Night Owls is a themed open thread appearing at Daily Kos seven days a week.
Half a day until JOE BIDEN AND KAMALA HARRIS TAKE THE OATH OF OFFICE
Excerpts from the February Harper’s Index:
Estimated amount spent on 2020 campaigns for the U.S.
Since the Jan. 6 attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol we’ve been treated to the spectacle of people like Rep.Kevin McCarthy, Sen. Ted Cruz, and others within the Republican party invoking a spirit of “unity” as they urge Democrats to temper their response to a crisis that Republicans themselves were responsible for causing.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is well known to Kansans. In his six years in the U.S. House, Pompeo was ranked as one of the most conservative by GovTrack, and the policies he promoted were, well, the kinds of things most of America simply would roll their eyes at even considering. As a secretary of state, Pompeo has served failure after failure and has been rewarded for it, repeatedly, as one of Trump’s members who followed his marching orders.
Who is Michael Boulos, how is Lindsay Lohan involved, and why the heck now?
It looks like one of Team Trump’s last-minute efforts to destroy the civil service has fizzled. With less than a day to go, the plan to strip protections from tens of thousands of career federal employees hasn’t been put into effect at any federal agency.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of Personnel Management had rushed to list many of their jobs in the new Schedule F, a new classification for jobs involving policymaking.
Joining the increasing number of Trump supporters arrested after storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, a Pennsylvania woman who allegedly took a laptop belonging to Speaker Nancy Pelosi was arrested Monday. The woman, identified as 22-year-old Riley June Williams, is charged with intentionally entering into a restricted building without lawful authority in addition to disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
Tomorrow, America inaugurates a new president. With the transfer of power comes the transfer of responsibility for the COVID-19 pandemic. On the eve of Joe Biden’s inauguration, the toll of the pandemic stands at 23.9 million cases and 392,428 deaths, according to the COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic. There are 123,820 people hospitalized. Today alone, states reported 144,047 cases and 2,141 deaths.
The president’s youngest daughter announced she’s engaged to Michael Boulos a day before her father leaves office.
The House passed the For the People Act in 2019. Now Senate Democrats name it as their No. 1 bill, too.
“Now I’m feeling guilty. She didn’t get a call. I got a call.
I have no idea how to have a sex life anymore.
Every Tuesday, our lead climate reporter brings you the big ideas, expert analysis, and vital guidance that will help you flourish on a changing planet. Sign up to get The Weekly Planet, our guide to living through climate change, in your inbox.Tomorrow, pending calamity or misfortune, Joe Biden will take the oath of office and become president of the United States. In that moment, the United States’ approach to climate change will invert.
They never saw it coming.Ben Goldey resigned as Representative Lauren Boebert’s communications director after the January 6 attempted coup. Lauren Blair Bianchi quit the same job in Senator Ted Cruz’s office. George Erwin Jr. had rallied local law-enforcement backers for Representative Madison Cawthorn and was preparing to take a job working for him, but has now disavowed him.
The outgoing president has chosen to communicate with the American people largely by video statement since the Capitol riot.
I am scared about what will happen when the truth comes out.
The country recorded 100,000 deaths in roughly a month.
The most unpopular first lady in polling history got a predictably snarky response.
Photographs by Tavon TaylorBeyond the dozen National Guardsmen stationed behind the Library of Congress, the seven-foot-tall fence lining the back side of the Capitol, and the men in balaclavas carrying assault rifles, 67-year-old Rick Genderson sells liquor and old wine in his store, Schneider’s of Capitol Hill.
“With time, particularly over mid- to last summer and then into fall, there was a substantial amount of pressure,” Hahn told POLITICO.
As the final day of the Trump presidency passes, rehearsals and preparations are underway for the upcoming inaugural ceremony of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President–elect Kamala Harris, set to take place on January 20. Amid unprecedented security concerns and an ongoing pandemic, the visual landscape of Washington is different from any previous inaugural ceremony.
Outrage continues to build as more evidence emerges about participants in the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, which included members of violent white supremacist groups, including some who were on a terror watchlist.
At least 28 law enforcement officers from across the United States attended the Trump rally in Washington, D.C., on January 6 that led to the attack on the U.S. Capitol, with some even boasting on social media about taking part in the riot that left five people dead.
Israel has been hailed as having the world’s most vaccinated population, but Palestinians are not included. Human Rights Watch and others have called on Israeli authorities to provide COVID-19 vaccines to the more than 4.5 million Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Former Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and eight other former officials were charged last Thursday in a sweeping criminal investigation into the Flint water crisis. Snyder faces two charges of willful neglect of duty, a misdemeanor. In 2014, Flint’s unelected emergency manager, appointed by then-Governor Snyder, switched the city’s water supply to the Flint River as a cost-saving measure.
As President-elect Joe Biden prepares for his inauguration on Wednesday, he has outlined sweeping plans for his first days in office to address the raging coronavirus pandemic and roll back key parts of Donald Trump’s agenda, including on immigration, the climate crisis and more. President Trump, meanwhile, leaves office as the only president ever impeached twice, after he encouraged a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Parenting advice on potty training, self-confidence, and politics.
He can’t possibly expect the GOP to go along with this—but that might be a good thing.
Or his ability to help Americans will be doomed from the start.
What was the point of Fortress D.C.
