December 24, 2020

Golf club-tosser arrested on I-75 after slugging trooper, Highway Patrol says

Jonathan Edward Day of North Port was throwing clubs at traffic as he drove his van north through Hillsborough County, troopers said.

A 41-year-old North Port man was arrested on charges including battery on a law officer after slugging a trooper who had pulled him over for tossing golf clubs into traffic, the Florida Highway Patrol said.

The trooper was on patrol when he received a complaint about 1:15 p.m. Wednesday that a motorist was throwing golf clubs out of his vehicle toward adjacent traffic while driving north on Interstate 75 near the Sun City Center interchange.

About 25 miles north near the Fowler Avenue interchange, the trooper spotted the vehicle — a white 1999 Ford Van with a “cherry-picker” boom and basket attached.

The trooper pulled over the van, and the driver — later identified as Jonathan Edward Day of North Port — confronted him with a golf club, the Highway Patrol said. Day initially complied with the trooper’s order to put the club down but resisted as the trooper tried to take him into custody, striking the trooper with his fist and pulling at his uniform and radio, the Highway Patrol said.

The trooper used his stun gun to subdue Day.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/crime/2020/12/24/golf-club-tosser-arrested-on-i-75-after-slugging-trooper-highway-patrol-says/

Must have had a pretty lousy round on the course.

December 24, 2020

Greyhound racing in Florida ends next week, but what will happen to the dogs?

The 1,200 racing greyhounds in Florida will either be adopted out or go to race in one of three remaining states with the sport. But exact breakdowns are unknown.

Nearly a century of greyhound racing at St. Petersburg’s Derby Lane ends for good Sunday with a 12:30 p.m. matinee. The final race in the state will take place at Palm Beach Kennel Club on New Year’s Eve at 11:59 p.m., the very last minute allowed by law.

In November 2018, Floridians voted overwhelmingly to pass Amendment 13, which would ban greyhound racing in the state by the end of 2020. Since then, nine Florida tracks have already ended the practice, leaving the final two in the state running about 1,200 dogs down to the wire.

As greyhound racing in Florida phased out over the past two years, most owners have retired and adopted out their dogs, according to animal welfare advocates and industry players. A smaller number sent their animals to the handful of other states that still had the sport. But the exact journey of hundreds of former Florida racing greyhounds is impossible to know. The Department of Business and Professional Regulation, which oversees the industry, does not keep a paper trail on the animals.

What is certain, however, is adoptions of Florida greyhounds have been just as political as the campaign that forced their permanent retirements. Adoption groups that supported the passage of Amendment 13 have been blacklisted from receiving dogs retiring from tracks, with the National Greyhound Association only endorsing groups that are pro-racing or neutral on the matter, executive director Jim Gartland confirmed.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida/2020/12/23/greyhound-racing-in-florida-ends-next-week-but-what-will-happen-to-the-dogs/

December 24, 2020

First woman to command a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier slated to lead USS Abraham Lincoln

Source: San Diego Union-Tribune

Capt. Amy Bauernschmidt previously served as the carrier’s executive officer

Navy Capt. Amy Bauernschmidt, who was selected earlier in December to be the first woman to command a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, has been assigned command of the San Diego-base USS Abraham Lincoln, the Navy announced Wednesday.

Bauernschmidt previously served as the Lincoln’s executive officer — another first for a woman — from 2016-2019. After leaving the Lincoln, Bauernschmidt served as the commanding officer of the amphibious transport dock USS San Diego, a command she left in October.

“I am incredibly honored and humbled to be selected,” Bauernschmidt said in a statement. “I love leading sailors and I take that responsibility extremely seriously.”

Bauernschmidt graduated from the Naval Academy in 1994. Women from that class, the Navy said, were the first to serve on combatant ships and aircraft. She trained as a helicopter pilot and spent much of her early flying career with helicopter squadrons at Naval Air Station North Island.

Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/military/story/2020-12-23/first-woman-to-command-a-nuclear-powered-aircraft-carrier-slated-to-lead-san-diego-based-uss-abraham-lincoln

December 24, 2020

With video filmed in secret, Trump keeps sowing chaos

The video was released without warning Tuesday night, its recording orchestrated by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and kept from all but a handful of aides.

The video message that plunged Washington into chaos was filmed in secret.

President Donald Trump stood in the White House’s Diplomatic Reception Room, holiday garland and gleaming ornaments draped on the fireplace behind him. He spoke into the camera not to deliver warm Christmas wishes, but to threaten to detonate Congress’ $900 billion COVID-19 relief and year-end package.

The video was released without warning Tuesday night, its recording orchestrated by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and kept from all but a handful of aides. On Wednesday, few Republicans or even White House staffers knew what Trump plans next, in a return to the around-the-clock chaos of his first months in office.

The moment was also a flashback to the start of Trump’s political career, when he delivered direct assaults on GOP leadership and the party’s establishment. Now Trump appears willing to do that again on his way out of office, potentially sabotaging his party’s chances of controlling the Senate as he lashes out in anger at those he believes have not supported his efforts to overturn the election.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/nation-world/2020/12/23/with-video-filmed-in-secret-trump-keeps-sowing-chaos/

December 23, 2020

Pence is leaving the country 6 January

Supposedly after Congress certifies the election results.

