-19 vaccine. They blamed President Trump for the global pandemic even as he did literally everything top scientists instructed. In multiple debates, the moderators outright stated that he was lying about the U.S. having a vaccine before the end of the year (note Vice President Mike Pence received it this week). If Americans had known the pandemic was almost over, that too was likely the difference in the election. The unanimously never-Trump debate commission spiked the second debate at a critical time in order to hurt President Trump. If there had been one more debate like the final one, it likely would have been pivotal. This is just the beginning. But any one of those things alone is enough for Trump supporters to think we have been robbed by a ruthless establishment — which is likely to only get more corrupt and aggressive if it gets away with these blatant acts. For more than four years, the entire establishment mobilized against the elected president of the United States as though they were an immune system trying to kill a virus. Now, they are telling us we are undermining democracy. You have more than 74 million voters who supported President Trump despite everything — and given the election mess, the number could easily be significantly higher. The truth is tens of millions of Americans are deeply alienated and angry. If Mr. Biden governs from the left — and he will almost certainly be forced to — that number will grow rapidly, and we will win a massive election in 2022. Given this environment, I have no interest in legitimizing the father of a son who Chinese Communist Party members boast about buying. Nor do I have any interest in pretending that the current result is legitimate or honorable. It is simply the final stroke of a four-year establishment-media power grab. It has been perpetrated by people who have broken the law, cheated the country of information, and smeared those of us who believe in America over China, history over revisionism, and the liberal ideal of free expression over cancel culture. I write this in genuine sorrow, because I think we are headed toward a serious, bitter struggle in America. This extraordinary, coordinated four-year power grab threatens the fabric of our country.

[Sat, Jan 16 2021] TL;DR — This is what you missed in the last 24 hours on Reddit

worldnews

tuiposa

Canada Goose Workers Allege Unsafe Working Conditions in Winnipeg Factories. “Before I came to Canada I was in Qatar and then Dubai and it’s the same here in Canada Goose: No humanity.”
Comments || Link

iamsarahb89

COVID-19: Ice cream tests positive for coronavirus in China
Comments || Link

PjeterPannos

South African scientists discover new chemicals that kill malaria parasite
Comments || Link

news

i_love_anachronisms

Texas real estate agent who took private jet to D.C. charged in Capitol riot
Comments || Link

discocrisco

Capitol rioter known as "QAnon Shaman" will be jailed until trial
Comments || Link

bugalooflu

6 suspects in MI Governor Whitmer kidnapping plot set to stand trial in March
Comments || Link

science

theodorewayt

Raising the minimum wage by $1 reduces the teen birth rate by 3%, according to a new study examining U.S. state-level data.
Comments || Link

mvea

Providing workers with a universal basic income did not reduce productivity or the amount of effort they put into their work, according to an experiment, a sign that the policy initiative could help mitigate inequalities and debunking a common criticism of the proposal.
Comments || Link

MistWeaver80

Women who are young, “conventionally attractive” and appear and act feminine are more likely to be believed when making accusations of sexual harassment. Sexual harassment often stems from hostility toward women, the desire to dominate women, or backlash against women who violate gender norms.
Comments || Link

space

Retseciel

SLS: Nasa's 'megarocket' set to fire up engines in crucial test
Comments || Link

m3prx

NASA InSight's ‘Mole' Ends Its Journey on Mars
Comments || Link

clayt6

Blue Origin launched and landed its reusable New Shepard spacecraft yesterday. The test flight sent a capsule containing 6 passenger seats and a test dummy named "Mannequin Skywalker" to an altitude of around 65 miles (105 km), paving the way for commercial flights as soon as April.
Comments || Link

Futurology

MBlaizze

Biden elevates White House science post to Cabinet level
Comments || Link

Sumit316

Wind overtook coal as a power source in Texas last year
Comments || Link

solar-cabin

Raising the minimum wage by $1 reduces the teen birth rate by 3%, according to a new study examining U.S. state-level data. "For each $1 increase in the minimum wage, the number of children born to women who were 15 to 19 years old decreases by 2.8% to 3.4%"
Comments || Link

AskReddit

xX_RedWhiterITA_Xx

What's the most f*cked up thing you saw at a sleepover?
Comments || Link

QUESO0523

[Serious] Men of Reddit, what are some questions you have regarding women's anatomy?
Comments || Link

