Below the fold – Mar 9, 2021

  • by

Below The Fold: The news that do not make the headlines but is important. By PL Hade.

  1. “The Democrats didn’t fail to get Republican support. Republicans failed to support the American Every Senate race in every state is now local.
    • The 50 GOP Senators who voted against the Covid19 Relief Bill represent 43,279,000 fewer US people than the 50 Democratic Senators who voted for it.
    • Republican Senators Haven’t Represented a Majority of Voters Since 1996“
    • Today, the 50 members of the Democratic caucus represent 56.5% of the 50-state population compared to only 43.5% for the chamber’s 50 Republicans.” https://www.dailykos.com/…/-How-minority-rule-plagues…
    • 5 GOP Senators are retiring: Senator Roy Blunt (R-Missouri) announced yesterday that he will not run for reelection in 2022. https://www.politico.com/…/gop-sen-roy-blunt-will-not…
    • Richard Burr (R-NC), Pat Toomey (R-Pa), Richard Shelby (R-AL) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) are also not running for reelection.
  2. In court filing, ICE says it is effectively ending use of family detention. ICE disclosed that it is transitioning family detention centers to short-term facilities that will release families after no more than 72 hours. https://www.nbcnews.com/…/court-filing-ice-says-it…
  3. Highlights of the $1.9T COVID bill https://apnews.com/…/joe-biden-personal-taxes…
    • From Tom Malinowski: Actually, the states facing the biggest COVID-related revenue loss, and that need this help the most, are Texas (-10.4%) and Florida (-11.3%). GOP leaders will pocket this funding for their states (you’re welcome), while continuing the big lie that it’s a “blue state bailout.”
  4. Cellphone records tie far-right Proud Boys member to someone in Trump White House in the days before they attacked and stormed the Capitol on January 6. https://news.yahoo.com/cellphone-records-tie-proud-boys…
  5. Far-Right Misinformation Is Thriving On Facebook. A New Study Shows Just How Much “It’s almost twice as much engagement per follower among the sources that have a reputation for spreading misinformation.” To be clear the study did not attempt to separate the engagement with misinformation posts into positive comments/shares and those comments that sought to correct the misinformation nor whether the same people tended to comment/share misinformation. But it does seem that the people who propagate lies very actively use Facebook. https://www.npr.org/…/far-right-misinformation-is…
  6. There are a lot of claims from the GOP about what HR1 does. Most of those claims are wrong.
    • “The bill does not prohibit states from having voter identification requirements. Rather, it requires states to allow voters who do not show ID to instead submit a signed statement under penalty of perjury attesting to their identity and eligibility to vote.”
    • The bill does not change current law that bans people who aren’t citizens of the United States, including undocumented immigrants, from voting in federal elections.
    • The bill requires states to accept mail-in ballots that arrive up to 10 days after Election Day only if these ballots are mailed on or before Election Day.
    • The Democrats’ bill does not require states to send out ballots that voters have not explicitly solicited. Rather, the bill requires states to give all voters the option of requesting a mail-in ballot without an excuse. https://www.cnn.com/…/fact-check-pence…/index.html
  7. The first major move is expected over the next three weeks, officials said, with a series of clandestine actions across Russian networks that are intended to be evident to Putin and his intelligence services and military but not to the wider world. https://www.nytimes.com/…/microsoft-solarwinds-hack…
  8. “Private executioners paid in cash. Middle-of-the-night killings. False or incomplete justifications. ProPublica obtained court records showing how the outgoing administration used its final days to execute the most federal prisoners since World War II.” https://www.propublica.org/…/inside-trump-and-barrs…
  9. Covid19
    • 529,560 Americans have died from Covid19
    • NJ: 3434 new positives
    • Rate of Transmission 1.05 THIS IS THE FOURTH DAY IN A ROW THAT OUR TRANSMISSION RATE IS OVER 1
    • Counties with the highest positives: Bergen 453, Monmouth 423, Middlesex 326
    • This is typical of what we’re seeing from Medical Professionals.
      1. Spring Break in Florida is a very, very bad idea.
      2. VERY WORRIED FOR FLORIDA/US—More contagious #B117 is rising quickly, & exponentially replacing the old dying #SARSCoV2 common strain. B117 affects kids, & 64% more severe. B117 now over 40%—dominant in days. A new surge is coming.
      3. COVID-19’s Big Fat Non-Surprise: tip-toeing around the linkage of coronavirus mortality and obesity doesn’t do anyone any favors.“… the World Obesity Federation issued a report showing that there is a clear link between excess body weight, especially obesity, and COVID-19 mortality.” https://thebulwark.com/covid-19s-big-fat-non-surprise/
      4. The US will finally have a national Covid testing strategy. https://www.politico.com/…/07/covid-testing-biden-473937https://youtu.be/XQTuFudB028

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *