Wicked Blue
Wicked Blue's JournalBiden Twitter account 'starts from zero' with no Trump followers
BBC
US president-elect Joe Biden has been given his new official presidential Twitter account, but has been forced to start it with zero followers.
The Biden campaign is unhappy with the move, which marks a change from the previous transition from Barack Obama.
The new account, @PresElectBiden, will transform into the official @POTUS (President of the United States) one on inauguration day on 20 January.
In its first six hours online it gained nearly 400,000 followers.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55675826
Trump Struggles to Find Lawyers as Impeachment Trial Nears
Bloomberg
By Tom Schoenberg, Jennifer Jacobs, and Jordan Fabian
January 14, 2021
President Donald Trump, on the eve of facing a historic second impeachment trial for inciting the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol last week, is having trouble finding a legal team to defend him.
Allies of the outgoing president have been canvassing Washington’s legal landscape looking for representation but so far are coming up short. Lawyers who defended him in the previous impeachment trial, including Jay Sekulow and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, have said no this time,according to people familiar with the matter.
Other lawyers who have defended Trump at times, including former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi, Eric Herschmann, Pat Philbin and Marc Kasowitz aren’t interested in joining a team this time, the people said. Some of the lawyers who don’t want a role have privately said what Trump did was indefensible.
More broadly, a number of prominent law firms have refused to engage in any legal representation involving the president’s actions following the Nov. 3 election.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-14/trump-struggles-to-build-legal-team-as-impeachment-trial-nears?sref=3OTf8B4q
One has to ask, is this being done as a matter of principles, or do they know darn well they will never get paid?
Is T-rump on the No-Fly list yet?
Or are there plans to place him on it at 12:01 PM on January 20?
It sure would be fun to watch the tantrum that would follow.
Rep. Espaillat tests positive for coronavirus, says he received second dose of vaccine last week
Washington Post
By Felicia Sonmez
Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) said Thursday that he has tested positive for the coronavirus.
Espaillat was among the lawmakers who spoke on the House floor Wednesday during the debate over impeaching Trump for a second time. The lawmaker also said he received the second dose of the coronavirus vaccine last week.
“I am following guidance from my physician and quarantining at home after having tested positive for COVID-19,” Espaillat said in a tweet Thursday morning. “I received the second dose of the #COVID19vaccine last week and understand the affects take time. I have continued to be tested regularly, wear my mask and follow the recommended guidelines.”
***
Espaillat is the latest House member to test positive for the coronavirus in the wake of last week’s storming of the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/14/trump-impeachment-biden-transition-live-updates/
Three House members introduce bill to award Congressional Gold Medal to a Capitol Police officer who
Washington Post
By Felicia Sonmez and Rebecca Tan
Three House members Thursday introduced a bill to award the Congressional Gold Medal to Eugene Goodman, the Capitol Police officer who faced down a mob of mostly White rioters and lured them away from the Senate chamber during last week’s attack on the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
The House members — Reps. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.), Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.) and Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) — said in a statement Thursday that Goodman “valiantly put himself in harm’s way, luring a violent mob away from an unguarded entrance to the Senate chambers, protecting Senators, staff, and reporters inside.”
One of the lawmakers noted that Goodman’s actions and quick thinking likely prevented even greater horror from taking place at the Capitol.
“If not for the quick, decisive, and heroic actions from Officer Goodman, the tragedy of last week’s insurrection could have multiplied in magnitude to levels never before seen in American history,” Cleaver said in a statement. “With this prestigious award, we can show our gratitude to Officer Goodman for saving countless lives and defending our democracy.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/14/trump-impeachment-biden-transition-live-updates/
These Traitorous Traitors Must Be Expelled From the House
Daily Beast
Molly Jong-Fast, Editor-At-Large
Updated Jan. 14, 2021 7:26AM ET / Published Jan. 14, 2021 4:58AM ET
There are 535 members of Congress. Some of them are great. A few of them (Louie Gohmert) are dumb as a box of rocks. And then some of them are real true traitors who need to be expelled.
Fully 139 Republican congresspeople objected to the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election win. In an ideal world, all of these people would be expelled. But it’s not an ideal world, and some of these members were just good Germans worried about a mean tweet. Are they cowards? Certainly, but they are not the nexus of the problem. It makes more sense for Democrats to focus on the rot in the center—the ooey gooey maggot-ridden core of the Coup Caucus.
It was Tuesday Jan. 12 when gun enthusiast Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado walked through Congress’ newly installed metal detectors and refused to allow the Capitol Police to search her bag. She caused a mini-fracas. Multiple Republican House members started refusing to be searched or refused to go through the metal detector at all. “I was physically restrained!” complained Arkansas Republican Steve Womack. Hell hath no fury like a congressional Republican forced to walk through a metal detector.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/these-traitorous-traitors-must-be-expelled-from-the-house?ref=home
(paywall)
Trump built a national debt so big --even before the pandemic-- that it'll weigh down the economy f
January 14, 2021
By Pro Publica, via Raw Story
One of President Donald Trump's lesser known but profoundly damaging legacies will be the explosive rise in the national debt that occurred on his watch. The financial burden that he's inflicted on our government will wreak havoc for decades, saddling our kids and grandkids with debt.
