THE VIRUS
One reason the U.S. is falling behind in its coronavirus vaccination campaign: Federal officials left much of the planning to overstretched local health officials and hospitals. “We’ve taken the people with the least amount of resources,” one expert said, “and asked them to do the hardest part of the vaccination.” Read more at New York Times.
In West Virginia, 42 people who were scheduled to receive a vaccine mistakenly received an experimental antibody treatment instead. Read more at New York Times
The authorities arrested a pharmacist at a Wisconsin hospital and accused him of purposefully removing more than 500 vaccine doses from refrigeration, rendering them useless. Read more at New York Times
Israel could become the first country to be completely vaccinated against the virus. Almost 10 percent of its population has received the first of two doses of Pfizer’s vaccine. Read more at New York Times
Some doctors in Britain said they would defy the government’sinstructions to postpone people’s second vaccine doses. The government’s approach aims to give more people the partial protection of a single dose. Read more at New York Times
POLITICS
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell again blocked quick passage of increasing stimulus checks to $2,000, calling the proposal – which was a key demand of President Donald Trump – “socialism for rich people.”
Thursday marks the third time McConnell has blocked Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., from quickly approving a House-passed bill that would increase one-time payments from $600 to $2,000 in the COVID-19 relief package the president signed into law Sunday. The blockade all but ensures Congress will be unable to pass legislation increasing the size of the one-time payments, at least until a new Congress convenes next week.
The Kentucky Republican repeatedly bashed Democrats for following Trump’s demand for increasing the checks to $2,000 but ignoring the president's two other mandates: Repealing key legal protections for big tech firms and examining the president’s baseless claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election.
“Socialism for rich people is a terrible way to help the American families that are actually struggling,” McConnell said on the Senate floor Thursday. “Let me say that again. Borrowing from our grandkids to do socialism for rich people is a terrible way to get help to families who actually need it.”
McConnell has instead pushed forward a bill that combines increasing stimulus checks with repealing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and establishing a commission to study voter fraud, two contentious issues that make the legislation unpassable to Democrats. Read more at USA Today
Senator David Perdue, Republican of Georgia, said he would go into quarantine after coming into contact with someone who had tested positive for the coronavirus. Perdue faces a runoff election on Tuesday. Read more at New York Times
Vice President Pence asked a judge late Thursday to reject a lawsuit that aims to expand his power to use a congressional ceremony to overturn the presidential election, arguing that he is not the right person to sue over the issue.
The filing will come as a disappointment to supporters of President Trump, who hoped that Pence would attempt to reject some of President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral college votes and recognize votes for Trump instead when Congress meets next week to certify the November election.
Read the filing from Vice President Pence
The filing came in response to a lawsuit from Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) and a number of Republicans in Arizona, who argued that an 1887 law that governs how Congress certifies presidential elections is unconstitutional. The suit argues that the Constitution gives the vice president, in his role as president of the Senate, sole discretion to determine whether electors put forward by the states are valid. Read more at Washington Post
Several Republican senators have criticized a plan by Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri and a group of House Republicans to object when Congress meets next week to certify the Electoral College results. Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska called the effort a “dangerous ploy.” Read more at New York Times
After millions of votes and dozens of lawsuits, the end of the election is in sight: the final step to affirm President-elect Joe Biden's victory is next week.
Congress will meet Wednesday, Jan. 6, to formally count the votes cast by the Electoral College – 306 for Biden, 232 for President Donald Trump. It takes 270 to win the White House.
The meeting, required by the U.S. Constitution, also marks one of the last opportunities for Trump and his allies to protest his loss.
For months, Trump has unsuccessfully tried to overturn election results in six battleground states, falsely claiming the election was stolen despite no evidence of widespread fraud.
The Supreme Court has twice refused to take up Trump-endorsed lawsuits that sought to reverse the results. Federal and state courts have also dismissed his claims of voter fraud nearly 60 times.
The joint session on Wednesday is all but certain to result in one more defeat for Trump, even though several of his Republican allies have indicated they will object to the certification of electoral votes for Biden.
Outside the Capitol, protests are expected by supporters of Trump.
