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Reports of protests are overblown. A few incidents around the country, but nothing major.

5 (45.5%)

A few major incidents in capitals, but nothing much in DC.

5 (45.5%)

A major incident in DC, but nothing much around the country.

0 (0%)

More than 10 capitals have major upheavals, but nothing much in DC.

0 (0%)

A major incident in DC plus more than 10 capitals with significant upheavals.

1 (9.1%)

More than half the capitals around the country have problems with protesters, but DC is quiet.

0 (0%)

DC has major problems, while more than half the capitals around the country also have considerable trouble with protesters.

0 (0%)

Huge disruption to the day.

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 9

Voting closed: January 19, 2021, 10:49:21 PM

[bodiddley]

Face masks reduce the risk of spreading large Covid-linked droplets when speaking or coughing by up to 99.9 percent, according to a lab experiment with mechanical mannequins and human subjects, researchers said Wednesday.

A woman standing two metres (yards) from a coughing man without a mask will be exposed to 10,000 times more such droplets than if he were wearing one, even if he is only 50 centimetres away, they reported in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

"If you wear a mask, you are mitigating the virus transmission by an order of magnitude -- 10 times less," Maria Viola said.

"In our study, for the larger droplets we measure, we're talking about 99.9 percent less."

https://news.yahoo.com/masks-block-99-9-large-131416084.html

Gee, what a surprise.
Mask up, as I've been saying for 10 months now.

According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle, Washington, 55,000 lives could be saved in the United States over the next four months if a policy of universal mask use were adopted.

55,000 American lives at stake.

[josh]

http://www.salon.com/2020/12/23/republicans-enabled-trump-for-four-years--of-course-hes-betraying-them-in-the-11th-hour/

That pretty much aligns with everything I have said.

I only have one quibble with it: "The Democrats have called called Trump's bluff."

It's no bluff. If he doesn't get from McConnell what he wants, he won't walk away from this. It would never dawn on him to. And he has no problem sinking Loeffler and Perdue - I can easily imagine him at the last minute coming out explicitly against them, if he thinks it serves his purposes (whether to remain in office or to sink McConnell when Trump is certain he won't get another term).

Hey, maybe enough GOP folks will decide to pass the $2k in the Senate that it will happen!

[josh]

The GOP blocked the unanimous consent effort for $2000 in the House.

Roll call vote on 12/28 for the same measure. They'll also be dealing with the Defense Bill override vote and the budget continuing resolution.

Why do I think the budget bill might not make it through during this Congress?

And how will that play out on January 5th?!

[barton]

Adjournment date is Jan. 3.  So all that's irrelevant at this point.   There are ten days left,  which is all that's needed.  Can't pocket veto unless some of those ten days Congress is not in session.

He doesn’t have to do anything.

That bill dies with old zcongress.

If ten days pass,  with Congress in session,  it automatically becomes law.   The ten day rule is that the bill goes back to Congress, unsigned or no.   If he received it before Dec 23, then the bill should become law?   Or is my math wrong on the dates? 

[barton]

Face masks reduce the risk of spreading large Covid-linked droplets when speaking or coughing by up to 99.9 percent, according to a lab experiment with mechanical mannequins and human subjects, researchers said Wednesday.

Gee, what a surprise.
Mask up, as I've been saying for 10 months now.

No surprise,  yes.   What's amazing is the ability of politics and a personality cult to obscure the obvious.   I run a science website where we still get lay visitors who think that masks don't work.   At least they've come to us open to getting some facts, usually.

[Hamilton Samuels]

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/24/house-votes-on-2000-stimulus-checks-after-trump-supports-them.html

House Republicans on Thursday blocked a Democratic attempt to pass $2,000 direct payments to Americans, as the fate of the massive coronavirus relief package passed by Congress earlier in the week hangs in the balance.

The Democrats moved to increase the size of the checks after President Donald Trump threatened to oppose the $2 trillion pandemic aid and federal funding bill because it included only $600 in direct payments rather than $2,000.

Congress passed the proposal Monday after Trump took no role in weeks of talks. The plan included $900 billion in coronavirus relief.

Trying to cap the plan’s cost, most of Trump’s Republican Party sought $600 in direct payments rather than the $1,200 passed in the CARES Act in March. In criticizing the year-end legislation, Trump also pointed to foreign aid spending — which Washington includes in funding bills every year.

The House tried to pass the $2,000 payments during a pro forma session on Christmas Eve day, a brief meeting of the chamber where typically only a few members attend. Democrats aimed to approve the measure by unanimous consent, which means any one lawmaker can block it.

Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., offered the proposal from the House floor, but was blocked because the measure was not approved by House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

Subsequently, Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., attempted to get lawmakers to reconsider aspects of the spending bill related to foreign aid. That move was blocked by Democrats.

Now the Dens get to run ads in Georgia that the GOP wants to pay off their friends and abandon you, family guys and gals and your household.

Nice move.

[Hamilton Samuels]

A good read that many of you should find entertaining on just how a great writer dealt with 1918's influenza pandemic:

 https://theconversation.com/how-ernest-hemingway-really-responded-to-the-spanish-flu-pandemic-152264

[josh]

Face masks reduce the risk of spreading large Covid-linked droplets when speaking or coughing by up to 99.9 percent, according to a lab experiment with mechanical mannequins and human subjects, researchers said Wednesday.

Gee, what a surprise.
Mask up, as I've been saying for 10 months now.

No surprise,  yes.   What's amazing is the ability of politics and a personality cult to obscure the obvious.   I run a science website where we still get lay visitors who think that masks don't work.   At least they've come to us open to getting some facts, usually.

None of the mannequins got sick.

[josh]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/23/us/oregon-covid-superspreader-action-trnd/index.html

One person went to work, knowing they were sick.

7 deaths and 300 family quarantines resulted.

Kid will quibble that they cannot prove it.

[barton]

None of the mannequins got sick.

Good one! 

My favorite faux-science poster at the website was this one fellow who had been trying to catch CV (going maskless, seeking crowds and close contact with people coughing, sneezing, talking loudly, etc) and had been frustrated in his efforts due to being in....

New Zealand. 

[barton]

This is funny, and I love the head of a meatpacking company being named Dennis Organ. 


Fox News host Maria Bartiromo was apparently out-foxed by an animal rights activist who posed as a meat company CEO.

On Wednesday’s episode of “Mornings With Maria,” Bartiromo featured an interview she said was with Dennis Organ, the new CEO and president of pork industry giant Smithfield Foods.

However, the interview was actually with Matt Johnson, an activist for the animal rights network Direct Action Everywhere.

While posing as Organ, Johnson told viewers that factory farms like the ones operated by Smithfield are likely breeding grounds for future pandemics.

When Bartiromo asked about Smithfield’s processing plant in South Dakota ― the site of a major COVID-19 outbreak earlier this year ― Johnson posing as Organ told her that the company farms are “petri dishes for new diseases” and noted that hog farming also “causes immense damage to our air and waterways.”

Johnson then claimed that Smithfield would attempt to mitigate the environmental impacts of its industry by spending “half a billion dollars a year starting in 2021.”

Although Bartiromo can be seen rolling her eyes at some of the comments Johnson made, she didn’t appear to suspect she was the victim of a prank. That is, until the end of her show when she admitted she’d been duped.

(from Yahoo News)

[barton]

More amusements in the news:

BoJo on Brexit negotiations today:

“We’ve taken back control of every jot and tittle of our regulation in a way that is complete and unfettered.”

“This deal means a new stability and a new certainty in what has sometimes been a fractious and difficult relationship,” said the British prime minister, adding, “although we have left the E.U., this country will remain culturally, emotionally, historically, strategically, geologically attached to Europe.”

So Britain is going to remain at its present location on the earth's crust!  I am much relieved that no fancy plate tectonics maneuvers are being hatched at Downing Street.  And the jots and tittles are under control, thank god.

[josh]

https://deadstate.org/christians-confront-native-american-asking-them-to-get-off-sacred-land-this-land-belongs-to-jesus

[LarryBnDC]

Face masks reduce the risk of spreading large Covid-linked droplets when speaking or coughing by up to 99.9 percent, according to a lab experiment with mechanical mannequins and human subjects, researchers said Wednesday.

A woman standing two metres (yards) from a coughing man without a mask will be exposed to 10,000 times more such droplets than if he were wearing one, even if he is only 50 centimetres away, they reported in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

"If you wear a mask, you are mitigating the virus transmission by an order of magnitude -- 10 times less," Maria Viola said.

"In our study, for the larger droplets we measure, we're talking about 99.9 percent less."

https://news.yahoo.com/masks-block-99-9-large-131416084.html

Gee, what a surprise.
Mask up, as I've been saying for 10 months now.

According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle, Washington, 55,000 lives could be saved in the United States over the next four months if a policy of universal mask use were adopted.

55,000 American lives at stake.

Mandatory Mask use is an exercise in tyranny and an assault on our freedoms!*

*sarcasm

[kidcarter8]

Biden won't make them mandatory

Why not?