Source Article from https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2020/11/17/wayne-county-election-certification/6309668002/

Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2020/11/17/twitter-fact-checks-donald-trump-tweet-highly-inaccurate-chris-krebs-firing/6335471002/

Judy Shelton appears before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee in February. President Trump’s nominee to the Federal Reserve has said she supports the gold standard and has questioned the mission of the central bank.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP


hide caption

toggle caption

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Judy Shelton appears before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee in February. President Trump’s nominee to the Federal Reserve has said she supports the gold standard and has questioned the mission of the central bank.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Judy Shelton’s nomination as a member of the Federal Reserve Board is stalled.

The Senate failed to advance President Trump’s controversial pick to the powerful central bank on Tuesday after Republicans Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine joined the Senate’s Democrats in blocking Shelton’s appointment.

The 47-50 vote also came as Sens. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, both supporters of Shelton, were absent from the chamber and unable to vote. They are at home because of exposure to the coronavirus.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris dealt another blow to Shelton, who was campaign adviser to Trump in 2016 and whose name was first floated for the position more than a year ago. The senator from California returned to the chamber for the first time since she and President-elect Joe Biden won to cast her vote against Shelton.

Shelton’s confirmation was expected to be contentious among the GOP because of her unconventional economic views that place her well outside the mainstream. In the past, she questioned the mission of the central bank. She has also expressed support for the gold standard, which would tie the dollar to physical gold — a move that would sharply limit the amount of money in circulation.

The attempt to advance her confirmation for a term that runs through 2024 comes as the Fed will enter a critical stretch under Biden, with key decisions to be made on how much support the central bank can continue to provide to U.S. markets during the coronavirus pandemic.

After the rebuff on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell quickly laid the groundwork for another potential vote.

However, it’s unclear if the missing Scott and Grassley will be allowed to return this week. That could push another attempt to take up the Shelton vote until after the Senate’s Thanksgiving recess.

But even then, the GOP may not have enough votes to overcome the deficit seen on Tuesday. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., the chamber’s majority whip, said it’s unclear if Republicans’ majority in the chamber could shrink by the time they return. Democratic Sen.-elect Mark Kelly of Arizona could replace Republican Sen. Martha McSally after the recess, Thune noted. Arizona is expected to certify the results of the special election by then.

“There is a little bit of a complicated factor there with the Arizona seat,” Thune told a Capitol Hill pool reporter Tuesday.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2020/11/17/935934885/senate-blocks-president-trumps-controversial-nominee-to-the-federal-reserve-boar

In Iraq, the number of US troops will be cut by 500 to 2,500, while the number of service personnel in Afghanistan will fall from 4,500 to about 2,500.

Source Article from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54980141

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On the roster: GOP sound alarm in Georgia ahead of Senate runoffsBiden announces first round of senior staff – Giuliani files to be front and center of Pa. lawsuit – Congress remains gridlocked by virus politics – Forgot to check the oxygen tank

GOP SOUND ALARM IN GEORGIA AHEAD OF SENATE RUNOFFS
WaPo: “Republican leaders are increasingly alarmed about the party’s ability to stave off Democratic challengers in Georgia’s two Senate runoff elections — and they privately described President Trump on a recent conference call as a political burden who despite his false claims of victory was the likely loser of the 2020 election. Those blunt assessments, which capture a Republican Party in turmoil as Trump refuses to concede to President-elect Joe Biden, were made on a Nov. 10 call with donors hosted by the National Republican Senatorial Committee. It featured Georgia’s embattled GOP incumbents, Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, and Karl Rove, a veteran strategist who is coordinating fundraising for the Jan. 5 runoffs. … Most striking was the way the senators nodded toward the likelihood of Biden’s presidency. While Trump keeps insisting that he won the election, making baseless claims of voter fraud and mounting legal challenges, Republicans on the call privately cast those efforts as an understandable but potentially futile protest.”

Georgia secretary of state faces off with Sen. Graham – WSJ: “Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said fellow Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham suggested he throw out certain legal ballots during the recount of the presidential race, an allegation that Mr. Graham denied. Mr. Raffensperger said in an interview Monday that Mr. Graham of South Carolina asked if absentee ballots could be disqualified from counties with higher rates of signature errors. ‘He just took it in a direction that I didn’t expect it to go,’ Mr. Raffensperger told the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Raffensperger said that when he was contacted by Mr. Graham Friday, he thought the senator was calling about the state’s two senate races. After an initial conversation, Mr. Graham called back again and brought up the idea of invalidating absentee ballots from counties with higher rates of signature errors, Mr. Raffensperger said, adding that he had staffers with him on that call.”

