https://twitter.com/RepRaskin/status/1344784770870480896
Rep. Jamie Raskin @RepRaskin

With profound sorrow, Congressman Raskin and Sarah Bloom Raskin today announced the loss of their son Tommy: https://raskin.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-raskin-announces-loss-son-tommy-raskin



6:17 PM · Dec 31, 2020

https://apnews.com/article/pennsylvania-pittsburgh-dick-thornburgh-746fe9abb81012e54d20ee94da078fe3


FILE - In this March 28, 2014 file photo, former Pennsylvania Gov. Dick Thornburgh recounts the Three Mile Island Nuclear Crisis during a two-day event marking the 35th anniversary of the partial core meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Middletown, Pa. Thornburgh died Thursday, Dec. 31, 2020 at a retirement community facility outside Pittsburgh, his son David said. The cause it not yet known. (Mark Pynes/The Patriot-News via AP)

By MARK SCOLFORO

12 minutes ago

Dick Thornburgh, who as Pennsylvania governor won plaudits for his cool handling of the 1979 Three Mile Island crisis and as U.S. attorney general restored credibility to a Justice Department hurt by the Iran-Contra scandal, has died. He was 88.

Thornburgh died Thursday morning at a retirement community facility outside Pittsburgh, his son David said. The cause is not yet known. He suffered a mild stroke in June 2014.

Thornburgh built his reputation as a crime-busting federal prosecutor in Pittsburgh and as a moderate Republican governor. As the nation’s top law enforcement official, he prosecuted the savings and loan scandal. He also shepherded the Americans with Disabilities Act; one of his sons had been severely brain damaged in an auto accident.

After leaving public office, Thornburgh became a go-to troubleshooter who helped CBS investigate its news practices, dissected illegalities at telecommunications company WorldCom and tried to improve the United Nations’ efficiency.

-/snip-

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1344655961445855232.html

1. A brief thread on why we should not panic but should worry, even be a bit...alarmed.

I've been speaking with former Trump Administration officials and with other former senior national security types who remain plugged in to the Pentagon.

2. They think we'll most likely "be ok;" but they are worried about what one called the three I's:
Iran.
The Insurrection Act.
and (White House and civilian DOD leadership) Insanity.

3. Iran.

January 3 is the anniversary of Suleimani's killing, followed shortly by the end of the 40-day mourning period for Fakhrizadeh. So there is the prospect of Iranian retaliation, to which a U.S. response (or conceivably preemptive action) would certainly be legitimate.

4. Iran (cont'd)

But of course there's also the possibility of the Trump Administration using an Iranian provocation to launch an action that's way beyond proportionate, as well as the possibility of simply inventing a predicate for U.S. action.

5. Iran (cont'd)

This obviously wouldn't stop the transition or even endanger it; but it would create an atmosphere of crisis and even chaos in which the second possibility--the Insurrection Act--might seem more doable.

6. The Insurrection Act.

As one former national security official put it to me, when you play out this scenario it's hard to see how it works--but even trying to invoke the Insurrection Act would create a full-blown constitutional and governmental crisis.

7. The Insurrection Act (cont'd)

The only reasons to worry about this are that Trump apparently has mention this to allies in recent days, and, I'm told, the senior civilians at DOD have been asking around--just in case!--about how it would work.

8. The Insurrection Act (cont'd)

And of course Trump is encouraging his supporters to come to D.C. on January 6; it's not at all unlikely there'll be turmoil, disturbances, perhaps violence, which would obviously be Trump's excuse for trying to invoke the Act.

9. The Insurrection Act (cont'd)

There have been preparations for such an eventuality among senior uniformed officials and others at the Pentagon who are on the side of constitutional government, and the reaction would be serious and even dramatic. And I think Trump knows that.

10. Insanity.

This the third "I" is kind of a catchall, meant to capture the real craziness of many of those with whom Trump is consulting, but also of many of the newly installed Trump civilians in the Pentagon.

11. Insanity (cont'd)

And even though the Trump appointees are serving in "acting" capacities, and are totally out of their depth, they do have actual authorities that are worrisome. Their orders could be resisted or appealed or leaked or challenged as unlawful--but...

