Tracker

If I were Trump's lawyer, I would want my retainer up front, and a big one, too. The yahoos who presented arguments at the impeachment mistook volume for cogent arguments. Won't affect the outcome, though but I would love to be wrong about that.

Report reveals how Trump's team conspired to protect his interests as COVID-19 ransacked the US Former President Donald Trump's administration is under fire for hindering the government's pandemic response and rolling back Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) coronavirus mitigation guidelines in an effort to protect his interests. According to CNBC News, the latest reports stem from documentation compiled during the House Oversight investigation launched back in September 2020. Based on the documents, the Trump administration is said to have intentionally suppressed COVID-19 testing by rolling back the CDC guidelines. To justify the scaling back of COVID testing, former Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) scientific advisor Paul Alexander argued there was little significance in testing asymptomatic individuals, according to emails obtained by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. Report reveals how Trump's team conspired to protect his interests as COVID-19 ransacked the US - Alternet.org Here is link to the powerful video presented to the US Senate: Watch: House impeachment managers' damning video links Trump's 'Stop the Steal' speech to the Capitol siege - Alternet.org

‘Can’t afford to lose’: Drudge Report takes on Trump The Drudge Report, a staple of conservative power brokers and right wing political leaders for decades, slowly turned anti-Trump starting late last year, stunning GOP stalwarts. Following The New York Times' bombshell about the president paying just $750 in federal taxes in 2016 and 2017, and no taxes for 15 out of 20 years, the Drudge Report on Monday just destroyed Trump. The Drudge Report is essentially a link aggregator, rewriting headlines and combining links to create a very clear picture of what they want readers to see. Here's how it looks right now: "LOST MORE MONEY THAN MADE?" reads one headline from the top of Drudge, about the Times' exposé. "FINANCED EXTRAVAGANT LIFESTYLE WITH USE OF BUSINESS

With handing the Jet audiocast over to CJOB, it sure looks like this was planned for some time.

Watching the CNN coverage of the Trump impeachment trial and the supercut being shown in the Senate is devastatingly ugly.

I hope that witnesses are called to publicly testify under oath as to the full extent of Trump's culpability and insane arrogance and constitutional experts are called to testify as to the complete fallacy of the Trump defenders' defences of his actions. Then, if the GOP senator apologists want to acquit him in the face of all that evidence, they will stand exposed as the frauds and conspirators they are.

Insiders at the GOP report that there is a need to defend Trump because if they do not, no future GOP president would dare to do what Trump has done to favour Republicans, their donors and supporters with illegal acts. An impeachment and conviction would end the erosion of legal process and responsibility that began with Nixon and continued with Reagan and Bush 2. Ignoring of all the illegal stuff that Bush 2 and his cronies has led directly to the Trump abuses of power and confirm that the president of the US is above the law and not hampered by it.

Republicans defend Trump ahead of impeachment trial by blaming Nancy Pelosi for Capitol riot GOP shifts blame to Democrats for Capitol riot, call impeachment a “diversionary operation” As Donald Trump's second impeachment trial looms near, bringing the former president's incitement of insurrection into greater focus once again, members of the GOP are –– in another ambitious act of baseless conspiracy –– deflecting blame onto their Democratic counterparts for the riot and framing impeachment as a "diversionary operation" meant to distract from Democratic culpability. The idea that Democrats, who were chiefly targeted by rioters themselves, are responsible for the riot, is not entirely novel. Shortly after the Jan. 6 riot, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, tried to put House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, under scrutiny, asking in an interview with Fox News, "Where was Nancy Pelosi? It's her job to provide Capitol security." A month later, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Senator Ron Johnson, R-WI, are now taking Graham's cue, leading the charge to position their Democratic colleagues as enablers of the insurrection. Republicans defend Trump ahead of impeachment trial by blaming Nancy Pelosi for Capitol riot | Salon.com

WHO Says It’s Found No Evidence That the Coronavirus Came From Wuhan Lab Reuters/ World Health Organization investigators working in China say they’ve found absolutely no evidence to support the theory that the coronavirus originated in a Wuhan laboratory—and they think it’s such an outlandish theory that they’re going to bring an end to their research into it. Peter Ben Embarek, an animal-diseases expert, announced the decision during a press conference following a long-awaited visit by WHO experts to the city of Wuhan, where the virus was first identified. Embarek said it’s “extremely unlikely” that the virus came from a lab, and that the most likely cause of the initial outbreak was the virus jumping from an undetermined “intermediary host species” to humans. The lab-origin theory was fueled by the U.S. State Department under President Donald Trump, which claimed last month that it had obtained intelligence that researchers at the lab became sick with COVID-19-like symptoms in autumn 2019.

I was in BestBuy on the weekend and saw those multi-function remotes on sale. I picked one up and thought to myself, "This changes everything!" "

And it will make little to no difference in Alberta politics.

There is a downside to the Democrats steamrolling the GOP. The GOP and their adherents have been wringing their hands and crying that they have been victimized for decades, even during the Trump ascendancy. They now can amplify their jeremiads and this will likely provoke their rabid followers to even more violence.