But the recount continues with 2,600 new votes uncovered – AJC: “A recount in Georgia’s presidential race found more than 2,600 ballots in Floyd County that hadn’t originally been tallied, likely helping President Donald Trump reduce his 14,000-vote deficit to Joe Biden. Trump could gain nearly 800 net votes from the discovered ballots. There were 1,643 new votes for Trump and 865 for Biden. The problem occurred because county election officials didn’t upload votes from a memory card in an ballot scanning machine, said Gabriel Sterling, the state’s voting system manager. He called it ‘an amazing blunder’ and said the county’s elections director should resign. ‘It’s not an equipment issue. It’s a person not executing their job properly,’ Sterling said. ‘This is the kind of situation that requires a change at the top of their management side.’”

Manual recount won’t replace official election results – AJC: “Georgia election officials said Tuesday they no longer intend to make the results of the state’s manual recount the official tally in the presidential race. The decision leaves little chance for election results to change much after the recount concludes Wednesday. Joe Biden led President Donald Trump by 14,000 votes, according to unofficial results. The change came after lawyers for the secretary of state’s office reviewed Georgia law and concluded that the new hand count shouldn’t replace the original machine count of scanned ballots, said Gabriel Sterling, the state’s voting system manager. The recount, ordered by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger last week, is moving forward under a law calling for the first statewide audit of an election.”

THE RULEBOOK: SEPARATE AND DISTINCT
“The several departments of power are distributed and blended in such a manner as at once to destroy all symmetry and beauty of form, and to expose some of the essential parts of the edifice to the danger of being crushed by the disproportionate weight of other parts.” – James Madison, writing about the branches of government, Federalist No. 47

TIME OUT: WELCOME TO WASHINGTON
LOC: “On this day [220] years ago, Congress met in the Capitol Building for the first time.  The Sixth Congress established the residence of the Congress and seat of the United States government in Washington, D.C. with the move on November 17, 1800. The newly established United States had nine capitals between 1776 and 1800: Philadelphia, Baltimore, Lancaster, York, Princeton, Annapolis, Trenton, New York, and finally Washington, D.C. The U.S. Senate history includes a chronological table of the capitals and summarizes a book by Robert Forenbaugh called ‘The Nine Capitals of the United States.’ … Congress 1, Session 2, Chapter 28 is named, ‘An Act for establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the Government of the United States’ (July 16, 1790). This act (later named the Residence Act or Permanent Seat of Government Act of 1790) established Philadelphia as the seat of government from 1790-1800 and then relocated Congress to Washington, D.C. in 1800. The Capitol was completed in 1826 and has since had extensions that have dramatically changed its physical appearance.”

Flag on the play? – Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM with your tips, comments or questions.

GOT A WILD PITCH? READY TO THROW A FASTBALL?
We’ve brought “From the Bleachers” to video on demand thanks to Fox Nation. Each Wednesday and Friday, Producer Brianna McClelland will put Politics Editor Chris Stirewalt to the test with your questions on everything about politics, government and American history – plus whatever else is on your mind. Sign up for the Fox Nation streaming service here and send your best questions to HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM.

BIDEN ANNOUNCES FIRST ROUND OF SENIOR STAFF
CNBC: “President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday announced his first slate of senior White House staff, choosing a mix of longtime Biden loyalists and rising Democratic stars. The overall makeup of the top staff is notable for its lack of well-known progressives, suggesting that Biden intends to oversee a more cautious, traditional West Wing than some in the Democratic Party might have hoped. Veteran Biden advisor Mike Donilon was named senior advisor to the president. … Jen O’Malley Dillon, who managed Biden’s victorious campaign, will serve as White House deputy chief of staff. … Louisiana Rep. Cedric Richmond will be senior advisor to the president and director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. … Former Biden campaign chairman Steve Ricchetti will be senior counselor to the president, the Biden team announced. Ricchetti is a career Democratic political aide who served as Biden’s chief of staff during the Obama administration.”