12. Insanity (cont'd)

...as one person put it to me, these civilian officials do have levers to pull or at least try to pull, and that's worrisome.

"Let us therefore have that salutary fear of the future that makes one watchful and combative..."
-- Tocqueville, DA II 4.7

END

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Puerto_Rico_DC-7_crash




A DC-7CF similar to the accident aircraft

The 1972 Puerto Rico DC-7 crash was an aviation accident that occurred on December 31, 1972, in Carolina, Puerto Rico. It is most notable for killing Pittsburgh Pirates star Roberto Clemente. As a result of inadequate maintenance, the aircraft's No. 2 engine failed after takeoff. After initiating a turn to return to the airport, the aircraft eventually descended into, or attempted to ditch into, the ocean a mile offshore. All five people on board died.

Background
Roberto Clemente was a baseball star for the Pittsburgh Pirates, with whom he had won two World Series championships. On September 30, 1972, in his final at-bat, he had become only the 11th player in Major League Baseball history to collect 3,000 hits.

In October 1972, Clemente traveled to Managua, Nicaragua to coach the Puerto Rico national baseball team in the Baseball World Cup. On December 23, a 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck Managua, devastating the city and killing approximately 5,000 people. Many countries sent aid to Nicaragua, inspiring Clemente to contribute to the relief effort with his own money and to personally supervise the delivery of goods. Clemente had also been convinced to become involved by local television show host, reporter and celebrity Luis Vigoreaux.

Clemente had previously sent three cargo planes and a ship to help the Nicaraguans, but heard reports that the military had seized the goods intended for the earthquake victims. Suspecting profiteering by the military, he chartered a fourth plane so that he could visit Nicaragua and directly confront the military leader, believing that as a celebrity he could not be harmed.

Accident
The accident caused the deaths of all five people on board, including Clemente. The airplane crashed immediately after takeoff from Isla Verde International Airport, flying into the ocean at the adjacent area known as Piñones.

Cargo carrier
Clemente and a relief committee had leased the aircraft for $4,000 from a local airline, American Air Express Leasing Company, which was owned by a 27-year-old Puerto Rican named Arthur J. Rivera.

Unknown to Clemente or to the pilot, the four-engine Douglas DC-7 had suffered a non-fatal taxiway accident just 29 days before the fateful flight took place. This accident damaged the No. 2 and No. 3 propeller blades and the No. 3 engine cooler scoop. Advised to replace one of the engines, Rivera pressed his mechanics to do what they could to inspect the engine and keep it in service, but after inspecting the engines, the mechanics could not find a reason to justify replacing one. The standard procedure after the sudden stop of piston engine is to disassemble the engine to magnaflux its parts for cracks, but this was not done. An FAA maintenance inspector inspected the propeller shaft limits after the sudden stoppage repairs and found them within tolerances, though a later report said that he merely witnessed the inspection.

The post-war era in which cargo carriers operated surplus piston-driven prop planes was at its end, as high maintenance costs restricted the ability to keep up with newer aircraft technology. Rivera had just regained his FAA clearance to operate a cargo plane, claiming that it was his only livelihood. Struggling to keep American Air Express Leasing afloat against a tide of change in the airline industry, he began to cut corners.

Bad omens
Clemente's father, his wife Vera and son Roberto, Jr. warned him that they had bad feelings and premonitions about the flight, and just a few days before the flight, Clemente had a dream about overlooking his own funeral. However, Clemente insisted on conducting the planned relief mission and taking off on December 31 as planned, despite bad weather having hit the area near Isla Verde International Airport.

Crew
After volunteers spent most of the afternoon loading the aircraft, pilot Jerry Hill boarded the plane as the sole member of the flight crew. Owner Rivera sat in the co-pilot's seat, though he was only certified to fly the twin-engine Douglas DC-3, which had Pratt Whitney Twin Wasp engines. Rivera may not have understood the added complexity of the DC-7’s Wright R-3350 Duplex-Cyclone engine, which was nearly twice the size and power. Fransisco Matias, a fill-in mechanic employed by another airline who was moonlighting with several other mechanics for cargo carriers at the same airport, sat in the flight engineer's seat because Rivera and Hill had made several unsuccessful attempts to secure a flight engineer.

