A Caribbean disturbance could soon develop into the Atlantic's next tropical depression or storm and potentially pose another serious threat of flooding rainfall to Central America.

The disturbance, which is dubbed Invest 98L, is producing numerous showers and thunderstorms over the central Caribbean Sea and has become better organized.

This system is expected to become a tropical depression or tropical storm by early Saturday as it slowly tracks toward the western Caribbean, according to the National Hurricane Center. When it strengthens into a tropical storm, it would be named Iota. ...........(more)

https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/2020-11-12-tropical-disturbance-central-america-flood-threat-iota

For Trump, one last fundraising scam before leaving office
Team Trump isn't just lying to supporters about the election results; they're also playing a highly sketchy game with their own financial supporters.

Nov. 12, 2020, 8:42 AM EST
By Steve Benen


(MSNBC) Donald Trump has an unusually ugly record when it comes to separating those he perceives as fools from their money. After all, the outgoing Republican president ran a fraudulent charitable foundation, and created a fraudulent "university" which was designed to do little more than rip off its "students."

The Republican never fully abandoned these practices after arriving in the White House. Indeed, this Reuters report yesterday suggested Trump is trying to pull off one last fundraising scam before leaving office.



It's effectively a scam wrapped in a scam. Team Trump starts by falsely telling its followers that there's an election conspiracy -- indeed, the campaign has sent dozens of messages along these lines to donors in recent days -- which it then follows by encouraging supporters to help combat the made-up conspiracy by sending the president's political operation some money. .............(more)

https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/amp/ncna1247527?

(Detroit Free Press) Speaking on Hannity on Fox News Wednesday night, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany suggested that Detroit election workers counted dozens of ballots cast by ineligible voters assigned birth dates that would make them 120-years-old.

McEnany's comments mischaracterized a routine process used by election officials.

In an affidavit filed with Wayne County Circuit Court Wednesday, Chris Thomas, the former director of elections for Michigan who served as a special adviser to Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey, explained that software used by election workers required entering a birth date for absentee ballots cast by voters whose date of birth was not available to election workers.

In cases where a placeholder date was needed, election workers were instructed to enter the birth date January 1, 1900. That date was later corrected. .............(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2020/11/12/kayleigh-mcenany-confuses-detroit-election-process-fraud/3761887001/

New York (CNN Business)The Covid-19 pandemic brought the economy to a screeching halt, and while it has started its long road to recovery, the economy we knew is probably a thing of the past, said Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Thursday.

"We're recovering, but to a different economy," Powell said during a virtual panel discussion at the European Central Bank's Forum on Central Banking.

The pandemic has accelerated existing trends in the economy and society, including the increasing use of technology, telework and automation, he said. This will have lasting effects on how people live and work. ...........(more)

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/12/economy/economy-after-covid-powell/index.html

(Independent UK) Donald Trump’s lawyers in Arizona have pulled out of a suit challenging part of the US election vote counting process in Arizona’s Maricopa County.

A judge granted Snell & Wilmer’s request to withdraw as counsel of record for the Republican National Committee, which together with the Trump campaign and the Arizona Republican Party had brought legal action alleging the county incorrectly rejected a small number of votes cast on election day.

It came amid claims Mr Trump was “very aware there is not a path to victory” over Joe Biden – which did not prevent the outgoing president from continuing to spread false and misleading claims on Twitter on Thursday. ............(more)

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/us-election-results-news-live-biden-trump-map-b1721639.html

(Guardian UK) Across the street from the British embassy, with its red telephone box and Winston Churchill statue, in Washington DC is the residence of the US-vice president. It has its own basketball court, on which Mike Pence reportedly installed a logo from the 1986 film Hoosiers starring Gene Hackman about small town Indiana sports.

Fortunately, the Washington Post noted a couple of years ago, the logo is removable.

Pence, a former governor of Indiana, and his wife, Karen, will be packing their bags and moving out of the residence in January to make way for America’s first female vice-president, Senator Kamala Harris of California, and her husband Doug Emhoff.

Said to have nurtured ambitions for the presidency since he was 16, Pence must now decide what to do with the rest of his life. Among the 61-year-old’s options: a return to his roots in conservative talk radio as a way to remain relevant in his party.

“I think he would want to stay involved in Republican politics and probably in a more conventional way than the president,” said Michael D’Antonio, co-author of The Shadow President: The Truth About Mike Pence. “So he could be a broadcaster, and there’ll be lots of opportunity for that, but he would be nicer than Trump. .............(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/12/mike-pence-after-trump-election-loss-2024-run-president

How many different ways will Trump poison the ground on his way out the door?
Trump is "burrowing" right-wing loyalists into government positions. And what the hell's his plan at the Pentagon?