Progressive group slams two of Biden’s White House appointees as ‘corporate-friendly insiders’ – Fox News: “Progressive Democrats on Tuesday slammed President-elect Joe Biden’s appointments of Rep. Cedric Richmond and Steve Ricchetti to White House posts, calling them ‘unacceptable.’ Justice Democrats executive director Alexandra Rojas blasted Biden’s appointments of Richmond, D-La., as senior adviser in the White House Office of Public Engagement, and of Ricchetti as counselor to the president, claiming they were ‘corporate-friendly insiders.’ … ‘A Biden administration dominated by corporate-friendly insiders like Steve Ricchetti and Cedric Richmond will not help the President-elect usher in the most progressive Democratic administration in generations.’ Rojas slammed Ricchetti, a longtime Biden adviser and Biden-Harris campaign chairman, saying that, as a former pharmaceutical lobbyist, he ‘represented groups vociferous opposed to Medicare For All and the public manufacturing of prescription drugs.’”

Report: Biden doesn’t want presidency consumed with investigations – National Review: “NBC News reports, ‘President-elect Joe Biden has privately told advisers that he doesn’t want his presidency to be consumed by investigations of his predecessor’ and that Biden ‘has raised concerns that investigations would further divide a country he is trying to unite and risk making every day of his presidency about Trump.’ We can learn a lot from who is surprised by this and who is bothered or outraged by this. If Donald Trump or any member of his family sees the inside of a courtroom after his presidency, the only way any criminal charges stick is if the prosecutor has absolutely no ties to the Biden administration or the Democratic Party. Trump will argue he’s the target of a political vendetta. Any Biden administration Department of Justice is already hobbled by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ campaign-trail declaration that if she was elected president, the Justice Department ‘would have no choice and that they should’ go forward with obstruction of justice charges against Trump once he’s out of office.”

GIULIANI FILES TO BE FRONT AND CENTER OF PA. LAWSUIT
Bloomberg: “Rudy Giuliani, the lawyer picked by President Donald Trump to lead his post-election legal battles, sought court permission to appear for the Trump campaign in its lawsuit to block certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in Pennsylvania. Giuliani filed an application to join the case hours before a hearing is set to start before U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. … Brann, an appointee of President Barack Obama, will hear arguments on Pennsylvania’s motion to dismiss the suit, which seeks to block the state from certifying the election result unless thousands of mail-in ballots from Democratic-leaning counties are tossed out. … It’s not clear if Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and a onetime federal prosecutor, wants to actually argue before Brann. … Giuliani discussed the case on Fox News Tuesday morning, saying the Williamsport case would be the campaign’s ‘first established vehicle’ to get its election claims before the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Trump legal team faces another shake-up – Politico: “The game of musical chairs among lawyers pursuing President Donald Trump’s court challenges to the election results continued on Monday evening, as the campaign tried to replace the entire team handling the campaign’s federal lawsuit seeking to block certification of Pennsylvania’s results. A court filing said Marc Scaringi, a Harrisburg, Pa., attorney, conservative talk radio host and former Senate candidate, was taking over the case. … The legal escapade devolved into farce on Monday night as the federal judge rejected a move by the campaign to postpone that key hearing. Less than 90 minutes after the outgoing attorneys for the campaign assured U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Brann that ‘Scaringi is aware of the schedule set by the Court in this matter and will be prepared to proceed according to that schedule,’ Scaringi asked the judge to put off the session, arguing that he was inadequately prepared.”

Where election-related lawsuits stand – CBS News: “Since Election Day, the number of lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign and Republican voters in an effort to halt the certification of election results has swelled to more than a dozen, with the legal battles focused on a handful of key battleground states where Mr. Trump lost. … On Monday, four different cases brought by voters in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia who sought to exclude some counties from being included in state certification of the election were voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiffs. All four voter groups were represented by conservative elections lawyer James Bopp, Jr., who declined to say why the cases were dismissed. … The increasingly steep climb to victory hasn’t stopped Mr. Trump from making unsubstantiated assertions that he won the election or claiming it was rigged against him, despite the absence of any evidence to support his allegations.”

Trump’s stalling freezes the 2024 field – Politico: “While Trump’s loss was supposed to trigger a Republican Party reset, his flirtation with a 2024 bid ensures he’ll remain the dominant force in the party and cast a shadow over anyone looking to succeed him. Even the possibility of Trump running again will impede other Republicans from laying groundwork for their own bids — lest they upset Trump and his tens of millions of supporters, many of whom are convinced the election was stolen. … Those who’ve worked for Trump — Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley — are in perhaps the toughest spot of all. Each would have to maneuver around the soon-to-be-former president after spending the last four years aligning themselves with him.”

