Yearly Archives: 2021

Sergeant Butch Cameron died from complications as the result of contracting COVID-19 while on duty at the Fairfax County Judicial Center. Sergeant Cameron served as a National Trustee for Law Enforcement...

The Milwaukee-Waukesha metro area’s share of extreme poverty – neighborhoods where at least 40% of residents live below the poverty level – is the highest in Wisconsin, according to a new analysis from the website 24/7 Wall St.

Among the metro area’s poor population, 20.1% live in neighborhoods where four out of 10 residents live in poverty, the analysis found. The overall poverty rate in the metro area is 13.7%.

Extreme poverty affects 43 out of 422 neighborhoods in Milwaukee-Waukesha, 24/7 Wall St. found. And the 2018 unemployment rate in these poor neighborhoods is 12%.

Only eight states in the nation – Alaska, Delaware, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming – have no metro areas with neighborhoods affected by extreme poverty, according to the study, which incorporates data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2018 American Community Survey.

Nationwide, among the 43.5 million Americans who live under the poverty line, 9.6% live in communities deemed afflicted by extreme poverty. Those who reside in these high-poverty neighborhoods must deal with higher crime rates, fewer employment opportunities and lagging education options, the study found.

The poverty line in the United States stands at $12,760 in annual income for individuals, according to 24/7 Wall St. The number in poverty likely will climb due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, according to the analysis.

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Cities With the Most Concentrated Poverty in 2018, by State

StateMetro Area Hardest Hit by Concentrated Poverty% of Poor Who Live in Neighborhoods With Extreme PovertyOverall Poverty RateNeighborhoods With Concentrated Poverty2018 Unemployment Rate in Poor NeighborhoodsAlabamaMobile19.7%19.3%20 of 11313.9%ArizonaPhoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale13.8%14.6%49 of 9758.5%ArkansasHot Springs18.6%18.6%3 of 2015.1%CaliforniaFresno33.2%24.1%35 of 19814.5%ColoradoPueblo9.3%18.9%3 of 5316.1%ConnecticutHartford-West Hartford-East Hartford9.2%10.0%9 of 28317.0%FloridaTallahassee16.7%15.7%6 of 7518.0%GeorgiaAlbany38.2%25.2%9 of 4321.4%HawaiiUrban Honolulu5.4%8.7%3 of 22815.5%IllinoisSpringfield23.8%14.9%7 of 5612.3%IndianaMuncie29.5%18.4%6 of 2713.0%IowaWaterloo-Cedar Falls8.9%13.8%3 of 4817.5%KansasWichita7.5%13.3%5 of 15217.6%KentuckyBowling Green15.4%17.7%3 of 376.7%LouisianaMonroe34.6%23.1%10 of 4414.9%MaineBangor19.8%15.4%2 of 458.8%MarylandBaltimore-Columbia-Towson8.1%10.4%22 of 66815.6%MassachusettsSpringfield27.4%16.2%16 of 13316.2%MichiganFlint33.6%19.8%22 of 12922.7%MinnesotaDuluth13.9%14.1%6 of 846.4%MississippiJackson24.4%17.1%17 of 12719.3%MissouriCape Girardeau27.8%17.5%4 of 229.8%NebraskaLincoln14.4%12.4%4 of 736.1%NevadaLas Vegas-Henderson-Paradise5.1%14.1%10 of 48713.6%New HampshireManchester-Nashua2.9%8.1%1 of 8510.1%New JerseyTrenton17.2%11.4%5 of 7518.8%New MexicoLas Cruces25.8%27.5%6 of 4012.9%New YorkBuffalo-Cheektowaga-Niagara Falls23.4%14.2%26 of 2919.5%North CarolinaWilmington13.2%16.4%4 of 5610.9%OhioToledo29.0%16.9%27 of 16115.7%OklahomaLawton15.3%15.5%3 of 3314.1%OregonMedford2.7%16.3%1 of 4115.9%PennsylvaniaReading31.4%12.8%10 of 8921.0%Rhode IslandProvidence-Warwick4.1%12.5%5 of 35912.7%South CarolinaCharleston-North Charleston10.4%13.3%7 of 1519.6%TennesseeMemphis26.6%18.6%49 of 30915.6%TexasLaredo52.3%30.1%25 of 607.0%UtahOgden-Clearfield5.0%8.0%2 of 11610.3%VirginiaRoanoke15.5%13.4%3 of 658.6%WashingtonKennewick-Richland9.3%13.7%1 of 488.3%West VirginiaHuntington-Ashland11.1%18.6%7 of 9210.8%WisconsinMilwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis20.1%13.7%43 of 42212.0%

Source: 24/7 Wall St.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced Jan. 4 that schools could remain open in communities with 9% or greater positivity rates if positivity among students and school staff was lower than in the surrounding community. Previously, the state required schools to close in communities where the positivity rate was 9% or greater.

The same day, Kentucky’s Healthy at School guidelines became mandatory and middle and high schools were allowed to reopen for in-person instruction.

Temporary statewide school closures also began in New Mexico and West Virginia. New Mexico’s closure is effective through Jan. 15, while schools in West Virginia are closed through Jan. 18.

The nationwide status of school closures and reopenings is as follows:

Two states (N.M., W.Va.) and Washington, D.C. have state- or district-ordered school closures2016-17 enrollment: 695,968 students (1.38% of students nationwide)Five states (Calif., Del., Hawaii, N.C., R.I.) have state-ordered regional school closures, require closures for certain grade levels, or allow hybrid instruction only2016-17 enrollment: 8,319,164 students (16.44% of students nationwide)Four states (Ark., Fla., Iowa, Texas) have state-ordered in-person instruction2016-17 enrollment: 9,180,918 students (18.15% of students nationwide)Thirty-nine states leave decisions to schools or districts2016-17 enrollment: 32,391,809 students (64.03% of students nationwide)

Master Corporal Brian LaVigne was killed when his patrol car was intentionally rammed by another vehicle on West Lumsden Road, near South King's Avenue, in Brandon. Deputies had responded to an...

Agent Eliezer Hernández-Cartagena and Agent Luis Marrero-Díaz, of the Puerto Rico Police Department, were murdered while attempting to arrest a man who had just murdered Agent Luis Salamán-Conde, of the...

Agent Luis Salamán-Conde was shot and killed after responding to the scene of an accident on Avenida Roberto Clemente in Carolina. Agent Salamán-Conde had responded to a vehicle crash on Avenida...

Agent Luis Marrero-Díaz and Agent Eliezer Hernández-Cartagena, of the Carolina Municipal Police Department, were murdered while attempting to arrest a man who had just murdered Agent Luis Salamán-Conde, of the...

"Officer Wilson and Officer Byrnes created a human chain to enter the room with Officer Byrnes holding the door frame and Officer Wilson’s belt." Five...

