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The White House fumigators are standing by, the going-away party invitations have been turned down, and the National Mall looks cool as hell: We’ve made it to Donald Trump’s last full day in office.
- True to form, Trump spent his final day of executive immunity moping about Joe Biden’s mysterious ability to enlist better celebrities than the My Pillow guy, refusing to participate in standard transfer of power rituals, uploading the traditional 20-Minute YouTube Farewell address, and firing up the White House pardon printer. (Behold, the stretch pickup waiting to retrieve a pardoned Joe Exotic.) Lawyers reportedly talked Trump out of issuing pardons for himself, his shitty kids, and several GOP lawmakers who (outrageously) asked for clemency after helping him incite a deadly insurrection, though he could still change his mind about that anytime before noon on Wednesday.
- Tuesday also marked Mitch McConnell’s last ride as Senate majority leader—a very happy Got Mitch Day to you and yours. Reopening the Senate for its first day back in session since the attack on the Capitol, McConnell linked the attack directly to Trump: “The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people,” said a powerful person who lied about the election results until mid-December. McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer met to hammer out the terms of Trump’s impeachment trial, and the Senate scrambled to hold long-delayed confirmation hearings for Biden’s cabinet nominees, only to be further obstructed by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mobs).
- Thanks to “the president and other powerful people,” Biden’s inauguration will take place amid unprecedented security precautions. By Wednesday, around 25,000 National Guard members will have taken up positions around the Capitol and throughout Washington, DC. After the FBI heightened vetting procedures out of concern for potential internal threats, 12 guard members were removed from inauguration duty—two of them for links to far-right extremist groups. The FBI also warned law-enforcement agencies that QAnon adherents have discussed posing as National Guard members and shared maps of vulnerable spots in DC, which means we’re about three days out from learning that Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Guns) led a group on a reconnaissance tour of a military-surplus shop.
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While many of us prepare to celebrate having survived the Trump era, Tuesday brought a stark reminder that too many Americans did not.
- The official U.S. coronavirus death toll surpassed 400,000 on Trump’s final day in office, one year after the country confirmed its first coronavirus case. That number is almost certainly an undercount, and mortality is still accelerating: It took just five weeks for U.S. deaths to climb from 300,000 to 400,000. (Insurrection isn't helping: At least 19 Capitol Police officers either tested positive or were found to have been exposed after the January 6 attack.) The Trump administration failed so catastrophically on so many levels of the pandemic response that it’s easy to lose sight of its failure to facilitate a moment of national mourning. The night before taking office, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris sought to rectify that with a memorial ceremony for coronavirus victims at the Lincoln Memorial.
- All of Biden’s first executive actions will center around making a clean break from the depravity of the Trump administration. After a peaceful, uneventful, cathartically boring inauguration ceremony (typing this into existence), Biden will propose a sweeping immigration overhaul that includes an eight-year path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrations. He’ll also embark on a 10-day executive order spree aimed at rolling back the most harmful Trump policies, from reversing the Muslim travel ban and rejoining the Paris climate accord to ordering agencies to figure out how to reunite families who were separated at the border.
Between corrupt pardon requests, threats of extremist violence, and a numbingly horrific coronavirus milestone, Trump’s last day in office underlined the scale of the damage he inflicted and the work still ahead. Because so many people stayed in the fight to deny him a second term, that work can and will begin tomorrow. Thank you for sticking it out with us, and we’ll see you in the Biden era.
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On Wednesday, January 20th, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will take their oaths of office and be sworn in as President and Vice President of the United States. We figured we'd take a look.
Come watch the Inauguration with your Crooked Media pals at 10am-12pm ET / 7am-9am PT! We'll have a livestream of the ceremony, along with our real-time reactions, hot takes, and unprofessional emotional outbursts, all in a very special Transfer of Power Hour group thread →
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Federal prosecutors have filed the first conspiracy charges in the January 6 attack on the Capitol, alleging that three members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia group, coordinated in advance. Authorities alleged that Oath Keeper leader Thomas Edward Caldwell (a Navy veteran) helped organize a group that swelled to 30 or 40 people, recruiting Oath Keeper members and scouting for lodging at least five days before the insurrection. The participants both anticipated violence and continued to coordinate their actions after breaching the building. Members of several other militias and extremist groups have also been arrested, as has Capitol rioter Riley Williams, whose former partner told authorities that she had stolen a laptop or hard drive from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office with the intention of selling it to Russian intelligence.