CONGRESS REMAINS GRIDLOCKED BY VIRUS POLITICS
AP: “With the nation gripped by a resurgent coronavirus and looking to Washington for help, President Donald Trump and lawmakers in Congress have a message for struggling Americans: Just keep waiting. The urgency of the nationwide surge in virus cases, spiking hospitalizations and increasing death tolls has hardly resonated in the nation’s capital as its leaders are vexed by transition politics and trying to capitalize on the promise of a coming vaccine. The virus has killed more than 247,000 Americans this year and infected at least 11.1 million — some 1 million of them in just the past week. Yet in Congress, where talks over economic relief bills stalled out months ago, lame-duck approval of aid is hardly front-of-mind. Across town at the White House, Trump is more focused on getting credit for the vaccine development push and blocking President-elect Joe Biden from getting the information needed to ensure the new administration can smoothly take over the fight against the pandemic.”

Pergram: A coronavirus bill will likely wait until next year, despite a burgeoning crisis – Fox News: “…[The] prospects of a coronavirus deal during the lame-duck Congress are dim. COVID-19 pulses. And it hasn’t altered the political landscape on Capitol Hill. … The wild convulsions of Trump and his position on a coronavirus bill at any one time was like playing a video game. That made negotiating a package a near impossibility. Also, the House and Senate must come to an agreement to fund the government by Dec. 11. And waiting in the wings is the annual defense policy bill. The House and Senate must resolve their differences in the legislation. But both versions of the bill would rename military bases and facilities named after Confederates. Trump has threatened a veto of the legislation. That veto warning is important. Especially in the context of a coronavirus bill.”

PLAY-BY-PLAY
Four years later, what’s next for Mike Pence?Politico

Gov. Newsom faces backlash after reports of dinner party breaking virus rules – Politico

Sen. Chuck Grassley to quarantine after COVID-19 exposureFox News

2022 New Hampshire Senate election fight already underway Fox News

AUDIBLE: BIG TECH IRE
“You’re the ultimate editor.” – Sen. Lindsey Graham during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey.

Share your color commentary: Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM and please make sure to include your name and hometown.

FORGOT TO CHECK THE OXYGEN TANK
KRCR: “A Shasta County man charged in a major Ponzi scheme dove into Shasta Lake in a submersible while fleeing law enforcement, the U.S. Attorney’s Office says. 44-year-old Matthew Piercey, who owns two investment companies, was indicted for the $35 million-dollar Ponzi scheme on Nov. 12. When FBI agents tried to arrest the Palo Cedro man in Redding Monday, he drove off, leading authorities on a chase through neighborhoods and northbound Interstate 5. He then abandoned his car and tried to escape by diving into Shasta Lake in an underwater submersible vehicle, according to court documents. He didn’t make it that far and was arrested when he came out of the water 25 minutes later, authorities say. Piercey is charged with wire fraud, money laundering and witness tampering.”

AND NOW, A WORD FROM CHARLES…
“The search for logic in anti-Americanism is fruitless. It is in the air the world breathes. Its roots are envy and self-loathing — by peoples who, yearning for modernity but having failed at it, find their one satisfaction in despising modernity’s great exemplar.” Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) writing in Time magazine on Nov. 9, 2003.

Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for Fox News. Brianna McClelland contributed to this report. Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign up here.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop-sound-alarm-in-georgia-ahead-of-senate-runoffs

At issue in Wayne County were minor discrepancies in which the number of votes cast did not match the number of voters listed as having shown up to vote in various election precincts. This could have stemmed from scenarios like a voter leaving a long line, or an absentee ballot kicked out of a tabulator, among other possibilities. Most involved a handful of votes, and were the types of inconsistencies that are frequently found during canvassing processes without leading to deadlocks like the one that happened on Tuesday.

Sensing that Republicans might play politics with the certification, Representatives Debbie Dingell and Rashida Tlaib, two Democrats from metro Detroit, started making calls around 1:30 p.m., urging Democrats to join the Wayne County Board of Canvassers meeting to ensure that the election results would actually be certified. Requests to join the Zoom call quickly went beyond capacity, with 300 people on the digital meeting when it started around 4:45 p.m.

After the first 2-to-2 vote, all of those participants stayed and the board opened up the meeting to public comment. A broad coalition — Detroit voters, clergy members, Middle Eastern immigrants, Black women, environmentalists, party activists and people who had worked at the polls and the absentee voting center — spoke out on the deadlock, repeatedly calling the Republican members racist and saying they were trying to disenfranchise Detroit voters.