UncleCompton

What cinematic death would have had the best oompa loompa song?
Comments || Link

todayilearned

rasarota

TIL Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930 and further investigated it across his lifetime. He died in 1997 aged 90, less than a decade before the New Horizons launch to Pluto. To honour his wishes his ashes were launched inside the spacecraft, making it the longest post mortem fight ever recorded.
Comments || Link

Kingflares

TIL: In 2018, doctors found that a patient, Kendra Jackson, had a leaky brain for 5 years. After an accident in 2013, she had a daily runny nose for years and suffered headaches. She lost half a pint of brain fluid a day through her nose.
Comments || Link

DrawFluent

TIL Patricia Demauro walked to a craps table at Atlantic City's Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa with $100. Four hours and 18 minutes later, Demauro had rolled the World Record for Craps Rolls. She rolled 154 times, the odds of accomplishing this is 1 in 1.56 trillion.
Comments || Link

dataisbeautiful

falldarkelf

[OC] Countries that have a lower total wealth than Elon Musk
Comments || Link

data_n_stuff

Numbers from 0 to 1000 and the SUM of their digits. Nothing special, looks cool though... [OC]
Comments || Link

misturbusy

IMDB Ratings >5 By Language -- Are Some Audiences More Forgiving? [OC]
Comments || Link

Cooking

CreamCheeseGoose

Green Onions for free
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gigachadd

What are some of the cooking rules you break every time?
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xaj13

Does anyone have a homemade recipe for the sauce they put in Taco Bells quesadillas?
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food

aneela30

Chicken Tikka Masala [homemade]
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_xaveywavey

[Homemade] General Tso's Chicken
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JukeBoxKitten

[Homemade] Butter chicken with Garlic naan
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movies

chanma50

‘Godzilla Vs. Kong’ Jumps Up To March 26 In HBO Max & Theatrical Debut
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BunyipPouch

I miss going to the movie theater.
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prsnreddit

After ‘Tenet,’ Christopher Nolan Wants to Film More in India and Work with More Indian Actors
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Art

shelbyelizabethart

Tiger, Me, Hand Embroidery, 2020
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chedilkm1

Yellow, me, digital, 2021
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Cornelius_Creations

Celtic Tomahawk, Me, 80 hour Wood Carving, 2018
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television

chanma50

Ethan Hawke to Play Villain Opposite Oscar Isaac in Marvel's 'Moon Knight'
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holyfruits

James Avery (Uncle Phil) surprises Reginald VelJohnson (Carl Winslow) on "Family Matters"
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GavinGunhold

'Last of Us' HBO Series Finds Director With 'Beanpole' Filmmaker
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pics

tzx_8981

5 year old girl comforts her 4 year old brother struggling from chemotherapy.
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Colder_Air

Not much but I bought my first couch for my first place and I'm super happy with it (M21)
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Hary1495

I work with CGI and this is my 2nd attempt in trying create Photorealism with interiors!
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gifs

arjuna20

Superman!
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LittleFart

Viking animation
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mtimetraveller

Catculated Attack
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educationalgifs

shroomco

Launching a TBM
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Palifaith

Blood type compatibility
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mildlyinteresting

MissGymlow

The blossoms on my LEGO bonsai are small frogs
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KnifeSpoonPuppy

This laundromat has old washing machine drums as chandeliers.
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Smiling_Fox

Found a patch of moss behind a loading dock that looks like a tiny tropical island with a palm tree.
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interestingasfuck

ringsofbravo

The letter my great great uncle sent his wife to let her know he survived the pearl harbor attack.
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Jinno69

12,000 Year old Mammoth tusk found in Siberia
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Troynoi

Spruce cone turning into knife handle [OC]
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funny

quiet_island1

Will Smith's facial expressions in this scene in Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
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anykindofpeanuts

Every time I visit my grandmother (84 years old) she "races" me down her driveway and gives me the V sign when she beats me
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StBeals

Remember
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aww

tempura_tantrum

My husband captured this photo of my dog and I. It perfectly describes the partnership I’ve built with her!
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hello_claricee

Angela will be 16 on March 5th and is very exited to be alive everyday
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vitoriavonb

My dog giving his biscuit to his son. The dad thought the son didn’t get one and stood by the door until I opened it so he could give to his son. I cried.
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Random Subreddit of the day: Bossfight

