The Full Belmonte, 12/23/21
A US Army critical care nurse prepares to enter a Covid-19 patient’s room last week in Dearborn, Michigan.
“With Omicron now the most widely detected variant in the US, hospitals are preparing for a surge of Covid-19 cases. And for the second year in a row, many doctors and nurses on the front lines of the pandemic will be treating these patients over the Christmas holiday. Nearly 70,000 Americans were hospitalized with Covid-19 as of yesterday, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services, up from around 45,000 in early November. In related news, the FDA yesterday authorized Pfizer's antiviral pill, Paxlovid, to treat Covid-19. It’s the first antiviral pill authorized for infected people to take at home before they get sick enough to be hospitalized.” Read more at CNN
“The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized the first pill for COVID-19, offering a highly effective defense against severe illness that will arrive as the country endures another major surge of the pandemic.
The drug, developed by Pfizer and known as Paxlovid, is authorized for COVID patients age 12 and older who are vulnerable to becoming severely ill because they are older or have medical conditions such as obesity or diabetes. Tens of millions of Americans — including both vaccinated and unvaccinated people — will be eligible if they get infected with the virus. The treatment could be available within a few days.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Two new British studies provide some early hints that the omicron variant of the coronavirus may be milder than the delta version.
Scientists stress that even if the findings of these early studies hold up, any reductions in severity need to be weighed against the fact omicron spreads much faster than delta and is more able to evade vaccines. Sheer numbers of infections could still overwhelm hospitals.
Still, the new studies released Wednesday seem to bolster earlier research that suggests omicron may not be as harmful as the delta variant, said Manuel Ascano Jr., a Vanderbilt University biochemist who studies viruses.
‘Cautious optimism is perhaps the best way to look at this,’ he said.
An analysis from the Imperial College London COVID-19 response team estimated hospitalization risks for omicron cases in England, finding people infected with the variant are around 20% less likely to go to the hospital at all than those infected with the delta variant, and 40% less likely to be hospitalized for a night or more.” Read more at AP News
“BEIJING (AP) — China plunged a city of 13 million people into lockdown on Thursday to stamp out an increase in coronavirus infections, as the country doubles down on its ‘zero tolerance’ policy just weeks before it is set to host the Winter Olympics.
The restrictions in the northeastern city of Xi’an took effect at midnight Wednesday, with no word on when they might be lifted. They are some of the harshest since China imposed a strict lockdown last year on more than 11 million people in and around the city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first detected in late 2019.
One person from each household will be allowed out every two days to buy household necessities, a government order said. Other family members were required to stay at home, although the rule was not being rigorously enforced, according to social media posts. People who happened to be staying in hotels became stuck.
There was no word on whether the new cases were of the recently identified omicron variant that appears more contagious and is driving surges in many parts of the world — or the previous version, delta. China has reported just seven omicron cases so far, but none in Xi’an.” Read more at AP News
“Columbia University, Duke University and the University of California at Los Angeles will start with remote classes in January, part of a growing number of colleges choosing a temporary pivot online as coronavirus cases rise and the omicron variant spreads nationally.
Plans vary from place to place: Columbia announced Wednesday that the first two weeks of classes will be virtual, a move that applies to all classes, whether they start on the most common date, Jan. 18, or earlier in the month. Duke announced that most classes from Jan. 5 to 8 would be remote, but in-person classes are expected to resume Jan. 10. UCLA classes will start Jan. 3 as planned, but the first two weeks will be held remotely and students were told to return to campus by Jan. 9 for testing.
In the nation’s capital, George Washington University also said Wednesdaythat it would begin the next term virtually, and anticipates a return to full in-person activities on Jan. 18.” Read more at Washington Post
“Britain’s hospital system is straining because health care workers are out sick with Omicron. And in Minnesota, National Guard members are filling in at nursing homes.” Read more at New York Times
“AstraZeneca is working with Oxford University on a booster that targets Omicron.” Read more at New York Times
“The Supreme Court said it will hear oral arguments in a number of challenges to President Joe Biden's COVID-19 vaccine-or-testing requirements for large employers and health care facilities.” Read more at USA Today
“Around 8,000 federal inmates on home confinement due to Covid-19 can stay out of prison even after the crisis is over, the DOJ ruled Tuesday.” [Vox] Read more at Washington Post / David Nakamura
“Unvaccinated Americans' already low trust in government plummeted during 2021, Axios managing editor Margaret Talev writes from a year's worth of data from the Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index.
