Yearly Archives: 2021

(The Center Square) – In its 44th annual National Migration study, United Van Lines found that migration to western and southern states from northern states has been a prevalent pattern for the past several years.

According to the study, which tracks the company’s exclusive data for customers’ 2020 state-to-state migration patterns, the greatest percentage of people moved to Idaho, with an inbound migration of 70 percent.

The greatest percentage of people left New Jersey, with an outbound migration of 70 percent. New Jersey has held the top outbound spot for the past three years.

States with the top inbound migration last year following Idaho, were South Carolina (64%), Oregon (63%), South Dakota (62%) and Arizona (62%).

States with the top outbound migration following New Jersey, were New York (67%), Illinois (67%), Connecticut (63%) and California (59%).

United Van Lines conducts a survey examining the reasons why their clients moved to different states. In 2020, it found that 40 percent moved for a new job or job transfer. More than one in four (27%) moved to be closer to family, a significant increase from the previous year.

For customers who cited COVID-19 as a reason for their move, top reasons were concerns for personal and family health and well being (60%) and a desire to be closer to family (59%). Others moved as a result of changes in employment status or work arrangements (57%), including the ability to work remotely, and 53% expressed seeking a lifestyle change or improvement of quality of life.

Minnesota led the list of states people moved to be closer to family (41%). Wyoming led as the primary destination for those seeking a lifestyle change (nearly 29%). More people migrated to Nebraska for a new job or job transfer than any other state (72%), and more people moved to Idaho due to the cost of living than any other state.

(The Center Square) – The National Rifle Association announced on Friday it seeks to file for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. It’s part of a move the pro-Second Amendment rights organization is taking to restructure as a Texas-based organization and leave New York, where it has been incorporated for about 150 years.

The NRA filed the paperwork in a U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas. A news release from the organization claims it is in its “strongest financial condition in years,” and pledges to offer a plan to fully repay claims from all valid creditors.

In its filing, the group estimated both its assets and liabilities to be between $100 million and $500 million.

In a separate letter posted on the NRA website, CEO and Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre cited the “toxic political environment” in the Empire State for the reorganization.

“The plan can be summed up quite simply: We are DUMPING New York, and we are pursuing plans to reincorporate the NRA in Texas,” he stated.

In August, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit seeking to dissolve the organization. The suit said LaPierre and other current and former executives did not live up to the fiscal responsibilities for the NRA, tapping into millions in reserve funds to pay for lavish personal expenses.

James issued a caustic statement in response to Friday’s news.

“The NRA’s claimed financial status has finally met its moral status: bankrupt,” she said. “While we review this filing, we will not allow the NRA to use this or any other tactic to evade accountability and my office’s oversight.”

In November, the group agreed to pay a $2.5 million fine after state regulators determined the NRA sold an insurance plan that violated state law. That plan covered legal costs for individuals who face legal costs for cases where they claim self-defense.

The NRA countersued immediately in response, saying the Attorney General’s actions were politically motivated.

The association also was banned from selling insurance plans in the state for five years after the investigation uncovered it earned commissions on nearly 30,000 policies to New York members even though the NRA was not licensed to sell them in the state.

Reincorporating in Texas means the NRA will be in more-friendly confines. More than 400,000 of the approximate 5 million members live in the Lone Star State, and the organization has scheduled its 2021 annual meeting in Houston.

In addition to the corporate restructuring, the company said it's contemplating relocating some of its operations to Texas or other states. That includes its headquarters currently located in Fairfax, Va. A committee will consider those options, and the NRA also announced the hiring of former 3M executive Marschall Smith to serve as its chief restructuring officer.

President Trump’s last days in office offer a final opportunity to declassify critical information on the Russia investigation that engulfed his lone term.

Voluminous public records – including investigative reports from Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Congress and the Justice Department’s inspector general – have established that Trump and his associates were targeted with a baseless Russian collusion allegation. The fraudulent claim originated with the Hillary Clinton campaign, was fueled by a torrent of false or deceptive intelligence leaks, and was improperly investigated by the FBI, potentially to the point of being criminal. Despite these disclosures, key questions remain about the origins and the spread of the conspiracy theory.

Before he leaves office on Jan. 20, Trump could use his declassification authority to help clear up some critical issues of the Russiagate saga.

The FBI says it opened its Trump-Russia investigation on July 31, 2016 after learning of a potential offer of Russian assistance to junior Trump campaign volunteer George Papadopoulos. It later emerged that the offer came from a Maltese academic named Joseph Mifsud, whom U.S. officials have suggested was acting as a Russian cutout.

Mueller’s team depicted Mifsud as having extensive contacts with Russia. Yet Mifsud’s closest public ties had been to Western governments, politicians, and institutions, including the CIA, FBI, and British intelligence services. Despite Mifsud’s central role in the investigation, the FBI conducted only one brief interview with him in February 2017. The Mueller team later claimed that Mifsud gave false statements to FBI agents yet, conspicuously, did not indict him for lying. The FBI’s notes on the interview show that Mifsud denied having any advance knowledge of Russian hacking.

Why didn’t the FBI grill Mifsud about his sources, methods and contacts? What other efforts, if any, were made to surveil him?

A highly placed Kremlin mole was the main source of the core claim in CIA Director John Brennan’s hastily produced 2017 “Intelligence Community Assessment” (ICA) that Russian President Vladimir Putin intervened in the 2016 election to help defeat Clinton and support Trump.

The ICA’s claim was widely portrayed as the consensus view of U.S. spy agencies, but in reality it was the conclusion drawn by a small group of CIA analysts, closely managed by then-Director Brennan. Paul Sperry of RealClearInvestigations revealed that Brennan overruled two senior analysts who disagreed with it.

Multiple outlets have already outed the mole, Oleg Smolenkov, and the circumstances of his exit from Russia in June 2017. This supposed betrayer of the Kremlin’s secrets was found to be living under his own name in a Virginia suburb.

After the FBI’s collusion probe got underway in July 2016, it purportedly did not rely on the Steele dossier, a series of opposition-research memos prepared by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. In his testimony to Congress in July 2019, Mueller claimed that the dossier was “outside my purview.”

Yet the FBI did extensively rely on the Steele dossier, most egregiously to obtain a surveillance warrant on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page.

There may be more evidence, as suggested in recently declassified documents, that the Steele material played a bigger role in the Mueller investigation than previously known. Further declassification could shed additional light on whether Mueller’s disavowal of Steele aligns with the conduct of his investigators.

In June 2016, CrowdStrike, a private company, accused Russian government hackers of infiltrating the Democratic National Committee’s servers. This assessment was presented as direct evidence of Russian interference in the presidential election and was later endorsed by the FBI and Mueller’s team.