These are its 3 top posts of all time:

Thevisi0nary

We need players for the new FCC raid boss!
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A_TREE57

The Beatle, lord of all music
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cointelpro_shill

Bearers of the Eternal Duel
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[Lost in the Sauce] Trump admin hides Paycheck Protection program details; lawmakers benefit from loans

Welcome to Lost in the Sauce, keeping you caught up on political and legal news that often gets buried in distractions and theater… or a global health crisis.
Title refers to: The Trump admin is blocking IGs from getting info on over $1 trillion in relief spending, including corporation bailouts. The admin is also withholding PPP info from Congress, meaning we don't know if Trump or his family took taxpayer money. Additionally, we learned that at least 4 members of Congress have benefited from PPP money, but aren't required to disclose it.
Housekeeping:

HOW TO SUPPORT: I know we are all facing unprecedented financial hardships right now. If you are in the position to support my work, I have a patreon, venmo, and a paypal set up. No pressure though, I will keep posting these pieces no matter what.
NOTIFICATIONS: You can signup to receive notifications when these posts are done.

Coronavirus

Inspectors general warned Congress last week that the Trump administration is blocking scrutiny of more than $1 trillion in spending related to the Covid-19 pandemic. According to the previously undisclosed letter, Department of Treasury attorneys concluded that the administration is not required to provide the watchdogs with information about the beneficiaries of programs like the $500 billion in loans for corporations.
Treasury Secretary Mnuchin refused to provide Congress with the names of recipients of the taxpayer-funded coronavirus business loans. After criticism, Mnuchin began to walk back his denial, saying he will talk to lawmakers on a bipartisan basis “to strike the appropriate balance for proper oversight” of PPP loans “and appropriate protection of small business information.”
At least 4 lawmakers have benefited in some way from the Paycheck Protection program they helped create. Politico has been told there are almost certainly more -- but there are zero disclosure rules, even for members of Congress.

Republicans on the list include Rep. Roger Williams of Texas, a wealthy businessman who owns auto dealerships, body shops and car washes, and Rep. Vicky Hartzler of Missouri, whose family owns multiple farms and equipment suppliers across the Midwest. The Democrats count Rep. Susie Lee of Nevada, whose husband is CEO of a regional casino developer, and Rep. Debbie Mucarsel Powell of Florida, whose husband is a senior executive at a restaurant chain that has since returned the loan.

Mick Mulvaney dumped as much as $550,000 in stocks the same day Trump assured the public the US economy was 'doing fantastically' amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Mulvaney unloaded his holdings in three different mutual funds, each of which is primarily made up of US stocks. The next day, the value of the mutual funds tanked.

Cases rising in many states

Good summary: There was supposed to be a peak. But the stark turning point, when the number of daily COVID-19 cases in the U.S. finally crested and began descending sharply, never happened. Instead, America spent much of April on a disquieting plateau, with every day bringing about 30,000 new cases and about 2,000 new deaths. This pattern exists because different states have experienced the coronavirus pandemic in very different ways…The U.S. is dealing with a patchwork pandemic.
As of Friday, coronavirus cases were significantly climbing in 16 states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Washington.
Oklahoma is experiencing a massive increase in coronavirus cases just days before Trump’s planned rally in Tulsa. In Tulsa county itself, 1 in roughly 390 people have tested positive. Yet Trump plans on cramming 20,000 people in an event with voluntary face mask policy and no social distancing. Attendees must sign a waiver that absolves the president’s campaign of any liability from virus-related illnesses.

On Monday, Pence lied saying that Oklahoma has “flattened the curve.” As you can see at any of the resources immediately below, this is not even close to true. Over the past 14 days, the state has seen a 124% increase in cases and reports 65% of ICU beds are in use.
Tulsa World Editorial Board: This is the wrong time and Tulsa is the wrong place for the Trump rally. "We don't know why he chose Tulsa, but we can’t see any way that his visit will be good for the city...Again, Tulsa will be largely alone in dealing with what happens at a time when the city’s budget resources have already been stretched thin."
Earlier in the day, Trump tweeted that he is a victim of double standards when it comes to perception of his decision to resume campaign rallies in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, declaring that attempts to “covid shame” his campaign “won’t work!”