Here's what to expect when the lawmakers meet.
What is the procedure for the count?
Members of the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate will meet in a joint session at 1 p.m. in the House Chamber. The procedures for the session come from the Electoral Count Act of 1887.
Vice President Mike Pence will preside in his role as president of the Senate. Leaders of both major parties will appoint lawmakers from both chambers to serve as "tellers."
Pence will open certificates of the electoral votes from each state – whose electors met to cast their ballots on Dec. 14 – and hand them to the tellers to read aloud. As they read a state's certificate, Pence will call for objections to the state's votes.
To be considered, objections must be made in writing and endorsed by at least one member of both the House and Senate.
Any objection that meets that criteria will result in a suspension of the joint session, at which time the House and Senate will convene separately to consider the issue.
The debate on each objection is limited to two hours. Each member may only speak for one, five-minute stint. After debate concludes, the House and Senate will vote.
A simple majority in both chambers is required to uphold the objection and throw out the state's votes. Short of that, the objection is disposed of and the state's electoral votes are counted as cast.
Rebecca Green, an election law expert at the William and Mary School of Law, told USA TODAY that “the sole purpose of this convening is for Congress to determine which ballots are the ballots that were certified by the states.”
"This is not a trial where Congress will look at evidence of fraud in the election," Green said. “There are no witnesses. There is no evidence presented. And there's a very limited opportunity to speak for that reason."
After all votes are counted, it falls to Pence to declare the winner of the election.
So far, Pence – who has not acknowledged that Trump lost his bid for reelection – has remained relatively quiet on his role in the electoral vote count process.
On Dec. 28, Republicans including Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert filed a lawsuit in federal court to authorize Pence to pick and choose which electoral votes to accept or reject. In a filing on Dec. 31, Pence asked the judge to dismiss the suit, which his brief called "a walking legal contradiction."
Legal experts have also predicted the suit will fail, saying it is a based on a far-fetched premise that the Constitution affords the vice president complete authority to decide an election.
Will there be any objections?
Multiple House Republicans have indicated that they will object to some state's electoral votes, citing alleged electoral fraud, though there is no proof to back any of their claims.
Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., has led the charge. He and other conservatives met with Trump and Pence at the White House on Dec. 21 to discuss the effort.
After the meeting, Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., and Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, announced that they planned to object to electoral votes.
Others who have committed to object to votes include Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, Rep-elect Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C, and Gohmert.
There are plans by "dozens" of House members to challenge the results in at least six states, according to Brooks.
“We’re going to sponsor and co-sponsor objections to the Electoral College vote returns of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and maybe more depending on where we collectively want to go," he said on Fox & Friends.
Top Senate Republicans, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have discouraged their members from backing objections to electoral votes.
McConnell, who himself has recognized President-elect Biden, told colleagues that an objection "isn’t in the best interest of everybody," according to a report from The Hill.
Nonetheless, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., announced on Dec. 30 that he plans to raise an objection to electoral votes in at least one state – Pennsylvania.
"I cannot vote to certify the electoral college results on January 6 without raising the fact that some states, particularly Pennsylvania, failed to follow their own state election laws," Hawley wrote on Twitter.
Hawley told reporters at the U.S. Capitol that "a number of offices have reached out" to say they, too, are interested in objecting.
"I don’t know yet," he said of whether more senators will join him. "I would think that there would be more, but there may not be, I don’t know. Too early to say."
Sen.-elect Tommy Tuberville, a Republican from Alabama, has also indicated he may object to some votes.
"You'll see what's coming," he said earlier this month. "You've been reading about in the House. We're going to have to do it in the Senate."
It's possible that some, but not all, of the objections raised by members of the House will obtain the backing of a senator. Each objection that receives both will elicit its own two-hour debate and vote, potentially turning the meeting into a marathon affair.
Have there been objections before?
There have been previous objections to electoral votes. At times, members of the House have attempted to raise objections without support from the Senate.
In 2017, half a dozen House Democrats objected to electoral votes for Trump, citing voter suppression and potential interference from Russia.
But Biden, then-vice president and president of the Senate, repeatedly slammed his gavel and rejected the effort, since they lacked a Senate sponsor.