Republicans and Black Americans make up two disproportionately high segments of the unvaccinated population. But the survey found they're managing that decision in dramatically different ways.
Black Americans reported much higher levels of mask use, social distancing and trust in the federal government, regardless of their vaccination status.
Republicans were far less likely to wear masks, and more likely to say they have returned to ‘normal’ pre-COVID life.
Ipsos pollster and SVP Chris Jackson told us: ‘The people who remain unvaccinated have almost no trust in the government. ... It doesn't really matter what Biden says. They don't believe anything you're saying.’” Read more at Axios
“A New York man pleaded guilty Wednesday to storming the US Capitol with fellow members of the far-right Proud Boys, a milestone in the Justice Department’s prosecution of extremists who joined the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Matthew Greene is the first Proud Boys member to publicly plead guilty to conspiring with other members to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote. He will also cooperate with authorities under the terms of his plea agreement.
Greene was arrested in April after a grand jury indicted him in the same case as two other alleged Proud Boys, Dominic Pezzola and William Pepe. They have pleaded not guilty.” Read more at Boston Globe
1/6 Commission Issues Subpoenas, Trump Allies Resist
“Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), a Trump supporter and sitting member of Congress, has rejected requests for an interview and documents from the January 6 Select Committee. Perry is the first serving member of Congress to be called for testimony on his role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election.” [Vox] Read more at AP / Farnoush Amiri and Mary Clare Jalonick
“Perry is the incoming chair of the House Freedom Caucus, the right-wing contingent of the House of Representatives. He has a history of spreading misinformation, and allegedly had a role in trying to overturn Pennsylvania’s 2020 election results and install Jeffrey Clark, a Trump loyalist, as acting attorney general.” [Vox] Read more at Washington Post / Beth Reinhard and Mariana Alfaro
“The committee has yet to issue subpoenas to sitting members of Congress, although that option is not off-limits, and the request to Scott is for his voluntary cooperation with the committee. In a statement declining to cooperate, Scott called the committee ‘illegitimate’ and characterized the investigation into the buildup to the January 6 riot as a distraction from Democrats’ failures.” [Vox] Read more at NYT / Luke Broadwater
“Former Army General and National Security Adviser Mike Flynn has been subpoenaed by the committee and is also refusing to comply with its requests for information, even going so far as to sue to halt the subpoena. The panel is particularly interested in an Oval Office meeting from December 18, 2020, in which Flynn reportedly discussed imposing martial law in an effort to nullify President Joe Biden’s win.” [Vox] Read more at Politico / Kyle Cheney
“Flynn is one among several Trump allies filing suit and obstructing the proceedings of the committee; conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, ‘Stop the Steal’ organizer Ali Alexander, and attorney John Eastman have also filed suit. Roger Stone, a Republican political operative, complied with the committee’s request but invoked his Fifth Amendment rights in response to their questions.” [Vox] Read more at Bloomberg / Joshua Green and Erik Larson
“Lower-level participants who were at the rally-turned-riot on January 6 have also cooperated with the committee but are filing suit to keep their phone records out of the committee’s hands. The committee had issued a subpoena to Verizon seeking their phone records, prompting the lawsuits.” [Vox] Read more at CNN / Katelyn Polantz
“Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) was also called Wednesday to deliver testimony and documents regarding his conversations with former President Donald Trump on January 6. He is the second member of Congress, after Perry, to be asked for information about his role in the attacks.” [Vox] Read more at Washington Post / Felicia Sonmez and Eugene Scott
“President Joe Biden said yesterday that he’s extending the pause on student loan payments until May 1. The payments, which were set to restart on February 1 for millions of borrowers, have been on hold since the start of the pandemic. During this time, interest has stopped adding up and collections on defaulted debt have been on hold. Biden pointed to the ongoing Covid-19 crisis as the reason for the extension. The reversal comes less than two weeks after White House press secretary Jen Psaki indicated that the administration was planning to restart the payments, resisting pressure from some fellow Democrats who'd called for an extension of pandemic relief benefits.” Read more at CNN
“PORTLAND, Ore. — In the hours after President Biden’s inauguration this year, protesters marched once again through the streets of Portland, sending a message that putting a Democrat in the White House would not resolve their problems with a system of policing and corporate wealth that they saw as fundamentally unfair.