(The Center Square) – Total nonfarm payroll employment fell by 140,000 from November to December according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) monthly report for December 2020. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 6.7 percent.

The losses reported in December ended seven consecutive months of job gains as states began implementing stricter economic lockdowns citing increased number of COVID-19 cases as the reason.

While the BLS argues the decline in payroll employment “reflects the recent increase in coronavirus (COVID-19) cases and efforts to contain them,” the White House argued in a news release that job losses were a result of increasing lockdowns by state governors.

Job losses indicate “the regressive nature of government-mandated closures, and the reduction in economic activity that occurs when individuals are subject to these restrictions,” the White House news release states.

In December, job losses in leisure and hospitality and in private education were partially offset by gains in professional and business services, retail trade, and construction, BLS notes.

The unemployment rate of 6.7 percent is nearly double the 3.5 percent rate of pre-lockdown in February 2020. Although it is an improvement from the peak of 14.8 percent (revised) unemployment rate reached in April.

The unemployment rate for Black Americans fell to 9.9 percent in December, the first month it fell below 10 percent since February.

The unemployment rate for Hispanic Americans increased by 0.9 percentage point to 9.3 percent.

Among the unemployed, the number of individuals on temporary layoff increased by 277,000 in December to 3 million. This number is significantly down from 18 million in April but is 2.3 million higher than in February.

The number of permanent jobs lost declined by 348,000 to 3.4 million in December but is up by 2.1 million since February.

In December, 23.7 percent of workers teleworked because of the coronavirus, up from 21.8 percent in November.

In December, 15.8 million people reported that they had been unable to work because their employer closed or lost business due to their respective state’s shutdown—“that is, they did not work at all or worked fewer hours at some point in the last 4 weeks,” the BLS report states. The number is an increase of one million from November.

(The Center Square) – New Hampshire is taking aim at a Massachusetts policy to tax Granite State residents' income who work remotely for Bay State-based companies.

The Boston Herald reported in December that Massachusetts instituted the policy during the early days of the COVID-19 crisis to maintain revenues the state would normally garner from out-of-state employees physically working within their borders.

New Hampshire and Gov. Chris Sununu filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the tax policy after Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker extended the mandate.

"Massachusetts has radically redefined what constitutes Massachusetts-sourced income in order to tax earnings for work performed entirely outside its borders," New Hampshire Attorney General Gordon Macdonald said in the state's latest submission to the Supreme Court, the Boston Herald reported. "This does not maintain the status quo. It upends it."

Andrew Cline, president of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, said there is a lot at stake in this lawsuit.

"New Hampshire has painstakingly over many decades created an economic engine in New England, and the basis of that is the absence of an income or sales tax and a very light touch on business and economic regulations," Cline told Center Square. "The Massachusetts move to tax the income of everybody who works remotely for a Massachusetts company really does put that at risk because suddenly New Hampshire is no longer a tax refuge for New England."

With the explosion of working remotely and its potential to become the norm, New Hampshire could become a haven for the whole eastern United States, Cline said.

New Hampshire isn't the only state with something to lose.

Ohio, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, New Jersey, Connecticut, Hawaii and Iowa all signed amicus briefs siding with New Hampshire supplicating the Supreme Court to hear the case.

Cline said one of the lawsuit's underappreciated points is that it will set a dangerous precedent for other states. If Massachusetts gets away with this, other states will follow, he said.

"There are six states that tax remote workers in similar ways," Cline said. "If [Massachusetts] wins and the Supreme Court allows a state to tax remote workers wherever they live regardless of having any physical nexus in the state, you will see states quickly passing laws to reach over their borders and tax everyone who they can claim is doing remote work in their states. And all of a sudden, tax competition among states is reduced."

Massachusetts' policy calls for taxing income New Hampshire residents would have earned commuting to the Bay State. So if a Granite Stater previously commuted to Massachusetts three days a week before the coronavirus crisis, Massachusetts taxes them for three days-worth of income earned working remotely.

The problem with this, Cline said, is as it stands, there is nothing he can see keeping states from applying this to all income earned by any employee they can construe to work for a company within their borders.

There are questions of constitutionality as well.

"Historically, you had to have, based on legal precedent and law, a physical nexus in that state for a state to justify taxing you," Cline said. "The way Massachusetts has structured its remote workers' tax that physical nexus is really removed or reduced to the point that it's meaningless."

Now that pro Trump people are rioting, they've adopted the term "insurrection." It's wonderful that all of the left and news media have finally all...

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers is asking for more coronavirus vaccine doses – even as half of the state’s allotment sits in refrigerators across the state.

Gov. Evers on Friday joined seven other Democratic governors in writing a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services asking for a share of the doses that are being held in reserve.

"The failure to distribute these doses to states who request them is unconscionable and unacceptable,” the governors' letter stated.

Evers signed letter is raising some objections. As of Friday, the same day the governor signed the letter, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services reported that doctors in the state had distributed 123,402 of the state’s 266,675 allocated doses. Wisconsin is in-line to get 420,200 doses, but many of those have not yet been sent.

Wisconsin Republican Congressman Bryan Steil said Gov. Evers has failed to quickly get the vaccine to frontline healthcare workers and people living in the state's long-term living facilities.

"If Gov. Evers cannot figure out how to distribute the vaccine to those who need it, he should step aside and let someone who can lead this effort do it,” Steil said on Twitter.

As of last week, Wisconsin trailed almost every Midwestern state in vaccine delivery.

“Gov. Evers said ‘It is going to take us a long time to get these vaccines in people’s arms.’ Really? Why can 38 other states plus [Washington] DC administer vaccines faster than Wisconsin?,” Steil asked in another tweet. “Wisconsin should be leading the nation! This is a matter of life or death for many. Do your job, governor.”

Wisconsin’s vaccine managers are now looking to expand the pool of people who can get the vaccine.

The state’s vaccine distribution subcommittee could vote Tuesday to open Phase 1b of the vaccination program. That could allow vaccinations for more frontline workers, along with essential workers and people who deemed at-risk.

Essential workers cover everyone from police officers and firefighters to grocery store clerks. The at-risk population covers everyone from seniors and people living in nursing homes to prisoners and inmates.

Some advocates say Wisconsin needs to fast track the vaccine into jails and prisons rather than simply into the state’s nursing homes.

The federal government certainly has no issue spending taxpayer money these days. The budget deficit for 2020 surpassed $3 trillion, a level far beyond any the nation has seen. For perspective, this is the largest deficit relative to the size of our economy since World War II and the largest raw number deficit in our nation’s history. The next administration is going to inherit an increasingly urgent spending problem that has plagued the United States for decades.