“It is over,” he said, to applause from Republicans.
Just twice – in 1969 and 2005 – have there been objections that met the criteria to require the House and Senate to debate and vote.
In 1969, the objection was over a faithless elector from North Carolina who voted for George Wallace instead of Richard Nixon. It was rejected by both chambers.
In 2005, the objection was over electoral votes in Ohio, cast for George W. Bush.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., joined Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, in the action, which they said was to raise awareness about voter suppression.
"This objection does not have at its root the hope or even the hint of overturning the victory of the president," Tubbs Jones said at the time. "But it is a necessary, timely and appropriate opportunity to review and remedy the most precious process in our democracy."
The objection was roundly defeated, receiving a single vote in the Senate, from Boxer herself, and just 31 votes in the House, all from Democrats.
Could an objection succeed this year?
In short, no. Like previous objections, there is virtually no chance that any objections lodged next week will succeed.
The most straightforward reason the objections will fail is that they must be approved by both chambers, and Democrats control the House.
The Senate is harder to predict. The runoff for seats in Georgia that will determine control of the Senate is set to take place just a day before, on Jan. 5.
Before those members are seated, Republicans will maintain a majority.
Given the lack of support from leaders like McConnell, though, it's unlikely that Senate Republicans will rally behind an objection to the certification of Biden as the winner.
Earlier this month, Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican, told reporters that an objection "would go down like a shot dog" in the Senate.
"I just don’t think it makes a lot of sense to put everybody through this when you know what the ultimate outcome is going to be," said Thune, who is from South Dakota.
Other Republicans in the Senate have also indicated they disagree with Trump's continued efforts to overturn the election.
Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., took to Facebook to rebuke GOP lawmakers who plan to participate in what he called a "dangerous ploy" on Jan. 6 to contest the results.
"For President-Elect Biden’s 306-232 Electoral College victory to be overturned, President Trump would need to flip multiple states. But not a single state is in legal doubt," Sasse wrote.
"All the clever arguments and rhetorical gymnastics in the world won’t change the fact that this January 6th effort is designed to disenfranchise millions of Americans simply because they voted for someone in a different party," he added. "We ought to be better than that."
Regardless of the outcome in the Senate, without the approval of the House, objections will not affect vote totals.
Though the challenges are doomed to fail, they will extend the vote counting process far longer than normal.
The joint session took just 23 minutes in 2013 and 41 minutes in 2017, according to the Congressional Research Service. Not this time.
If all six planned objections from the House receive support from a member of the Senate, total debate time could exceed 12 hours. Speaking to POLITICO, Brooks predicted that the proceedings will last even longer, clocking in at 18 hours.
If that's case, the meeting will wrap up sometime on Jan. 7 – and at long last, end the presidential election. USA Today
OTHER BIG STORIES
Russian government hackers engaged in a sweeping series of breaches of government and private-sector networks have been able to penetrate deeper into Microsoft’s systems than previously known, gaining access to potentially valuable source code, the tech giant said Thursday.
The firm previously acknowledged that it had inadvertently downloaded a software patch used by Russian cyberspies as a potential “back door” into victims’ systems. But it was not known that the hackers had viewed the firm’s source code, or the crucial DNA of potentially valuable, proprietary software.
Russian hack was ‘classic espionage’ with stealthy, targeted tactics
Microsoft, however, did not specify what type of source code was accessed. The intruder compromised an employee account through which it viewed the code, the firm said. Read more at Washington Post.
The White House is preparing to temporarily freeze some foreign aid during President Trump’s final days in office, two people with knowledge of the planning said, slowing down funds already approved by Congress.
The Trump administration can’t unilaterally cancel the funding, but it can bog the process down by asking Congress to claw the money back. Lawmakers will likely reject this request, but the act of asking Congress to recoup the money allows the White House to freeze it until Trump leaves office on Jan. 20.
Trump has long complained about U.S. taxpayer money going to other countries, but Congress has repeatedly blocked him from doing anything about it.