‘No cops, no prisons, total abolition,’ they chanted. Some of the activists, dressed in the trademark uniform of solid black clothing and masks that often signals a readiness to make trouble without being readily identifiable, smashed windows at the local Democratic Party headquarters.
The event — like others that had consumed the city since the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis in 2020 — included a variety of anarchists, anti-fascists, communists, and racial justice activists. But there were others mingling in the crowd that day: plainclothes agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The FBI set up extensive surveillance operations inside Portland’s protest movement, according to documents obtained by The New York Times and current and former federal officials, with agents standing shoulder to shoulder with activists, tailing vandalism suspects to guide the local police toward arrests and furtively videotaping inside one of the country’s most active domestic protest movements.
The breadth of FBI involvement in Portland and other cities where federal teams were deployed at street protests became a point of concern for some within the bureau and the Justice Department who worried that it could undermine the First Amendment right to wage protest against the government, according to two officials familiar with the discussions.
Some within the agencies worried that the teams could be compared to FBI surveillance transgressions of decades past, such as the COINTELPRO projects that sought to spy on and disrupt various activist groups in the 1950s and 1960s, according to the officials, one current and one former, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the debate.
There has been no evidence that the bureau used similar surveillance teams on right-wing demonstrators during the Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol, despite potential threats of violence against the heart of federal government — though the FBI did have an informant in the crowd that day. The bureau has at times used secretive tactics to disrupt right-wing violence, such as efforts that led to charges against men accused of conspiring to kidnap Michigan’s governor.
The FBI has broad latitude to conduct surveillance when agents suspect threats to national security or that federal crimes may be committed. But bureau guidelines warn that agents should not cross into actions that could have a chilling effect on legitimate protest, and should instead prioritize less-intrusive techniques.
In Portland, federal teams were initially dispatched in July 2020 to protect the city’s federal courthouse after protesters lit fires, smashed windows, and lobbed fireworks at law enforcement personnel in the area. One demonstrator had attacked a federal officer with a hammer. But the FBI role quickly widened, persisting months after activists turned their attention away from the courthouse, with some targeting storefronts or local institutions whose protection would normally be up to the local police.
Both local and federal law enforcement officials have complained that lawful peaceful protests were hijacked in many cases by criminals.
But organizers of the protests and civil rights groups, after being told of The Times’ findings, said that surveillance agents recording and following protesters in the midst of a demonstration was a form of domestic spying.” Read more at Boston Globe
“President Biden on Wednesday said he would run for reelection in 2024 if he’s ‘in good health,’ adding that he was eager to possibly face Donald Trump.
The president, confirming his past comment that he would seek four more years in the White House, said during an interview with ‘ABC World News Tonight’ anchor David Muir that he would run again if his health did not deteriorate. Asked whether he would run against Trump if the former president was the Republican nominee, Biden chuckled and said he would.
‘Why would I not run against Donald Trump as the nominee?’ Biden said. ‘That would increase the prospect of running.’
Trump has hinted he might run in 2024.
Biden, 79, offered some latitude in his answer that he would run — possibly alluding to the personal tragedy that has shaped his life.
‘But look, I’m a great respecter of fate,’ Biden said. ‘Fate has intervened in my life many, many times.’” Read more at Washington Post
“Special counsel John Durham’s review of the FBI investigation into possible coordination between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Russian government has cost U.S. taxpayers about $3.8 million since October 2020, according to a Justice Department report released Wednesday.
From April through September, Durham reported a tab of about $2.36 million, including about $1.89 million his team spent and about $471,000 recorded by other Justice Department offices as being in support of his work.
More than $670,000 went toward personnel costs, more than $280,000 went toward travel and more than $797,000 went toward IT and litigative support, according to the report.
An accounting released earlier this year showed Durham’s investigation cost U.S. taxpayers about $1.45 million from mid-October 2020 through March 2021. The latest report includes some expenses from that prior time frame, which came in higher than had been estimated.
The tally is not a complete accounting of Durham’s expenses since his investigation began in the spring of 2019. Durham was the U.S. attorney in Connecticut when then-Attorney General William P. Barr first asked him to review the FBI investigation; at that time, he was not a special counsel who was required to publicly report investigative expenses.
Barr gave him the special counsel designation in October 2020 — signing an order that protected the investigation from any potential change in political leadership and required the submission of a final report that could be made public.
Democrats and others have long asserted that Durham’s investigation is a political stunt meant to undercut a legitimate FBI probe that dogged Trump’s presidency. Though Durham initially focused on whether law enforcement and intelligence agencies acted inappropriately as they investigated the Trump campaign, the probe in recent months has seemed to zero in on whether people outside of government misled the FBI in an effort to keep attention on exaggerated claims of Trump ties with Russia.
Durham has so far charged two people with lying to the FBI.” Read more at Washington Post
“Theodore Kaczynski — who came to be known as the ‘Unabomber’ for killing three people and injuring many more in a series of mail bombings over 17 years — has been transferred to a federal prison medical facility known for treating inmates with significant health problems, a Federal Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman said Wednesday.
Kaczynski was transferred on Dec. 14 from the supermax prison in Florence, Colo., where he was serving multiple life-in-prison sentences, to FMC Butner, a federal medical center in North Carolina, said spokeswoman Kristie Breshears.
She declined to provide details of Kaczynski’s condition. David Kaczynski, Ted Kaczynski’s brother, said he had been told recently by someone who corresponds with his brother that he had been moved to a different facility, but the Bureau of Prisons declined to tell him why that was. David Kaczynski, who tipped the FBI to his brother as a possible suspect, said his brother does not respond to his letters.
Kaczynski, 79, pleaded guilty in 1998 to carrying out mail bombings in a deranged campaign against modern technology.” Read more at Washington Post
“Biden yesterday touted progress his administration has made in alleviating supply chain issues that have spurred shortages of consumer products, raised prices for Americans and contributed significantly to historic levels of inflation in the US. The President pointed to evidence that bottlenecks are beginning to unclog and said retail inventories are up 3% from last year. Separately, a new report on consumer confidence showed Americans are feeling more optimistic about the economic recovery, which has continued to show surprising strength into the final month of the year.” Read more at CNN
“More than 13 million Americans have signed up for health plans through the Affordable Care Act for 2022, a record.” Read more at New York Times
“Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made an open plea for Sen. Joe Manchin to join the GOP, saying on Hugh Hewitt's radio show: ‘If he were to join us, he'd be joining a lot of folks who have similar views on a whole range of issues.’ Listen ... Go deeper.” Read more at Axios
Photo: Fairfax County Fire and Rescue via Twitter
“Former U.S. senator and Virginia governor Chuck Robb and his wife, Lynda Bird Johnson Robb, were injured when fire engulfed their longtime home in McLean, Va., after 11 p.m. Tuesday, The Washington Post reports.
Chuck Robb, 82, was treated for smoke inhalation and released from a hospital. Lynda Robb, 77, remained hospitalized after suffering second-degree burns from her wrist to her elbow and smoke inhalation, according to a statement from her sister, Luci Baines Johnson.
‘The facts are they are still with us,’ Johnson said. ‘They are both extraordinarily strong and accomplished people. They have spent 54 years together. My heart is shattered for them.’
The massive blaze on Chain Bridge Road could be seen across the Potomac River in Maryland and the District, according to The Post:
‘Johnson said her sister was in the library of the home on the ground floor when the fire began, while Charles S. Robb was working in the basement. Johnson said it is unclear what sparked the blaze, but authorities are exploring whether the origin was electrical. The couple has lived in the home for nearly 50 years.’” Read more at Axios
“‘Tragic loss’: Seven people who were found dead inside a Minnesota home are believed to have died from carbon monoxide poisoning, police said.” Read more at USA Today
“RICHMOND — So, no ultrarare photo of President Lincoln in his casket.
Not even a trove of pro-Confederate propaganda.
But the Robert E. Lee monument time capsule that Virginia historians opened Wednesday produced its share of mystery and intrigue — along with three waterlogged books from the late 1800s, a pamphlet or two, a ghostly photo and a British coin.
Gov. Ralph Northam (D) lent a hand Wednesday afternoon as conservatorsChelsea Blake and Kate Ridgway finally peeled up the lid of the small lead box after several hours of prying at its seams. Workers had discovered the box Friday while dismantling the 40-foot stone plinth that once supported the state’s statue of Lee on Monument Avenue. Northam ordered the statue taken down in September, calling it a symbol of racism.