Hill, a well-qualified, seasoned pilot, was in command. He had been found by chance several days earlier while watching the plane being loaded. After another pilot had failed to show from a waitlist of itinerant pilots, Hill flew back from Miami on short notice. He sat in the plane for the first time the previous morning of the flight, and slept all day in a crew bunk to rest for the flight.

This was the aircraft's first flight since Rivera had purchased it several months earlier, and it was the first time that the pilot had flown with either Rivera or Francisco. Clemente boarded with associate Angel Lozano around the same time as the aircraft's crew.

-snip-

Takeoff
On the dark, moonless night of December 31, 1972, at 9:11 p.m. local time, after the previously aborted takeoff and additional mechanical work, the plane taxied around the airport's runway 7. By then the weather had cleared and visibility was at 10 miles, with only a few clouds visible.

After engine run-up by the crew, the flight was cleared for takeoff at 9:20:30 p.m. for the four-hour flight to Nicaragua. The aircraft took an exceptionally long takeoff roll and gained very little altitude. A left turn was commenced towards the north, and at 9:23:15 p.m., the San Juan tower received the following transmission: "N500AE coming back around." To land safely, the aircraft would have first needed to dump 32,000 pounds of fuel; as a typical dump rate is one to two tons of fuel per minute, this process would have taken between 16 and 32 minutes.

At or soon after the time of the last radio transmission, the plane experienced a catastrophic failure of engine No. 2. It is possible that engine No. 3 was also lost. Engines 2 and 3 are closest to the fuselage and contain the hydraulic pumps. If both were lost, the pilot would be forced to rely on a controls reversion system. With reduced control and possibly loss of electrical power, the pilot was then faced with the challenge of ditching the aircraft into the sea while maintaining a relation to the horizon over water on a moonless night. In this scenario, the aircraft was essentially unflyable.

With an engine lost, the airplane slowly descended and about 10 to 30 seconds later crashed into the Atlantic Ocean at a point approximately 1​1⁄2 miles offshore, and 2​1⁄2 miles on the 040-degree radial from the western end of Runway 25. In that time, 500 to 2,000 pounds of fuel would have dumped. In the last seconds of flight, ground effect would have kept the plane aloft, skimming the wave tops.

Delgado Cintrón, a mechanic who witnessed the takeoff from the ground at the airport, testified that the engines sounded even and normal. However, the plane was too low at 25 feet off the ground. Other witnesses estimated that the plane gained altitude to 100 feet. After the aircraft was out of sight behind trees, the engines sounded fine and then, a few seconds later, Cintrón heard three backfires and a large explosion, which he thought was the impact with the ocean, followed by silence.

Issues with engine design
That a DC-7 had lost an engine on takeoff was not unexpected. During World War II, twice as many aircraft were lost because of problems with the same type of engine (in aircraft such as the Boeing B-29 Superfortress) as were lost to enemy fire.

The Wright R-3350 engine that powered the DC-7 had started as a problematic multi-row radial design that was rushed into wartime production. In post-war civilian use, those problems continued, and aircraft with this engine were less favored for commercial flights and often were converted to cargo planes.

Clemente would have had no reason to have known the history of the R-3350, but Captain Hill would have had a good understanding from over 12,000 flight hours piloting multi-row, piston-powered, radial-engine aircraft over his nearly 30-year career, including the DC-4, DC-6, DC-7, C-46 and the USAF Globemaster.

An issue related to the cooling of additional rows of radial cylinders in multi-row radial engines was understood and well known. A key concern was a lean air/fuel condition causing detonation because of the high supercharger boost on such engines, which by itself and with cooling issues was dangerous. Problems with cooling had plagued the engine since its use in the hot Pacific climate during World War II, prompting the military to add an air scoop to the top of the engine cowling that directed air to cool the back cylinders. Those problems only added to the engine's sensitivity to detonation, particularly on takeoff.

