As Greg Sargent noted in The Washington Post, “The hidden beauty of this is that it destroys the story that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wants to tell about how we got here, a story that he hopes will salvage Loeffler, Perdue and his Senate majority. McConnell agreed to this $900 billion deal in part to save his Georgia senators, admitting that they were ‘getting hammered’ over opposition to stimulus checks. His spin now is that Republicans always wanted to offer this relief and that Democrats were the obstacle to it.”

• During Pennsylvania's protracted ballot count in November, two armed QAnon supporters were arrested near Philadelphia's convention center where votes were being tallied. The duo had traveled from Virginia and were carrying concealed weapons, and had an AR-15 style weapon in their truck. One of the men tagged QAnon “as a positive military operation” on Facebook, and suggested a judgment day was fast-approaching.

• Six right-wing militiamen were charged with plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The men cased her vacation home and made plans to blow up a nearby bridge so police could not quickly respond to the abduction.

• The office building at Michigan's state Capitol in Lansing was closed on the day that Michigan's 16 electors cast their votes for President-elect Joe Biden. Offices were shuttered due to "credible threats of violence."

• Michigan state Rep. Laurie Pohutsky says state lawmakers and their staffs receive "at least dozens" of death threats every day in the wake of Rudy Giuliani’s recent testimony before the Legislature, where he aired countless lies.

• A masked man claiming to have a bomb set fire to the office of the Spokane County Democrats in Washington this month.

• One person representing Trump's campaign in court recently retweeted a call for Biden and Kamala Harris to "confess their crimes on national TV," or be executed.

• The daughter of Georgia Republican Governor, Mark Kemp, has had to deal with demented Trump followers who have been sending, "hate-filled messages about inane false conspiracies about the death of her long-time boyfriend, who was killed in a traffic accident this month," according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Kemp refused Trump's demand that he call a special session of the Georgia state legislature so that it could overturn the state's election results.

Every so often, I’ll get a customer who does this: “I’d like a 24 ounce Hawaiian salted caramel latte with a dash of French vanilla, three shots of caffeinated and one shot of decaf, no foam, extra, extra hot.” 🥤
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Piece o’ cake. So I’ll schmooze with the customer while he watches me make it, then as I set it on the counter and say; “That’ll be $5.75,” he says “Is it possible to get that with almond milk? I’m lacto-intolerant.”
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That’s what Trump pulled last night, only on an astronomical scale. He’s had since last spring to put his 2¢ worth in on the second round of stimulus, but he waited until the latte was brewed and steaming on the countertop before mentioning a milk alternative.
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But with Trump, it’s never as simple as it seems. This wasn’t forgetfulness. His veto threat and subsequent demand for $2,000.00 per person against Congress’ $600.00 figure was conceived from multiple angles—NONE of which was over any actual concern he has for you and me.
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1) First and foremost, it was a shiv between Mitch McConnell’s ribs. How DARE you congratulate Joe Biden as the president elect while I’m saying the election was rigged? I may be forced to leave next month, but if you’re not gonna support me all the way, I’m gonna leave a little puddle of pee on the Senate floor for you to wade through... just to remember me by.
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2) Ever the populist, ever the manipulator, ever the narcissist, he tried to make *us* Mitch’s problem. ‘Mitch wants to give you $600.00, I want to give you more than three times that. Whose side are you on?’ As my dearly departed lawyer friend used to say; the turd is now in McConnell’s pocket, and it’s starting to stink.
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In defense of my occasional forgetful customers, hey, it happens. Some of it is even my own fault for being such a chatty barista. And at six bucks down the drain, it’s not the end of the world (but that Maui salted caramel costs a fortune 😫 !
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But in the case of Donald Trump vs Mitch McConnell, he knew EXACTLY what he was doing. He knew it would play right into Speaker Pelosi’s hands—a common tactic of the narcissist—divide and conquer (or perhaps more accurately in Trump’s case: chaos by division). You may THINK you’ve reached an agreement! But I’m not done with you yet.
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He knew it would make every Republican who isn’t onboard the conspiracy crazytrain rue the day they first heard of Donald Trump. And he knew by dangling an additional $1,400.00 over McConnell’s figure, he was throwing a ginormous wrench into the machinery, just three days before Christmas, twenty-eight days before he exits the stage, during a pandemic that he’s exacerbated with his indifference—a day after Congress has left town for the holidays.
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Captain Chaos strikes again.
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This one’s all yours, Mitch.
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In the end, it’s always, always, ALWAYS about him. Don’t get your hopes up about that $2,000.00 check America, he’s just pandering to your needs to punish McConnell for his “disloyalty.” Unless you can offer him some way of short-circuiting his date with destiny, he couldn’t care less about you, your kids, your mortgage, or whether you live or die.

“With these 100 million additional doses, the United States will be able to protect more individuals and hopefully end this devastating pandemic more quickly,” Pfizer chairman and CEO Albert Bourla said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing our work with the U.S. government and healthcare providers around the country.”

“Securing more doses from Pfizer and BioNTech for delivery in the second quarter of 2021 further expands our supply of doses across the Operation Warp Speed portfolio,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement.

“This new federal purchase can give Americans even more confidence that we will have enough supply to vaccinate every American who wants it by June 2021,” Azar added.

“This is a major political problem for House Democrats and Nancy Pelosi,” Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), the incoming chairman of the Republican Study Committee, told The Hill, adding it won’t go away “until Eric Swalwell goes away.”

“We're going to continue to talk about this as long as he remains on the House Intelligence Committee, because the Speaker Pelosi still needs to give real answers to some of the serious questions like when did she know about Swalwell’s relationship with a Chinese spy,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) told The Hill.

"Defendants’ efforts to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters — targeting cities with large Black populations, including Detroit, Michigan, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Atlanta, Georgia — repeat the worst abuses in our nation’s history, where Black Americans were denied a voice in American democracy for most of the first two centuries of the Republic," the new lawsuit reads.

“In normal circumstances, it is one more indication of the peaceful transfer of power and the depth of our respect for democracy,” said John Podesta, who as President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff welcomed President-elect George W. Bush and his top aides to the White House on Dec. 19, 2000, a meeting that was delayed by the Florida recount and court challenges to the election results.

But Biden, Podesta said, would have little to gain from meeting with Trump, who still hasn’t conceded. “My view would be, why bother?” he said.

A new SurveyUSA poll in Goergia finds Jon Ossoff (D) leading Sen. David Perdue (R) in their U.S. Senate runoff, 51% to 46%.

In the other Senate runoff, Raphael Warnock (D) leads Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R), 52% to 45%

From the pollster: “Georgia is a hot mess and no opinion pollster could possibly say what will happen when votes are counted in 2 weeks… Any outcome is possible, including victories for the 2 Republican incumbent US Senators. But: the polling data at this hour does not support that, and heading into Christmas week, Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock appear to be benefiting — at least momentarily — from a GOP cacophony.”