“The Trump stain, the stain of racism that you, William Hartmann and Monica Palmer, have covered yourself in, are going to follow you throughout history,” said Ned Staebler, the chief executive of TechTown, a high-tech business incubator in Detroit and a poll challenger at T.C.F. Center in the city. “You will forever be known in southeast Michigan as two racists who did something so unprecedented that they disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of Black voters in the city of Detroit.”

The video call went mute for about five minutes at roughly 9 p.m., after about three hours of angry commentary by people dialing into the meeting. When the board came back, its members informed the crowd that they had just voted unanimously to certify the results and ordered Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to conduct a thorough audit of the Wayne County results, especially the precincts with disparities. They didn’t explain how the reversal had come about.

“The people who were there told the truth,” Ms. Dingell said. “And it worked.”

A senior adviser to Mr. Biden, speaking on the condition of anonymity, dismissed the trouble at the canvassing board as one in a series of stunts by Mr. Trump and his allies to stave off the inevitable certification of a Biden victory at the Electoral College.

A senior adviser to Mr. Trump, Justin Clark, said the campaign had played no role at the canvassing board. “This wasn’t us,” he said.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/us/politics/michigan-certify-election-results.html

(CNN)President Donald Trump on Tuesday fired the Department of Homeland Security official who had rejected Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/17/politics/chris-krebs-fired-by-trump/index.html

Judy Shelton appears before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee in February. President Trump’s nominee to the Federal Reserve has said she supports the gold standard and has questioned the mission of the central bank.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP


hide caption

toggle caption

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Judy Shelton appears before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee in February. President Trump’s nominee to the Federal Reserve has said she supports the gold standard and has questioned the mission of the central bank.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Judy Shelton’s nomination as a member of the Federal Reserve Board is stalled.

The Senate failed to advance President Trump’s controversial pick to the powerful central bank on Tuesday after Republicans Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine joined the Senate’s Democrats in blocking Shelton’s appointment.

The 47-50 vote also came as Sens. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, both supporters of Shelton, were absent from the chamber and unable to vote. They are at home because of exposure to the coronavirus.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris dealt another blow to Shelton, who was campaign adviser to Trump in 2016 and whose name was first floated for the position more than a year ago. The senator from California returned to the chamber for the first time since she and President-elect Joe Biden won to cast her vote against Shelton.

Shelton’s confirmation was expected to be contentious among the GOP because of her unconventional economic views that place her well outside the mainstream. In the past, she questioned the mission of the central bank. She has also expressed support for the gold standard, which would tie the dollar to physical gold — a move that would sharply limit the amount of money in circulation.

The attempt to advance her confirmation for a term that runs through 2024 comes as the Fed will enter a critical stretch under Biden, with key decisions to be made on how much support the central bank can continue to provide to U.S. markets during the coronavirus pandemic.

After the rebuff on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell quickly laid the groundwork for another potential vote.

However, it’s unclear if the missing Scott and Grassley will be allowed to return this week. That could push another attempt to take up the Shelton vote until after the Senate’s Thanksgiving recess.

But even then, the GOP may not have enough votes to overcome the deficit seen on Tuesday. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., the chamber’s majority whip, said it’s unclear if Republicans’ majority in the chamber could shrink by the time they return. Democratic Sen.-elect Mark Kelly of Arizona could replace Republican Sen. Martha McSally after the recess, Thune noted. Arizona is expected to certify the results of the special election by then.

“There is a little bit of a complicated factor there with the Arizona seat,” Thune told a Capitol Hill pool reporter Tuesday.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2020/11/17/935934885/senate-blocks-president-trumps-controversial-nominee-to-the-federal-reserve-boar

DENVER (KKTV) – More than a dozen counties are expected to move to new restrictions on Friday in Colorado under a new “COVID-19 dial framework” at the state level.

You can watch a news conference held by the governor on Tuesday at the bottom of this article.

Under the “Level Red” or severe risk of COVID -19, counties are experiencing high levels of transmission, hospitalizations, and positivity rates. Most indoor activities are prohibited or strictly limited, and outdoor activities are encouraged as an alternative. The capacity limits are significant. Indoor dining is closed, but take out, curbside, delivery and to go options are still available.

Both El Paso and Pueblo Counties remained in the “orange” level as of Tuesday, or high risk category. That could change at anytime. The orange level is a step better than red. Orange is for counties where numbers are going up but not to the point where everything needs to be shut down. The capacity limits are moderate.