Despite these alarming numbers, President-elect Joe Biden seems intent to nominate for his cabinet some of the same officials who helped get us into this mess. Perhaps none are more emblematic of this trend than the prospective new Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack. Vilsack previously served as head of the Department of Agriculture (USDA) through the entirety of the Obama administration. This will be his second go-round at USDA and – if it is anything like his first – our economy and taxpayers are in deep trouble.

Farm spending in the United States puts a hefty burden on our debt all on its own. For example, the 2018 Farm Bill carried a 10-year price tag of roughly $867 billion. The 2013 Farm Bill, over which Vilsack presided, had a 10-year cost of $955 billion. Vilsack and other proponents cynically claimed it would actually cut spending in the long run. However, the spending cuts were back-loaded to the end of the 10-year span, so they would predictably be superseded by subsequent legislation and never actually take effect. This is the type of underhanded political operator set to re-take the reins at USDA.

Not only does Vilsack demand exorbitant spending, but the policies behind those dollars are harmful to farmers, and to the economy at large. For example, Vilsack is a major proponent of commodity subsidies. These subsidies prop up crops if prices or revenue fall below a certain [largely arbitrary] benchmark. This is a brazen effort to institute government central planning of the economy. It is also remarkably inefficient. It incentivizes the production of excess crops, driving supply up and prices down, necessitating further subsidies and on and on the cycle goes. As a result, The Wall Street Journal reports farm income dropped 40 percent in the four years after Vilsack’s farm bill.

Despite all this, Vilsack and his allies position him as a champion of small farmers and opponents of his legacy as heartless corporatists. However, as is often the case in Washington, the opposite is true. In fact, 94 percent of subsidies go to only six crops: corn, wheat, soy, cotton, rice and peanuts. However, these six crops only account for 28 percent of production. Roughly seven in 10 commodities farmers operate just fine without assistance. Vilsack’s subsidies serve not to aid struggling small farms, but to prop up wealthy special interests. In fact, the top one percent of farms, in terms of gross annual income, receives 20 percent of the subsidies in farm bills like Vilsack’s.

Naturally, lobbyists for varied food interests across the nation are already lining up to praise Biden’s designation of Vilsack to return as USDA Secretary. Surely, the 850 millionaire “farmers” in Manhattan, who received millions in farm subsidies from Vilsack’s USDA and are still receiving them today, are thrilled to see Vilsack’s return. The federal bureaucracy has been a hotbed of cronyism for years precisely because of the type of leadership ushered in by people like Tom Vilsack. This is the proverbial “swamp” that 2016 voters wanted drained.

If Vilsack is successfully confirmed for another stint at USDA, he will have a shot to become the longest-serving Agriculture Secretary in the nation’s history. In the interim, he has been the head of the U.S. Dairy Export Council. This government-created entity takes money from dairy farmers and uses it to promote big dairy. This is crony corporatism at its finest. Given this record, it is unthinkable that anyone could believe Vilsack may be the one to change the broken status quo at USDA.

Tom Vilsack is not an unknown quantity. He has a years-long service record of reckless agricultural policy and cronyism that comes at the expense of America’s small family farms and ranches. The senators who will be tasked with evaluating his nomination in the coming weeks would do well to study this record and ask tough questions. Ultimately, any honest evaluation will produce the conclusion that the USDA should not open its doors to Vilsack a second time.

(The Center Square) – The new top Republican in the Wisconsin Senate wants to see how willing Gov. Tony Evers is to work with the Republicans in the legislature.

Senate Majority leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, told News Talk 1130 WISN’s Jay Weber Monday he wants to split the massive Republican coronavirus relief package into two pieces, and see if Gov. Evers will sign at least one of them.

“We’ve been in contact with his office, I talked to him over the weekend again. He appreciates the fact that we’re trying to get something done. I don’t have an agreement with him, he’s not going to provide me with an agreement,” LeMahieu said. “Hopefully we can all get together in the next couple of days and get this done.”

LeMahieu’s first priority is Wisconsin’s businesses, schools, and nonprofits protection from coronavirus lawsuits.

“We really want to make sure that we get liability protection to make sure schools, churches, nonprofits, small businesses can reopen and stay open without the fear of frivolous lawsuits,” LeMahieu added.

Assembly Republicans easily passed their coronavirus relief package last week, LeMahieu said he balked at that package because senators felt certain Gov. Evers would veto it.

The Senate Republican package isn't guaranteed, however.

LeMahieu said Gov. Evers essentially ended negotiations with lawmakers back in December when Congress passed their latest coronavirus relief package.

“There is going to be a lot of money coming into the state because of that federal bill,” LeMahieu explained. “That took a lot of the importance for the governor to get a (state) bill done. It took that away because he is going to get all of this extra federal money to spend.”

LeMahieu did not say what he and the Senate Republicans plan to do if Gov. Evers vetoes their proposal.

The Wisconsin Senate held a hearing on their proposal Monday morning. The hope is to have a full vote in the Senate by Wednesday.

(The Center Square) – Democrats in the U.S. House took steps Monday to once again try to remove President Donald Trump from office, introducing a single article of impeachment and a resolution that would ask Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, thereby displacing Trump and assuming power over the nation’s executive branch.

The resolution, seen as a procedural step before the House moves to consider impeachment, immediately drew an objection from House Republicans. The chamber then went into recess until Tuesday, and it’s expected the 25th Amendment resolution will go before the full House for a vote later this week.

Reports suggest Pence is not inclined to invoke the 25th Amendment, even if the resolution ultimately passes. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said in that scenario, the House would move forward with impeaching the president over Wednesday's events that led to the U.S. Capitol being breached by crowds of Trump supporters.

An impeachment vote is seen as likely to succeed in the Democrat-controlled House, which would make Trump the first president in U.S. history to be impeached twice. Less certain is the outcome in the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans but due to change hands. Even after Democrats take control – when Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, the winners of last week's Georgia runoffs, are sworn in – it’s considered unlikely the supermajority needed to actually remove the president would materialize.

The Capitol incursion caused five deaths and led to members of Congress fleeing the House and Senate chambers – interrupting the process of recording the results of the Nov. 3 presidential election. Critics of Trump argue his remarks at a rally earlier in the day sparked the events that took place at the Capitol.

If the 25th Amendment was invoked, Pence would take over as acting president. Trump would be given an opportunity after several days to challenge the assertion he was incapable of performing his duties; if Pence again invoked the clause, the matter would be settled by Congress.

With President-elect Joe Biden due to be sworn in Jan. 20, some observers have questioned why Congress is spending its time trying to remove a president who will leave office in a little more than a week. Others have pointed to continued chatter online, by those who feel the Nov. 3 election was decided fraudulently, seeking to interfere with the inauguration ceremony and prevent Biden from becoming president. Still, others have expressed concern Trump might misuse his pardon powers on his own behalf, to benefit his close friends and allies, or even on behalf of the individuals who stormed the Capitol.