Even before the top of the box came off — live-streamed and before a crush of media cameras — experts had begun to doubt that this was the official time capsule placed beneath the Lee memorial in 1887, three years before the statue was unveiled.” Read more at Washington Post
“James Franco speaks for the first time in an interview airing Thursday following sexual misconduct allegations against him. Franco is the subject of a recorded interview with host Jess Cagle on SiriusXM's The Jess Cagle Podcast. The 43-year-old actor agreed to pay a $2.2 million settlement earlier this year after his former acting students filed a 2019 lawsuit alleging he pushed students at his Studio 4 school into sexual and exploitative scenes on camera. Franco said at one point in the interview in part that, ‘over the course of my teaching I did sleep with students, and that was wrong.’” Read more at USA Today
“Utah billionaire Jeff Green said he was donating $600,000 to a LGTBQ group and resigning from his Mormon church, accusing the church of hindering the progress of civil rights and taking advantage of its members.” Read more at USA Today
“Russia hopes to hold bilateral talks with NATO and the United States in January over security guarantees it is seeking from both, a state-owned media outlet reported yesterday, citing Russia's foreign minister. The news comes just a day after NATO said it is ready to engage in ‘meaningful dialogue’ with Russia amid its massing of troops near Ukraine's border. The United States and its allies have warned Russia about the consequences of further hostilities amid its continued military buildup along the Ukraine border -- a move that US intelligence has assessed as preparation for a full-scale invasion in the coming months. Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded security guarantees from the United States and NATO, including a binding pledge that NATO won't expand farther east and will not allow Ukraine to join the military alliance.” Read more at CNN
“The Biden administration Wednesday took steps to make it easier for humanitarian aid to reach Afghanistan as the combination of the pandemic, a severe drought, and a cash shortage have left the country’s fragile economy on the brink of collapse.
The Treasury Department said the measures would give US and international aid groups more freedom to operate in the country, while allowing the United States to maintain economic pressure on the Taliban.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Refugees drown in Greece. At least three migrants have died and more than 30 others are missing after a boat carrying them capsized in the Aegean Sea near the Greek island of Folegandros. The Greek Coast Guard rescued 12 people who are being treated for hypothermia on the nearby island of Santorini. Survivors told rescuers that there were as many as 50 passengers on board before the boat sank.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“HONG KONG (AP) — A monument at a Hong Kong university that was the best-known public remembrance of the Tiananmen Square massacre on Chinese soil was removed early Thursday, wiping out the city’s last place of public commemoration of the bloody 1989 crackdown.
For some at the University of Hong Kong, the move reflected the erosion of the relative freedoms they have enjoyed compared to mainland China.
The 8-meter (26-foot) -tall Pillar of Shame, which depicts 50 torn and twisted bodies piled on top of each other, was made by Danish sculptor Jens Galschioet to symbolize the lives lost during the military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.
‘They are sending a signal to the students that it is over with the (Hong Kong) democracy movement and that it is over with free speech in Hong Kong,’ Galschioet said of the monument’s removal.” Read more at AP News
Texas A&M was supposed to play Wake Forest in the Gator Bowl, but withdrew because it said it would not have enough players to field a team.Credit...Derick Hingle/Associated Press
“The coronavirus pandemic’s resurgence menaced the college football season’s closing weeks on Wednesday, when one team withdrew from its bowl game and the four national title contenders were warned that they could forfeit if they were not able to compete on time.
Minutes after Texas A&M announced its withdrawal from next week’s Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla., the College Football Playoff said it would not reschedule its Dec. 31 semifinal matchups featuring No. 1 Alabama against No. 4 Cincinnati and No. 2 Michigan playing No. 3 Georgia, even as it detailed a protocol that could upend the tournament before kickoff.
‘As we prepare for the playoff, it’s wise and necessary to put into place additional precautions to protect those who will play and coach the games,’ Bill Hancock, the playoff’s executive director, said in a statement. ‘These policies will better protect our students and staffs while providing clarity in the event worst-case scenarios result.’
Under the policies that playoff officials outlined on Wednesday, a team that is unavailable to play in a semifinal game on Dec. 31 will forfeit, allowing its intended opponent to advance automatically to the national title game, which is scheduled for Jan. 10 in Indianapolis.” Read more at New York Times
Photo: Gillian Flaccus/AP
“Above, Tesla owner Vince Patton demonstrates on a closed course in Portland, Oregon, how he can play video games on his console while driving. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into the potential for Tesla drivers to play while moving. Go deeper.” Read more at Axios