The national debt has risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump's time in office. That's nearly twice as much as what Americans owe on student loans, car loans, credit cards and every other type of debt other than mortgages, combined, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It amounts to about $23,500 in new federal debt for every person in the country.
The growth in the annual deficit under Trump ranks as the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration, according to a calculation by a leading Washington budget maven, Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. And unlike George W. Bush and Abraham Lincoln, who oversaw the larger relative increases in deficits, Trump did not launch two foreign conflicts or have to pay for a civil war.
Economists agree that we needed massive deficit spending during the COVID-19 crisis to ward off an economic cataclysm, but federal finances under Trump had become dire even before the pandemic. That happened even though the economy was booming and unemployment was at historically low levels. By the Trump administration's own description, the pre-pandemic national debt level was already a “crisis" and a “grave threat."
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-national-debt/
Naturally the Republican whine machine is already complaining about the national debt
Bankrolling the Disenfranchisers
Public Citizen
By Mike Tanglis and Taylor Lincoln
Many in corporate America have signaled their disgust over the insurrection that occurred at the U.S. Capitol last week, as well as with President Trump and the congressional ringleaders who incited the rioters.
But many of these same corporate scolds have acted as reliable funders of the members of Congress who sought last week to void the results of the 2020 presidential election. By Public Citizen’s count, political action committees have contributed a staggering $170 million since the 2016 election cycle to the 147 members of Congress who voted last week to challenge the electoral college slates of at least one state.[1]
Our analysis reveals that 19 of these PACs have contributed at least $1 million each to the disenfranchisers over the past three election cycles. Meanwhile, 46 of these PACs have supported at least 50 percent of the members of Congress who voted to throw out at least part of the 2020 election results.
The top contributors are all trade associations: the National Association of Realtors, the American Bankers Association, the National Automobile Dealers Association and the National Beer Wholesalers Association. The American Bankers Association, which has contributed more than $2 million, in sum, to 120 of the 147 disenfranchisers, declared that the insurrection marked “a dark day for our democracy.”[2]
more:
https://www.citizen.org/article/bankrolling-the-disenfranchisers/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=35e21273-dbae-4a1e-a8ab-a87cd6fbe52a#_ftn2
Facebook Has Been Showing Ads For Military Gear Next To Insurrection Posts
Buzzfeed News
Ryan Mac BuzzFeed News Reporter
Craig Silverman BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on January 13, 2021, at 7:50 p.m. ET
Facebook has been running ads for body armor, gun holsters, and other military equipment next to content promoting election misinformation and news about the attempted coup at the US Capitol, despite internal warnings from concerned employees.
In the aftermath of an attempted insurrection by President Donald Trump’s supporters last week at the US Capitol building, Facebook has served up ads for defense products to accounts that follow extremist content, according to the Tech Transparency Project, a nonprofit watchdog group. Those ads — which include New Year’s specials for specialized body armor plates, rifle enhancements, and shooting targets — were all delivered to a TTP Facebook account used to monitor right-wing content that could incite violence.
Beginning last summer, the Mark Zuckerberg-led company banned pages, groups, and accounts belonging to US-based militant groups, “boogaloo” extremists, and those associated with the QAnon mass delusion. But members of those movements quickly found ways around the company’s policies by renaming their pages or using code names. They continue to proliferate, organize, and advertise on the social network.
These ads for tactical gear, which were flagged internally by employees as potentially problematic, show Facebook has been profiting from content that amplifies political and cultural discord in the US.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-profits-military-gear-ads-capitol-riot?origin=web-hf
Metro to close 13 stations for a week amid threats of inauguration violence
Washington Posty
Justin George
Jan. 13, 2021 at 5:50 p.m. EST
Metro will shut down more than a dozen stations near the U.S. Capitol and Mall for days around the presidential inauguration because of the possibility of violent protests.
Starting Friday, the transit agency will begin closing 13 stations through the following Thursday, the day after President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated on the steps of the Capitol. Metrobus service and routes also will be adjusted around a security perimeter guarded by fences and an expected 20,000 members of the National Guard.
The transit precautions were made through coordination with the Secret Service, which is directing safety of the event after last week’s attempted insurrection and riot at the U.S. Capitol that left five dead and wounded several others.
***
Stations closing on Friday include: Farragut North, Judiciary Square and Union Station on the Red Line; Archives on the Green and Yellow lines; Arlington Cemetery on the Blue Line; Farragut West, McPherson Square, Federal Center SW, Capitol South, Smithsonian and Federal Triangle on the Blue, Orange and Silver lines.
Stations closing Saturday are Metro Center and Gallery Place, two of the largest transfer stations.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2021/01/13/metro-inauguration/
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