CrowdStrike’s highly consequential allegation has been contradicted by subsequent disclosures. Like Steele, CrowdStrike was a Democratic Party contractor whose version of events dovetailed with the Clinton’s campaign’s apparent desire to muddy Trump with Russia connections. In a stunning admission, U.S. prosecutors told a court in June 2019 that CrowdStrike had submitted reports of a forensic analysis of its servers to the government in draft, redacted form.

The Crowdstrike reports would indicate whether the FBI and Mueller’s team were on solid ground in asserting Russia hacked the DNC and stole its emails.

Given the importance of the hacking allegation, and if its evidence is non-classified, why shouldn’t Trump direct the U.S. intelligence community to release all of it?

The January 2017 ICA assessed “with high confidence” that a Russian intelligence agency, the GRU, “used the Guccifer 2.0 persona” to release the stolen DNC files. In its July 2018 indictment of GRU officers, the Mueller team also strongly suggested that Guccifer transferred the stolen DNC emails to WikiLeaks.

The special counsel’s final report, issued in March 2019, quietly acknowledged that it “cannot rule out that stolen documents were transferred to WikiLeaks through intermediaries” – an admission that it has no hard evidence that Guccifer 2.0 was WikiLeaks’ source. It does not identify who those intermediaries might have been. Also missing from Mueller’s account is the evidence used to identify Guccifer 2.0 as a Russian intelligence front.

The Russia investigation remains a bitterly partisan issue, but it’s worth remembering that in November 2016, Clinton campaign chair John Podesta called on the U.S. government to “declassify information around Russia’s roles in the election and to make this data available to the public.” His purposes were different, of course. Nonetheless, disclosing such information now would give Americans a fair understanding of an unprecedented investigation into a sitting president – as well as the conduct of the intelligence officials who it carried out.

The economy was bad, and the White House planned to go big. On the day the mammoth $800 billion Recovery Act became law, however, the new president took care to stress how his administration would keep a close eye on every dollar going out the door. This task of providing oversight, Barack Obama announced at the bill’s 2009 signing ceremony, would go to Joe Biden.

“To you, he's Mr. Vice President,” Obama quipped to a room that included more than one skeptical Republican lawmaker. “But around the White House, we call him the sheriff.”

In a few days, the country will call him Mr. President. A decade later, Biden confronts a deeper economic crisis, this one brought on by a global pandemic, and the incoming executive has proposed a $1.9 trillion stimulus package meant to buoy families and communities and small businesses as his administration pushes to step up distribution of the coronavirus vaccines.

All that old sheriff has to do now is get Congress to come together – in the middle of another bitter impeachment fight. But in announcing the initiative Thursday evening, Biden didn’t mention the partisan battle currently consuming Capitol Hill. Instead, he emphasized in a prime-time speech that the dark winter he warned about during the campaign had arrived. COVID cases are spiking across the country. The economy is faltering. The nation, the president-elect argued, simply can’t afford not to act.

Yes, it will be expensive. Perhaps remembering the fights over the 2009 stimulus, Biden didn’t shy away from that fact. With interest rates low, he said it was a great time to borrow even though it guarantees adding more to the ever-growing national debt. Just a few minutes into his remarks, he said that “deficit spending” wasn’t just in order. It was “more urgent than ever” to make “smart fiscal investments.”

“The return on these investments – in jobs, in racial equity – will prevent long-term economic damage and the benefits will far surpass the costs,” Biden argued before adding that top economists had concluded that spending more now to spur the economy would ensure “our debt situation will be more stable, not less stable, if we seize this moment with vision and purpose.”

First, the president-elect requested $400 billion in additional funding to address the health crisis. According to his plans, the money would be spent rushing the vaccine into the arms of Americans at community vaccination sites nationwide, scaling up testing and tracing to track and contain the disease, and investing in the infrastructure and supplies needed to reopen schools safely.

Once made safe for students and staff, Biden wants the majority of American students from kindergarten through eighth grade back in the classroom in his first 100 days. He also promised to lay out a vaccination plan “to correct course and meet our goal of 100 million shots by the end of our first 100 days.”

Second, Biden requested $1 trillion in family relief. The biggest item in this spending bucket: a $1,400 per-person check (a payment to be added on top of the $600 already agreed to by lawmakers). He wants housing assistance and nutrition assistance, more money for subsidized child care, an extension of unemployment insurance through September, and a $3,000 tax credit for every child under 17 years old. What’s more, the incoming president wants a $15 minimum wage: “No one working 40 hours a week should still be below the poverty line.”

Finally, the president-elect will ask Congress for an additional $440 billion to provide relief for small businesses and to shore up struggling state and city and tribal governments.

Biden proposes no less than $15 billion in direct grants as well as $175 billion in government-backed lending for small businesses. He promised that the focus would be on “Main Street,” with particular emphasis on ensuring that “minority-owned small businesses and women-owned small businesses finally having equal access to the resources they need to reopen and rebuild.”

He also promised emergency funding for essential workers like municipal firefighters and police, warning that “the people putting their lives at risk are the very people now at risk of losing their jobs.”

Biden offered a broad sketch of the rescue package in his 25-minute address while his team passed along a 17-page fact sheet to fill in more of the details. It will be up to Congress to put flesh on these legislative bones. While Democrats hold the Senate after their twin victories in Georgia, their grasp is tenuous. The chamber splits 50-50, meaning that Vice President-elect Harris would cast tie-breaking votes. But power-sharing will still be a fact of life in the chamber and the incoming president didn’t offer details about how the ambitious agenda would become more than an aspiration. Biden wasn’t short on soaring rhetoric, however.

“We didn't get into all this overnight. We won't get out of it overnight, and we can't do it as a separated and divided nation,” he said. “The only way we can do it is to come together.”

This, along with the outlined spending, was enough to have congressional Democrats cheering.

“House and Senate Democrats express gratitude toward and look forward to working with the President-elect on the rescue plan,” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Pelosi said in a press release. The pair heralded the spending as “the right approach” and a sign that Democrats “have a partner at the White House that understands the need to take swift action to address the needs of struggling communities.” Even the party’s most prominent progressives were impressed with the dollar amount. Democratic-socialist Bernie Sanders, Biden’s 2020 campaign rival, released a statement calling the plan “much needed” and pledged to work with his colleagues in Congress to get it passed.

Republicans were predictably unimpressed. Rep. Kevin Brady, the ranking member on the House Ways and Means Committee, said Biden had “launched yet another economic blind buffalo that does nothing to save Main Street.” The Republican Study Committee, the largest GOP caucus in the House, tweeted that the stimulus checks alone in the plan “cost as much as the inflation adjusted cost of World War I.”

This sudden rediscovery of the dangers of too large a national debt harked back to the Obama days when the GOP prided itself on being the party of fiscal responsibility. Congressional Republicans regularly warned then that the Democrat in the White House was a profligate spender mortgaging the future of generations to come. It’s an old conservative chestnut that Republicans only seem to remember when Democrats occupy the Oval Office: Under President Trump, the debt ballooned by $7.8 trillion.

Familiar with those old arguments, Biden moved to head them off Thursday evening. “I know what I just described will not come cheaply,” he said. “But failing to do so will cost us dearly – the consensus among leading economists is we simply cannot afford not to do it.” This won’t be his only spending plan either. He promised that this $1.9 trillion initiative is an opening bid to Congress with more spending to come later.

As the first legislative priority of his administration, the plan will test the new president’s deal-making acumen. Biden seems comfortable in the role. He didn’t balk at debt and deficits the last time he was in the White House. He hasn’t gotten skittish in the last four years either, as he heralded the first multi-billion-dollar spending package he managed. “We will be responsible with taxpayer dollars, ensuring accountability that reduces waste, fraud, or abuse,” he promised, “like we did with the Recovery Act during the Obama-Biden administration.”

(The Center Square) – When can people in Wisconsin expect to get the coronavirus vaccine?

Republicans at the Wisconsin Capitol asked that question of the Evers Administration time after time on Thursday. The Assembly Committee on Health pressed the Department of Health Services as to why the state is so slow in getting the vaccine into people’s arms.

“It seems to me that the process that’s in place is overly bureaucratic and and cumbersome,” Rep. Joe Sanfelippo, R-New Berlin said.

DHS Assistant Deputy Secretary Lisa Olson said it’s not the process. She blamed Wisconsin’s second-slowest in the Midwest rollout on the federal government and a lack of doses.

“We very much want to be moving faster,” Olson told lawmakers. "Folks are moving as quickly as they can during the course of the week.”

Sanfelippo said wanting to be faster is not good enough. He wants Wisconsin to actually be faster in distributing the vaccine.

"We need to tell the public here's the day when we expect to do this group, here's the date when we expect to do that group,” Sanfelippo added. “The minute we get a vaccine from the federal government it should be in and out the next day and in someone's arm."

DHS reported on Thursday that doctors have administered 195,152 of the 373,100 doses that have been sent to the state. Wisconsin has been allocated 607,650 doses, but many of those have not yet been shipped.

The Centers for Disease Control reported on Thursday that Wisconsin has vaccinated about 2.4% of its population. The national average is 3.1%. The CDC ranks Wisconsin 40th in the nation when it comes to vaccinations.

Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, has been critical of Gov. Evers and how his administration has handled the vaccine rollout for weeks. He told News Talk 1130 WISN’s Jay Weber on Friday that the delays all come from the governor’s office and it’s overly planned process.

“Rather than making a decision months or weeks ago, they determine group-by-group who gets the vaccine once a week,” Wanggaard said. “And then they ask for public comment. And then the next week the [vaccine] subcommittee makes a decision to finalize the previous decision. And then it goes to someone else to review, and is sent back to the subcommittee. And then someone else makes the decision. And then the process repeats.”

Wanggaard said, instead, Wisconsin needs to follow the lead of other states that have established broad guidelines and let local public health departments, hospitals, or even pharmacies offer the shots.

(The Center Square) – The federal deficit in the first three months of the budget year is 60.7 percent higher than over the same time period as last year, a record-breaking $572.9 billion.

The deficit surged as a result of Congressional spending of $3.5 trillion in 2020 in response to the coronavirus, although critics note that spending on pork barrel programs that had nothing to do with the virus increased and also drove the deficit. At the same time, revenue declined because of ongoing state lockdowns.

The Treasury Department reports that the deficit is $216.3 billion higher than the same October-December period in 2019.

A record in spending for the period represented an 18.3 percent increase of $1.38 trillion, while at the same time revenues fell 0.4 percent to $803.37 billion.

In the month of December alone, when Congress passed, and President Donald Trump signed, several spending bills, the deficit reached a record $143.6 billion.

The shortfall for the 2020 budget year, which ended Sept. 30, reached an all-time high of $3.1 trillion.

Due to ongoing state lockdowns, millions of Americans are still out of work, and tax revenues also dropped, while at the same time, the demand by states for federal financial support dramatically increased.

The Treasury reports that outlays in December were a record $489.7 billion; receipts were $346.1 billion.

The December total excludes the $900 billion COVID-19 spending bill, which included $600 payments to individuals, extended unemployment benefit programs, and directed hundreds of millions of dollars to programs overseas, about which critics also complained.

From October to December 2020, unemployment benefits totaled $80 billion. During the same time period last year, they totaled $5 billion.

Prior to the $900 billion spending bill, the Congressional Budget Office forecast that 2021’s deficit will total $1.8 trillion, and remain above $1 trillion every year though 2030.

(The Center square) – The Centers for Disease Control has published several fact sheets and information online to inform health care administrators about the COVID-19 vaccine, including a list of people who should not take it.

On Thursday, the CDC reported that Texas has administered more doses than any other state so far.

On the CDC website, fact sheets for health care providers administering the vaccine and for recipients and caregivers are provided, along with full prescribing information, instructions about vaccine storage, and adverse event reporting.

Both the CDC and Pfizer-BioNTech, which produced and distributed the first approved COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S., state multiple times that the vaccine “has not been approved or licensed by the FDA.” It has been authorized for emergency use by FDA under an Emergency Use Authorization for individuals 16 years of age and older.

A six-page fact sheet for health care providers states that the vaccine is not approved by the FDA, is an experimental vaccine, has not undergone the same type of rigorous testing as other FDA-approved drugs, some who participated in clinical trials were given less doses than those who are receiving the doses today, the long-term side effects are unknown, and receiving the vaccine is completely voluntary.

The website warns professions not to administer the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to individuals with known history of a severe allergic reaction (e.g., anaphylaxis).

It also states, “Appropriate medical treatment used to manage immediate allergic reactions must be immediately available in the event an acute anaphylactic reaction occurs following administration of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine.”

The immunocompromised, including individuals receiving immunosuppressant therapy, may have a diminished immune response to the vaccine, the fact sheet states.

Because there is no available data on the effects of the vaccine administered to pregnant women, the CDC states “there is insufficient evidence to inform vaccine-associated risks to those who are pregnant” or want to become pregnant.

Data is also not available to assess the effects of the vaccine on breastfed infants or on milk production/excretion.

Health care providers are told that they “must communicate to the recipient or their caregiver, information consistent with the "Fact Sheet for Recipients and Caregivers" (and provide a copy or direct the individual to www.cvdvaccine.com to obtain the Fact Sheet) prior to the individual receiving Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine.

Nationally, the total number of people initiating vaccination (first dose received) is 11.1 million people, the CDC reports. Among them, 1.2 million live in long-term care facilities.

As of Thursday, California has distributed the most vaccines of any other state, 3.5 million, compared to Texas’ 2.1 million. But Texas has administered the most doses of any state, more than 1 million, roughly 25,000 more than California.

More than 1 million Texans have received at least the first of two doses of the vaccine, the CDC reports.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Texas leads the nation, one month to the day the first doses arrived at vaccine providers in the state on Dec. 14.

“Texas is leading the way for our nation once again,” Abbott said in a statement. “This is the biggest vaccination effort we have ever undertaken, and it would not be possible without the dedication and tireless efforts of our healthcare workers. We still have a long road ahead of us, but Texans continue to prove that we are up to this challenge.”

(The Center Square) – On Thursday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court heard arguments from the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, in which WILL asserted state courts should handle the state’s new political map rather than federal courts.

“It is going to wind-up in some court, somewhere,” WILL President Rick Esenberg told News Talk 1130 WISN’s Jay Weber Thursday. “The Constitution of the United States commits this job to state legislatures, it commits this job to the states,”

Esenberg said it is a question of federalism, not court shopping.

Wisconsin has divided government, and that means there will most likely be no agreement on a new political map based on the 2020 Census.

“History tells us when there are different parties, the legislature is Republican and the governor is Democrat, they don’t agree,” Esenberg explained. “The [map] then goes to the courts.”

Wisconsin’s last political map, drawn in 2010, faced several legal challenges in federal court. A federal judge eventually ordered lawmakers redraw two Milwaukee-area legislative districts (the 8th and 9th). The map was in legal limbo almost until the spring elections in 2012.

Esenberg specifically asked the Supreme Court to create rules that will keep the redistricting lawsuits, which he says are almost certainly coming, in state court. Esenberg said outside of the federalism/balance of government argument, there is an issue of time that the court has to consider.

“All of this has to be done in time so that next spring, April, 15 2022, so people who wish to run for the state legislature can get their nomination papers circulated,” Eseneberg said. “They need to know where the districts are. They need to know where they live.”

Esenberg added his request is not trying to game the system with Wisconsin’s Supreme Court. While the court has a 4-3 conservative majority on paper, the Supreme Court’s rulings this year have reflected both sides of the political spectrum.

“Yes, it’s true there are four justices who you might call conservative, but that doesn’t mean that they vote for whatever Republicans want,” Esenberg said. “Likewise, there are three justices who you might call Left-progressive, but that doesn’t mean that they vote for whatever Democrats want.”

There is pushback to the idea of keeping redistricting in state courts.

Fair Elections Project Director Sachin Chheda told the Wisconsin Supreme Court it is risking its credibility by considering WILL’s request,

“If you adopt this rule, it’s my humble view that you’d be seen as a partisan body. The rule is presented by the state’s top right-wing lawyer and a partisan activist former Speaker of the State Assembly,” Chheda said. “Since I’m myself often a partisan activist, I understand where they are coming from.”

Chedda then said any legal challenge to the maps will likely end up in federal court, so there’s no need to try and stop that.

“The federal courts have a well-established process and tremendous experience in redistricting litigation. Three times in the last four decades, federal courts have drawn the maps and done so very competently,” Chheda said.

(The Center Square) – New unemployment claims soared to nearly 1 million last week, the latest sign that the U.S. economy continues to struggle to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to U.S. Department of Labor data released Thursday, about 965,000 workers filed for first-time benefits the week ending Jan. 9. That's an increase of 181,000 new claims from the prior week, when 784,000 workers filed new claims.

During the same week in 2020, before government restrictions were put in place to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, 207,000 new claims were filed, less than a quarter of those filing for initial benefits last week.

Continued claims, which include those who have filed for benefits at least two weeks in a row, were at 5.3 million in the week ending Jan. 2. Continued claims data lag new claims by a week.

"The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment ratewas 3.7 percent for the week ending January 2, an increase of 0.2 percentage points from the previous week's unrevised rate," the labor department reported.

The world is slowly approaching a full year of coronavirus lockdowns. The pandemic and the crushing lockdowns that followed caught many by surprise and off guard. Yet, while most recall the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic as somewhere in late February or early March, the World Health Organization (WHO) knew about this virus well before then. And, given their early reaction, it’s no wonder this crisis has lasted as long – or been as destructive – as it has.

As early as Jan. 14 of last year, the WHO triumphantly tweeted to its roughly 8.8 million followers, “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in Wuhan, China.”

Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳. pic.twitter.com/Fnl5P877VG— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 14, 2020

This, as we all know, was about as false as can be and was not the end of the story.

However, this tweet is not entirely worthless. It is a perfect encapsulation of exactly what is wrong with the WHO. It demands blind trust on issues of public health, despite a track record of being tragically wrong. It defers far too often to the regime in Beijing rather than to the facts or the best interests of global health. There is very little doubt that the collective trust the world placed in the WHO in the early days of this crisis cost thousands of lives and millions of jobs across the globe.

Seeing the lack of leadership at the WHO, President Donald Trump threatened to pull United States taxpayer funding to the WHO in April. The president then later followed up in July by withdrawing the U.S. from membership in the WHO, effective immediately. It was too little, too late to save the U.S. from the consequences of the WHO’s misinformation on coronavirus, but these decisions may very well avoid similar catastrophes in years to come. Yet, despite this, President-elect Joe Biden has promised to rejoin the WHO on day one of his administration.

This would be a monumentally foolish decision. While Biden claims that Americans are “safer” when America is in the WHO, the more than 386,000 Americans who have died would beg to differ if they had the chance. Weeks before the virus came to our shores, the WHO claimed – without caveat – that there was no human-to-human transmission. This lulled leaders into a false sense of complacency and prevented key planning that could have taken place. WHO leaders did this to please the top brass in Beijing.

Even a cursory analysis of the WHO’s track record on coronavirus will show that they are far more a political entity than a public health organization. When Dr. Li Wenliang first raised red flags about the fact that human-to-human transmission was, in fact, very possible, he was censured aggressively by the Chinese regime. He was accused of “spreading rumors” and eventually died of the virus himself. When asked about the treatment of Dr. Li, the executive director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, Michael Ryan, said merely, “There is understandable confusion that occurs at the beginning of an epidemic.” Striving further to absolve the Chinese authorities from responsibility, he added, “We need to be careful to label misunderstanding versus misinformation; there's a difference.”

In late March, once the scope of the pandemic and Chinese misinformation was evident, WHO officials doubled down on their defense of China’s handling of the virus. WHO Senior Advisor Bruce Aylward refused to answer questions regarding China’s response compared to Taiwan’s relatively successful approach. When asked by Yvonne Tong, a reporter for the Hong Kong media outlet RTHK, if Taiwan’s success would lead the WHO to reconsider their stance disallowing Taiwan from becoming a member nation, Aylward stalled in silence for over ten seconds. He then claimed he hadn’t heard the question and asked to move on to a different one. When Tong repeated, Aylward hung up. When Aylward and Tong got reconnected, he actually referred to Taiwan as an “area of China” and claimed China had done a very good job with the virus, before hanging up again.

It is clear that the WHO is intent on making itself a political entity that is serving the interests of some of its more authoritarian members, namely the Chinese government. Their flailing response thus far should be enough to strip them of any credibility on the coronavirus or any other public health matter. Not only this, but the WHO has tried to skirt any responsibility by smearing any and all criticisms of their response as attempts to “politicize the virus.”

Biden, who fashions himself as a champion of science, decency and truth, should keep the U.S. far away from this hopelessly corrupt organization.

(The Center Square) – The U.S. House of Representatives voted Wednesday to impeach President Donald Trump over comments he made prior to a violent invasion of the Capitol exactly a week ago.

It's the second time in 13 months the president faces a trial in the U.S. Senate, though he is expected to be out of office before a potential trial ever takes place.

The vote of 232-197 was mostly along party lines, though some Republicans joined Democrats to impeach. Trump becomes the first president to ever be impeached twice.

The single article, with 190 co-sponsors, reads, in part: “In all this, President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of Government. He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government. He thereby betrayed his trust as President, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.”

There were 10 Republicans who sided with the Democrats, led by U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 Republican in the House. The others were Fred Upton and Peter Meijer of Michigan, Dan Newhouse and Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington state, John Katko of New York, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Tom Rice of South Carolina, Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio and David Valadao of California.

The move to impeach came after Trump spoke to supporters Jan. 6 outside the White House as the House and Senate met in joint session in the Capitol to certify each state’s Electoral College votes declaring President-elect Joe Biden the winner of the Nov. 3 election.

Trump told the crowd he would not concede and that he knew “everyone would be making their way over to the Capitol to protest peacefully and patriotically" and they should “give our Republicans the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back this country.”

Thousands of people later descended on the Capitol and hundreds breached the doors, entering the building and sending lawmakers into hiding. Democrats said Trump’s words “incited an insurrection.”

During the two hours of debate before the vote was taken, most of the comments from the floor broke down along rhetorical party lines.

Democrat Rosa De Lauro of Connecticut, for example, said Trump “unleashed horrific violence” on the Capitol, while Democrat Kathy Castor of Florida called Trump’s words and actions “the most depraved betrayal of the Constitution by a president.”

Republican Dan Bishop of North Carolina, on the other hand, said the Democrats did not “specify any inciting language” that led to the breach of the Capitol.

Republican Tom Cole of Oklahoma said the current process moved too quickly with no hearings or witnesses.

“They are rushing to divide us rather than unite us,” Cole said. “We should find a new way forward to celebrate a new president rather than impeach an old president.”

The Capitol and the area around it were heavily fortified with fences, blockades and National Guard soldiers Wednesday in an effort to prevent any similar actions. No crowds were seen gathered outside before the proceedings began.

Tuesday night, the House voted 223-205 in favor of a non-binding resolution asking Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, which would entail him and Cabinet members to vote on Trump’s fitness to remain in office.

Kinzinger of Illinois, who also voted for impeachment, was the only Republican to vote in favor of the resolution.

Pence declined, sending a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, saying, “I urge you and every member of Congress to avoid actions that would further divide and inflame the passions of the moment.”

It is unclear now when the impeachment charge will be forwarded to the Senate, which does not return to session until Jan. 19, one day ahead of Biden’s inauguration. Several Democrats have suggested waiting at least 100 days so that Biden will have at least three months to focus solely on his legislative agenda.

Trump was acquitted by the U.S. Senate in January 2020 after being impeached by the House in December 2019. If he is convicted, it would prevent him from ever holding federal office again.

(The Center Square) – Calling-up the National Guard may protect the Wisconsin Capitol in the short term, but one state senator says there needs to be a more permanent fix.

Sen. Dan Feyen, R-Fond du Lac, on Tuesday sent a letter to Gov. Tony Evers and the state’s legislative leaders pressing for more security, and a better Capitol security strategy.

“I am writing today to urge you to take security in the Wisconsin State Capitol seriously," Feyen wrote.

"The building has been closed to the public since March 2020 but now is the time to formulate and execute stronger security measures in our most treasured Wisconsin building,” Feyen said. “ I am urging you, as the leaders in both houses and the Governor, to make the State Capitol as secure as possible for all of those working and visiting.”

Feyen said the Capitol simply has too many open doors, more than 10, and doesn’t have any security checkpoints or or barriers.

Feyen said the need for enhanced security was proven just last week at the U.S. Capitol.

“In the wake of the Washington, D.C. unrest, the overtaking of the U.S. Capitol, and the FBI warnings that violence and unrest is possible at all 50 statehouses, now is the time to act!,” Feyen wrote. “We cannot wait until an elected official, an employee, or a visitor to Madison is hurt or killed before we take action.”

Gov. Evers on Monday activated the Wisconsin National Guard to protect the statehouse from potential protesters next week. Feyen said that’s fine, but added Wisconsin has leaned on the guard for a lot these past few months. He said Gov. Evers has called-on the guard for everything from security to coronavirus testing to working the polls on Election Day.

Feyen also said Gov. Evers vetoed a provision in the last state budget that would have assessed Capitol security.

“The time is now to harden up the security and provide a safe environment for all those that visit, have business in the capitol, or call this building their workplace,” Feyen said.

(The Center Square) – There appears to be no hope for a coronavirus relief package at the Wisconsin Capitol. Assembly Republicans on Wednesday made it clear they will not agree to the package supported by both Senate Republicans and Gov. Tony Evers.

“To my dismay, the Senate voted to give unelected bureaucrats the ability to close schools, businesses and places of worship, and removed many important provisions that protect individual rights, such as the prohibition on mandatory vaccinations,” Rep Cindi Duchow, R-Delafield, said. “With its actions [Tuesday], the Wisconsin Senate sided with Governor Evers over their constituents.”

The Republican controlled Senate approved a coronavirus relief package that provides legal protections for some businesses in the state to reopen. The plan also includes a number of technical changes that Gov. Evers wanted, including an extension for federal unemployment benefits.

