Free COVID Vaccines Coming to NC (Supplies Limited)
Everything you need to know for Wednesday, Dec. 2: NDOs, let's go + Schumer blames Cal + Biden's stimulus dreams run through Georgia
Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2020
8 days until Hanukkah
12 days until the Electoral College votes
23 days until Christmas
29 days until this cursed year ends
49 days until this cursed presidency is over
Today’s Number: $2.5 million
Amount Fred N. Eshelman, the founder of the Wilmington-based PPD, donated to True the Vote, a pro-Trump group claiming to fight “election fraud.” After the organization dropped its lawsuits in Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Eschelman sued to get his money back.
ABOVE THE FOLD
—> Free COVID Vaccines, Coming in January
At a Tuesday presser, Governor Cooper and DHHS Secretary Mandy Cohen announced that the state will probably get the first batch of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccines in January, and they’ll be free regardless of health insurance coverage. The first 85,000 doses will go to health care workers in high-risk settings as well as clinical and janitorial staff.
Later doses will go to people with multiple chronic conditions, students and educators, migrant workers in congregate living conditions, people with one chronic condition, then everyone else.
The timing depends on when the vaccines are approved and how much and how quickly the pharma companies can manufacture them.
Read North Carolina’s vaccine plan here.
—> MEANWHILE: A CDC panel recommended that health care workers and residents and employees of nursing homes be the first to receive the vaccine.
“States are not required to follow the panel’s recommendations, but they usually do. The final decision will rest with governors, who are consulting with their top health officials as they complete distribution plans.” (NYT)
LOCAL & STATE
—> NC Cities Can Pass NDOs. Who’s Going First?
In 2016, the General Assembly passed HB 2. One year and one week later, the General Assembly “repealed” HB 2 and passed HB 147, which was marginally less gross. But HB 147 still kept in place a prohibition on local governments passing nondiscrimination ordinances that protect LGBTQ people … until Dec. 1, 2020.
Which was yesterday.
Leaders from the state’s progressive cities are keeping mum.
The N&O: “Transgender and gay rights activists have already been pushing cities to start enacting new protections. Kendra Johnson, executive director of the Raleigh-based LGBT advocacy group Equality NC, said a big focus will be housing. She said landlords shouldn’t be able to deny people housing due to their sexuality or gender identity.”
Equality NC and the Campaign for Southern Equality are “hopeful that even if the Republican-led legislature doesn’t approve, GOP lawmakers won’t stop cities from making their own decisions again, given recent history.”
—> LOOKING AT YOU, DURHAM: The thing about having a governor with a functioning veto pen is that there’s no reason to give a damn what Phil Berger thinks.
—> The Pandemic Is Pushing Some NC Teachers Out
Between February and September, North Carolina lost more than 27,000 education jobs. Not all of them can be chalked up to folks leaving the profession. But some can.
NCAE president Tamika Walker Kelly: “One of the things that we have been seeing are educators who are very concerned about their safety, particularly having to go back into classrooms, and particularly our educators who are high risk for contracting COVID. They’re deciding that it is unsustainable, or because their requirements for accommodation have been denied, they’re deciding to leave the profession through voluntary resignation or retiring early.”
—> Schumer Blames Cunningham’s Libido for Dem Failures
Chuck Schumer, who recruited Cal Cunningham to run for Senate, told party donors that the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Our Man Cal’s inability to keep it in his pants were jointly responsible for the Democrats’ failure to capture the Senate (barring a double victory in Georgia next month).
Axios: “When Ginsburg died, Collins appealed to Democrats, independents, and undecideds by opposing filling her seat until voters picked the next president. … Many thought North Carolina could go blue before news of Cunningham's affair surfaced.”
—> MEANWHILE: The American Prospect is on an Erica-Smith-would’ve-won trip.
—> REALITY CHECK: Schumer is covering his ass with the moneymen. TAP is living in Fantasyland.
Cunningham ran about 20,000 votes behind Joe Biden.
The only swing state in which a Dem Senate candidate outperformed Biden was Arizona. Elsewhere, ticket-splitters disliked Trump but were OK with GOP senators.
Contra Schumer, the sexting scandal only hurt Cunningham at the margins. Contra TAP (and Smith), there’s no evidence a down-ballot progressive would have juiced Dem turnout more than Trump already did.