-snip-

Causes
The NTSB concluded that after a failure of one engine the plane had inadequate power to maintain altitude during a turn (suggesting that the pilot could not dump fuel fast enough to achieve a weight-to-power ratio that allowed level flight). After a few miles, the plane flew into the ocean on a moonless night. The lack of a horizon possibly prevented the pilot from realizing the altitude loss from only 100 feet over the ocean, which would have indicated a need to prepare for a water landing with reduced engine power on splashdown (the engines appear to have been at full power, and fuselage damage indicated an aircraft at higher speed).

An unexplored scenario is that, following an engine loss, the pilot began fuel dumping to lighten the aircraft. The prop wash dispersed the fuel, and given the low elevation, formed a thermobaric weapon that was ignited by the burning engine. The resulting air burst destroyed the aircraft. The DC-7 contained fuel-dumping facilities. A hazard of fuel dumping is ignition of the fuel, and precautions are taken to eliminate all sources of ignition, and also to prevent turbulence that mixes the fuel with air. Aircraft do not typically explode on impact, and in this case the plane would have been more or less in level controlled flight into the water. An air burst explains the explosion heard after an engine fire was seen, as well as the heavy destruction of the fuselage.

A scenario considered by investigators but later dismissed involved a load shift on turning, which careened the plane into a wing strike with water, cartwheeling the plane along the surface. Two engines were found several hundred feet directly ahead of the wing, indicating a level entry into the water.

The cause of the crash could not be determined precisely because of the difficulties encountered while attempting to recover the wreckage. Probable causes were attributed to lean detonation, poor maintenance, excessive wear in engine components, engine damage from a previous taxiing accident that was not repaired, an uncertified co-pilot, an uncertified flight engineer, a 4,000-pound fuel overload and inadequate crew preparation in correcting these issues.

-/snip-

https://twitter.com/Calvinn_Hobbes/status/1211995428708859907
Calvin and Hobbes @Calvinn_Hobbes

On December 31, 1995, Bill Watterson published the final 'Calvin & Hobbes' comic strip. For most of us, it was like watching our absolute best friend ever move to another continent! The hole in our hearts is still felt even now!



8:00 AM - Dec 31, 2019

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes



Calvin and Hobbes is a daily American comic strip created by cartoonist Bill Watterson that was syndicated from November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995. Commonly cited as "the last great newspaper comic", Calvin and Hobbes has enjoyed broad and enduring popularity, influence, academic and philosophical interest.

Calvin and Hobbes follows the humorous antics of the title characters: Calvin, a precocious, mischievous and adventurous six-year-old boy; and Hobbes, his sardonic stuffed tiger. Set in the contemporary suburban United States, the strip depicts Calvin's frequent flights of fancy and friendship with Hobbes. It also examines Calvin's relationships with family and classmates, especially the love/hate relationship between him and his classmate Susie Derkins. Hobbes' dual nature is a defining motif for the strip: to Calvin, Hobbes is a living anthropomorphic tiger, while all the other characters see Hobbes as an inanimate stuffed toy. Though the series does not mention specific political figures or contemporary events, it does explore broad issues like environmentalism, public education, philosophical quandaries and the flaws of opinion polls.

At the height of its popularity, Calvin and Hobbes was featured in over 2,400 newspapers worldwide. In 2010, reruns of the strip appeared in more than 50 countries, and nearly 45 million copies of the Calvin and Hobbes books had been sold worldwide.



History

Development

"I thought it was perhaps too 'adult,' too literate. When my then-8-year-old son remarked, 'This is the Doonesbury for kids!' I suspected we had something unusual on our hands."
—Lee Salem, Watterson's editor at Universal, recalling his reaction after seeing Watterson's first submission

Calvin and Hobbes was conceived when Bill Watterson, while working in an advertising job he detested,[6] began devoting his spare time to developing a newspaper comic for potential syndication. He explored various strip ideas but all were rejected by the syndicates. United Feature Syndicate finally responded positively to one strip called The Doghouse, which featured a side character (the main character's little brother) who had a stuffed tiger. United identified these characters as the strongest, and encouraged Watterson to develop them as the centre of their own strip. Though United Feature ultimately rejected the new strip as lacking in marketing potential, Universal Press Syndicate took it up.

