December 1, 2020

Barack Obama narrates new Jon Ossoff ad ahead of Georgia runoff: "Vote like our lives depend on it..

Barack Obama narrates new Jon Ossoff ad ahead of Georgia runoff: "Vote like our lives depend on it, because they do"

BY SOPHIE LEWIS

DECEMBER 1, 2020 / 12:40 PM / CBS NEWS

Former President Barack Obama is front and center in a new ad for Georgia Democratic Senate candidate Jon Ossoff, praising his abilities to pass a new Voting Rights Act and fight the coronavirus pandemic if elected. The ad was released Tuesday ahead of Ossoff's runoff race against Republican incumbent Senator David Perdue on January 5.

"Jon Ossoff has dedicated his career to fighting injustice," Mr. Obama says in the 30-second ad, titled "Prepared." The footage was originally filmed when the former president stumped for Ossoff in Georgia last month.

Mr. Obama touts Ossoff's connections to one of his "lifelong heroes," the late civil rights icon Representative John Lewis. In high school, Ossoff interned for the Georgia congressman, who endorsed the candidate earlier this year.

"He knows we need a new Voting Rights Act that makes sure every Georgian is treated equally under the law," Mr. Obama continues.

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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/barack-obama-jon-ossoff-campaign-ad-georgia-run-off-senate-election/

December 1, 2020

Trump Covid vaccine czar says side effects 'significantly noticeable' in 10% to 15% of recipients

PUBLISHED TUE, DEC 1 202010:48 AM ESTUPDATED 3 HOURS AGO

Berkeley Lovelace Jr.
@BERKELEYJR

President Donald Trump’s coronavirus vaccine czar said Tuesday that Pfizer and Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccines are safe, with only 10% to 15% of volunteers reporting side effects that were “significantly noticeable.”

The side effects, which come from the vaccine shots, can last up to a day and a half, said Dr. Moncef Slaoui, who is leading the Trump administration’s Covid-19 vaccine program Operation Warp Speed. The people who’ve suffered from side effects have reported redness and pain at the injection site as well as fever, chills, muscle aches and headaches, he said, adding most people have no noticeable side effects.

“The longer, more important kind of adverse events such as some autoimmune disease or others have not been reported in a different way between the placebo group and the vaccine group in these two trials, which is very reassuring,” he told the Washington Post. “I always make sure we say that [while] we know the short term and I’m going to call it mid-term effects of the vaccine is now well understood, the very long term safety is not yet understood by definition.”

Slaoui’s comments come as states prepare to distribute a Covid-19 vaccine in as little as two weeks. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel is scheduled to vote later Tuesday on who will be first to get a vaccine once one has been authorized by U.S. regulators.

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https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/01/trump-covid-vaccine-czar-says-side-effects-significantly-noticeable-in-10percent-to-15percent-of-recipients.html

December 1, 2020

Trump sues to reverse Biden win in Wisconsin

Source: CNBC

PUBLISHED TUE, DEC 1 202012:10 PM EST UPDATED 31 MIN AGO

Kevin Breuninger
@KEVINWILLIAMB

Dan Mangan
@_DANMANGAN

President Donald Trump’s campaign filed a lawsuit Tuesday in Wisconsin seeking to invalidate President-elect Joe Biden’s win there, the latest long-shot court battle aimed at overturning the presidential election.

The suit asks the Wisconsin Supreme Court to disqualify more than 221,000 ballots in the state’s two most Democratic counties. Biden won the state by nearly 20,700 votes.

It asks the court to order Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and the state’s elections commission to exclude swaths of absentee ballots, which the campaign asserts are “illegal.”

The plaintiffs, who include the campaign, the president himself and Vice President Mike Pence, ask the court to block the certification of the presidential election until those ballots are cut from the final vote tally.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/01/trump-campaign-files-election-lawsuit-in-wisconsin-after-state-declares-biden-won-.html

December 1, 2020

No, White Women Didn't Vote for Trump

Jonathan Chait: “White women voted for Trump. Or so you have probably heard. In the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump’s 2016 victory, the finding from early exit polls that 53 percent of white women voted for Trump formed the basis for a million social-media posts, op-eds, and rally placards. That this “fact” is not true is not even close to the biggest problem with its ubiquitous place in progressive social-justice discourse.”

“The 53 percent figure turned out to be erroneous, and corrected analyses eventually pegged Trump’s share of the white female electorate closer to 47 percent. Nonetheless, the impulse that propelled so many writers to blame white women for electing Trump proved strong enough to survive even after the factual basis was undercut. Indeed, left-wing opinion writers continued churning out polemics based on the erroneous 53 percent figure for years.”

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https://p.feedblitz.com/r3.asp?l=174318959&f=1099925&c=7298877&u=37190363

November 30, 2020

Kemp to Trump: Georgia law blocks him from 'interfering' with elections

Source: AJC

By Greg Bluestein, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Gov. Brian Kemp’s office responded Monday to President Donald Trump’s demands to help him overturn Georgia’s election results with a reminder that state law “prohibits the governor from interfering in the election.”

The Georgia Republican has become a favorite target of Trump, who said Sunday he was “ashamed” that he endorsed him in 2018 and tweeted Monday that the “hapless” governor should use non-existent “emergency powers.”

“Georgia law prohibits the governor from interfering in elections. The Secretary of State, who is an elected constitutional officer, has oversight over elections that cannot be overridden by executive order,” said Kemp spokesman Cody Hall.

“As the governor has said repeatedly, he will continue to follow the law and encourage the Secretary of State to take reasonable steps - including a sample audit of signatures - to restore trust and address serious issues that have been raised.”