OTOH: Smith’s critique of the North Carolina Dems—they’re terrible at building a bench, weak with rural voters, and milquetoast as hell—is dead on.
—> RELATED: Mark Walker wants to be the new Richard Burr.
—> The North Carolina Roundup
N.C. State researchers think you can fight COVID-19 with dark chocolate (or green tea, like anyone cares). OK, technically speaking, chemical compounds in chocolate and green tea slow the virus’s replication, which isn’t quite the same as saying that a Hershey’s bar will cure what ails you. (TBJ, sub. req.)
Republicans have named Kathy Harrington the General Assembly’s first female Senate majority leader. (WRAL)
State education leaders say the pandemic has created huge learning gaps and led to bad grades. (N&O)
Franklin Street staple Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe is closing. (Chapelboro)
A Durham County Detention Center officer’s death was caused by COVID. (WRAL)
—> Weather
Sunny, cool, high of 52. (WRAL)
NATION & WORLD
—> The Lede: Biden’s Big Stimulus Dreams
Yesterday, a bipartisan group of centrist senators revealed a $908 billion coronavirus aid package. The deal includes:
$300 a week in federal unemployment benefits for four months.
$160 billion in funding for state and local governments.
A temporary moratorium on some COVID-related lawsuits.
This followed a new offer from House Dems to the Senate on Monday night, the details of which haven’t been revealed, and came amid a more conservative pitch from Senate Republicans that would be DOA in the House. The flurry of activity could signal a possible end to the months-long stalemate.
“Economists have warned of devastating consequences for the economy and millions of Americans if no stimulus deal is passed. A number of relief programs are set to expire at the end of the year.”
“The White House has largely abandoned its aggressive push for stimulus since Trump lost the Nov. 3 presidential election.” (WaPo)
President-elect Biden has indicated that Congress needs to pass an aid package now and a much larger stimulus when he takes office.
“The scope of stimulus legislation will likely turn on the results of the Senate run-offs in Georgia in early January, a little more than two weeks before Biden is inaugurated. If either Democrat fails to unseat their GOP incumbent rivals, and the body remains under the thumb of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, Biden's ambitions will be checked from the outset.” (CNN)
—> WHY IT’S URGENT: A new study of SNAP recipients in the early months of the pandemic found that by mid-June:
35% had lost their jobs.
50% were housing insecure.
64% were food insecure.
77% had acquired new debt.
The point: “To the extent that the present results highlight the insufficient protectiveness of safety-net programs in helping recipients cover basic needs, this is due to insufficient generosity rather than insufficient accessibility. In other words, existing benefits are not large enough to address recipients’ basic needs during the COVID-19 shutdown.”
—> RELATED: Paul Krugman notes that Biden’s economic brain trust seems to have learned a lesson from the Obama years: Ignore the deficit trolls. (NYT)
“Some of us were worried about whether Biden would pick up where Obama left off—whether he would choose Very Serious People, still wedded to the old debt obsession, for his economic team.”
“But the reality is that as far as I can tell, all of Biden’s economic picks are people who understand that federal debt isn’t currently a major policy concern, whereas it would be a disaster if we don’t spend enough either to get through the pandemic or on crucial long-run issues, especially climate change.”
—> Both Sides: Student Debt Cancellation
Pro: Debt cancellation would benefit Black and Latinx communities.
The persistence of the racial wealth gap and predatory lending practices means that Black and Latinx communities are more economically precarious and indebted than their white counterparts. Black women are the most burdened by student-loan debt and often have to resort to payday loans with onerous terms. Without an intervention, the same communities disproportionately devastated by covid-19 will be dealt an economic death blow, compounding the damage wrought by the mortgage crisis. (New Yorker)
Con: Debt cancellation would benefit high earners.
