A brief and belated Roundup

Being on vacation, and hiking, I didn't have time to post a full roundup, and this week, we're doing COVID news with other stuff.

Fauci now says herd immunity requires at least 80 percent and maybe more, not his old 70 percent. Yes, he was trying to soften up America. But, after his "masks not needed"? Platonic Lie No. 2

A Black doctor dies from COVID after being sent home from hospital, and revives reminders that even credentials are no bar to racism.

More Chinese coronavirus lies, including those by Winnie the Pooh himself, President Xi Jinping, have been exposed. These are again about covering up/ignoring the early days and weeks in Wuhan, including Xi's own lies about how quickly he intervened.

Half of America says Trump is a failed president. Well, we've not had a truly successful president since the 18 months LBJ had between Kennedy's assassination and his start on getting us bogged down in Vietnam.

SocraticGadfly shared his photo and some philosophical thoughts about the Great Conjunction.

Early voting is massive for Georgia's Jan. 4 twin Senate runoffs.

And forget line-jumping by athletes and politicians for vaccines. Health care workers are having some battles royale to move to the head of the line. 

ProPublica tells us more about how China's paid Internet trolls stage-manaaged making the coronavirus appear less bad in China than it actually was.

Off the Kuff took a deep dive into the appellate court races that include Harris County.  

DosCentavos teaches you how to warm yourself up with his piping hot, homemade Menudo and even takes you through his first batch of homemade tamales. There's still time to make these during the holiday season, and, anytime after, too! If you learn to make these recipes, you will win elections!

The Bloggess says it's okay to not be okay.  

Mean Green Cougar Red provides his analysis of the 2020 election. 

Kiko Martinez gives the origin story of the South Texas “cholo” version of The 12 Days of Christmas. 

Simone Carter informs us that we have a Shelley Luther biography to look forward to in 2021.  

State Rep. Vikki Goodwin has a few questions about Greg Abbott's plan to take over the Austin police force.

Greg AtLast calls out BOTH Seth Rich nutters AND Trump collusion nutters

Been about a full year, I think, since Greg AtLast, the better half doppelgänger of Greg Palast, has spoken to me.

Listen to him first call out #TheResistance nutters claiming that Trump surely colluded with Russia, then call out Ty Clevenger for his part in continuing to goose the Seth Rich conspiracy theory, along with Aaron Maté, Max Blumenthal, and other "allegedly outside the box stenos" for their claims that the DNC hacks were NOT by Russia (ignoring the RNC hacks) and failure to offer an option to this being a Russian hack, giving assent by their silence to Seth Rich conspiracy theories.

Per friend Greg, none of this is to say that Trump isn't "unhinged" in his conversations with Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn. It is to say that, AFAIK (and AtLast can tell) there was no collusion. And, re the 25th Amendment, "unhinged" is not "insane" in a clinical sense.

Onward and upward, with three weeks left until Joe Biden does a more graceful management of the continuing decline of America. Given that recent events show the body of the American constitution sucks, this is what we're stuck with until we get a LEFTIST "Convention of the States." AND? It needs to be a skeptical leftist version.

How a President Biden could get us a mask mandate

It's actually pretty simple.

The president IS the chief executive.

The executive branch has nearly 20 Cabinet departments and dozens of independent agencies.

All do a lot of federal purchasing.

So, you start by saying you will only buy products from companies that have internal mask mandates. If you want to get really hardball, you expand that to something like:

"The federal government can no longer buy products from companies with location in states with no mask mandates."

In other words, meat processors in South Dakota? Federal building and department lunchrooms no can do on buying your pork. That would get Kristi Noem's attention for sure.

Extend it from there, under the interstate commerce clause, to stop other products from leaving states with no, or tissue-paper-thin, mask rules. Defense manufacturing would be a biggie, because a president, Biden or somebody with bigger balls, could add "national security" in a way that reverse-spins Trump on meatpackers.

Also getting the attention of a Kristi Noem would be federalizing the National Guard in states with Indian reservations that require masks when the state government doesn't. Tribes are sovereign nations per the Constitution, so this would all be legit, too.