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- Trump's lawyers moved to block congressional Democrats from obtaining his tax returns after he leaves office, providing some beautiful symmetry to this four-year nightmare.
- On the Trump administration’s very last day, the State Department declared that the Chinese government’s actions against Uighur Muslims constitute genocide and crimes against humanity. Pack up the paperclips, turn off computers, call out a genocide—the usual departure checklist.
- The communications director for Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) has resigned in the wake of the insurrection, and two Democratic lawmakers said they personally saw Boebert leading a pre-riot tour in a tunnel connected to the Capitol.
- Los Angeles County’s coronavirus death rate is so devastating that officials have suspended environmental limits on the number of cremations allowed, to accommodate the backlog of bodies. Meanwhile, LA public health officials are ~thinking about~ closing malls.
- Today in Normal Political Parties: The Michigan Republican Party wants to replace the GOP member of the Board of State Canvassers who voted to certify the election results, the GOP chair of the Gwinnett County, GA, elections board has called for the state legislature to impose new voting restrictions “so that we at least have a shot at winning,” and the chairman of the Wyoming Republican Party said western states are “paying attention” to Texas Republicans’ efforts to secede.
- Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) spread the conspiracy that the 2018 Parkland school shooting was a “false flag” and should be immediately expelled from Congress, which is too bad, since she seemed so qualified until now.
- Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was arrested upon his return to Moscow and will be detained for 30 days. Two days after his arrest, Navalny’s team released a report describing Putin’s secret $1.3 billion palace on the Black Sea.
- Tiffany Trump got engaged just in time to squeak out a White House photo. Pour one out for Matt Gaetz.
- Edwin Poots (a real British person) has warned of a jelly and gravy shortage (a real British crisis) in Northern Ireland, in the wake of a tea flood at the crumpet factory (this part’s made up).
- Here it is, the complete list of Trump’s Twitter insults you’ve been asking for. Tag yourselves, we’re the 550-word Ted Cruz entry.
- Ben Affleck’s life-size Ana De Armas cardboard cutout has been dumped in the trash following their breakup. (The breakup was between Affleck and De Armas, he was not dating the cardboard cutout.) (Unless that’s what caused the breakup...?) (We have launched an investigation.)
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Coronavirus-data scientist Rebekah Jones, whom Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has tried to silence for months, has surrendered to Florida police in response to a not-at-all-suspicious warrant for her arrest. Before turning herself in, Jones tweeted, “Censored by the state of Florida until further notice.” The DeSantis administration fired Jones in May after she accused state health officials of manipulating coronavirus data, after which she set up a competing coronavirus dashboard using publicly available data. Federal authorities raided her home in December, and last week, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement obtained a warrant for her arrest for illegal use of the state’s computer system. Jones tested positive for coronavirus after turning herself in. Trump may not have managed to jail his political opponents (there’s always Wednesday), but Ron DeSantis sure seems to have employed intimidation and prosecution against a scientist who tried to save lives with substantive criticism.
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Add Your Name to Demand Voting Rights Protections in Biden’s First 100 Days
It is imperative that President-elect Biden’s administration take ambitious action to protect the right to vote and to champion new federal protections for voting rights. Here are the ACLU’s key recommendations:
The Biden administration must take executive action to enforce federal voting rights laws. This includes designating special assistant U.S. attorneys for voting rights to investigate and enforce potential violations of federal voting rights laws and provide the critical federal oversight of local redistricting efforts to ensure such actions are not racially discriminatory.
They must also upgrade federal voter registration services, focusing on improving ballot access for voters with disabilities and protecting the rights of eligible or soon-to-be eligible incarcerated individuals. Sign our petition if you agree that action on voting rights can’t wait.
The incoming administration must also help advance legislation to protect voting rights. This includes the support of the Voting Rights Advancement Act which will help to restore many of the protections that were lost when the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013. Additionally, baseline federal rules to reduce or eliminate needless barriers to voting are long overdue.
he ACLU is demanding the Biden administration take action on these issues and much more in the first 100 days. Are you with us? Add your name to make sure our voting rights are protected. Click here to make your voice heard.
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Senate Democrats announced that their first order of business as the majority will be to introduce the For The People Act.
In other good Day One stuff: Joe Biden plans to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline permit on his first day in office.
Biden will nominate Dr. Rachel Levine as his assistant secretary of health, setting her up to become the first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the Senate.
New York City will now recognize LGBTQ-owned companies as minority-owned businesses, making them eligible for billions in city contracts.
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