babylonsister
babylonsister's JournalTrump considering trolling Biden inauguration with 2024 campaign event: report
Can you say juvenile? 
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/11/trump-considering-trolling-biden-inauguration-with-2024-campaign-event-report/
Trump considering trolling Biden inauguration with 2024 campaign event: report
Published 2 hours ago
on November 28, 2020
By Meaghan Ellis, AlterNet
President Donald Trump may be leaving the White House in the very near future, but it does not look like he will be going away, as promised, anytime soon.
The lame duck president is already strategizing for a 2024 presidential run to regain control of the White House, according to The Daily Beast. The publication reports that insiders close to the situation have revealed details about the president’s latest plot.
snip//
Two knowledgeable inside sources have also revealed Trump is going a step further, mulling over the possibility of holding a 2024 campaign-related event the week of Biden’s inauguration if his post-election legal battle ultimately falls flat.
Trump and his campaign advisors are reportedly already seeking out major donors for his next presidential run. Although some donors are not pleased with the president’s antics, and one has even filed a lawsuit against the Trump campaign demanding they return his post-election contribution, surprisingly, there are still many donors willing to contribute to a new Trump run. In fact, some still believe the delusion that he still has a chance of a consecutive second term.
Covid stimulus help for desperate ICU nurses is urgent. But Congress is on vacation.
Covid stimulus help for desperate ICU nurses is urgent. But Congress is on vacation.
Americans worry about their grocery stores running out of toilet paper. Imagine how much more worried they'll be if their hospitals run out of nurses.
Nov. 24, 2020, 12:01 PM EST
By Janet Campbell-Vincent, former ICU nurse
I have been an ICU nurse for 17 years. I never thought I'd leave. Now I'm not sure I'll ever go back.
I've been on the front lines of Covid-19 since it broke out eight months ago. More than 250,000 people have now died in the United States. Case numbers are rising in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. And health care workers like me are burning out.
I'm exhausted. I'm angry. I'm sick of watching patients die. I'm tired of comforting families feeling guilty over the birthday party that cost their loved one's life.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump spends his weekends golfing, and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sent the Senate home for Thanksgiving vacation a day early, even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention just advised against holiday travel.
snip//
A lot of my colleagues are hitting their breaking points, too, and that could lead to a mass exodus from the profession. Americans worry about their local grocery stores' running out of paper towels and toilet paper. Just imagine how much more worried they'll be if their local hospitals, overwhelmed by surges of Covid-19 patients, run out of nurses.
Our leaders have left it up to medical workers to save American lives, but they've denied us the resources to do so. I can't fathom why they're on vacation when there is so much work to do.
more...
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/covid-stimulus-help-desperate-icu-nurses-urgent-congress-vacation-ncna1248809
Eric Clapton Sparks Backlash for New Anti-Lockdown Song With Van Morrison
Eric Clapton Sparks Backlash for New Anti-Lockdown Song With Van Morrison
The two musicians are frustrated with the loss of live music, but Twitter is frustrated with their history of racism and disregard of the danger of COVID-19
Jeremy Fuster | November 27, 2020 @ 10:45 AM Last Updated: November 27, 2020 @ 10:54 AM
In his ongoing musical protest against the closures forced by COVID-19, Van Morrison has employed the help of Eric Clapton with a new song aimed to raise funds to support musicians that are struggling financially because of the pandemic. But the song has prompted a backlash against the classic rock stars for their history of right-wing and sometimes racist comments.
Morrison’s new collaboration with Clapton, titled “Stand and Deliver,” is the fourth anti-lockdown song the star has released since the start of the pandemic, joining songs with more blunt titles like “Born to Be Free,” “As I Walked Out” and “No More Lockdown,” which the artist says he created to protest closures ordered by the British government.
snip//
But news of the song was met with backlash on Twitter, with people accusing Clapton and Morrison of disregarding the deaths inflicted by the virus on poorer communities. Jeffrey St. Clair, editor for left-wing news and commentary site CounterPunch, said that news of the song “Confirms everything I’ve ever thought about Clapton, a musician who has spent his entire career appropriating black music and now records his first ‘protest’ song against meager restrictions to slow a disease that is ravaging black communities.”
more...
https://www.thewrap.com/eric-clapton-sparks-backlash-for-new-anti-lockdown-song-with-van-morrison/
But...you think wearing a mask is uncomfortable and humiliating.