Trump was impeached in December 2019 over allegations he improperly sought to pressure the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden. The Senate voted in February 2020 to acquit Trump without hearing any additional witnesses.

Understandably lost in the wake of Wednesday’s shocking events was the fact that, with two election wins in Georgia, Democrats took control of the Senate to go with control over the House and presidency. Though tax policy may have taken a backseat in these Georgia elections, the results raised the chances of significant tax hikes, and the undoing of progress made in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), substantially.

The most likely tax hikes that President Joe Biden will push for with a Democratic Congress are increases to income tax rates. During the campaign, Biden proposed to raise the top individual income tax rate from 37 percent to 39.6 percent. Biden’s tax plan also included a provision that would subject annual income above $400,000 to Social Security taxes (currently only annual income up to $142,800 is subject to these taxes).

Biden will also likely push to increase taxes on capital gains. Capital gains and dividends are currently taxed at a lower maximum rate of 23.8 percent, in recognition of the fact that this same income has already been taxed once. Biden’s campaign called for taxing capital gains and dividends as ordinary income, which would push the maximum tax rate up to 39.6 percent when paired with his proposed hike to the top individual income tax rate, increasing the double-taxation penalty on investment income.

But even as capital gains and dividends tax hikes are proposed, so too may Biden seek to increase corporate taxes. His tax plan would raise the corporate income tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent, while also reverting to a global tax system.

The TCJA improved America’s corporate tax competitiveness substantially not only by lowering the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, but by shifting to a so-called territorial tax system. Prior to this change, U.S.-based multinational corporations had to pay U.S. income taxes on income earned by foreign subsidiaries when repatriated back to the American parent company.

This policy had the effect of simply encouraging corporate inversions, or the shifting of operations to a country that did not have this requirement (such as 29 of 35 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development). Eliminating this outdated global tax encouraged companies to come back to the United States and to bring cash back into the country – resulting in the repatriation of more than $1 trillion in assets. Biden’s proposal to undo this change would likely send many multinational companies and their assets back overseas.

Another questionable change Biden is likely to pursue is the removal of the cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction. Prior to the TCJA, taxpayers who itemized deductions could deduct their state and local taxes against their federal income tax liability. This effectively blunted the impact of high state tax rates – part of the reason that blue states have proved so eager to remove the $10,000 cap the TCJA placed on the deduction.

Yet the SALT deduction is a handout to the wealthy, and removing the cap would do very little to benefit most taxpayers. A staggering 96 percent of the benefit of removing the SALT cap would go to the top 20 percent of taxpayers, while also using federal tax policy to effectively encourage higher state tax rates.

And this is just a selection of some of the most significant tax changes a Biden presidency could oversee with control of Congress. Changes to the estate tax, refundable tax credits, and other deductions could very likely be coming down the pipe as a direct result of the Georgia election results. Taxpayers can only hope that Congress shows restraint and avoids sweeping changes that harm an economy that needs all the help it can get in the middle of a pandemic.

“I’ve often wondered why everyone loves to read about disasters and suffering?”

– James Baldwin

The Counter-Reformation was a response to the 1517 Protestant Reformation. It began in 1545 and ended in 1648 with the conclusion of Europe’s religious wars. Numerous clarifications were made in church policy in reaction to the Reformation. In 1870, the Catholic Church defined the pope as the highest authority to interpret and orchestrate all existing critical religious doctrine.

This was the first time in history a religion granted this authority to a head of a church. Due to the long-standing feud between the Church of England and the Roman Catholics, Anglican theologians claimed, “The doctrine of papal authority to make decisions is out of line with other religions.” They chastised the year of this decree of “Papal infallibility” as the “annus horribilis,” or a “horrible year.”

In 1992, the 40th anniversary of her reign over England, Queen Elizabeth said, “1992 has turned out to be an “Annus Horribilis.” She branded 1992 as a year she chose not to remember because three royal marriages collapsed, a fire destroyed more than 100 rooms at Windsor Castle, and a major sex scandal involving the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, disgraced the country and monarchy.

There has been an ambiguous global debate if 2020 was the worst year in recent history? Surly it must rank up there with 1349, when the Black Death wiped out half of Europe. And it certainly can be compared to 1918, when the "Spanish flu" killed over 100 million people worldwide. It looks as if global scholars have respectfully spurned the Queen by naming 2020 as their “Annus Horribilis.”

Discovered in Wuhan, China, in November 2019, the Covid-19 virus created the greatest global crisis since World War II. It prompted worldwide lockdowns and caused a global economic crisis. Dr. Li Wenliang, who discovered the virus, was silenced by Chinese Communists and died in 2020.

France, the UK and Spain implemented lockdowns in March. The U.S. soon did the same. U.S. stocks tanked with Wall Street suffering its biggest loss since the March 9, 2008, financial meltdown. To avoid a bigger crisis, the Federal Reserve pumped liquidity into markets to stabilize its balances.

According to the International OECD, in the first three months of 2020, world economies contracted by 3.4%. The International Labor Organization reported that the average income fell by over 10% in the first nine months of 2020, due to forced shutdowns and businesses struggling to survive.

“It even crowded indoor cats, forcing them to share their space with reluctant humans.”

– James Felton

In Australia, massive fires roared throughout the summer season, burning 103,000 square kilometers, about the size of South Korea. The fires created one of the worst wildlife disasters in history that killed over 3 billion animals including 60,000 koalas. Over 87,000 buildings and homes were destroyed. At least 445 people including nine firefighters were killed in the fire. Smoke filled the skies for half the year.

Britain left the EU on Jan. 31. UK’s open markets, and its relationship with the EU in particular, heavily depressed its labor market for domestic talent by allowing unchecked waves of immigrants. As the strongest member of the EU, other countries now fear this could possibly totally nix the EU.

Although there is some economic trade-offs for Britain, they got the better part of the deal. They maintained access to their target trade markets and regained complete control of their borders.

China ended Hong Kong’s autonomy in 2020. It enacted laws against defying Communist rule. Hong Kong’s citizens reacted violently and China backed down. In June, China came back again with severe laws against subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign countries.

“Hong Kong has been put in handcuffs by the Red Chinese and lost all independence.”

– Christopher Patten

On Aug. 4, the accidental detonation of dangerous chemicals in Beirut killed over 200 people, left another 300,000 instantly homeless and devastated the struggling Lebanese economy. State negligence was blamed for the fatal blast. Prime Minister Hassan Diab as well as three ministers were charged with criminal acts. Lebanon was already in financial meltdown with mass poverty.

French school teacher Samuel Paty in October was murdered by a radical Islamist as he showed caricatures of Prophet Mohammed in a civics class. France has used caricatures to mimic various religious and political authorities for years. President Macron promised to combat radical Islamism on French soil, which prompted new Muslim political unrest throughout France, a Catholic nation.