Rep. Jim Steneke, R-Kaukauna, is the second highest ranking Republican in the Assembly. He said the Senate package leaves out dozens of things that the Assembly included in its coronavirus relief package; namely those that would have allowed churches and schools to reopen, and would have limited the power of local public health officers to shut down businesses across the state.

“Things like providing assistance to hospitals, first responders, and frontline medical workers, giving parents and students more flexibility and accountability when it comes to open enrollment and virtual learning, and protecting schools and businesses from certain liabilities to reduce the possibility of frivolous lawsuits were all included in our bill – issues that we know are important to countless Wisconsinites,” Steineke explained.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, told News Talk 1130 WISN’s Jay Weber on Wednesday he has no plans to support the Senate plan. Vos’ decision is the first public acknowledgement of a split between Assembly and Senate Republicans. New Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, drove the Senate’s coronavirus relief package.

Wisconsin Democrats, for their part, don’t like either of the Republican plans.

“It’s time for Wisconsin’s Republican legislators to stop playing games with people’s lives and construct a COVID relief package that includes meaningful, substantive relief like rental assistance, small business grants, and hazard pay for healthcare workers rather than providing for blanket immunity from liability and forcing workers and consumers into unsafe situations by prematurely returning to business as usual which will likely result in community spread of the virus and an increase in deaths in Wisconsin,” Marisabel Cabrera, D-Milwaukee, said Wednesday.

(The Center Square) – To say Republicans at the Wisconsin Capitol are unimpressed with Gov. Tony Evers’ proposed fix for the state’s beleaguered unemployment office is putting it mildly.

The governor spent time during Tuesday’s State of the State speech focusing on the problems at the Department of Workforce Development.

“Since the beginning of this pandemic, we saw an unprecedented influx of unemployment claims — it exceeded the number of claims even during the Great Recession. To put it in perspective, over the course of four years from 2016 through 2019, the Department of Workforce Development handled 7.2 million claims. Well, since March, the DWD received 8.8 million claims alone — 1.6 million more claims than the four previous years combined,” Evers told lawmakers during his speech. “Previous administrations and more than a decades’ worth of legislators have known this system was outdated and couldn’t handle an economic crisis like the one this pandemic presented, and they never took the time to fix it.”

Evers then pledged to fix it.

“Replacing this system will take years — that’s why it should’ve been done sooner, but it’s also why we now have not another moment to waste. No politics, no posturing, send me the bill and let’s just get it done,” the governor added.

On Wednesday, Evers officially called for a special session of the legislature for next Tuesday. He wants Wisconsin lawmakers to spend $5 million to begin the process to modernize DWD’s computer system.

Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, on Wednesday said Gov. Evers could have asked for $5 million for new computers months ago.

“This is unbelievable,” Wanggaard said. “Ten months of saying the system is broken, hundreds of thousands of people waiting months to receive benefits and his ‘plan’ to fix the unemployment fiasco is $5 million to start, and a mandate on employers to file online. We waited 10 months for this? Good grief.”

Wanggaard said he supports updating DWD’s computer system, but wants more.

Gov. Evers has called several special sessions since last spring, but the Republican-controlled Assembly and Senate have ignored them all. The governor hopes that doesn’t happen again. There’s no word from legislative leaders on their plans for the governor’s order.

(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump on Tuesday hailed the completion of 450 miles of border wall completed long the U.S.-Mexican border and praised the men and women of te U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

At a news conference held at the Mexico–U.S. border in Reynosa–McAllen, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, Trump said the border is more secure than it's ever been.

“When I took office, we inherited a broken, dysfunctional, and open border," he said. “We reformed our immigration system and achieved the most secure southern border in U.S. history. It is at a level that it’s never been before.

“We took on the cartels, the coyotes, and the special interests, and we restored the rule of law. For years, politicians ran for office promising to secure the border, only to get elected and to do the absolute exact opposite.”

Trump referred to Congress promising to build a wall 10 years ago “but they couldn’t get it built, he said. “It wasn’t easy getting it built. Getting it financed was tough. Getting it built was even tougher. All the different chains of title and all the different things we had to go through – very, very complex and very difficult, but we got it done."

The president said in every region where the wall was built, illegal crossings and drug smuggling attempts plummeted.

In the Rio Grande Valley, illegal crossings dropped nearly 80 percent, he said; in Yuma, Arizona, by 90 percent.

Since the border wall extension began being built, ICE and Border Patrol have reportedly seized over 2 million pounds of fentanyl, heroin, meth, and other deadly narcotics, arrested nearly 500,000 onducmented immigrants with criminal records, and removed nearly 20,000 gang members from the U.S.

Border wall construction is expected to halt after President-elect Joe Biden takes office next week.

Several other policy changes were implemented under Trump, including transforming the existing “catch and release” program to “detain and remove,” and revising the country’s asylum program, which included signing an agreement with Mexico called the “Migrant Protection Protocols,” or MPP.

Trump took heavy criticism for one immigration policy early in his administration, separating migrant children from their parents as they attempted to enter the country illegally together. After significant backlash, the policy was scrapped.

Trump thanked the President of Mexico, Andrés Obrador, whom he said loves Mexico and the U.S. Obrador instructed 27,000 Mexican soldiers to help guard the southern border over the last two years.

“Nobody thought that was possible,” Trump said.

The U.S. also entered into three asylum agreements with the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Under the new and current policy, if undocumented immigrants are arrested at the U.S. or other borders, they can be sent to a neighboring country instead of kept in the country they are apprehended.

As a result of these agreements, 98 percent of those apprehended and remanded to Department of Homeland Security custody were removed, according to a recent DHS and DOJ report.

“Simply put, if you enter the United States illegally, you are apprehended and immediately safely removed from our country," Trump said. "Without this core principle, there is no border, there is no law, there is no order.”

On the issue of law and order, Trump briefly addressed the events of last week when a group of people wearing Trump clothing stormed the Capitol, saying, “As I have consistently said throughout my administration, we believe in respecting America’s history and traditions, not tearing them down. We believe in the rule of law, not in violence or rioting.”

Wisconsin had a 2019 homeless population of 4,538, or 7.8 homeless people per 10,000 residents, according to a new study by the home services website Porch.com.

The share of the homeless population in Wisconsin was the eighth lowest rate among the 50 states, according to Porch.com, which based its conclusions on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's 2019 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress.

The share of the state’s homeless residents living unsheltered was 6.5%, while the share of chronically homeless people among the Wisconsin homeless population stood at 11.7%.

Nationwide, more than 560,000 Americans, or 17.3 per 10,000 people, experienced homelessness last year, the researchers concluded. The U.S. homeless rate declined between the years 2007 and 2019, but the rate started to inch up again beginning in 2017, the study found.