The worst level after red is “purple” or extreme risk for COVID-19. This is a new level that was put in place for counties where hospital capacity is at extreme risk of being overrun. At the purple level all businesses must significantly curtail in person functions and people must stay at home except for necessary activities.

CDPHE has notified the following counties that they will move to Level Red on Friday, November 20, 2020:

· Adams

· Arapahoe

· Boulder

· Broomfield

· Clear Creek

· Denver

· Dougla

· Jefferson

· La Plata

· Logan

· Mesa

· Morgan

· Routt

· Summit

· Washington

For more on the restrictions for each level, click here.

CDPHE has notified the following counties that they will move to Level Orange on Friday, November 20, 2020:

· Costilla

· Custer

· Lake

· Montezuma

· Pitkin

· San Juan

CDPHE has notified the following counties that they will move to Level Yellow on Friday, November 20, 2020:

· Las Animas

· Gunnison

Copyright 2020 KKTV. All rights reserved.

Source Article from https://www.kktv.com/2020/11/18/list-of-the-15-counties-in-colorado-that-will-move-to-red-on-friday-most-indoor-services-like-indoor-dining-must-be-closed/

Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/11/17/south-dakota-nurse-jodi-doering-covid-19-patients-denial/6330791002/

Exclusive – Two top pro-Republican super PACs are taking to the airwaves on Tuesday with their first ads in Georgia‘s twin Senate runoff elections, which will determine whether the GOP holds on to its majority in the Senate or if Democrats will control both houses of Congress in addition to the White House.

The spots by the Senate Leadership Fund, the top outside group backing Senate Republicans, and by its allied group American Crossroads, take aim at Jon Ossoff, the Democratic challenger to GOP Sen. David Perdue, and at Raphael Warnock, the Democrat who’s facing off against appointed Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler. The spots were shared first with Fox News.

2022 SENATE BATTLE ALREADY UNDERWAY, EVEN WITH 2020 RACES STILL ONGOING

The two groups combined are spending $9 million to air the commercials, which start running the day before the top pro-Senate Democratic outside group, the Senate Majority PAC, launches its own ads blasting Perdue and Loeffler. The spots charge that the far left is bankrolling both Democratic candidates to advance their “radical” agenda.

The ad by the Senate Leadership Fund accuses Ossoff of “hiding cash from Chinese communists and terrorist sympathizers.” During debates earlier this autumn, Perdue pushed Ossoff to answer questions on payments for documentary work that were made to him by a media company partially owned by the Chinese government.

The commercial by American Crossroads calls Warnock “a radical who compared police officers to gangsters, thugs and bullies.”

Senate Majority PAC announced on Tuesday that it’s launching two new groups – Georgia Honor and The Georgia Way – which will start running spots that charge that Perdue and Loeffler profited off the coronavirus pandemic when it first swept the nation earlier this year – and claiming that both senators blocked COVID-19 relief aid that would help the state’s suffering small businesses and workers.

MAJOR GOP NAMES TO HELP PERDUE, LOEFFLER, RAISE MONEY IN GEORGIA SENATE SHOWDOWNS

The group says it will spend $4.5 million to run TV commercials and an additional $500,000 to go up with digital ads, starting on Wednesday.

“Georgia’s Republican ticket is made up of a pair of corrupt, out-of-touch politicians who profited off of the pandemic and can’t be trusted in Washington,” charged Senate Majority PAC president J.B. Poersch.

The current balance of power for the next Senate — coming out of this month’s elections — is 50 Republicans and 48 Democrats. That means the Democrats must win both of Georgia’s runoff elections to make it a 50-50 Senate, in which Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would be the tie-breaking vote, giving her party a razor-thin majority in the chamber.

IN GEORGIA RUNOFFS, IT’S SOCIALISM VS. CORONAVIRUS

In Georgia, where state law dictates a runoff if no candidate reaches 50% of the vote, Perdue narrowly missed avoiding a runoff. He currently stands at 49.75% in the vote count. Ossoff, trails by roughly 87,000 votes.

In the other race, Loeffler captured nearly 26% of the vote in a whopping 20-candidate special election to fill the final two years of the term of former GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson. Warnock won nearly 33% of the vote.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/georgia-senate-race-republican-super-pacs-first-ads

Reached by phone, Mr. Giuliani strenuously denied requesting that much.

“I never asked for $20,000,” said Mr. Giuliani, saying the president volunteered to make sure he was paid after the cases concluded. “The arrangement is, we’ll work it out at the end.”