HEATHER DIGBY PARTON
NOVEMBER 11, 2020 1:00PM


(Salon) Idon't think anyone who has been following Donald Trump's administration for the past four years can say they're surprised that he is refusing to concede defeat after the election, or that nearly all Republican elected officials are either backing him to the hilt or quivering in the corner like a bunch of cold chihuahuas. I predicted this puerile reaction some time ago, which wasn't exactly a great feat of prognostication since Trump was doing everything but running full-page ads in every newspaper in the country announcing his intentions.

Two days before the election, he said on camera, "As soon as that election is over, we're going in with our lawyers." This was after months of nonstop attacks on mail-in voting, accusations of cheating in states run by Democrats and declarations that the only way he could lose the election is if it were rigged. How could anyone be surprised that he is doing exactly what he told us he would do?

There's a lot of speculation about what Republicans have to gain by doing this. As I've hypothesized earlier, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has good reasons to keep Trump voters engaged in the state of Georgia, so keeping all this going for a while may be useful there. It's certainly possible that Republicans are afraid if they buck Trump publicly he will turn on the party, calling them traitors to the cause, and his fervent followers will stay home for the two Georgia Senate runoff elections in January. And there's always the financial incentive — the cash Trump is raking in for his "legal defense fund" can be spent to retire some of his campaign debt.

And, needless to say, Trump has his own incentives. He needs to be able to say that he isn't a loser which, to his mind, is the worst thing you can say about anyone. But in the end, unless the courts throw out entire state elections and disenfranchise 75 million people on his behalf, he will have no choice. .............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2020/11/11/how-many-different-ways-will-trump-poison-the-ground-on-his-way-out-the-door/

Ticketmaster to track guests' COVID-19 status under potential plan
Posted By Jerilyn Jordan on Wed, Nov 11, 2020 at 4:23 pm


(Detroit Metro Times) There's no doubt that the recent news of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine has people flipping their lids with excitement with the hope that maybe the new normal may soon return to the old normal.

But no one seems as excited as Ticketmaster, the same goons who put ticket-holders through the wringer this year when they quietly amended their refund policy to no longer offer full refunds for postponed or rescheduled events, only refunding those that had been formally canceled due to the pandemic. Though they reversed that bullshit amendment somewhat, now the event ticketing giant has unveiled a plan to screen people's COVID-19 status before being approved to purchase tickets to events.

Ticketmaster's proposed verification system, which is still in the developmental phase and poses many logistical “what ifs,” is detailed in an exclusive published by Billboard. It would require a whole lot of technology, some of which has yet to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

First, a fan would purchase a ticket via the Ticketmaster digital ticket smartphone app. (This would help eliminate the selling or transfer of tickets, which could put concert-goers at risk of mingling with people who have not been officially vetted by Ticketmaster's master plan.) At this point, fans would have to produce one of the following pieces of information: their COVID-19 vaccination status or a negative COVID-19 test result taken 24-72 hours before the event, depending on local health guidelines and requirements. ..........(more)

https://www.metrotimes.com/city-slang/archives/2020/11/11/ticketmaster-to-track-guests-covid-19-status-under-potential-and-unsustainable-if-you-ask-us-plan

(Detroit Free Press) No one would get out of the Michigan State Capitol alive under the initial plan devised by the accused ringleader in a Michigan terrorist plot, according to the Michigan Attorney General’s Office.

Adam Fox’s “Plan A” wasn’t just storming the building and taking hostages, as officials have already said publicly — it was to get in there and televise the execution of tyrants over the course of a week, with no one coming out alive. Or, alternatively, lock the doors and set the building on fire. ......(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/11/11/ag-whitmer-kidnap-televise-executions-burn-michigan-capitol/6241502002/

(Salon) Shortly after the 2016 election, a funny thing happened. Rather than celebrate the victory of their candidate, Trump supporters took on the position of aggrieved victims. When they should have been happy, they were angry. When they should have been confident, they were insecure. When their votes showed that they had power, they felt marginalized. And, even though they won, they felt that the process had been unfair.

Their mood was vengeful and their attitude was combative. And that was when they won.

Now that their candidate has lost fair and square, we need to brace ourselves for their predictably vicious response.

As Salon's Amanda Marcotte has pointed out, even if Trump had won, we knew we would need to be prepared for the inevitable crybaby response of his supporters. As she puts it, the key word to describe Trump's base is "bitter":



If you feel like you are a perpetual loser, even when you are winning, then things will only get worse when you actually do lose. .............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2020/11/11/trumps-sore-winners-make-even-worse-losers-why-his-loss-is-inflaming-an-already-delusional-base/