I find this not only very curious but also very suspicious, as in he's planning something that will not be popular with the majority of voters.

I would not put it past him to do Trump's bidding on that day, and then get the hell out of Dodge.

December 23, 2020

More than 3 million will die in the U.S. during 2020, by far the most ever

It would be the largest single-year percentage leap since 1918, when tens of thousands of soldiers died in World War I and hundreds of thousands died in a flu pandemic.

This is the deadliest year in U.S. history, with deaths expected to top 3 million for the first time — due mainly to the coronavirus pandemic.

Final mortality data for this year will not be available for months. But preliminary numbers suggest that the United States is on track to see more than 3.2 million deaths this year, or at least 400,000 more than in 2019.

U.S. deaths increase most years, so some annual rise in fatalities is expected. But the 2020 numbers amount to a jump of about 15 percent, and could go higher once all the deaths from this month are counted.

That would mark the largest single-year percentage leap since 1918, when tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers died in World War I and hundreds of thousands of Americans died in a flu pandemic. Deaths rose 46 percent that year, compared with 1917.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/12/22/more-than-3-million-will-die-in-the-us-during-2020-by-far-the-most-ever/

December 23, 2020

Say it ain't so!

December 22, 2020

Trumpworld Wants to Primary GOP Gov. Brian Kemp

Bristling at his defeat in Georgia, President Donald Trump increasingly believes that Gov. Brian Kemp has not done enough to deliver him a victory or challenge the state’s election results. Now, sources close to the president—and Republicans in Georgia—say it is a foregone conclusion that Trump will help stand up a primary challenger to Kemp when the Republican is up for re-election in 2022.

“It’s a fait accompli,” said one veteran Trump political adviser.

According to two people who’ve discussed Kemp with the president this month, Trump has largely focused on how Kemp would be “nothing” without him or his endorsement in the 2018 gubernatorial primary. The president has also mentioned that he’s looking forward to fundraising and campaigning against Kemp in Georgia, in the likelihood that a GOP primary challenger emerges.

One of the sources said that Trump had privately compared his desire to see Kemp’s political future ruined to how he wanted to see the political implosion of his former attorney general, Jeff Sessions, during an attempted comeback this year in Alabama.

Kemp’s office did not respond to a request for comment from The Daily Beast. But not everyone allied with the president thought that challenging the governor would be a good idea.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumpworld-wants-to-primary-gop-gov-brian-kemp

Ha ha ha.

December 22, 2020

How Melania Trump Destroys Her Friends

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff considered Melania Trump a friend—more than a friend, really. Wolkoff even followed Melania to Washington, D.C., helping produce the 2017 inauguration and advise the incoming first lady. But when the stories started coming out about the insane overspending during the inauguration, Wolkoff says Melania threw her to the wolves—allowing Wolkoff to take the blame in the press and kicking her out of the White House.

“I begged her to just come out and say that I was her friend, I was loyal. Nope, nothing. So the betrayal, the pain of that was like—I gave up my whole life for this woman. No one else would help Melania. I mean, she was alone,” Wolkoff tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “I should've known better. She is just like her husband.”

So Wolkoff began taping her calls with Melania—calls which formed some of the bedrock for her book, Melania and Me. Improbably, Wolkoff and the first lady kept talking, even after Wolkoff was cast out.

When Melania wore that instantly infamous “I Don’t Care” jacket on a trip to a center for migrant kids, Wolkoff called.

Their mutual friend, the fashion designer Herve Pierre, was being attacked online for the fiasco because he had made dresses for Melania in the past. But this jacket was a $39 item from Zara. Wolkoff asked the first lady: Would she clear things up? Say something in public?

Melania admits that Pierre “had nothing to do with that jacket.” But she declines to make any kind of statement on his behalf. Instead, Melania laughs, “I'm driving liberals crazy, that's for sure. And you know… they deserve it.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-melania-trump-destroys-her-friends

December 22, 2020

The Ghost of Sabotage Future

This winter’s economy won’t be as grim as feared, but what about after?

By Paul Krugman

The not-a-stimulus deal Congress reached over the weekend — seriously, this is about disaster relief, not boosting the economy — didn’t come a moment too soon. Actually, it came much too late: Crucial aid to many unemployed Americans and businesses expired months ago. But now some of that aid is back, for a while.

True, the aid will be less generous than it was in the spring and summer: $300 a week in enhanced unemployment benefits, rather than $600. But because the workers still out of a job as a result of the pandemic tended to have low earnings even before the coronavirus struck, they will, on average, be receiving something like 85 percent of their pre-Covid-19 income.

By the way, although the one-time $600 checks to a much wider group of Americans are getting much of the media coverage, they account for only a small percentage of the overall expense and are far less crucial than the unemployment benefits to keeping families afloat.

So what’s not to like about this relief package? There’s some dumb stuff, like a tax break for corporate meal expenses — fighting a deadly pandemic with three-martini lunches. But the serious problem with this deal is that economic aid will end far too soon: Enhanced unemployment benefits will last just 11 weeks. And the process by which the deal was reached has ominous implications for the future.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/21/opinion/republicans-covid-stimulus.html