Trump signs stimulus bill into law, averting shutdown
The move to freeze the money was conveyed in a notice this week from the White House Office of Management and Budget to U.S. government officials who work on foreign aid programs. The OMB officials told the agencies that the White House was working on a package of spending freezes, said the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal communications. Read more at Washington Post
The Minneapolis Police Department released body camera footage yesterday that shed new light on a fatal police shooting this week. The 28-second video shows a chaotic scene. Read by New York Times
The hedge fund Alden Global Capital proposed a deal to buy full control of Tribune Publishing, the parent company of The Chicago Tribune, The New York Daily News and several other major newspapers. Alden, which controls a media empire of roughly 200 papers, is known for slashing costs in newsrooms. Read by New York Times
A pet food company is recalling several types of its Sportmix-brand dry foods for dogs and cats after 28 dogs died and eight others fell ill, possibly from ingesting fatal levels of a toxin that is produced by mold.
The company, Midwestern Pet Foods Inc. of Evansville, Ind., announced the voluntary recall on Wednesday of some of its Sportmix products distributed nationally online and in retail stores after tests showed that levels of the toxin, aflatoxin, exceeded acceptable limits.
Aflatoxin is produced by the mold Aspergillus flavus, which can grow on corn and grains that are used as ingredients in pet food, the F.D.A. said. At high levels, the toxin can cause pets to become ill or die, or cause liver damage without symptoms, the department said. The toxin, it said, can still be present even if there is no visible mold.
“Pets are highly susceptible to aflatoxin poisoning because, unlike people, who eat a varied diet, pets generally eat the same food continuously over extended periods of time,” the F.D.A. said. “If a pet’s food contains aflatoxin, the toxin could accumulate in the pet’s system as they continue to eat the same food.” Read more at New York Times
FORT WORTH, Texas — A game intended to honor the men and women of the United States military service branches ended with a bad look by both teams.
Mississippi State and Tulsa got into a multi-player, sidelines-clearing fight after the Bulldogs defeated the Golden Hurricane 28-26 at Amon G. Carter Stadium.
Video shows Mississippi State wide receiver Malik Heath intentionally kicking Tulsa safety TieNeal Martin in the middle of the madness. The kick came moments after Martin threw aggressive punches at multiple Mississippi State players. Heath also threw punches during the fight.
Heath and Martin were two of many players from both sides who were heavily involved in the pile up. It lasted for several seconds. Heath posted a social media video in the locker room praising himself for his involvement in the altercation.
In his on-field post-game interview with the ESPN broadcast crew, Mississippi State coach Mike Leach said "this is a football game so we're not going to be tearing cloth over this deal."
"Somebody went to a football game and somebody got hit," Leach said. "There's a point where I'm not going to lose my mind over it."
He didn't seem too fazed by the incident in his news conference with reporters, either.
"I don't think it marred anything that we did out there, whatsoever," Leach said. "It's dumb. The root of it is dumb. No matter what the root of it is, the root of it is dumb. And the continuation of it is dumb. So I would have that solidly in the category of dumb. Where the dumb started, I'm not entirely sure." Read more at USA Today
Australia changed a lyric in its national anthem from “we are young and free” to “we are one and free” to recognize Indigenous populations that have lived on the continent for more than 60,000 years. Read by New York Times
FarmVille, the simple but addictive Facebook game that took over social media feeds a decade ago, has shut down. But it lives on in the behaviors it instilled in everyday internet users and the growth-hacking techniques it perfected. Read by New York Times
Lives Lived: Born in London and raised on Long Island, Daniel Dumile — the masked rapper best known as MF Doom — has died at 49. Having grown up steeped in early hip-hop influences, he built a lasting underground fan base with his offbeat wordplay and comic-book persona. Read more at New York Times
The Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, today posted rare drawings of Dante's "Divine Comedy," one of the great works of world literature, to mark the 700th anniversary of the Italian poet's death in 1321, AP reports. The fragile drawings by Renaissance artist Federico Zuccari have only been displayed twice before, and then only a selection — in Florence in 1865 to mark the 600th anniversary of Dante's birth, and for a Dante exhibit in Italy in 1993.
Explore the galleries:Hell (32 images) ... Purgatory (51 images) ... Heaven [Axios]