Resources to track increases: There are many different sites with various methods of visualizing the spread of coronavirus. Here are some that may be particularly useful this summer… Topos COVID-19 compiler homepage and graphs of each state since re-opening. How we reopen Safely has stats on each state’s progress towards meeting benchmarks to reopen safely (hint: almost none have reached all the checkpoints). WaPo has a weekly national map of cases/deaths; the largest regional clusters are in the southeast.
On Monday, Trump twice said that “if we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any,” (video). Aside from the fact that cases exist even if we don’t test for them, we cannot explain the rising number of cases by increased testing capacity: In at least 14 states, the positive case rate is increasing faster than the increase in the average number of tests.

Reminder: In March Trump told Fox News that he didn't want infected patients from a cruise ship to disembark because it would increase the number of reported cases in the US. "I like the numbers being where they are," Trump said at the time. "I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault."

Fired scientist Rebekah Jones builds coronavirus dashboard to rival Florida’s… Her site shows thousands more people with the coronavirus, and hundreds of thousands fewer who have been tested, than the site run by the Florida Health Department.

Equipment and supplies

More studies prove wearing masks limits transmission and spread of coronavirus… One study from Britain found that routine face mask use by 50% or more of the population reduced COVID-19 spread to an R of less than 1.0. The R value measures the average number of people that one infected person will pass the disease on to. An R value above 1 can lead to exponential growth. The study found that if people wear masks whenever they are in public it is twice as effective at reducing the R value than if masks are only worn after symptoms appear.
Meanwhile, Trump officials refuse to wear masks and Trump supporters copy his behavior… VP Mike Pence, leader of the coronavirus task force, published a tweet showing himself in a room full of Trump staffers, none wearing masks or practicing social distancing. Pence deleted the tweet shortly after criticism. A poll last week showed that 66% of likely-Biden-voters “always wear a mask,” while 83% of likely-Trump-voters “neverarely wear a mask.”

Trump’s opposition to face masks hasn’t stopped him from selling them to his supporters, though. The online Trump Store is selling $20 cotton American flag-themed face masks.
Yesterday, we learned that South Carolina Republican Rep. Tom Rice and family have tested positive for the coronavirus. Just two weeks ago, Rice was on the House floor and halls of the Capitol without wearing a mask.

Internal FEMA data show that the government’s supply of surgical gowns has not meaningfully increased since March… The slides show FEMA’s plan to ramp up supply into June and July hinges on the reusing of N95 masks and surgical gowns, increasing the risk of contamination. Those are supposed to be disposed of after one use.
Nursing homes with urgent needs for personal protective equipment say they’re receiving defective equipment as part of Trump administration supply initiative. Officials say FEMA is sending them gowns that look more like large tarps -- with no holes for hands -- and surgical masks that are paper-thin.
More than 1,300 Chinese medical-device companies that registered to sell PPE in the U.S. during the coronavirus pandemic used bogus registration data… These companies listed as their American representative a purported Delaware entity that uses a false address and nonworking phone number.
Florida is sitting on more than 980,000 unused doses of hydroxychloroquine, but hospitals don’t want it… Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered a million doses of the drug to show support for Trump, but very few hospitals have requested it.

Native American communities struggle

The CARES Act money for Native American tribes, meant to assist people during the pandemic, came with restrictions that are impeding efforts to limit the transmission of the virus. For instance, the funds can only be used to cover expenses that are "incurred due to the public health emergency." On the Navajo Nation, the public health emergency is inherently related to some basic infrastructure problems. 30% of Navajo don’t have running water to wash their hands, but the money can’t be used to build water lines.
Federal and state health agencies are refusing to give Native American tribes and organizations representing them access to data showing how the coronavirus is spreading around their lands, potentially widening health disparities and frustrating tribal leaders already ill-equipped to contain the pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has turned down tribal epidemiologists’ requests for data that it’s making freely available to states.
A Hospital’s Secret Coronavirus Policy Separated Native American Mothers From Their Newborns… Pregnant Native American women were singled out for COVID-19 testing based on their race and ZIP code, clinicians say. While awaiting results, some mothers were separated from their newborns, depriving them of the immediate contact doctors recommend. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced that state officials would investigate the allegations.