New Variants Raise Worry About COVID-19 Virus Reinfections. Scientists discovered a new version of the virus in South Africa that’s more contagious and less susceptible to certain treatments. Evidence is mounting that having COVID-19 may not protect against getting infected again with some of the new variants. People also can get second infections with earlier versions of the coronavirus if they mounted a weak defense the first time, new research suggests. How long immunity lasts from natural infection is one of the big questions in the pandemic. Scientists still think reinfections are fairly rare and usually less serious than initial ones, but recent developments around the world have raised concerns. In South Africa, a vaccine study found new infections with a variant in 2% of people who previously had an earlier version of the virus. In Brazil, several similar cases were documented with a new variant there. Researchers are exploring whether reinfections help explain a recent surge in the city of Manaus, where three-fourths of residents were thought to have been previously infected. In the United States, a study found that 10% of Marine recruits who had evidence of prior infection and repeatedly tested negative before starting basic training were later infected again. That work was done before the new variants began to spread, said one study leader, Dr. Stuart Sealfon of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. “Previous infection does not give you a free pass,” he said. “A substantial risk of reinfection remains.” New Variants Raise Worry About COVID-19 Virus Reinfections | HuffPost

At first glance, I wanted to agree with you, but the situation in Vancouver is not good,

With the core of the team returning, the Bombers have to be considered favourites to repeat.

Trump has become lost in his fantasy world. There's enough material here to keep a convention of psychiatrists busy for awhile.

In the next few months we are going to find out if the Democrats and America have the moral grit to put their house in order or if the corruption is so deep and broad that it has infected the whole American political system.

Mutations occur within living hosts- not in the environment. Therefore, if you prevent the initial virus from surviving in the host long enough to mutate, the problem is prevented.

A lot of "ifs", but if we here in Canada vaccinate a high percentage of us, herd immunity will ensure that any inbound transmission will likely die out quickly (poor choice of words) or be very localized.

Legal analyst explains how Trump stepped into a trap with refusal to testify at his impeachment trial Early Saturday morning, MSNBC legal analyst Danny Cevallos suggested Donald Trump walked into a trap with his refusal to appear and testify at his second impeachment trial which starts next Tuesday. Speaking with hosts Kendis Gibson and Lindsey Reiser, the defense attorney stated that House impeachment manager, Rep. Jamie Raskin (R-MD) executed "constitutional jiu-jitsu" by asking the former president to appear as opposed to subpoenaing him. "How much could Trump's absence, actually, hurt him, in this case next week?" the attorney was asked. "Jamie Raskin is using a great bit of constitutional jujitsu here," Cevallos replied. "They did not issue a subpoena, they just requested or invited him to come testify and President Trump declined. This is not a subpoena situation, but, you know, in our parallel-judicial courts, we have a principle: in criminal cases only that the prosecution and the judge cannot comment on an accused's silence at a criminal trial. But in civil cases, that comment or that inference, that negative inference from a defendant's silence, is allowed." "Beyond that, the president or former president isn't even being compelled to come speak or testify at this impeachment," he continued. "And the reality is, whereas in judicial court, we have centuries of case law and bound volumes of books like the ones behind me telling today's courts what to do, the Senate is bound by none of that. They are bound by whatever the head count is of their votes in today's Senate." $2.8 Million In Trump Reelection Donations Went To The Trump Organization: Report An estimated $2.8 million in contributions to Donald Trump’s reelection campaign ended up in the coffers of his heavily indebted Trump Organization, Forbes reported Friday. Additionally, $4.3 million raised by his campaign’s joint-fundraising committee, which collected money with the Republican Party, was spent on Trump’s businesses from Jan. 20, 2017, to Dec. 31, 2020, according to Forbes’ examination of campaign filings to the Federal Election Commission. The committee spent $11,000 on Trump hotels days after he lost the presidential election — and an additional $294,000 a week later for lodging, catering and space rental, Forbes noted. Forbes reported mid-year in 2020 that $2.2 million in donations from his campaign alone had already been spent on Trump properties. The Washington Post reported in early December that more than $1.06 million in campaign contributions were spent on Trump businesses in just the last weeks of his race. Trump never contributed “a cent” to his reelection campaign, Forbes reported. Trump raised $76 million after his loss ostensibly to battle the presidential election results and to help the Republican candidates in the vital Senate races in Georgia — but didn’t spend a dime on any of it, HuffPost has reported. “He put nothing back. He didn’t care,” one top Republican familiar with the fundraising operation told HuffPost. “He put all this money in the bank for his own legal fights.” Campaign contribution totals spent on Trump properties during his presidency have ranged from $10.5 million to nearly $17 million. $2.8 Million In Trump Reelection Donations Went To The Trump Organization: Report | HuffPost Canada (huffingtonpost.ca)

That and the park wardens carrying automatic weapons.

I have a problem with anyone who has admittedly drugged and robbed people.