Cut to the News
Cut through the clutter to today's top news
January 19, 2021
Good morning
Welcome to today's top news.
Leading the News . . .
Trump leaves mark as one of the most consequential one-term presidents . . . President Trump leaves office reluctantly Wednesday after compiling one of the most consequential and turbulent records of any one-term leader. Mr. Trump forged peace deals in the Middle East for the first time in generations, spurred an economic revival by slashing regulations and taxes, overhauled the immigration system, ripped up and renegotiated trade deals,
enacted elusive criminal justice reform and stocked the federal judiciary with conservatives at a record pace. Some of Mr. Trump’s strongest supporters and former aides were frustrated that Mr. Trump’s campaign to fight the results after the Electoral College certified Mr. Biden’s win on Dec. 14 squandered an opportunity to focus on the achievements of his four years. They now worry that the president’s connection with the deadly storming of the Capitol by some of his followers on Jan. 6
will forever overshadow his accomplishments. But the president’s policy achievements, much like Mr. Trump himself, cannot be ignored. Many observers believe that reshaping the courts is likely to be his longest-lasting legacy. Washington Times
Love him or hate him on a personal level, Trump has been an excellent President, truly committed to make America great again.
A new COVID-19 challenge: Mutations rise along with cases . . . The race against the virus that causes COVID-19 has taken a new turn: Mutations are rapidly popping up, and the longer it takes to vaccinate people, the more likely it is that a variant that can elude current tests, treatments and vaccines could emerge. The coronavirus is becoming more genetically diverse, and health officials say the high rate of new cases is the main
reason. Each new infection gives the virus a chance to mutate as it makes copies of itself, threatening to undo the progress made so far to control the pandemic. The CDC said a new version first identified in the United Kingdom may become dominant in the U.S. by March. Associated Press
Stanford study shows 'no clear significant' benefits to lockdowns . . . A recently released study by Stanford University researchers is providing an empirical boost to those who want to shut down the shutdowns. A peer-reviewed article in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation found “no clear significant beneficial effect” from stay-at-home orders and business closures in eight nations, including the United States, versus
voluntary measures adopted by South Korea and Sweden. Published Jan. 5, the article offers what may be the strongest scientific challenge yet to more restrictive non-pharmaceutical interventions, or NPIs, prompting cheers from policymakers calling for the reopening of schools, restaurants, bars and gyms. Washington
Times
West Virginia leads nation in COVID vaccine distribution and administration . . . As states around the country struggle to distribute and administer COVID-19 vaccines to healthcare workers and the older population in long-term care facilities, West Virginia is leading the nation in both areas, with its immunization rate for these groups at almost 100 percent. “Right now, we’re at 98.1 percent, as far as vaccines in people’s arms or
names tied to it, you know, that are going to be put into people’s arms immediately,” West Virginia Governor Jim Justice said on Jan. 17. The state has administered both doses of the vaccine to a total of 146,937 people as of Jan. 15, with an administration rate of 93.7 percent for the first dose and an 80 percent for the second, according to a press release. The state has a population of around 1.8 million. Epoch Times
Companies dangle incentives to spur employees to get COVID vaccine . . . Workers at several companies are being offered money if they are vaccinated against COVID-19, amid reluctance from some to get one of the vaccines. Dollar General is giving hourly workers who get a COVID-19 vaccine the equivalent of four hours of pay. Salaried workers are receiving additional store labor hours. Instacart, the grocery delivery platform, is doling out a $25
payment to workers if they get a vaccine. And Trader Joe’s will pay employees the equivalent of two hours of work for each dose of a vaccine they get. The only two authorized COVID-19 vaccines require two doses spaced apart by several weeks. The company is also promising to shift schedules so workers can get vaccinated. Epoch Times
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Media go all in for Kamala . . . Joe Biden hasn't been sworn in yet, but the press is already fluffing his successor. Biden spent eight years in the shadow of Barack Obama, waiting patently for his moment in the spotlight. Obama showed his appreciation by repeatedly urging Biden not to run for president. Good thing he didn't listen in 2020, because the former VP is now mere hours away from being sworn in as commander in chief. The
"professional" journalists in the American media are already working tirelessly to fluff his presumed successor, Kamala Harris, who in recent days has been the subject of fawning press coverage that would make even Obama blush. Washington Free Beacon
FBI warns QAnon supporters discussed inauguration infiltration by posing as National Guard: report . . . QAnon adherents are reportedly discussing the possibility of "posing" as members of the National Guard in order to infiltrate the inauguration this week. Others have been downloading and sharing maps of sensitive locations and discussing how those facilities could be used to interfere with security operations in Washington, D.C.