Full or partial forgiveness is regressive because high earners took larger loans, but also because, for low earners, balances greatly overstate present values. Consequently, forgiveness would benefit the top decile as much as the bottom three deciles combined. Blacks and Hispanics would also benefit substantially less than balances suggest. (Becker Friedman Institute, UChicago Working Paper)
—> Briefs: 3 Stories to Read Today
“The Justice Department is investigating a potential crime related to funneling money to the White House or related political committee in exchange for a presidential pardon, according to court records unsealed Tuesday in federal court.” (CNN, court doc)
“President Trump’s Save America PAC … generated $150 million in contributions over the course of November …. The money in the Save America PAC … can be used to benefit Trump in innumerable ways. Memberships at golf clubs. Travel. Rallies. Even payments directly to Trump himself, as long as he declares it as income.” (WaPo)
“This poll highlights the urgent need to change our pandemic lexicon … Forty-nine percent of Americans consider a ‘pandemic’ more ‘significant, serious, and scary’ than ‘COVID-19’ (39%) or ‘the coronavirus’ (13%). Respondents had a much more positive reaction to a ‘stay-at-home order’ than a ‘lockdown’ or ‘aggressive restrictions.’” (de Beaumont Foundation / Frank Luntz)
—> The Rundown
COVID-19 had likely reached the US by mid-December 2019. (WSJ, sub. req.)
Scott Atlas, the White House pandemic adviser who embraced herd immunity and other sociopathic quackery, has resigned. (WaPo)
Leaked documents show that China severely downplayed the significance of its early COVID outbreak. (CNN)
Trump is laying the groundwork to purge the government of civil servants on his way out and sabotage the Biden administration. (WaPo)
Trump threatened to veto the defense spending bill unless Congress repeals social media companies’ liability protections. (WaPo)
Bill Barr named John Durham “special counsel” so that he could complete his investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation regardless of the election result. (Axios)
Even Bill Barr’s DOJ can’t find evidence of election fraud. (NYT)
Normal country watch: Attorney Lin Wood, who helped file the Kraken lawsuits, is taking out a full-page ad in the Washington Times to urge Trump to declare martial law and hold another election if courts and Congress don’t “follow the law.” (Gateway Pundit, click at your own peril)
Normal country watch, part 2: Trump’s campaign attorney called for the summary execution of the election security chief Trump fired for saying the election was secure. (TPM)
Normal country watch, part 3: Congressional Republicans are considering challenging the election results on the House floor. (Politico)
Senator Josh Hawley says Biden’s nominees don’t deserve a vote because “Democrats deprived President Trump of a working government for four years.” Republicans controlled the Senate throughout Trump’s presidency. (Politico)
The Supreme Court appeared skeptical of the Trump administration’s claim that it could exclude undocumented immigrants from the Census. (WaPo)
I fail to understand Democrats’ attraction to Rahm Emanuel. (AP)
Neera Tanden, Biden’s nominee to run OMB, has pissed off everyone on Twitter. (Guardian)
Iowa certified the results of its 2nd Congressional District race. The Republican won by six votes. (Dave Wasserman)
Stocks are kicking ass. (AP)
Most PPP money, which was supposed to help small businesses, went to large companies. (WaPo)
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a 2024 presidential wannabe, wants to make it legal for business owners to kill anyone they believe might commit “criminal mischief that results in the interruption or impairment of a business operation.” (Orlando Sentinel)
OUR SO-CALLED LIVES
—> Cultured: Phoebe Bridger’s “Savior Complex”
The Grammy-nominated Bridger, most recently in the spotlight for her cover of the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris”—which she promised to record if Trump lost—has released a gorgeous black-and-white video for “Savior Complex,” directed by Phoebe Waller-Bridge (of Fleabag fame). (Video exclusively on Facebook)
—> Et Cetera
An artificial intelligence lab in London claims to have solved the “protein-folding problem,” which could accelerate our ability to understand the body and cure diseases. The machines will save us … before they kill us. (NYT)
Salesforce will acquire Slack for $2.7 billion. (NYT)
NASDAQ is threatening to delist companies that don’t diversify their boards. (WSJ, sub. req.)
Disney and Marvel have the rights to Daredevil again, so there’s a Twitter campaign to give the canceled Netflix show a fourth season. (AV Club)
Actor Elliot Page, nee Ellen Page, who starred in Juno, Inception, and currently Netflix’s Umbrella Academy, has come out as trans. (Twitter)
Sorry, everyone, but chocolate isn’t good for you after all. The healthy stuff disappears when the cacao gets roasted. (Forbes)
Bad Bunny is 2020’s most-streamed artist, according to Spotify. Your correspondent, being An Old, has no earthly clue who that is. (CNN)
Thanks for reading.