Personnel & appointees

Former IG Steve Linick told Congress he was conducting five investigations into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the State Department before he was fired. In addition to investigating Pompeo's potential misuse of taxpayer funds and reviewing his decision to expedite an $8 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia, Linick’s office was conducting an audit of Special Immigrant Visas, a review of the International Women of Courage Award, and another review "involving individuals in the Office of the Protocol."

Pompeo confidant emerges as enforcer in fight over watchdog’s firing: Linick testified that Undersecretary of State for Management Brian Bulatao, a decades-old friend of Pompeo’s, “tried to bully [him]” out of investigating Pompeo.

Trump has empowered John McEntee, director of the Presidential Personnel Office, to make significant staffing changes inside top federal agencies without the consent — and, in at least one case, without even the knowledge — of the agency head. Many senior officials in Trump's government are sounding alarms about the loss of expertise and institutional knowledge.
Trump’s nominee for under secretary of defense for policy, retired Army Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata, has a history of making Islamophobic and inflammatory remarks against prominent Democratic politicians, including falsely calling former President Barack Obama a Muslim.
Amid racial justice marches, GOP advances Trump court pick hostile to civil rights. Cory Wilson, up for a lifetime seat on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, has denied that restrictive voting laws lead to voter suppression and called same-sex marriage “a pander to liberal interest groups.”
Interior Secretary David Bernhardt has indefinitely extended the terms of the acting directors of the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service, sidestepping the typical Senate confirmation process for those posts and violating the Federal Vacancies Reform Act,

Courts and DOJ

The Supreme Court declined on Monday to take a closer look at qualified immunity, the legal doctrine that shields law enforcement and government officials from lawsuits over their conduct. Developed in recent decades by the high court, the qualified immunity doctrine, as applied to police, initially asks two questions: Did police use excessive force, and if they did, should they have known that their conduct was illegal because it violated a "clearly established" prior court ruling that barred such conduct? In practice, however, lower courts have most often dismissed police misconduct lawsuits on grounds that there is no prior court decision with nearly identical facts.
The Supreme Court ruled that federal anti-discrimination laws protect gay and transgender employees. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined the court’s liberals in the 6 to 3 ruling. They said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination “because of sex,” includes LGBTQ employees.

Alito, writing more than 100 pages in dissent for himself and Thomas, accused the court's majority of writing legislation, not law. Kavanaugh wrote separately: "We are judges, not members of Congress...Under the Constitution and laws of the United States, this court is the wrong body to change American law in that way."
Just days before the SCOTUS opinion was released, the Trump administration finalized a rule that would remove nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people when it comes to health care and health insurance. The SCOTUS ruling may make it easier to challenge the changes made by Trump.

The Supreme Court also declined to take up California’s “sanctuary” law, denying the Trump administration’s appeal. This means that the lower court opinion upholding one of California's sanctuary laws is valid, limiting cooperation between law enforcement and federal immigration authorities. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, two of the Court's conservative members, supported taking up the case.
A federal appeals court appeared unlikely Friday to stop a judge from examining why the Justice Department sought to walk away from its prosecution of Michael Flynn. "I don't see why we don't observe regular order," said Judge Karen Henderson. "Why not hold this in abeyance and see what happens?" Judge Robert Wilkins told Flynn's lawyer that if Sullivan doesn't let the government drop the case, "then you can come back here on appeal."

Other

Good read: Fiona Hill on being mistaken as a secretary by Trump, her efforts to make sure he was not left alone with Putin, and what the US, UK and Russia have in common. “It’s spitting in Merkel’s face,” said Vladimir Frolov, a former Russian diplomat who’s now a foreign-policy analyst. “But it’s in our interests.”

Russia’s Foreign Ministry welcomed Trump’s plan to withdraw more than a quarter of U.S. troops from Germany.
Op-Ed: Why cutting American forces in Germany will harm this alliance

According to a new book, the Secret Service had to seek more funding to cover the cost of protecting Melania Trump while she stayed in NYC to renegotiate her prenup - taxpayers paid tens of millions of dollars to allow her to get better terms. Additionally, NYPD estimated its own costs conservatively at $125,000 a day.
Georgia election 'catastrophe' in largely minority areas sparks investigation. Long lines, lack of voting machines, and shortages of primary ballots plagued voters. As of Monday night, there were still over 200,000 uncounted votes.
Fox News runs digitally altered images in coverage of Seattle’s protests, Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone
Fox News Mocked After Mistaking Monty Python Joke for Seattle Protest Infighting
In addition to holding a rally on the day after Juneteenth (originally scheduled the day of), Trump will be accepting the GOP nomination in Jacksonville on the 60th anniversary of “Ax Handle Saturday,” a KKK attack on African Americans.
Environmental news:

Ruling against environmentalists, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the federal government has the authority to allow a proposed $7.5 billion natural gas pipeline to cross under the popular Appalachian Trail in rural Virginia.
Trump administration has issued a new rule blocking tribes from protecting their waters from projects like pipelines, dams, and coal terminals.
The EPA published a proposal in the Federal Register that critics described as an assault on minority communities coping with the public health legacy of structural racism. The rule would bar EPA from giving special consideration to individual communities that bear the brunt of environmental risks — frequently populations of color.
The Trump administration is preparing to drill off Florida’s coast, but says it will wait until after the November election to avoid any backlash from Florida state leaders.

Immigration news

U.S. Customs and Border Protection used emergency funding meant for migrant families and children to pay for dirt bikes, canine supplies, computer equipment and other enforcement related-expenditures… The money was meant to be spent on “consumables and medical care” for migrants at the border.
ACLU files lawsuit against stringent border restrictions related to coronavirus that largely bar migrants from entering the United States.
Under Trump’s leadership, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has mismanaged its finances so badly that it has sought an emergency $1.2 billion infusion from taxpayers. When Trump took office, USCIS inherited a budget surplus. A large amount of funding is drained by its deliberate creation of more busy work for immigrants and their lawyers — as well as thousands of USCIS employees. These changes are designed to make it harder for people to apply for, receive or retain lawful immigration status.
Asylum-seeking migrants locked up inside an Arizona ICE detention center with one of the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases say they were forced to clean the facility and are 'begging' for protection from the virus
ICE plans to spend $18 million on thousands of new tasers and the training to use them

casinos opening up in washington state video

Everett Royal Casino The Royal Casino is located in the south of Everett, Washington, only 20 miles North from Seattle. It opens 24h/24 Fridays and Sundays and from 9am to 5am the rest of the … 0 reviews The Terrace Red Dragon Casino is in Mountlake, Washington, only 15 miles North from Seattle. This casino provides Poker games like Texas Hold'em and Omaha. Two restaurant … This casino provides Poker games like Texas Hold'em and Omaha. Washington State’s Northern Quest Resort & Casino is the latest tribal venue to reopen its gaming floor to players. Increased safety precautions were in place on Tuesday at the property, though at... — Three casinos have re-opened in Washington with more announcing plans to re-open soon. The Spokane Tribe Casino re-opened Wednesday to join Angel of the Winds Casino in Arlington and Northern... There are 29 federally recognized tribes in Washington State and all 29 of those have Class III gaming compacts. Twenty-two tribes operate 29 casinos under compact. Class III Games may include: Blackjack, Red Dog, Craps, Roulette, Baccarat (mini, midi, and full size), Pai Gow Poker, Sic-Bo, Big 6, Chuck-a-Luck, Poker (Class III), Keno, Off Track Betting, and Electronic Tribal Now as Washington Gov. Jay Inslee considers how to reopen the state’s economy, so too are tribal governments weighing when, and how much, to reopen their casinos, which generate more than $2 ... * Washington will have its 15th and 16th casino resorts opening in 2021. The new Quil Ceda Creek Casino Hotel is currently under construction on land just south of the current Quil Ceda Creek Nightclub & Casino location. The new resort will have 150 rooms, along with a 100,000 square foot casino with 1,500 slots. Washington State Tribes Eager to Reopen Casinos, Governor To Extend Stay-at-Home Order. Posted on: April 30, 2020, 06:42h. Last updated on: April 30, 2020, 08:53h. Tribes in Washington state closed their casinos in mid-March to slow the spread of the coronavirus. But this week, many have started the process of reopening the casinos, which are a major source ... More tribal casinos are opening around the region, with precautions in place because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Puyallup, Suquamish, Squaxin Island and Nisqually tribes all are reopening ...

Casinos in Washington State – Map & List of Casino Resorts

casinos opening up in washington state

casinos opening up in washington state - win

Lost in the Sauce: Trump, Cruz, and Gohmert team up to incite election-related violence