Homelessness also tends to be concentrated in the nation’s 50 largest cities, where an estimated 53% of the U.S. homeless population lives, according to Porch.com.

---

How States Compare on Homeless Populations

RankStateTotal Homeless Population per 10,000Total Homeless PopulationHomeless IndividualsHomeless Population in Families With ChildrenPercentage of Homeless Population Living UnshelteredPercentage of Homeless Population Chronically Homeless1New York47.392,09142,11349,9784.40%7.80%2Hawaii45.36,4124,4201,99256.80%27.60%3California38.3151,278128,77722,50171.70%27.50%4Oregon37.615,87612,3543,52263.90%30.90%5Washington28.321,57715,9855,59244.30%22.60%6Massachusetts26.818,4716,25912,2124.50%12.80%7Alaska26.11,9071,38452314.30%14.10%8Nevada23.37,1696,61455553.10%10.00%9Vermont17.51,08968140810.50%17.40%10Colorado16.79,6197,2632,35622.70%22.70%11Maine15.72,1061,2328744.50%10.70%12New Mexico15.53,2412,46477738.80%44.90%13Minnesota14.17,9774,5863,39120.70%21.90%14Arizona13.710,0077,5382,46945.30%18.70%15Florida13.228,32821,2657,06344.00%20.20%16Idaho13.02,3151,51679942.50%19.40%17Montana12.71,35794741025.40%16.80%18Nebraska12.22,3651,7156504.70%19.20%19South Dakota11.2$99572527023.50%10.10%20Tennessee10.97,4675,6371,83034.80%15.20%21Maryland10.96,5614,6521,90920.50%19.70%22Pennsylvania10.313,1998,4264,77312.30%14.10%23New Hampshire10.31,39681258410.70%15.60%24Missouri10.16,1794,1732,00615.80%17.20%25New Jersey10.08,8625,8952,96716.70%16.00%26Oklahoma10.03,9443,06388131.40%24.20%27Rhode Island10.01,0557303256.70%18.80%28Georgia9.810,4437,9132,53037.20%10.90%29Delaware9.5$92156535610.30%18.20%30Wyoming9.5$54843711122.80%12.20%31Kentucky9.14,0793,0731,00619.10%13.10%32Arkansas9.02,7172,30341452.10%25.40%33Texas8.925,84819,6116,23743.40%13.60%34Ohio8.910,3457,0413,30414.60%8.40%35North Carolina8.99,3146,8672,44724.40%13.60%36Utah8.72,7981,92187714.60%18.30%37Michigan8.68,5755,2123,3637.70%11.10%38Connecticut8.53,0332,10093315.00%7.10%39Kansas8.22,3811,74263919.90%16.80%40Indiana8.15,4713,7831,68811.70%6.70%41South Carolina8.14,1723,31885441.20%22.60%42Illinois8.010,1996,5133,68618.50%18.10%43Wisconsin7.84,5382,5451,9936.50%11.70%44West Virginia7.81,3971,14924817.80%11.50%45Iowa7.32,3151,5747418.10%14.70%46North Dakota7.3$5573771802.20%13.10%47Virginia6.85,7833,6662,11714.90%15.20%48Alabama6.73,2612,51974236.50%11.30%49Louisiana6.32,9412,41652533.10%15.20%50Mississippi4.01,18496322141.00%18.80%

Source: Porch.com

(The Center Square) – Republicans at the Wisconsin Capitol found very little to like about Gov. Tony Evers’ State of the State speech.

Sen. Van Wangaarrd, R-Racine, took the governor to task for his Tuesday night speech in which he looked back on 2020 and focused on the coronavirus, rather than laying out a blueprint for Wisconsin going forward.

“In my three terms in the State Senate, I have never seen a more backwards-looking, depressing and divisive State of the State address,” Wangaarrd said. “Instead of looking towards the future, it focused on the past and negative. It was void of new ideas and full of blame. Where is the passion? Where is the hope? This was just ‘blah blah blah’.”

Wangaard was not alone.

Sen. Patrick Testin, R-Stevens Point, said the governor failed to deliver a plan.

“People tuned into [the] state of the state address to hear a plan – a plan to get kids back in schools, a plan for a vaccine rollout, and a plan on how to fix an unemployment system that has failed Wisconsinites for the last nine months,” Testin said. “Gov. Evers didn’t deliver. Gov. Evers has no plan, no vision, and no accountability.”

Rep . Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, who will help write the new state budget, took umbrage at Gov. Evers claiming credit for Wisconsin’s strong fiscal position in the face of the coronavirus.

“Governor Evers would like the people of Wisconsin to credit him with the last state budget and at the same time he hopes they forget the constant missteps by his administration during a time so difficult for many,” Born said. “It was Legislative Republicans who stepped up and introduced a budget that protected taxpayers while also funding top priorities. We cut taxes for middle-class Wisconsin families and increased funding for education by over half a billion dollars. Republicans pushed for an increase in funding for hospitals and our direct care workforce all while ensuring we could save money for a rainy day.”

Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke, R-Kaukauna, said the governor’s State of the State was frustrating.

“It’s almost like our teacher-turned-governor is trying to rewrite the history books while class is still in session,” Steineke said. “We heard absolutely nothing about how Governor Evers abdicated all responsibility when tens of thousands of Wisconsin workers were begging for help in receiving their unemployment aid. Where was the leadership?”

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s governor used his first speech of the new year to look back.

“As I stood before you and delivered my second State of the State address last year, the world and our state looked much different than it does now,” Gov. Tony Evers said in his speech Tuesday night. “Then things changed overnight.”

The governor mostly discussed the coronavirus. He said nearly 5,000 deaths in the state were attributable either directly or indirectly to the virus since March, and talked about the changes the virus forced on the state. He also addressed the massive federal investment in Wisconsin because of the virus.

“We were grateful to be able to invest nearly $2 billion in our state’s response. We distributed more than 26 million pieces of PPE and sanitizing supplies to hospitals, long-term care facilities, veterans’ homes, and frontline workers. We provided more than $379.1 million to help stabilize our economy and support nearly 53,000 of our small businesses, more than 15,000 farms, and our lodging, hospitality, and tourism industries. We invested more than $200 million in helping communities across Wisconsin recover,” Evers said. “But we know we have a long way to go to get our economy back on track.”

The governor said the challenges from 2020 will carry-over into 2021.

“I do not underestimate the challenges that this new year may bring, or the grief we’re still grappling with, the ramifications we’ve yet to fully realize, the new problems that may arise still this year,” Evers added.

Gov. Evers did spend time talking about Wisconsin’s unemployment issues. Thousands of people waited months in 2020 to have their claims processed by the state’s Department of Workforce Development. Thousands more waited months to be paid.