My sister posted this on FB. So for anyone who claims covid is a hoax, they might need to read this. 
Also, the amount of medical personnel needed to take care of just one person goes a long way towards explaining why there are not enough of them and also why they're exhausted.
Posted by a nurse who works with ventilators:
These are her comments:
For starters, it is NOT an oxygen mask that is put over the mouth while the patient comfortably lies down and reads journals.
Ventilation for Covid-19 is a painful intubation that goes down your throat and stays there until you live or you die.
It is done during anesthesia for 2 to 3 weeks without moving, often upside down, with a tube deposited from your mouth up to the air pipe and allows you to breathe to the rhythm of the lung machine.
The patient can't talk or eat or do anything natural - the machine keeps you alive. Discomfort and pain they feel from this mean that medical experts must administer sedatives and pain meds to ensure pipe tolerance as long as the machine is needed.
It's like being in an artificial coma. After 20 days from this treatment, a young patient loses 40% muscle mass and gets trauma in the mouth or voice cords, as well as possible lung or heart complications.
It is for this reason that old or already weak people can't stand treatment and die. Many of us are in this boat...so stay safe if you don't want to take the chance to end up here. This is NOT the flu!
They put a tube in your stomach, either through your nose or skin for liquid food, a sticky bag around your butt to collect diarrhea, one to collect urine, an IV for liquids and meds...an A-line to monitor your BP it is completely dependent on finely calculated with doses, teams of nurses, CRNA, and MA to move your limbs every two hours and lie on a carpet circulating ice-cold liquid to help reduce your 104° degree temp.
All of this while your loved ones cannot even come to visit. You will be alone in a room with your machine. Or your mother will. Or your father. Or your son or daughter. Or wife or husband.
But...you think wearing a mask is uncomfortable and humiliating.
Here Are the Various Ways Donald Trump Could Be Prosecuted
January/February 2021 Issue
Here Are the Various Ways Donald Trump Could Be Prosecuted
Tax fraud and obstruction of justice are just the start.
Russ Choma
Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, James Comey, Christopher Steele, John Bolton, a Time journalist, flag burners—this is just a partial list of the people Donald Trump has wanted to see imprisoned during his ignominious presidency. Yet the moment he steps out of the White House, shedding the sheath of immunity that enshrines all presidents, it is Trump who should be most concerned about a legal reckoning. His list of alleged offenses, committed both during and before his presidency, includes tax and bank fraud, obstruction of justice, bribery, defamation, and more. Legal experts have even debated whether Trump could face criminal charges connected to his woeful response to the coronavirus pandemic.
In its 244-year history, the United States has never prosecuted a president (that is, outside the specialized judicial theater of impeachment). Not that some didn’t deserve it. The reticence is understandable. Locking up a former commander in chief would be politically divisive and potentially set a dangerous precedent. Would holding him accountable restore faith in the justice system or further erode it? But for Trump, whose antics and incompetence contributed to the deaths of tens of thousands, who attacked the very foundation of the democratic institutions that made the United States a beacon, and who pushed the nation to the threshold of autocracy, the American people might be willing, even eager, to take the risk.
Trump has offered state and federal prosecutors a buffet of options for criminal and civil charges. On the federal level, one of the most plausible crimes Trump could be charged with is obstruction of justice. In his two-part report on his Russia investigation, special counsel Robert Mueller all but laid out the case, chronicling Trump’s assorted efforts to stymie the probe. The report also includes evidence suggesting that Trump may have perjured himself in written responses to questions from Mueller’s team, though this claim is more difficult to prove. Mueller stopped short of concluding that Trump had committed a crime, but mostly because, as a sitting president, he was arguably immune from prosecution. But that protection no longer applies once he leaves office.
Barbara McQuade, a former US attorney in Michigan who led the corruption case against Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, argues an obstruction conviction would be easy to obtain and is the most likely route for federal prosecutors. (McQuade spoke to Mother Jones before joining Biden’s transition team; she stressed that she was not speaking on the new administration’s behalf.) But the body of evidence is only one consideration when it comes to placing Trump, or any former president, on trial. “The second question a federal prosecutor must ask is, ‘Would a prosecution advance a substantial federal interest?’” she says. “When a president is involved, that’s a much harder question. I’m sure there is some sentiment that the country should move on, but perhaps some sentiment that we should not let a president get away with crimes with impunity just because they’re the president.”
Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor in Chicago who specialized in busting white-collar criminals, is less sure about convicting Trump of obstruction or other crimes—and not because there isn’t a bounty of evidence. “How would the fact that it’s Donald Trump impact a jury?” he wonders. Nevertheless, he thinks an obstruction prosecution is warranted if only for the message it sends. “To me the best argument for taking action is a future deterrence argument,” he says. “Trump is somebody who was focused on defeating the lawful functions of the Justice Department, so taking action sends a signal that presidents should not do that again.”
Both prosecutors warn that any case against Trump must be as free of politics as possible, not just to convince a judge or jury to convict but also to restore confidence in the Justice Department and avoid weakening democracy in the process. One way to buffer the case from political calculations would be for the new attorney general to appoint a special counsel who could pursue the investigation independently. “I think we’ve learned a lesson, hopefully, from, let’s say, the mistakes of James Comey and his handling of the Clinton matter,” Mariotti says, recalling the FBI’s infamous investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server before the 2016 election. “The best way to do it is to have an insulation from political appointees, and to essentially not have press conferences or anything like that—just make decisions about whether or not there’s anything worthy of prosecution and do it with as little fanfare as possible.”
more...
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/11/here-are-the-various-ways-donald-trump-could-be-prosecuted/
"We are the antivirus."
Found on FB~
We do this not from fear, or because someone on TV told us to. We do this from a deep sense of love, and from a duty of care that defines the way we look after each other as people. It’s not always easy, but it comes from a place of understanding.
We are protectors. Giving our hospitals the space they need to carry us through this winter, so that when the sun rises on a bright spring day, we will all be here to celebrate.
We might be quiet, behind our masks and inside our living rooms. We might seem a bit withdrawn at times, because fair enough. But we are legion.
We are not everyone. Definitely not, but we are enough. Enough to turn the tide on the virus before it turns us. Enough to hold the line down while medical science catches up. Enough to be containment, because — and here it is — this virus can be stopped when enough of us work together.
We are the antivirus. Will you join us?
Robin Wright: Our Brains Explain the Season's Sadness
Our Columnists
Our Brains Explain the Season’s Sadness
By Robin Wright
November 26, 2020
I’ve been consumed this fall with a melancholy sadness. It’s different from the loneliness that I felt in the early stage of the pandemic, during the lockdown, when I took a picture of my shadow after a neighborhood walk failed to jumpstart exercise endorphins. Eleven months after COVID-19 spread globally, and during what would otherwise be a joyous Thanksgiving, my sorrow, and surely the emotion of many others, is more complicated. Studies by health-care professionals show that our emotional challenges, from anxiety and depression to anger and fear, have been deepened by the pandemic. In June, just three months into a historic health crisis, a survey by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention found that forty per cent of Americans were already struggling with at least one mental-health issue. Among young adults between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four, one in four had thought about committing suicide during the previous thirty days. By July, more than half of Americans over the age of eighteen said their mental health had been negatively affected by emotions evoked during the pandemic, the Kaiser Family Foundation found. In October, A.A.R.P. reported that two-thirds of Americans felt increased anxiety.
For Americans, the pandemic’s spring scourge intersected with appalling human tragedies and unprecedented political rancor over the summer: the racial tension and unrest sparked by the murder of George Floyd, in the Midwest; soaring unemployment, business shutdowns, and hunger nationwide; the raging wildfires in the West and record-setting tropical storms in the South; and a bizarre and bitter Presidential campaign. Each calamity intensified our emotional state. Now, our anxieties are further compounded by holidays without loved ones—at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Hanukkah, then the New Year—and by the numbing rate of coronavirus infections and the darkening hours of winter. The accumulation makes it harder, even with a vaccine around the corner. So, over the past week, I’ve reached out to a neuroscientist, a sociologist, a psychologist, and a suicide expert to understand our states of mind.
snip//
The reason that many feel troubled now, Coan said, is because the flow of blood, which brings nutrients to the brain, is finite. The brain moves blood around in short-term loans to its various parts as situations demand. “But the blood supply is not enough to run every part of the brain at the same time,” he said. “When you’re running that prefrontal cortex at top speed, it’s sucking up a lot of blood from the brain. So that’s the reason we subjectively experience a cognitive exhaustion and fatigue.” The myriad crises each demand attention—one eye on the virus, a second on political turmoil, a third on career and income, a fourth on kids and their education, a fifth on civil unrest, a sixth on wildfires and other climate catastrophes, and so on. That’s six or seven eyes, and we only have two, Coan said.
