Biden is president. Kamala Harris makes history as first woman, first South Asian, and first African American vice president.
Republicans are wasting no time in showing their true colors. McConnell pulls a stunt on Day One to block Democrats from taking over the majority on committees.
Yes, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were sworn in as president and vice president this past week, but Chairman Sanders stole the inauguration and became an instant internet meme with his winter coat and mittens.
Speaking of Chairman Sanders, he started Biden’s presidency by waving two big middle fingers to everyone’s “unity talk.” Senator Sanders wasted no time threatening Republicans with reconciliation if they do not agree with COVID relief. Sanders stated that Republicans used budget reconciliation to push tax-cuts through for the rich and that Democrats will use the process to help working families.
Earlier today, Biden lifted the Trump ban on transgender individuals serving openly in the military.
As we go LIVE, the House has delivered the article of impeachment against former president Donald Trump to the Senate. Apparently, Chief Justice Roberts was unwilling or uninterested in presiding over a second trial. The Constitution says the Chief Justice is to preside over a sitting president but does not spell out what happens in a trial against a former president. Senator Leahy has been tapped to be the presiding officer.
Joe Biden is making in-roads with labor in ways that previous administrations haven’t. On his first day in office, Biden fired Peter Robb, the former head of the National Labor Relations Board. Robb was a corporate lawyer who helped Rondal Regan fire thousands of air-traffic controllers in the 1980’s. Robb was just replaced with Peter Ohr as interim head of the NLRB. Ohr made waves in a ruling that allowed Northwestern University football players to unionize.
Big Twitter-verse controversy over #ForceTheVote leads to frustrating debate between Sam Seder of the Majority Report and Briahna Joy Gray, former national press secretary for the Bernie Sanders campaign. The debate took place on Bad Faith podcast, which Briahna Joy Gray co-hosts with Virgil Texas from Chapo Traphouse.
Documents obtained by Pennsylvania Spotlight showed that Pennsylvania Senate Republicans spent over $1 million in legal fees to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters. That’s right. They spent your tax dollars to stop you from voting last year.
On Friday night, it was reported in the New York Times that an unnamed Pennsylvania Politician played a key role in trying to stage a coup within the Department of Justice in order to force Georgia to overturn their election results.
It turns out that in a follow-up reporting, it was Scott Perry who aided Trump in trying to fire the senior staff at the Department of Justice to install a Trump loyalist who was willing to overturn the Georgia election results.
The plot thickens in the case against Riley Williams, the 22-year-old Harrisburg area woman who took part in the Capitol insurrection, allegedly stole Nancy Pelosi’s laptop, and then tried to sell it to Russia. According to DC-based NBC investigative reporter, Scott MacFarlane, Williams, who was released on bail under the supervision of her mother, hopped on the internet and encourage people involved in the insurrection to destroy evidence. MacFarlane reported on Twitter that the U.S. Justice Department told the judge in the case just that as they sought to prohibit Williams’s internet access.
We’re not out of the woods, but PA saw the lowest number of new cases of COVID-19 and the lowest number of deaths in weeks.
On today’s last call: what’s new at Free Will Brewing; Levante Brewing stout haul; cooking with Sean; and other randomness.