Launch and early success (1985–1990)
The first strip was published on November 18, 1985 in 35 newspapers. Watterson was warned by the syndicate not to give up the day job yet, but it was not long before the series had become a hit. Within a year of syndication, the strip was published in roughly 250 newspapers and was proving to have international appeal with translation and wide circulation outside the United States.

Although Calvin and Hobbes would undergo continual artistic development and creative innovation over the period of syndication, the earliest strips demonstrate a remarkable consistency with the latest. Watterson introduced all the major characters within the first three weeks, and made no changes to the central cast over the 10 years of the strip's history.

By April 5, 1987, Watterson was featured in an article in The Los Angeles Times. Calvin and Hobbes earned Watterson the Reuben Award from the National Cartoonists Society in the Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year category, first in 1986 and again in 1988. He was nominated another time in 1992. The Society awarded him the Humor Comic Strip Award for 1988. Calvin and Hobbes has also won several more awards.

As his creation grew in popularity, Watterson underwent a long and emotionally draining battle with his syndicate editors over his refusal to license his characters for merchandising. By 1991, Watterson had achieved his goal of securing a new contract that granted him legal control over his creation and all future licensing arrangements.

Creative control (1991–1995)
Having achieved his objective of creative control, Watterson's desire for privacy subsequently reasserted itself and he ceased all media interviews, relocated to New Mexico, and largely disappeared from public engagements, refusing to attend the ceremonies of any of the cartooning awards he won. The pressures of the battle over merchandising led to Watterson taking an extended break from May 5, 1991, to February 1, 1992, a move that was virtually unprecedented in the world of syndicated cartoonists.

Comparison of Calvin and Hobbes' following layout changes
During Watterson's first sabbatical from the strip, Universal Press Syndicate continued to charge newspapers full price to re-run old Calvin and Hobbes strips. Few editors approved of the move, but the strip was so popular that they had no choice but to continue to run it for fear that competing newspapers might pick it up and draw its fans away. Watterson returned to the strip in 1992 with plans to produce his Sunday strip as an unbreakable half of a newspaper or tabloid page. This made him only the second cartoonist since Garry Trudeau to have sufficient popularity to demand more space and control over the presentation of his work.

Watterson took a second sabbatical from April 3 through December 31, 1994. When he returned, he had made the decision to end the strip. In 1995, Watterson sent a letter via his syndicate to all editors whose newspapers carried his strip announcing his plans to end the strip by the end of the year. Stating his belief that he had achieved everything that he wanted to within the medium, he announced his intention to work on future projects at a slower pace with fewer artistic compromises.

The final strip ran on Sunday, December 31, 1995. It depicted Calvin and Hobbes outside in freshly fallen snow, reveling in the wonder and excitement of the winter scene. "It's a magical world, Hobbes, ol' buddy... Let's go exploring!" Calvin exclaims as they zoom off over the snowy hills on their sled, leaving, according to one critic ten years later, "a hole in the comics page that no strip has been able to fill."

https://twitter.com/mattsmith_news/status/1344455373407793158

Matt Smith @mattsmith_news

BREAKING: Advocate Aurora now says an employee at its Grafton hospital intentionally removed the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine from a refrigerator resulting in nearly 500 doses having to be thrown away

Matt Smith @mattsmith_news

An internal memo sent to employees tonight said “We are more than disappointed that this individual’s actions will result in a delay of more than 500 people receiving their vaccine.”

8:28 PM · Dec 30, 2020 from Wisconsin, USA

https://twitter.com/mattsmith_news/status/1344456744857194498

Matt Smith @mattsmith_news

The employee has been fired, the company says
Matt Smith

Matt Smith@mattsmith_news

Statement: “We have noticed appropriate authorities for further investigation.”