Grief, anxiety, and trauma are pervasive today partly because the coronavirus surprised us. Throughout most of history, human societies expected pestilence, famines, and nature’s disasters to cyclically cause calamitous death or destruction. Epidemics fill the Old Testament and ancient Greek and Roman literature. But in the second half of the twentieth century, after the Great Depression and the two World Wars, modern progress allowed increasingly large numbers of people freedom from worries about daily subsistence, disease, or inexplicable natural disasters. Science produced vaccines that warded off deadly diseases. As a child, I was part of the clinical trial for the Salk vaccine for polio. Modern economies were able to rebound after the great wars and repeated depressions. Progress duped us into thinking modern humans would always prevail. We’ve refused to be humble or honest about our vulnerability. “It’s an arrogance that we should be spared our time in the crucible,” Christakis said.
For me, the sadness is compounded by how many will die even as at least three new vaccines that could protect us are so close to being available. It reminds me of the wars I’ve covered when peace talks have begun but the killing continues as negotiators dither over political and territorial terms. Almost eleven thousand people died in the final six hours of the First World War, between the signing of the pre-dawn peace agreement, in a railway car north of Paris, and when the Armistice formally took effect, at eleven A.M. Henry Gunther was the last American to be killed—exactly a minute before the war formally ended. With sadness, I’ve thought of the American who might be last to die from COVID-19.
more...
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/our-brains-explain-the-seasons-sadness
Trump's conspiracies have MAGA world talking Georgia boycott
Bring it!! 
Trump’s conspiracies have MAGA world talking Georgia boycott
It's hard to tell if the online chatter reflects wider voter sentiment, but some Republicans have expressed concern.
By TINA NGUYEN and JAMES ARKIN
11/26/2020 06:00 AM EST
President Donald Trump’s demonization of mail-in voting may have cost him votes in the recent election. Now, his demonization of Georgia’s entire electoral system is hurting his party’s chances at keeping the Senate.
Driven by Trump’s insistence that Georgia’s elections are indelibly rife with fraud, conspiratorial MAGA figures are calling for a boycott of the two Senate runoff races, slated for Jan. 5, that will determine which party controls the upper chamber.
Their reason: The two GOP candidates, Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, are not only insufficiently pro-Trump, they may be complicit in Georgia’s electoral fraud.
It doesn’t matter that both candidates are essentially lock-step with Trump, or that there is no evidence of links to electoral malfeasance. On Twitter and its less-restrictive alternative Parler, Trump’s more hardline followers have linked the duo to the president’s favorite — and untrue — voter-fraud theories. Hashtags like #CrookedPerdue and #CrookedKelly are flying around. The two lawmakers’ Parler accounts are brimming with posts accusing them of being secret “liberal DemoRats.”
The swelling anger is not just emanating from everyday QAnon believers in the MAGAverse. It’s also coming from prominent lawyers working on Trump’s behalf, including Sidney Powell, who was briefly a lead attorney in Trump’s push to overturn the election.
more...
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/26/trump-conspiracies-georgia-senate-440776
Why Trump's Flynn Pardon Could Backfire
https://politicalwire.com/2020/11/26/why-trumps-flynn-pardon-could-backfire/Why Trump’s Flynn Pardon Could Backfire
November 26, 2020 at 8:19 am EST By Taegan Goddard
Trump’s pardon, which he announced in a tweet, means Flynn will theoretically no longer be protected from self-incrimination under the 5th Amendment should he ever be called to testify against Trump.
Trump pushing through dozens of last minute policy changes - including use of firing squads
Trump pushing through dozens of last minute policy changes – including use of firing squads
Five more federal executions are scheduled in the weeks before Joe Biden enters the White House
Alex Woodward
Donald Trump has sought fast-track authorisation for several administration-wide policy changes before he leaves the White House in January, including the use of firing squads and electrocutions in federal executions, according to a report from ProPublica.
The Department of Justice entered a proposed rule change into the federal register in August. It cleared a White House review earlier this month, and the president could authorise the policy before he leaves office.
Federal executions are typically carried about by lethal injection, unless a judge orders a person to death by other means.
According to the proposed rule change, the administration claims that “death by firing squad and death by electrocution do not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment”.
more...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-death-penalty-firing-squads-b1761933.html
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