An FBI intelligence briefing, summarizing threats, warned that both "lone wolves" and supporters of the QAnon conspiracy have expressed intentions to come to the nation's capital for the inauguration. No specific plots to attack the city were identified in the briefing. Washington Examiner
Tucker Carlson: Dems militarize DC, send clear message: "We're in charge now" . . . There are expected to be more than 26,000 armed federal troops in Washington by Inauguration Day. No living American has seen a moment like the one we're watching now. For comparison, Lyndon Johnson sent a total of 13,600 federal troops and D.C. Army National Guardsmen to quell the race riots in Washington that followed the assassination of Martin
Luther King Jr. Those riots injured hundreds of people and killed at least 13. In 1864, as the Civil War raged on the other side of the Potomac and Americans died every day in large numbers on the battlefield, there were fewer federal troops protecting Washington, D.C., than there are right now. But according to our leaders, the so-called "insurrection" of Jan. 6 was much worse than any of that. So in response, they have assembled the largest military presence in Washington in all of
American history during peacetime. Fox News
Trump gets lowest job approval rating in final days as president . . . President Trump job approval ratings reached a record low among Americans polled in a new Gallup survey.
Thirty-four percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, representing the lowest approval rating he has had since assuming office. Trump's 41 percent average approval rating throughout his four years in office is four points lower than for any of his predecessors in the White House in Gallup's polling era. A 34 percent approval rating is a single point lower than his prior lowest single rating, which came on multiple occasions in 2017. Trump is the
first president to fail to crack a 50 percent approval rating at any point since Gallup began measuring presidential job approval in 1938. The Hill
Clinton wants another Russia probe? . . . Hillary Clinton spoke with Nancy Pelosi on her podcast about the riot at the U.S. Capitol earlier this month and hinted that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have been receiving updates about the chaos from President Trump. Clinton, who hosts the podcast, "You and Me Both," told Pelosi that she would be interested in obtaining President Trump's phone records to see if he was on the phone with
Putin while the Capitol was being breached. She asked Pelosi if she believed the country would benefit from a 9/11-commission-type probe to investigate what exactly led up to the deadly riot. Fox News
She just wouldn't shut up, would she?
Biden cabinet nominees to get first Senate confirmation hearings Tuesday . . . President-elect Biden’s key cabinet nominees will be in the hot seat on Tuesday for their first round of Senate confirmation hearings. The hearings will take place one day before Biden’s inauguration, meaning the former veep enters the White House with his cabinet still very much in flux. Treasury nominee Janet Yellen, Defense nominee Lloyd Austin,
Homeland Security nominee Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of State nominee Antony Blinken and Director of National Intelligence nominee Avril Haines will all front their respective committees on Tuesday, creating a blockbuster day of hearings in the nation’s capitol.
Yellen, Mayorkas and Haines will give testimony at hearings on Capitol Hill at 10 a.m., followed by Blinken at 2 p.m. and Austin at 3 p.m. New York Post
Obiden syndicate of "experts" gearing up for Act II.
Left-wing group targets Federalist Society donors after Capitol riot . . . Former Clinton aide Brian Fallon and his judicial advocacy group Demand Justice are pressing corporate contributors to end their support of the Federalist Society, citing a prominent member's involvement with the White House rally that preceded the Capitol riot. John Eastman, a law professor tied to the society, spoke at President Donald Trump's "Save America"
rally on Jan. 6 alongside Rudy Giuliani, where he claimed that the election was replete with fraud. Fallon is now calling on marquee corporate supporters like Facebook, Google, Verizon, T-Mobile, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to stop contributing to the Federalist Society, citing Eastman's speech. The pressure campaign is the latest move in a long-running quest to marginalize the Federalist Society. Washington Free Beaacon
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Woman accused of trying to sell Pelosi laptop to Russians arrested . . . A woman who the FBI says took a laptop belonging to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) during the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and tried to sell it to Russians has been arrested. Riley June Williams was arrested on Monday in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. She is charged with knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without
lawful authority, as well as violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
According to the FBI's court filing, Williams reportedly “intended to send the computer device to a friend in Russia, who then planned to sell the device to SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service. The Hill
Brainless.
Parler partially reappears with support from Russian technology firm . . . Parler, a social media website and app popular with the American far right, has partially returned online with the help of a Russian-owned technology company. Parler was dropped by Amazon Inc’s hosting arm and other partners reportedly for poor moderation after its users called for violence and posted videos glorifying the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S.
Capitol. On Monday, Parler’s website was reachable again, though only with a message from its chief executive saying he was working to restore functionality. The internet protocol address it used is owned by DDos-Guard, which is controlled by two Russian men and provides services including protection from distributed denial of service attacks. Reuters
Brainless x2.
Z oom spy claims a warning for multinationals in China . . . Tinker, tailor, soldier . . . Zoom spy? The late, great David Cornwell, aka John le Carré, did not pen a novel about the defining geopolitical rivalry of the 21st century, between the US and China. But if he had, he might have modelled one of his inimitable protagonists on Jin Xinjiang, aka Julien Jin, a former China-based executive for Zoom, the Californian videoconferencing
company.
Mr Jin was the subject of a remarkable complaint filed last month by the US Department of Justice, which is pursuing him for allegedly surveilling and disrupting certain Zoom users on behalf of Chinese police and state security agents. Financial Times
Trump orders assessment of security risks of Chinese drones . . . President Trump on Monday signed an executive order directing U.S agencies to assess any security risks from Chinese-made drones in American government fleets and to prioritize removing them. Trump directed all U.S. agencies to outline the security risks posed to the existing government drone fleet from drones built by Chinese companies or by other countries deemed foreign
adversaries, including Russia, Iran and North Korea. Last month, the U.S. Commerce Department added China’s SZ DJI Technology Co, the world’s largest drone maker, to the U.S. government’s economic blacklist, along with dozens of other Chinese companies. Reuters
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Kremlin dismisses calls for sanctions over Navalny detention . . . The Kremlin said on Tuesday it would not heed calls by some Western countries for sanctions over Russia’s detention of poisoned opposition politician Alexei Navalny because his case was a purely domestic matter. Navalny was detained on Sunday after flying back to Russia for the first time since he was attacked with a military-grade nerve agent last summer while travelling
in Russia’s east, and has urged Russians to take to the streets in protest. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia want the European Union to respond with sanctions against Moscow. “We hear these statements, but we cannot and don’t plan to take these into account,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call. Reuters
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Here's how many jobs Biden's proposed $15 min wage could kill . . . President-elect Biden's effort to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 per hour is estimated to kill as many as 3.7 million jobs, according to a recent nonpartisan analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.
Based on the CBO's median estimate,1.3 million workers who would otherwise be employed would be jobless in an average week in 2025, an 0.8% reduction. While the $15 federal minimum wage would boost workers' earnings, the CBO says that some of the higher earnings would be offset by higher rates of joblessness. Fox Business
IRS says Americans should avoid filing paper tax return amid backlog . . . The IRS urged Americans to file their taxes electronically this year as the agency deals with a backlog of nearly 7 million unprocessed paper returns from last year. On Friday, the IRS announced that it was delaying the start of the 2021 tax season, which usually begins at the end of January, to Feb. 12 to prevent further backlogs. The IRS received about 16
million paper returns last year; as of Dec. 25, the agency said it still had about 6.9 million individuals returns in the "processing pipeline" — or about 40%. Fox Business
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FB bans ads for gun safes, other protective firearms gear ahead of Inauguration Day . . . This weekend Facebook said that it will temporarily ban ads for weapons accessories, including gun safes and holsters in the U.S. "We already prohibit ads for weapons, ammunition and weapon enhancements like silencers. But we will now also prohibit ads for accessories such as gun safes, vests and gun holsters in the US," Facebooks executives
said. Facebook is also changing some of its policies and maintaining its ban on political ads ahead of Inauguration Day. Fox Business
DuckDuckGo search engine increased its traffic by 62% in 2020 as users seek privacy . . . DuckDuckGo, a search engine focused on privacy, increased its average number of daily searches by 62% in 2020 as users seek alternatives to impede data tracking.
The search engine, founded in 2008, operated nearly 23.7 billion search queries on their platform in 2020, according to their traffic page. On Jan. 11, DuckDuckGo reached its highest number of search queries in one day, with a total of 102,251,307. DuckDuckGo does not track user searches or share personal data with third-party companies. Besides DuckDuckGo's website, the platform is also available as an iOS and Android app, as well as a Google Chrome extension. USA Today
I am now using DuckDuckGo, having recently pulled the plug on Google search engine, in the aftermath of all the recent shenanigans by Big Tech. Good search engine. Recommend.
Josh Hawley lands new publisher after Simon & Schuster canceled his book deal . . . Sen. Josh Hawley lost a deal on Jan. 7 with Simon & Schuster for his forthcoming book “The Tyranny of Big Tech.” The Missouri Republican, however, already has signed a new deal to publish his book just 11 days later. The New York-based publishing giant withdrew its offer to Mr. Hawley after he objected to the certification of the 2020 presidential
election amid the violent riot that raged at the U.S Capitol on Jan. 6. Simon & Schuster severed ties with the lawmaker 24 hours later. The publisher counts both Hillary and Bill Clinton among its stable of authors. Regnery Books — well-known for backing such high profile conservatives as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich; Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican; and columnists Michelle Malkin and Dennis Prager — sealed a deal with Mr. Hawley on Monday. His book will be on the shelves by May
4. Washington Times
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Thief berated mom for leaving kid in car he stole . . . A car thief who found a toddler in the backseat of a stolen vehicle drove back and chastised the mother for leaving the child unattended before taking off again, police in Oregon said. The woman went into a grocery store about 15 feet from the car Saturday, leaving her 4-year-old child inside with the engine running and the vehicle unlocked. The woman was in the market for a few minutes
before a store employee saw someone began driving away with the SUV. Once the thief realized the toddler was in the backseat, he drove back, berated the woman for leaving her child unattended, told the woman to take the child and drove away in the stolen vehicle. He actually lectured the mother for leaving the child in the car and threatened to call the police on her. The vehicle was found a few hours later in Portland but police are still searching for the thief. The suspect was said
to be in his 20s or 30s with dark brown or black braided hair and a multi-colored face mask. Associated Press
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