8:34 PM · Dec 30, 2020 from Wisconsin, USA

https://twitter.com/mattsmith_news/status/1344465306597658626

Matt Smith @mattsmith_news

The company on Monday said 50 vials. (Each vial contains 10 doses.) Tonight’s release says 57 vials

Matt Smith @mattsmith_news

Monday’s statement the company released



9:08 PM · Dec 30, 2020 from Wisconsin, USA

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/secret-service-to-make-changes-to-presidential-detail-to-bring-on-agents-who-worked-with-biden/2020/12/30/d6fb8fe8-49ce-11eb-a9d9-1e3ec4a928b9_story.html

By Carol D. Leonnig

Dec. 30, 2020 at 7:30 p.m. EST

The Secret Service is making some staff changes in the presidential detail that will guard President-elect Joe Biden, amid concerns from Biden allies that some current members were politically aligned with President Trump, according to two people familiar with the changes.

As Biden readies his new administration, the Secret Service plans to bring back to the White House detail a handful of senior agents whom Biden knows well from their work more than four years ago guarding him and his family when he was vice president.

Staff changes are typical with the arrival of a new president and are designed to increase the trust and comfort the incoming president feels with his protective agents, who often stand by the president’s side during sensitive discussions and private moments.

But the shifts underway occur at a particularly contentious time, as Trump has blamed his reelection loss on unfounded allegations of voter fraud and has sought to block his administration from treating Biden as the president-elect. Some in the Secret Service also came under criticism during Trump’s tenure for appearing to embrace his political agenda.

-/snip-

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/28/politics/russian-bounties-taliban-us-troops/index.html

By Vivian Salama

Updated 6:46 PM ET, Wed December 30, 2020

(CNN)President Donald Trump received information earlier this month that China sought to pay non-state actors to attack American forces in Afghanistan, a senior administration official said.

The intelligence, which will be declassified by the Trump administration, was provided to the President in his daily brief on December 17, the official said. His national security adviser Robert O'Brien discussed the information with the President that same day, the official said.

News of the briefing and the administration's intention to declassify the information was first reported on Wednesday by Axios.

Information of this alleged intelligence is thus far uncorroborated. The scenario is reminiscent of reports earlier this year that Russia allegedly offered Afghan militants bounties to kill US forces in Afghanistan. That information also appeared in the President's intelligence briefing although it was later revealed that the information likely went unnoticed for weeks.

Trump has yet to publicly call Russia out on the issue.

-/snip-

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/girlfriend-nashville-bomber-warned-police-he-was-building-explosives-2019-n1252536


Investigators are aware of statements the suspect made about a conspiracy theory that powerful politicians and Hollywood figures are actually lizards who have extraterrestrial origins.

Dec. 30, 2020, 11:58 AM EST / Updated Dec. 30, 2020, 12:35 PM EST

By Tom Winter, Michael Kosnar and Wilson Wong

Investigators are exploring several conspiracy theories as potential motives behind the Christmas Day bombing outside an AT&T building in Nashville, including evidence that the bomber believed in lizard people and a so-called reptilian conspiracy, two senior law enforcement officials told NBC News on Wednesday.

Investigators are expected to conclude their crime scene work this week, but it could take several more weeks until they determine the motive of the bomber, Anthony Quinn Warner, who died in the bombing.

Since Saturday, authorities have been probing Warner’s digital devices — which one official says includes a significant trove of pictures, videos and writings — looking for any clues on what drove the man to set off a powerful bomb inside his recreational vehicle that took down communications networks and injured several people in downtown Nashville.

Specifically, investigators are looking into the suspect’s previous trips to an undisclosed location in Tennessee where he would camp out in his R.V. and according to the suspect’s statements to others, hunt possible aliens, the officials said.

-/snip-

https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/dawn-wells-dead-gilligans-island-mary-ann-1234876755/

Dawn Wells, who starred as the demure Mary Ann in long-running sitcom “Gilligan’s Island,” died Wednseday of causes related to COVID-19 in Los Angeles. She was 82.

A native of Reno, Wells also appeared in “77 Sunset Strip,” “Maverick,” “Bonanza,” “The Joey Bishop Show” and “Hawaiian Eye.”

Publicist Harlan Boll announced her death.

-/snip-