Violent protests in the U.S. in the wake of the death of George Floyd spread across the globe. The U.S. had over 4,700 Black Lives Matter demonstrations by June 6. Half a million people protested at over 550 locations across the country. The Justice Department estimates that more than 700 law enforcement officers were injured and there were at least 40 deaths during the nationwide protests.

Fox News reported insurance experts calculated the BLM protests eclipsed the 1992 Los Angeles riots, making them the most expensive civil disturbance in U.S. history. The 1992 LA riots that followed the acquittal of police officers in the Rodney King beating cost well over $2 billion in 2020 dollars.

In Bristol, Britain, protesters toppled a statue of slave trader Edward Colston. In Belgium, protesters destroyed statues of King Leopold II, known for his brutality in the Republic of Congo. Violent riots against Paris police over the death of Adama Traoré, a 24-year-old Black man who died in 2016, spread to Marseille, Lyon and Lille, where numerous injuries occurred as 10,000 people protested.

In America, the 2020 presidential election proved as revolutionary as quarantines. Fear of infection, frustration over weeks of forced isolation and exhaustion from a bitter presidential race put voters in a hostile mood over the election. As states arbitrarily mailed out ballots, the transition to mail-in balloting exposed numerous flaws in state registrars to efficiently authenticate and count all ballots. Each state flew by the seat of its pants, and many Americans lost total confidence in the system.

The media, pollsters, and radical collectivists distorted facts and statistics throughout the campaign to dethrone established politicians and replace them with socialists and identity activists. Although they succeeded in defeating Donald Trump, the GOP defied their attempts and won key races in the House and Senate. Pundits now question if we’ll ever have a legitimate election year again.

Amid the global death, destruction, dissension, recessions, political and social unrest and the media’s biased and half-truth reporting in our nation, history will show America stood tallest of all others on the globe. We showed the world it was the strong economy our leaders built before the pandemic that helped America survive “Annus Horribilis,” while others fell to tragedy, depression and despair.

"America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle.”

– George Bush

We are going to call it like it is. That is our mission, expose the truth, regardless of the narrative. This time it hurts....

(The Center Square) – What exactly did we see Wednesday at the Capitol?

We know what we were shown. We know what we watched.

I suspect that you saw what I saw, and then on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, read what I read.

But what happened Wednesday at the Capitol isn’t known for certain. And I am not confident that we ever will know. Because to know, far more questions must be asked and then answered. I am not confident that the questions will be answered.

Something has changed in journalism. Conclusive outcomes are made in real time across all platforms today, and then the spin overwhelms the need for the pursuit of the truth.

In fact, for all the presumptive conclusions that you’ve read or seen in the days since, a tremendous number of questions remain to be answered.

Let’s start here: who stormed the Capitol? Again, what I saw was what you saw. A lot of Donald Trump flags, MAGA hats and signs.

These were all Trump supporters? Doesn’t seem plausible.

Could it be that simple? Probably not.

People inside the Capitol who certainly were not pro-Trump have been questioned by police. John Earle Sullivan, an activist with who founded a Utah group that is openly anti-fascist and a supporter of Black Lives Matters, captured 40 minutes of video with a female partner from inside the Capitol. That wasn’t being reported in Washington. It was reported in Utah, where Sullivan staged another protest that led to a man’s death.

On the video itself, the Insurgence USA founder can be heard saying, “As far as them storming the Capitol, I knew that was going to happen,” he said. “I’m on chats that are underground that are sending out flyers that are just like, ‘Storm all Capitols on the 6th.’ It wasn’t anything that was secret. It was something that was out there ... and they did it.”

Sullivan, whose video includes the shooting of Ashli Babbitt, was at the front of the mob.

Here in Chicago, I have seen multiple reports of a CEO who was charged for violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. His company fired him Friday. Similar callouts are happening around the country to identify and cancel not only those charged with crimes but those who simply were around the Capitol who had the misfortune of appearing on someone else’s camera.

If you’d watched Washington Post’s livestream Wednesday, you’d have been led to believe that all of the people within the camera’s view were men and women who were pro-Trumpers disenchanted by the election results of Nov. 3 and then the Georgia Senate races Tuesday night that turned out from all corners of the far right for the purpose of popping off like blood-filled ticks at the Capitol. That they had saved it all up for one final turnout in Washington, D.C.?

Say that out loud. Then think about it.

I struggle with the full plausibility of such a storyline, which we are being fed by some of the same national outlets that characterized 2020 riots in Kenosha, Wis., as “fiery but mostly peaceful” and in Minneapolis as not “generally speaking, unruly,”

That would seem to be, for any worthwhile journalist – at a minimum, lacking balance in perspective.

We should be asking why only 14 people were arrested at the scene by Capitol Police.

The Capitol Police were tactically miserable on a day made for opportunists of all stripes. Sadly, they lost one of their own in the madness.

Why is it we know all manner of things about Babbitt, the woman who was shot inside the Capitol? We know her name. What she did for a living. That she supported Trump. That she had a MAGA hat. That she owned a pool supply business. That she served 14 years in the Air Force. That she posted Q-Anon content on social media.

We don’t know – at this time – the name of the Capitol Police officer who shot her. No calls to ferret that out. No effort there. That would be contrary to the way the media swarmed to name the police officers who arrested George Floyd in Minneapolis or shot Jacob Blake in Kenosha. The names of those officers were all over the news in a matter of hours.

There is no denying people from the Save America March were loose in the Capitol. That’s indisputable. You can watch the people physically move from the rally to the Capitol.

And, for sure, there were pro-Trump supporters inside the building.

But who else was in there, and who in the media will make the effort to tell that story?

Perhaps only us.

* * * *

Elsewhere in America …

GEORGIA

The Democrats wrestled control of the U.S. Senate after Tuesday's runoff elections in Georgia. Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler conceded to Democrat challenger Raphael Warnock on Thursday, vowing "to stay in this fight for freedom." Republican incumbent David Perdue conceded Friday to Democrat Jon Ossoff in a runoff that was called Wednesday for Ossoff. The Perdue campaign had said it would "exhaust every legal recourse to ensure all legally cast ballots are properly counted," but ended its efforts Friday afternoon.

FLORIDA

New legislation filed in Florida ahead of the spring legislative session extends COVID-19 protections to businesses, schools, nonprofits and religious institutions. Businesses would be immune from liability if courts determine the businesses have “substantially” complied with government-issued health standards or guidance. Republican leaders said separate legislation will address liability protection for the health care industry.

VIRGINIA

Although a new law allowing public-sector collective bargaining in Virginia does not go into effect until May, at least two Virginia counties are preparing to spend more taxpayer money on staff and resources if public-sector collective bargaining is approved in each county. In Fairfax County, it is suggested $1 million at the county level and $600,000 at the school board level be directed to support collective bargaining negotiations. The Arlington County Board has directed its county manager to provide budget recommendations for fiscal year 2022, with considerations for additional costs related to collective bargaining.

