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Open thread Jan. 11, 2022

Dan Crawford | January 11, 2022 6:31 am

Comments (14) | Digg Facebook Twitter |
14 Comments
  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    January 11, 2022 at 8:07 am

    Biden Will Endorse Changing Senate Rules to Pass Voting Rights Legislation

    NY Times – Jan 11

    (It appears this still needs full support of all Senate Dems however.)

    In Georgia, the president will express support for altering rules around the Senate filibuster, setting up a confrontation with Republicans. 

    President Biden will endorse changing Senate rules to pass new voting rights protections during a speech in Atlanta on Tuesday, the most significant step he will have taken to pressure lawmakers to act on an issue he has called the biggest test of America’s democracy since the Civil War.

    Mr. Biden will not go so far as to call for full-scale elimination of the filibuster, a Senate tradition that allows the minority party to kill legislation that fails to garner 60 votes, according to a senior administration official who previewed the speech. But Mr. Biden will say he supports a filibuster “carve-out” in the case of voting rights, the official said. …

    • Fred C. Dobbs says:
      January 11, 2022 at 8:12 am

      … Mr. Biden faces huge obstacles in getting the legislation past Republican opposition. Even with his new call for a filibuster carve-out, changing the Senate rules would require the support of all 50 Democrats and the vote of Vice President Kamala Harris to break a tie.

      Senators Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, both Democrats, have expressed strong public opposition to changing filibuster rules. …

      Aware of mounting frustrations among his allies who say he has not done enough as restrictive voting measures pass through Republican-led statehouses around the country, Mr. Biden’s advisers have promised that he will be forceful about his support for two voting rights bills that could beat back those efforts. …

      • Fred C. Dobbs says:
        January 11, 2022 at 10:50 am

        (Maybe SD GOP Senator Mike Rounds – re-elected in 2020 – will be a cross-over vote for the ‘filibuster carve-out’, and Mitt Romney also, who supports Rounds.)

        GOP Senator Undermines Trump’s Fraud Claims: ‘The Election Was Fair’

        Mitt Romney defended GOP senator whom Donald Trump called a ‘jerk’

         

  • ltr says:
    January 11, 2022 at 10:10 am

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-01-11/Chinese-mainland-records-192-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-16JbfhV4Lba/index.html

     

    January 11, 2022

     

    Chinese mainland reports 192 new COVID-19 cases

     

    The Chinese mainland recorded 192 confirmed COVID-19 cases on Monday, with 110 linked to local transmissions and 82 from overseas, data from the National Health Commission showed on Tuesday.

     

    A total of 50 new asymptomatic cases were also recorded, and 721 asymptomatic patients remain under medical observation.

     

    Confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland now total 103,968, with the death toll remaining unchanged at 4,636 since January last year.

     

    Chinese mainland new locally transmitted cases

     

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-01-11/Chinese-mainland-records-192-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-16JbfhV4Lba/img/e965b6c0601b4be386b6724724aaf673/e965b6c0601b4be386b6724724aaf673.jpeg

     

    Chinese mainland new imported cases

     

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-01-11/Chinese-mainland-records-192-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-16JbfhV4Lba/img/563afa5186f341508f308024a45adc61/563afa5186f341508f308024a45adc61.jpeg

     

    Chinese mainland new asymptomatic cases

     

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-01-11/Chinese-mainland-records-192-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-16JbfhV4Lba/img/aeac8d77a7604c6ba1dc3b8f071e92d8/aeac8d77a7604c6ba1dc3b8f071e92d8.jpeg

    • EMichael says:
      January 13, 2022 at 5:27 am

      I don’t believe a single thing coming out of China.

      • Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
        January 14, 2022 at 6:43 am

        EMike,

        Was that in reference to manufactured goods from China or manufactured bads from China?

  • ltr says:
    January 11, 2022 at 10:11 am

    http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/20220111/a64f29a952214ddaa56f151efc9092ad/c.html

     

    January 11, 2022

     

    Over 2.9 bln COVID-19 vaccine doses administered on Chinese mainland

     

    BEIJING — More than 2.9 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses had been administered on the Chinese mainland as of Monday, data from the National Health Commission showed Tuesday.

