Author: JavaElemental ☕

I want Trump to live out the remainder of his life feeling exactly the way we’ve all felt these last four years: drowning in an interminable miasma of grief, fear, exhaustion, and impotent rage. I would ask for shame and embarrassment, too, but I don’t think he’s capable of those.

• NPR: What Biden Is Doing On His 1st Day As President
• Vox: How world leaders responded to Biden’s inauguration
• Vox: No meltdowns: Jen Psaki’s first briefing as Biden press secretary was a breath of fresh air
• Washington Post: Biden signs executive orders as Democrats take control of Senate
• Daily Beast: ‘I’m About to Puke’: QAnon in Chaos as Biden Takes Office

As of today, over 400,000 Americans have died of COVID-19. It took about 36 days to go from 300,000 deaths to 400,000. Experts are predicting 500,000 deaths before the end of February.

About two Americans a minute are dying of COVID-19.

At noon tomorrow, Donald Trump, the worst president in American history, leaves office. I hope to fuck Joe Biden is capable of cleaning up the mess Trump left behind.

Things to Read:

• Washington Post: Misinformation dropped dramatically the week after Twitter banned Trump and some allies – “Online misinformation about election fraud plunged 73 percent after several social media sites suspended President Trump and key allies last week, research firm Zignal Labs has found, underscoring the power of tech companies to limit the falsehoods poisoning public debate when they act aggressively.”
• Chuck Wendig: I Want To Say Something, But I Don’t Know What – “I’m a writer and with everything going on, with the Capitol Siege and Stupid Coup and all of it, I want to give voice to it, I want to write about it, to make sense of it, but I have no sense of it. I have no meaningful words. I have a lot of anger.”
• Joaquim Campa: Animals interrupting wildlife photographers. – A lovely twitter thread full of photographers being pestered by the animals they’re trying to photograph.
• Vox: Still going to the grocery store? With new virus variants spreading, it’s probably time to stop. – “The implication is clear: If we want the pandemic to end as fast as possible, we need to pump the brakes right now. And we don’t have to wait for the vaccines to slow the spread of the virus. We simply need to do what we’ve been doing all along to prevent infections, just much, much better.”
• Washington Post: Vaccine reserve was exhausted when Trump administration vowed to release it, dashing hopes of expanded access – “States were anticipating a windfall after federal officials said they would stop holding back second doses. But the approach had already changed, and no stockpile exists.”

Trump will leave office. Joe Biden will be president. That will happen at noon on January 20.

Until then, things are going to be scary and probably dangerous. After that, Trump’s cultists and various associated Nazis and white supremacists will fracture and we’ll be facing a serious domestic terrorism problem, backed by a population of fools who, if not quite terrorists themselves, will certainly be happy to egg them on.

“Unity” with Republicans, who helped create this problem, will not solve this. Let’s all hope Joe Biden has better plans than that.

• AP: FBI warns of plans for nationwide armed protests next week
• CNN: New terror threat points to plot to surround Capitol, lawmaker says
• HuffPost: House Democrats Briefed On 3 Terrifying Plots To Overthrow Government
• Military Times: National Guard inauguration deployment: twice as large as troop levels in Afghanistan and Iraq combined

Also, this:

The Democrats introduced Articles of Impeachment this morning. Well, Article of Impeachment, actually – just the one: incitement of insurrection.

Dan Sinker’s invaluable impeachment.fyi has been reactivated. The first newsletter goes out tonight. Remember to tip if you can.