TENNESSEE

The state released details of a $100 million literacy initiative that will provide optional reading resources and support to students, teachers and school districts. The goal is to help students to read on grade level by third grade. State officials estimated last fall Tennessee third-graders will experience 50% learning loss in reading proficiency because of pandemic-related school closures.

NORTH CAROLINA

New federal rules require hospitals to make their health care prices public, and North Carolina Treasurer Dale Folwell called on the state's hospitals to do so. Folwell said the new transparency would increase health care's affordability and quality.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Gov. Henry McMaster announced he is allocating $19.9 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds for education programing for foster children, expanded day programs and summer school for early childhood education, and career and technical education programs in South Carolina’s state technical college system. The South Carolina Supreme Court struck down the governor's previous attempt to use the funding to enable families with pandemic-related financial hardships to keep their children in private schools.

ILLINOIS

Gov. J.B. Pritzker was all smiles about Georgia’s U.S. Senate election results Wednesday, saying he’s optimistic the federal government will come through with more state aid now that Republicans can’t block it. “I’m thrilled about the fact that the Senate changed hands,” he said. “As far as how that will affect the state of Illinois, I think there are two things that we can all immediately point to. One is that I think we will begin to see serious consideration of state and local funding, finally, because Mitch McConnell won’t be able to block it, and there are Republican senators whose states need state and local funding and they were working on that behind the scenes but Mitch McConnell would not bring that to a vote.”

Pritzker said Wednesday it could be difficult to address the state's out-of-balance budget during the short lame-duck legislative session that started Friday to wrap up the 101st General Assembly. State Rep. Mike Zalewski, D-Riverside, said thanks to last month’s federal stimulus bill, there may be some cushion to get to the next General Assembly that begins work Wednesday. Zalewski also said the governor’s announced $711 million in cuts will help bridge to the new legislature.

MICHIGAN

Michigan business and political leaders are pondering why Gov. Gretchen Whitmer chose to veto a bipartisan effort to allocate $220 million for Michigan’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund. The leaders note Whitmer’s shutdown orders are responsible for putting people out of work, but also have made it extremely difficult for out-of-work Michiganders to receive unemployment benefits.

Whitmer also declined to sign two bills into law, exercising a "pocket veto" on legislation that would have given a tax break to Meijer and allowed businesses hit hard by COVID-19 to defer summer 2020 property taxes. Critics assert the governor’s move further distorts the state’s tax code by favoring certain businesses over another.

WISCONSIN

Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley announced the officers involved in Jacob Blake’s shooting last summer will not be charged with any crimes. Blake also will not face any criminal charges. In other legal news, the FBI and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are joining Grafton police in looking into why an employee at the Aurora Health Clinic intentionally spoiled more than 500 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.

MINNESOTA

The Minnesota Automobile Dealers Association (MADA) filed a federal lawsuit aiming to stop Gov. Tim Walz’s administration from adopting California’s vehicle emission standards. MADA, which represents 350 franchised new car dealers with more than 20,000 employees, claims Minnesota lacks the authority under the Federal Clean Air Act to regulate motor vehicle emissions.

NEW YORK

Much of the discussion of policies that might be coming out of Washington over the next few years has focused on President-elect Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But now that Democrats will control the U.S. Senate, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York is poised to become majority leader – the first from the Empire State in that role. The Brooklyn politician has served as a lawmaker since he served in the state Assembly in the 1970s and was one of the first prominent voices to call for President Donald Trump’s removal after Wednesday's events at the U.S. Capitol.

NEW JERSEY

Republican lawmakers are hoping there’s sufficient appetite among their Democratic colleagues to override Gov. Phil Murphy’s veto of a bill that passed unanimously through both the Assembly and Senate. The legislation in question aims to help restaurants and taverns struggling through the pandemic by allowing them to expand outdoor seating beyond what current regulations allow. Murphy argued it would circumvent licensing rules critical to “the public’s health and safety.” GOP lawmakers are circulating a letter seeking a veto override vote as soon as possible.

PENNSYLVANIA

The question of whether it’s safe for school-age children to be in school has been a tough one to answer during the coronavirus pandemic, with deeply held beliefs on both sides of the argument. Now, 10 months into the COVID-19 crisis, the Pennsylvania Department of Education is trying to chart a middle course by allowing elementary school children to return to in-person learning, as of Jan. 25, if local school officials decide to reopen their buildings. Middle and high school students, however, must continue their studies from home, acting Education Secretary Noe Ortega said.

OHIO

After receiving encouragement from Ohio prosecutors to veto Ohio’s new Stand Your Ground legislation and a week after hinting he might do just that, Gov. Mike DeWine signed the bill last week. DeWine wants something in return, however. For more than a year, the Republican governor pushed his plan for tighter gun controls, but the General Assembly has yet to move anything forward. DeWine hopes signing the new bill leads to more cooperation with lawmakers.

INDIANA

Republican U.S. Sen. Todd Young released a statement Wednesday just before the joint session of Congress that said he will not join other senators in objecting to Electoral College votes from up to six states, saying he believes Congress has “no authority” to do anything other than certify the votes.

KENTUCKY

Survey results released by the Kentucky Democratic Party last week show Gov. Andy Beshear has strong statewide support, but Republicans expressed skepticism about the poll. Overall, the poll showed voters support the Democratic governor by a 59% to 37% margin, including 55% of independent voters and one-third of people who voted for Trump in November. Those numbers prompted a couple of GOP officials and consultants to scoff at the findings. “I can make a poll say people loved Wonder Woman 84 if you pay me to ...,” tweeted Tres Watson, a Republican campaign and communications consultant.

IOWA

In the week since Iowa’s in-person registration requirement expired, at least three new online operators have opened sportsbooks in the state. Rush Street Interactive (RSI), BetMGM and PointsBet are among online sportsbook operators inviting Iowans to register remotely to place bets on their websites now that Iowa bettors no longer have to first visit one of the state’s 19 retail casinos to verify their identification and open an account.

MISSOURI

As providers ramp up resources to deliver millions of shots into millions of arms in the coming months, Missouri lawmakers will consider allowing dentists to inoculate patients to expedite COVID-19 vaccinations this winter and spring. House Bill 628, sponsored by Rep. Danny Busick, R-Newtown, would make Missouri the fifth state to allow dentists to vaccinate patients for the virus.

TEXAS

Many counties in Texas have imposed a new round of COVID-19-related economic shutdowns, citing executive orders still in place from Gov. Greg Abbott. In September and October, Abbott issued additional executive orders to expand capacity limits for many businesses to 75%. The affected businesses included gyms, restaurants and retail stores and some bars. In the orders, the ability to expand capacity was dependent upon the number of COVID-19 patients admitted to a hospital in a given area.