He added that whoever had said he made the $20,000-a-day request “is a liar, a complete liar.”

There is little to no prospect of any of the remaining legal cases being overseen by Mr. Giuliani altering the outcome in any of the states where Mr. Trump is still fighting in court, much less of overturning President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s Electoral College and popular vote victory. Some Trump allies fear that Mr. Giuliani is encouraging the president to continue a spurious legal fight because he sees financial advantage for himself in it.

The Trump campaign has set up a legal-defense fund and is said to be raising significant sums to continue legal challenges in places like Pennsylvania and Georgia.

A Trump campaign spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Giuliani had sought compensation for his work dating back to the day after Election Day, when Mr. Trump began publicly claiming that he won despite the results, according to people familiar with the request, who asked for anonymity to speak about sensitive discussions.

At $20,000 a day, Mr. Giuliani’s rate would be above the top-of-the-line lawyers in Washington and New York who can charge as much as $15,000 a day if they are spending all of their time working for a client.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/us/politics/giuliani-trump-election-pay.html

President Donald Trump’s nominee to the Federal Reserve, Judy Shelton, pictured in Feb. 2020, has said she supports the gold standard and questions the mission of the powerful central bank.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP


hide caption

toggle caption

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

President Donald Trump’s nominee to the Federal Reserve, Judy Shelton, pictured in Feb. 2020, has said she supports the gold standard and questions the mission of the powerful central bank.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Judy Shelton’s nomination as a member of the Federal Reserve Board is stalled.

The Senate failed to advance President Trump’s controversial pick to the powerful central bank on Tuesday after Republicans Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine joined the Senate’s Democrats in blocking Shelton’s appointment.

The 47-50 vote also came as Sens. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, both supporters of Shelton, were absent from the chamber and unable to vote. They are quarantining in their respective homes because of exposure to the coronavirus.

Another blow to Shelton, who served as campaign advisor to Trump in 2016 and whose name was first floated for the position more than a year ago, was dealt by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. The California senator returned to the chamber for the first time since winning the election to cast her vote against Shelton.

Shelton’s confirmation was expected to be contentious among the GOP because of her unconventional economic views that place her well outside the mainstream. In the past she questioned the very mission of the central bank. She has also expressed support for the gold standard, which would tie the dollar to physical gold — a move that would sharply limit the amount of money in circulation.

The attempt to advance her confirmation for a term that runs through 2024 comes as the Fed enters a critical stretch under President-elect Joe Biden, with key decisions to be made on how much support the central bank can continue to provide to U.S. markets during the coronavirus pandemic.

After the rebuff on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell quickly laid the groundwork for another potential vote.

However, it’s unclear if the missing Sens. Scott and Grassley will be allowed to return this week, after their quarantines began only in recent days. That could push another attempt to take up the Shelton vote until after the Senate’s Thanksgiving recess.

But even then the GOP may not have enough votes to overcome the deficit seen on Tuesday. South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the chamber’s majority whip, said it’s unclear if Republicans’ majority in the chamber could shrink by the time they return. Arizona Democratic Sen.-elect Mark Kelly could replace Republican Sen. Martha McSally after the recess, Thune noted. Arizona is expected to certify the results of the special election by then.

“There is is a little bit of a complicated factor there with the Arizona seat,” Thune told a Capitol Hill pool reporter on Tuesday.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2020/11/17/935934885/senate-blocks-president-trumps-controversial-nominee-to-the-federal-reserve-boar

Wilmington, Delaware — President-elect Joe Biden announced appointments to his White House team Tuesday, filling top positions with longtime aides and senior campaign staff.  

Louisiana Congressman Cedric Richmond, an early and vocal Biden campaign supporter, is leaving the Capitol to run the White House office of public engagement. Richmond’s team will work to connect with Americans about Biden administration initiatives, as well as the federal government’s role in their lives. Richmond was elected to Congress in 2010.

As is the case with White House chief of staff Ron Klain, several longtime Biden aides will be returning with Mr. Biden to the White House, this time to the Oval Office. Steve Ricchetti, Mr. Biden’s former chief of staff when he was vice president, will serve as counselor. Mike Donilon, who oversaw Mr. Biden’s campaign message, will be a senior adviser. And Annie Tomasini, who was often seen at Mr. Biden’s side during the campaign and even during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, will be the director of Oval Office operations. 

Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon and deputy campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez are joining the administration as deputy chief of staff and director of White House office of intergovernmental affairs, respectively.  