     

    [ Chinese coronavirus vaccine yearly production capacity is more than 7 billion doses. Along with over 2.9 billion doses of Chinese vaccines administered domestically, more than 2 billion doses have already been distributed to more than 120 countries internationally. Nineteen countries are now producing Chinese vaccines from delivered raw materials. ]

  • ltr says:
    January 11, 2022 at 10:13 am

    January 10, 2022

    Coronavirus

    United States

    Cases   ( 62,661,272)
    Deaths   ( 861,336)

    Deaths per million   ( 2,579)

    China

    Cases   ( 103,776)
    Deaths   ( 4,636)

    Deaths per million   ( 3)

  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    January 12, 2022 at 6:33 pm

    Trump abruptly ends NPR interview after he is pressed on baseless election fraud claims

    Washington Post (via Boston Globe) – Jan 12

    Former president Donald Trump abruptly ended an interview with NPR on Tuesday after he was pressed on his baseless claims of election fraud and repeated contention that the 2020 election was “rigged” against him.

    Trump hung up on “Morning Edition” host Steve Inskeep nine minutes into what NPR said was scheduled to be a 15-minute interview that was broadcast Wednesday.

    After several lines of questioning related to Trump’s widely debunked election claims, Inskeep asked Trump if he would endorse only Republican candidates this year who are pressing his case that the 2020 contest against Joe Biden was stolen from him. 

    “Is that an absolute?” Inskeep asked.

    Trump responded that the candidates “that are smart” are going to press his case, citing Kari Lake, a Republican gubernatorial candidate in Arizona. Lake, a former news anchor, has parroted Trump’s baseless claims about election fraud. 

    “She’s very big on this issue,” Trump said. “She’s leading by a lot. People have no idea how big this issue is, and they don’t want it to happen again. … And the only way it’s not going to happen again is you have to solve the problem of the presidential rigged election of 2020.” 

    As Inskeep sought to interject, Trump said, “So, Steve, thank you very much. I appreciate it.” He then hung up, prompting Inskeep to protest.

    “Whoa, whoa, whoa, I have one more question,” Inskeep said, adding that he wanted to talk about a court hearing related to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol. …

    • run75441 says:
      January 12, 2022 at 7:19 pm

      Fred:

      Thanks for posting this story. Not surprised by trump’s hit and run.

  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    January 12, 2022 at 7:19 pm

    A penny for the old guy…

    Libor, Long the Most Important Number in Finance, Dies at 52

    NY Times – Jan 12

    The London interbank offered rate, a number that spent decades as a central force of international finance and was used in setting interest rates on everything from mortgages to student loans, has died after a long battle with regulators. It was 52.

    Known as Libor, the interest-rate benchmark once underpinned more than $300 trillion in financial contracts but was undone after a yearslong market-rigging scandal came to light in 2008. It turned out that bankers had been coordinating with one another to manipulate the rate, pronounced “LIE-bore,” by skewing the number higher or lower for their banks’ gain. …

  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    January 13, 2022 at 2:47 pm

    Senator Sinema takes center stage…

    Washington Post via Boston Globe – Jan 13

    Democrats’ hopes of passing voting rights legislation – after months of Republican opposition – were crushed on Thursday after Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema announced that she would not support changing the Senate rules, which allow a minority of senators to block legislation.

    Sinema’s position, outlined in a midday floor speech, echoed her previous public statements where she defended the filibuster, the Senate’s 60-vote supermajority rule, as a tool to facilitate bipartisan cooperation and guard against wild swings in federal policy.

    But the circumstances in which she reiterated it – as Senate Democratic leaders prepared to launch a decisive floor debate and less than an hour before President Joe Biden was scheduled to arrive on Capitol Hill to deliver a final, forceful appeal for action – put an exclamation point on her party’s long and fruitless effort to counter restrictive Republican-passed state voting laws. 

    “While I continue to support these bills, I will not support separate actions that worsen the underlying disease of division infecting our country,” Sinema said. 

    She later added: “We must address the disease itself, the disease of division, to protect our democracy, and it cannot be achieved by one party alone. It cannot be achieved solely by the federal government. The response requires something greater and, yes, more difficult than what the Senate is discussing today.” …

    (There is no particular need to over-complicate this. The problem is the Filibuster which is really quite undemocratic, and should be eliminated entirely. For every Dem who refuses to do anything about this, some noble GOP senator should step in, as John McCain might have.)

    • Fred C. Dobbs says:
      January 13, 2022 at 5:07 pm

      As Mitch McConnell said yesterday, he has 52 senators who are not going to go along with ditching the Filibuster.

      It seems like he actually is Senate Majority Leader.

    • run75441 says:
      January 13, 2022 at 11:58 pm

      Fred:

      I am in AZ now. I have yet to pen a letter to Ms. Sinema. I do not believe the Senator will like the tone of it; but then, I do not give a damn. She works against her constituents in a cruel manner. Why run as a Dem if you are opposed to its beliefs? She should have been an independent or a Repub. Unless she was like Marjorie, I doubt she would last long. Her stance is stupid and lacks foundation.

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