COLORADO

Researchers and public health officials are using Colorado’s wastewater system to understand the prevalence and transmission of COVID-19 throughout the state. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said studying detectable COVID-19 particles in wastewater systems helps public health officials “improve our understanding of the number of individuals affected by COVID-19, including individuals who do not have symptoms or do not undergo testing.” The department has partnered with researchers from Colorado State University, Metropolitan State University, GT Molecular and Colorado wastewater utilities to conduct a study and publish a dashboard tracking COVID-19 wastewater data.

ARIZONA

Arizona’s COVID-19 cases spiked the week after Thanksgiving, something the state's top doctor blamed on local family gatherings. Seeing the same after the December holiday week, The Center Square reached out to data firm Cuebiq to find out just how many out-of-state visitors came to Arizona, thinking that could have been a factor, rather than just locals seeing family. The data was striking. An estimated 1.38 million people, mostly from locked-down California, visited Arizona in the last two weeks of 2020, 86% of which did not quarantine. We asked state officials whether they thought these tourists could be the cause, rather than residents. They’ve yet to respond.

WASHINGTON/OREGON

Washington and Oregon have joined with over a dozen indigenous tribes in a lawsuit against the federal government to stop the sale of the Seattle National Archives building, which houses thousands of paper files related to tribal treaty documents, ancestral records and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. The records will be sent to two separate National Archives sites in Kansas City, Mo., and Riverside, Calif. The lawsuit claims the building's expedited sale is illegal based on its relation to "agriculture, recreational, and conservation programs," and alleges the federal government did not seek testimony from tribal governments and other stakeholders.

OREGON

The same day Trump supporters breached the U.S. Capitol, a pro-Trump protest descended into an "unlawful assembly" after groups clashed and several people were injured. As Trump supporters moved in for a shouting match with counter-protesters, which included a number of uniformed anti-fascists, the two groups converged at the Capitol building. Officers spent 20 minutes pushing heavily armed Proud Boys and Trump supporters out of the area as counter-protesters dispersed.

Chris Krug is publisher of The Center Square. Regional editors J.D. Davidson, Derek Draplin, Cole Lauterbach, Delphine Luneau, Brett Rowland, Jason Schaumburg and Bruce Walker contributed to the column.

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(The Center Square) – When Donald Trump rose from a political outsider to claim the most powerful political job in the world – president of the U.S. – at least a portion of his success was attributed to his direct line of communication with the American people via his Twitter account.

But that avenue for airing his thoughts, grievances and political edicts appears to be closed for good after the social media platform announced Friday evening that it was closing down his account permanently.

“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” the Twitter Safety account tweeted at 6:21 p.m. “In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action.”

In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action. https://t.co/NrANZJcAfo— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 8, 2021

The move follows Facebook’s announcement earlier Friday that Trump’s account on that platform would remain suspended through at least Jan. 20, the day that President-elect Joe Biden is scheduled to be sworn in as Trump’s successor.

Both platforms, as well as others, had issued temporary suspensions on Wednesday after Trump sent out messages on social media that some viewed as tacitly supportive of the violent invasion of the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.

Twitter had reinstated Trump’s account on Thursday, and he used it on Friday to announce that he would not be attending Biden’s inauguration. In another tweet featuring his typical style of all-caps words and emphatic, repeated exclamation marks, he vowed that the political movement he leads wasn’t going away.

“The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future,” Trump wrote. “They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”

In an unsigned blog post, Twitter said those two tweets had violated the platform’s “Glorification of Violence Policy” and dictated that his account be shut down.

“Due to the ongoing tensions in the United States, and an uptick in the global conversation in regards to the people who violently stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, these two Tweets must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President’s statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behavior from this account in recent weeks,” the blog post said.

The blog post went on to make the case that the two tweets were likely to send a signal to Trump supporters that further attacks were welcomed. It suggested that by announcing he wouldn't be at the inauguration, he was indicating to his followers that they were free to launch attacks on the ceremony.

“Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021,” the blog post said.

(The Center Square) – House Democrats could begin formal impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump next week, seeking again to initiate the process to remove him from office, this time during the final two weeks of his term in office.

Multiple media outlets were reporting Friday afternoon that U.S. Reps. Jamie Raskin, D-Md.; Ted Lieu, D-Calif.; and David Cicilline, D-R.I., had drafted a single article of impeachment against Trump over the events that led to Wednesday’s violent incursion of the U.S. Capitol, which led to five deaths.

According to a four-page draft of the impeachment resolution, the president would be accused of “high crimes and misdemeanors” that would necessitate his removal from office.

The resolution points to Trump’s remarks during a rally near the White House on Wednesday at which he exhorted his supporters to go to the Capitol and register their displeasure over the imminent votes to certify the Electoral College results formally making Joe Biden the president-elect.

JUST IN: 4-page draft article of impeachment against President Trump that Reps. Raskin, Lieu, Cicilline are planning to introduce Monday: "Incitement of insurrection" pic.twitter.com/KdQrzQy6pf— NBC News (@NBCNews) January 8, 2021

“He … willfully made statements that encouraged – and forseeably resulted in – imminent lawless action at the Capitol,” the resolution reads. “Incited by President Trump, a mob unlawfully breached the Capitol, injured law enforcement personnel, menaced Members of Congress and the Vice President, interfered with the Joint Session’s solemn constitutional duty to certify election results, and engaged in violent, deadly, destructive, and seditious acts.”

NBC News was among the outlets reporting that Raskin, Lieu and Cicilline intend to introduce the resolution Monday.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in a letter to the House of Representatives on Friday, indicated that impeachment proceedings would move forward unless the president resigns “immediately.”

She noted Republicans had called for the resignation of former President Richard Nixon after the Watergate scandal, and she said they need to do so again.

“Today, following the president’s dangerous and seditious acts, Republicans in Congress need to follow that example and call on Trump to depart his office – immediately,” she wrote, according to The New York Times. “If the president does not leave office imminently and willingly, the Congress will proceed with our action.”

If the House does impeach Trump, he would become the first U.S. president to be impeached twice. The Democrat-controlled House voted to approve three articles of impeachment against him in December 2019, but the Republican-controlled Senate acquitted him of all three charges in February 2020.

Biden hasn’t endorsed the idea of impeaching the president, saying Friday it was a “judgment for the Congress to make,” according to Politico.

The White House, in a statement, argued a move toward impeachment would be a futile effort.

"As President Trump said yesterday, this is a time for healing and unity as one Nation," the statement read. "A politically motivated impeachment against a President with 12 days remaining in his term will only serve to further divide our great country."