“The bottom line is that our unemployment system isn’t designed to handle the massive numbers of modern days, which has contributed to delays in processing claims, required more time to implement new federal programs, and made it harder to get benefits out the door,” Evers said. “Our antiquated system isn’t quite as old as I am, but it has been around since Richard Nixon was president — this system isn’t new, and these problems aren’t, either.”

The governor promised to “modernize” the unemployment system, and pledged to call lawmakers back into a special session to make that happen. Though he didn’t have specifics on how much such remedies would cost, or just how long it would take to implement changes.

“We know that replacing this system will take years — that’s why it should’ve been done sooner, but it’s also why we now have not another moment to waste. No politics, no posturing, send me the bill and let’s just get it done,” Evers said.

There was , however, no focus on Wisconsin’s slow-to-start vaccination program. Wisconsin is second to last in the Midwest in distributing the vaccine.

Republicans in Madison didn’t let that go unnoticed.

Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, on Tuesday called for the governor to unveil his coronavirus vaccine plan.

“The Governor has an opportunity to reassure people in Wisconsin that they will be vaccinated soon,” Darling said in a statement, “It’s time to put aside politics and start delivering vaccines to our most vulnerable citizens.”

Darling said Gov. Evers had months to prepare for the vaccine’s arrival, and has now had a month to get it out to the people.

“Governor Evers continues to try to shift blame for his troubled rollout of the vaccine.” Darling added. “The people of the state deserve answers from him.”

Wisconsin’s vaccine count on Tuesday showed 163,371 of the state’s 373,100 doses have been administered. In all, Wisconsin has been promised more than 600,000 vaccine doses.

(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump on Tuesday told reporters outside the White House that the second impeachment attempt proposed by House Democrats was “really a continuation of the greatest witch hunt in the history of politics."

Democrats this week introduced a single article of impeachment against Trump, accusing the president of encouraging his supporters prior to their breaching of the U.S. Capitol last Wednesday, when Congress was set to meet to certify the Electoral College votes confirming President-elect Joe Biden's win.

Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Democrats have no chance of successfully impeaching and removing the president before Jan. 20, Inauguration Day.

“The case cannot come to trial in the Senate. Because the Senate has rules, and the rules would not allow the case to come to trial until, according to the majority leader, until 1 p.m. on Jan. 20, an hour after President Trump leaves office,” Dershowitz told Fox Business Sunday.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., sent a letter to Republican senators explaining the process. In it, he writes that the Senate could legally “dispose of any articles of impeachment” proposed by House Democrats.

“The Senate is currently in recess and is holding pro forma sessions every three days until January 19,” the letter states. “Pursuant to the unanimously approved order setting up the recess and these pro forma sessions, the Senate may conduct no business until January 19.”

McConnell noted, “without unanimous consent, the Senate may not conduct any business of any kind during pro forma sessions, including beginning to act on received articles of impeachment from the House.”

Even if the House did vote to impeach Trump for a second time through a simple majority vote, McConnell said that all 100 senators would have to agree to conduct “any business of any kind,” and that is not going to happen. Trump was first impeached by the Democratic-controlled House in late 2019 but he was later acquitted in the GOP-controlled Senate.

Senate Impeachment Rules would be followed after the Senate resumes regular session on Jan. 19, and a trial would not start until “after President Trump’s term has expired,” McConnell said.

Democrats charged Trump with “incitement of insurrection,” accusing him of inspiring protestors to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, the same day Trump gave a speech emphasizing his supporters’ peaceful rallies nationwide.

In his speech, Trump accused media conglomerates and big tech of interfering in the election, and gave examples of alleged voter fraud in several states.

“All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical left Democrats, which is what they’re doing and stolen by the fake news media,” Trump said. “That’s what they’ve done and what they’re doing. We will never give up. We will never concede.”

“We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated,” Trump said. “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

At the end of his speech, he urged people to “walk down Pennsylvania Avenue” and “try and give our Republicans, the weak ones, because the strong ones don’t need any of our help, we’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”

Of the House efforts to impeach, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who previously voted to impeach the president, said the push to impeach the president now is “so ill-advised.”

(The Center Square) - Democratic senators at the Wisconsin Capitol say the pared-down Republican coronavirus relief package is too small.

Democrats spent their Tuesday fighting the package from Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, designed to survive the governor’s scrutiny.

“We need to do a lot of catch up,” Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-West Point, said on the Senate floor. “We need to really start catching up here and recognize that there are people and businesses here in Wisconsin that need our help.”

Sen. Chris Lawson, D-Milwaukee said the Democratic proposal would help those people and businesses by adding emergency pay for healthcare workers and first responders, would stop evictions for non-payment of rent, and expand unemployment benefits in the state.

“We need to actually step-up to meet this moment in history,” Lawson said. “If we pass the [Republican package] as it’s proposed, we should be graded D-. barely passing. Doing the absolute minimum.”

Republicans complain the Democratic plan would do nothing to get kids back into school or reopen classrooms, noting the Democratic plan would prohibit the state’s Department of Public Instruction from measuring student performance for the year.

LeMahieu was the only Republican to speak to the Republican coronavirus relief plan, and said very little from the Senate floor.

LeMahieu said the proposal does five things, some of them rather technical in nature, but it also ends the waiting period for federal unemployment benefits. Most important to Republicans, the package provides schools, nonprofits, doctors, and small businesses in the state some protection against coronavirus lawsuits.

“The bill we passed in the Senate today builds on our previous negotiations and addresses the critically important needs of school districts, non-profit organizations, and small employers,” LeMahieu said in a statement after the vote. “Throughout this process, it’s been clear all parties want to do what is best for our state. Passing this bill responds to the needs of frontline healthcare providers and gives our state’s economy the tools to safely re-open without the fear of frivolous lawsuits.”

The Wisconsin Assembly will next vote on the package. The governor said after the vote that he is waiting for lawmakers to send the plan to him.

"Although it's not the COVID compromise we originally proposed, AB 1 as amended by the Senate is a good start to support our state’s response to this pandemic," Evers said on Twitter. "The Assembly should pass AB 1 as it was amended today and send it to my desk for my signature without delay.

There are no guarantees the Assembly will approve the package.

State representatives passed their own coronavirus relief package last week. It is much larger, and includes provisions to get kids back into schools and check the power of local public health officers who’ve kept parts of the state all but closed for months.

“In the coming weeks, we will continue the work to open schools, lift gathering bans, and limit the powers of local bureaucrats to shut down churches and main street businesses,” LeMahieu added. “We remain committed to these principles and committed to ensuring our state’s best days lie ahead.”