Dana Remus, one of the four members of Mr. Biden’s vice presidential search committee, will serve as counselor to the president.  

Mr. Biden’s transition team also announced two positions for Dr. Jill Biden’s team. Her chief of staff will be Julissa Reynoso Pantaleon, a former ambassador to Uruguay and state department official during the Obama administration.  

Anthony Bernal, one of the future first lady’s closest confidants, will serve as senior adviser. He, too, worked closely with the Bidens during the early days of the pandemic.  

Campaign senior adviser Anita Dunn, credited by many with steering the campaign through its rockiest moments, is planning to head back to her private public relations job. She was President Obama’s chief strategist, and also served as White House communications director and was a senior adviser.

In a statement released by his transition team, the president-elect said of his new staff, “America faces great challenges, and they bring diverse perspectives and a shared commitment to tackling these challenges and emerging on the other side a stronger, more united nation.” 

Source Article from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-makes-key-white-house-appointments/

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pledged on Tuesday that the presidential transition would be orderly, despite concerns that the General Services Administration is delaying the process.

During a news conference, a reporter asked McConnell (R-Ky.) why the GSA had yet to launch the official transition process. The majority leader responded that legal disputes over the election would be settled in court first, but he promised that “all of this will happen right on time and we’ll swear in the next administration on Jan. 20.”

“We’re going to have an orderly transfer from this administration to the next one,” McConnell said. “What we all say about it is, frankly, irrelevant.”

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/17/mcconnell-biden-transition-437055

I’m Winston Gieseke, philanthropy and special sections editor for The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, bringing you what you need to know from today’s California headlines.

In California brings you top Golden State stories and commentary from across the USA TODAY Network and beyond. Get it free, straight to your inbox.

Newsom orders business shutdowns, considers statewide curfew

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday he is “sounding the alarm” due to “the fastest increase California has seen” in coronavirus cases. As a result, nearly three-quarters of the state’s counties must now operate under the state’s strictest pandemic restrictions, and health officials are considering a statewide curfew.

This will affect indoor dining, gyms and movie theaters, among other businesses; all must either remain closed or shut down in 41 of the state’s 58 counties. Newsom said he anticipates even more restrictions coming Friday.

Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/11/16/newsom-orders-emergency-shutdowns-airbnb-go-public/6315379002/

Before that, Rodriguez worked as the California state director in Harris’ Senate office.

In the Biden White House, Rodriguez will oversee the administration’s outreach efforts to state, county, local and tribal governments. After four years of limited interaction under Trump between the White House and state and local governments, Biden has made delivering financial aid to state and local governments a cornerstone of his plan to combat the coronavirus.

As a result, Rodriguez will likely occupy a more visible role in the White House than her predecessor, Douglas Hoelscher, did.

Annie Tomasini, a longtime member of Biden’s inner circle and his traveling chief of staff on the campaign, will serve as director of Oval Office operations. The particulars of this role have often shifted based on who is in office at any given time, but what remains the same is that it’s a powerful gatekeeper position with influence over the president’s daily activities.

When Trump first took office in 2017, he named his longtime bodyguard Keith Schiller to be his director of Oval Office operations. Schiller left the administration just eight months later, but starting shortly after he left the White House, Schiller began collecting $15,000 a month, every month, from the Republican National Committee. As of August 2020, campaign finance records showed the RNC had paid Schiller over $500,000 for unspecified “security services.”

The Biden-Harris transition team also made two announcements about incoming first lady Jill Biden’s office on Tuesday.

Jill Biden’s chief of staff will be Julissa Reynoso Pantaleon, a former ambassador to Uruguay during the Obama administration and a partner at law firm Winston & Strawn.

Jill Biden’s longtime aide Anthony Bernal will become her senior advisor. Bernal first worked with Jill Biden during Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and later joined her staff in the White House. Most recently, Bernal served as chief of staff in Jill Biden’s campaign office.

When Joe Biden takes office in January, Jill Biden is expected to become the only first lady ever to keep her day job, as an English teacher at a northern Virginia community college.

“I am proud to announce additional members of my senior team who will help us build back better than before,” Biden said in a statement Tuesday about the senior staffing decisions.

“America faces great challenges, and they bring diverse perspectives and a shared commitment to tackling these challenges and emerging on the other side a stronger, more united nation,” he said.

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/17/biden-picks-for-senior-white-house-staff-include-loyalists-rising-democratic-stars.html