Read more: https://www.ajc.com/politics/politics-blog/kemp-to-trump-georgia-law-blocks-him-from-interfering-with-elections/V6FQECEXMNGBNJJVOELKPN7BVE/

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November 30, 2020

Far Right Conspiracy Theorist Rick Wiles Predicts Trump Administration is Planning to Execute ...

Far Right Conpiracy Theorist Rick Wiles Predicts Trump Administration is Planning to Execute Democrats and Media ‘Traitors’

By Charlie NashNov 30th, 2020, 10:25 am

Weird Evangelical conspiracy theorist Rick Wiles claimed President Donald Trump’s administration is trying to bring back the firing squad as a form of execution so they can shoot Democrat and media “traitors” before leaving office.

After being asked on his TruNews show why the Trump administration is fast-tracking the reimplementation of execution methods like firing squad, Wiles said, “I’m not trying to be funny, but because they plan to shoot some people.”

https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1333422585116307457

“They’re going to have a bunch of traitors, they’re going to line them up against the wall, and start shooting them, because that’s what they deserve,” he declared. “The Democrats, the news media… If the leftists, if the scientists, professors have been working secretly with the Chinese Communist Party, then line them up against a wall and shoot them.”

“That’s what you do with them,” Wiles concluded.

The Trump administration has previously faced criticism for giving Wiles — who called the impeachment of Trump a “Jew coup” — White House press credentials.

more
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/far-right-conpiracy-theorist-rick-wiles-predicts-trump-administration-is-planning-to-execute-democrats-and-media-traitors/

November 30, 2020

Brazilian politician, in a coma due to Covid-19, has yet to find out he's the elected mayor

His case is a vivid example of the reach of the coronavirus pandemic in Brazil, which has the world’s worst COVID-19 death toll outside the U.S.

Nov. 30, 2020, 10:53 AM EST
By Reuters

RIO DE JANEIRO - Maguito Vilela was elected mayor of the Brazilian city of Goiânia on Sunday, but he has yet to find out. That’s because he has spent much of the last month in an induced coma, breathing via a ventilator because of a severe COVID-19 infection.

His case is a vivid example of the reach of the coronavirus pandemic in Brazil, which has the world’s worst COVID-19 death toll outside the United States. More than 6.3 million people have been infected and nearly 173,000 have died from the virus, according to Health Ministry data.

A former senator from the centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement party, Vilela tested positive for the coronavirus on Oct. 20. A week later, he arrived at Sao Paulo’s Albert Einstein Hospital and was intubated on Oct 30.

He came off the ventilator on Nov. 8, but was back on by Nov. 15, when he progressed to a second-round runoff against rival Vanderlan Cardoso of the Social Democratic Party.

more
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/brazilian-politician-coma-due-covid-19-has-yet-find-out-n1249349


Maguito Vilela.via Facebook

November 30, 2020

Nearly 5,000 Died from Virus Over Thanksgiving Break

November 30, 2020 at 9:35 am EST By Taegan Goddard

First Read: “Over the Thanksgiving holiday alone (Thursday through Sunday), the United States saw more than 600,000 new coronavirus cases and nearly 5,000 deaths. And health experts say it’s about to get worse — even with distribution of vaccines now in sight.”

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https://politicalwire.com/2020/11/30/nearly-5000-died-from-virus-over-thanksgiving-break/

November 30, 2020

Andrew Yang, said to be considering mayoral bid, tested in new online poll

By SALLY GOLDENBERG 11/30/2020 08:56 AM EST

NEW YORK — Former presidential hopeful Andrew Yang, who advocated for a “universal basic income” during the Democratic primary, is now the subject of a poll that tests New York City voters' appetites for a third-party candidate in the upcoming mayoral race.

Yang was also among 11 people listed in a question assessing responders’ top picks in the Democratic primary to succeed Mayor Bill de Blasio next June, according to an online survey targeting Manhattan residents through a Facebook ad and shared with POLITICO by someone who took it.

The poll did not indicate it was being conducted on Yang’s behalf, the person said, but several questions focused on his potential candidacy — something his team said he was weighing as recently as last month. Others asked respondents to gauge a nameless candidate, whose description closely matched Yang’s profile.

The poll specifically tested one's viability as an independent candidate, which would allow Yang to skip the crowded primary and spend more time raising funds for a general election next November. Registered Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans and unaffiliated voters in the city, and New Yorkers rarely select mayors off the Democratic line. Mike Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani both won as Republicans during times of significant crisis, and in Bloomberg’s case only after significantly outspending his opponents.

more
https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2020/11/30/andrew-yang-said-to-be-considering-mayoral-bid-tested-in-new-online-poll-1338485

November 30, 2020

Biden expected OMB pick Tanden draws opposition from left and right

President-elect Joe Biden is expected to name Neera Tanden as director of the Office of Management and Budget, according to multiple media reports, drawing angry reactions from progressives and conservatives alike.

In response to a New York Times article about Tanden's expected nomination, the communications director for Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Tanden, who heads the left-leaning Center for American Progress, "stands zero chance of being confirmed."

Drew Brandewie tweeted that Tanden "has an endless stream of disparaging comments about the Republican Senators whose vote she'll need."

https://twitter.com/DBrandewie/status/1333205134004858889

anden's reported selection also sparked angry reactions from the left, such as Brianna Joy Gray, the former press secretary for Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign, who called Tanden "a woman who is openly disdainful of Bernie Sanders and his coalition, but who is friendly with extreme bigots online." Gray was particularly critical of Tanden's views on Social Security

more
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/11/30/politics-updates-biden-trump-transition/6461729002/