(The Center Square) – Democrats will have control of the U.S. Senate for the next two years after Republican U.S. Sen. David Perdue conceded his runoff election in Georgia on Friday to Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff.

The race had been called for Ossoff on Wednesday afternoon by the Associated Press and other media outlets. As of Friday afternoon, Ossoff held a 44,973-vote lead over Perdue, 50.50% to 49.50%, in a race that had nearly 4.5 million votes cast.

Perdue won 49.73% of the vote to Ossoff's 47.95% in the November general election, but Georgia law mandates a candidate must earn a majority of the vote to avoid a runoff.

"Although we won the general election, we came up just short of Georgia's 50% rule, and now I want to congratulate the Democratic Party and my opponent for this runoff win," Perdue said in a statement.

In Georgia's other U.S. Senate runoff, Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler conceded Thursday to Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock.

After securing both runoff victories in Georgia, Democrats have gained control of the U.S. Senate with a 50-50 split in the chamber and Democrat and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris holding the tiebreaker vote. Two independent senators caucus with the Democrats.

Democrats already held the majority in the U.S. House.

(The Center Square) – In another attempt to challenge the Electoral College votes approved by Congress on Jan. 6, U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, filed an emergency application with the U.S. Supreme Court for it to hear arguments in his lawsuit against Vice President Mike Pence.

But the Supreme Court rejected his emergency application in an unsigned response with no explanation.

Two days after Christmas, Gohmert, with 11 Arizona officials as co-plaintiffs, asked a federal district judge to grant Pence as the president of the Senate overseeing the Joint Session of Congress “the exclusive authority and sole discretion in determining which electoral votes to count for a given State” on Jan. 6. They argued a section of the 1887 Electoral Count Act violates the 12th Amendment.

The judge dismissed the lawsuit one day after Pence and members of the U.S. House objected to it.

Pence’s attorneys filed a brief arguing that the plaintiffs “have sued the wrong defendant,” adding that Gohmert’s lawsuit objects to procedures in the law and “not any actions that Vice President Pence has taken,” therefore he should not be the one being sued.

Pence’s brief states, “A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction.”

District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a nominee of President Donald Trump, said Gohmert didn’t have standing to bring legal action.

In response, Gohmert told Newsmax, “If I don’t have standing to do that, nobody does.”

Gohmert then appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which also rejected it. On the afternoon of Jan. 6, he lodged his final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which summarily rejected it.

Court file number 20A115 was made public Jan. 7, roughly nine hours after Congress formally certified former Democrat Vice President Joe Biden as now the president-elect.

Roughly 89 Republican members of the House and 12 U.S. Senators expressed objection to certifying some states’ Electoral College votes.

Lawyers Defending American Democracy (LDAD), a group claiming to represent 5,000 lawyers nationwide, has publicly requested disciplinary bodies overseeing lawyers to censure Gohmert, his attorney, William Sessions, and any other attorneys supporting the lawsuit.

"It is hard to conceive of a more self-evident breach of these oaths and ethical prohibitions than this case," the LDAD wrote, calling Gohmert's lawsuit "absurd" and "specious."

(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 rates 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 wellbeing (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 top inbound states (with 250 moves or more) in 2020 were Idaho, South Carolina, Oregon, South Dakota, Arizona, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida and Arkansas.

The top outbound states in 2020 were New Jersey, New York, Illinois, Connecticut, California, Kansas, North Dakota, Massachusetts, Ohio and Maryland.

(The Center Square) – Leadership failures, poor internal and external communication and inadequate social distancing protocol were among the deficiencies an outside firm pinpointed in its investigation into deaths in the early months of COVID-19 at the Southeastern Veterans Center.

The Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, within Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration, recently released an independent audit of the 292-bed SEVC in Spring City, which was under scrutiny throughout 2020 for a disproportionately high number of deaths compared to other facilities within the organization’s oversight.

The law firm Morgan, Lewis and Bockius LLP completed the audit Oct. 15, and the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs released it publicly Dec. 29.

In the 142-page report, law firm representatives laid out an 11-point list of problems that resulted in at least 42 SEVC residents dying of the coronavirus when 2020 came to a close.

“(The front line workers) should be recognized and lauded. This report commends their efforts,” the auditors wrote in the report. “Nevertheless, their leadership failed them, and much went wrong at SEVC that could have been avoided.

A number of the nearly dozen issues outlined in the report took aim at procedural failures that exposed residents to the virus. Communal dining, for instance, continued through early April, even though there was a call to cease such activities in mid-March.

Other procedural failures early in the pandemic at the SEVC included little to no infection control planning, even as the virus was spreading in the facility, and an inadequate job of isolating residents from one another.

The DMVA issued a statement in response to the report, asserting proactive measures have and will continue to be implemented within the SEVC and other facilities across Pennsylvania.

“The DMVA has implemented most of the recommendations in this report that could be implemented immediately and is now in the process of reviewing and implementing additional recommendations, to include a review of its organizational structure, crisis management, communications and infection control procedures,” the statement, in part, reads.

The state agency’s release of the audit coincides with a number of other late-year developments related to the SEVC, including a Dec. 21 lawsuit filed on behalf of five resident veterans who died from COVID-19. The DMVA is named in the complaint, as is Rohan Blackwood, SEVC’s former commandant, and Deborah Mullane, SEVC’s former director of nursing.

Ian Horowitz, whose 81-year-old father, Edward, is among the residents who died from the virus, is among the parties involved in the lawsuit.

Reached for comment, Horowitz said he was gratified with the findings within the report.

“I read through the report for a couple of hours,” Horowitz said in an interview with The Center Square. “I looked at it as a gift and a small victory. It reflects what I’ve been saying and others have been saying.”

As 2021 unfolds, Horowitz said he hopes the coronavirus-fueled deaths at the SEVC and other facilities shine a spotlight on the importance of having strict protocols in place.

“My word for 2021 is accountability,” Horowitz said. “I see state legislators finding it more important to try and pass laws to try and protect these nursing homes with immunity and protect these managers from prosecution. Where’s the protection of our senior citizens, our veterans and other vulnerable populations?”

Early in December, state Auditor Gen. Eugene DePasquale also issued a 12-page report, “Protecting Our Protectors: A Review of State Veterans Homes.” The document, DePasquale said, was a follow-up to a similar analysis he conducted in 2016.

“Given the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on residents of long-term care facilities and nursing homes across the state this year, a review solely of the 2016 audit recommendations would not present a full picture of how the DMVA is serving our aging veterans,” DePasquale wrote.

In his updated report, DePasquale issued a number of recommendations to all statewide veterans centers, including training on proper use of personal protective equipment, or PPE, and improving management-workforce communication.

Deputy Sheriff Johnathan Price was killed in a vehicle crash at the intersection of Maiden Down Road and Jackson Road at approximately 10:50 pm. His patrol car collided with another vehicle...