If you go on the cousin walk I'm locking the doors behind you

Just keep walkin'.

 

 The other thing Americans consume in record numbers on Thanksgiving: Marijuana...

Who really likes J. D. Vance?

 'Who really likes turkey?' - JD Vance serves Thanksgiving meals to soldiers

 

Trump's new Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, has given Elon Musk control of the payment systems which control everyone's Social Security and Medicare benefits

 

 Billionaire Elon Musk’s deputies have gained access to a sensitive Treasury Department system responsible for trillions of dollars in U.S. government payments after the administration ousted a top career official at the department, according to three people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe government deliberations.  

On Friday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent approved access to the Treasury’s payments system for a team led by Tom Krause, a Silicon Valley executive working in concert with Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” the people said. 

David A. Lebryk, who served in nonpolitical roles at Treasury for several decades and had been the acting secretary before Bessent’s confirmation, had refused to turn over access to Musk’s surrogates, people familiar with the situation told The Washington Post. Trump officials placed Lebryk on administrative leave, and then he announced his retirement Friday in an email to colleagues. 

Spokespeople for Treasury and DOGE declined to comment. 

The sensitive systems, run by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, control the flow of more than $6 trillion annually. Tens of millions of people across the country rely on the systems. They are responsible for paying Social Security and Medicare benefits, salaries for federal personnel, payments to government contractors and grant recipients, and tax refunds, among tens of thousands of other functions.

More.

These guys are up against the debt ceiling and are obviously looking for other ways than the customary "extraordinary measures" to cut spending under the circumstances of a new administration trying to pass new tax and spending legislation. That's why Trump has offered buyouts to government workers so they quit, among other novel spending gambits like freezing program spending for 90-days.

The Treasury stopped paying into certain accounts from January 17th, before Trump and Musk took over, as part of the extraordinary measures undertaken by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to keep from hitting it.

She's been keeping the national debt at $36 trillion to $36.2 trillion ever since Thanksgiving.

It's all very troubling, as elected officials like to say.

Typically, only a small group of career employees control the payment systems, and former officials have said it is extremely unusual for anyone connected to political appointees to access them. 

Meanwhile paper tiger Donald Trump is caving, too, can't guarantee anything lol

 

 

Trump is already backing off his most important campaign promise

 Trump told the “Meet the Press” host that he would work with Democrats to find a way to preserve Dreamers’ legal status. He said he would not ban abortion medication, fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell or order the prosecutions of his political opponents. ...

During the campaign, Trump proposed tariffs of 10-20% on all imports — and 60% on goods from China. Welker asked whether he could “guarantee” that Americans won’t pay higher prices under those tariffs. 

“I can’t guarantee anything,” Trump replied. 

 

Kevin Dowd: close the border, eliminate regulations, end the war on fossil fuels, cancel electric vehicle mandates, do a little dance

 

 

 Kevin Dowd takes over for Maureen Dowd on Thanksgiving, here:

 

Trump promises a return to common sense and has been given the tools to accomplish it with an electoral mandate and all three branches of government on his side. He cannot squander it. He must not get bogged down in petty disputes and perceived slights. ...

There are things he can do right away to make a difference: close the border, eliminate regulations, end the war on fossil fuels and cancel EV mandates. ...

He should move forward without rancour or grievance, fuelled by the joy of the Trump Shuffle, his robot-like dance that has broken out at UFC fights and across the NFL. I’m going to have the younger members of the family teach it to Maureen on Thanksgiving.

They're not going to prosecute Joe Biden for willfully retaining and disclosing classified materials, but they are going to let grandpa Applesauce Brains stay president lol

 From special counsel Robert Hur's report here:

In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden's memory was worse. He did not
remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview
when his term ended ("if it was 2013 - when did I stop being Vice President?"), and
forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began ("in 2009, am I
still Vice President?"). He did not remember, even within several years, when his
son Beau died. And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan
debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said
he "had a real difference" of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact,
Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Eiden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo
to President Obama.

Our country is a giant prank played on the American people.

 Biden ‘willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency,’ special counsel says

But the special counsel, Robert Hur, said he was declining to prosecute Biden over his handling of classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, and notebooks containing Biden’s entries about national security.

This is James Comey not prosecuting Hillary all over again. 

But they will prosecute Trump in his classified documents case, upcoming. 

This double standard will be all the reason people want and need to vote for Donald Trump again.

Trump is remarkably ahead of Biden less than one year out from Election 2024 as high inflation and interest rates erode minority support for Joe

 

Story here.

US House Democrat minority leader Hakeem Jeffries crows over passage of more of the same old, same old bloated spending by continuing resolution

Looking forward to a Moody's downgrade, if they've got the guts. Congress certainly doesn't.

 

Senate sends funding bill to Biden’s desk, averting a government shutdown :

WASHINGTON — The Senate passed a stopgap funding bill Wednesday night, punting the GOP’s spending fight and the threat of a government shutdown until after the holidays.

The bipartisan vote was 87-11, with 10 Republicans and one Democrat — Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado — voting against the bill. ...

The short-term bill, known as a continuing resolution, or CR, cleared the House on Tuesday on a lopsided 336-95 vote, with all but two of the no votes coming from Republicans. The funding bill next heads to President Joe Biden’s desk for his expected signature. ...

“No spending cuts, no right-wing extreme policy changes, no government shutdown, no votes tomorrow, Happy Thanksgiving,” he said. “That is a type of report that, when you are able to give it, means morale is very high.”

Jill Biden let it slip over the Thanksgiving holiday that she's been a secret member of the alt-right all along

 

Michigan's growth of breakthrough hospitalizations and deaths through August has made it the poster child for vaccine failure as it sits atop all other states in the autumn outbreak

Aug 26: More than 20% of recent COVID cases, hospitalizations have been among Michigan’s fully vaccinated:

In the last 30 days, vaccinated individuals in Michigan have represented 23.4% cases, 28.1% of hospitalizations, and nearly 15.4% of COVID-19 deaths, according to data from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

 More. 

Even without reporting cases in the last two days Michigan remains #1 in the nation for daily new cases over the last two weeks.

Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties around Detroit remain ground zero for daily new cases.

The lack of reporting during Thanksgiving week is emblematic of Michigan's underlying laissez-faire attitude to life. It is under-vaccinated compared to the rest of the nation, and gave up on social distancing and masking months ago.

That's as true of its so-called conservatives as it is of its liberals, including the Democrat Attorney General Dana Nessel who got ignominiously drunk in public at the Michigan football game at the end of October, sans mask.

The government we deserve!

Israeli study of 1.3 million shows mRNA vaccine effectiveness wanes in 4-6 months in the same way for everyone regardless of age: So you're going to jab 5 year olds every six months?

The insanity of this ought to be plain.

A jab every 6 months means 145 shots throughout an average lifespan of 78 years.

And have fun at Thanksgiving thinking your vaccinations through May still protect you and your loved ones this November. 

You might as well be Nick Chevotarevich.

 

The FDA is letting thousands die of C19 as it moves with the speed of a glacier to grant emergency use authorization to new antiviral pills proven to work

 FDA doesn't give a shit about saving lives in an emergency.

So what should we think of the FDA keeping the drug, called Paxlovid, out of the hands of the infected? The FDA’s advisory committee won’t meet to approve the Merck drug until after Thanksgiving, according to the FDA’s website . The meeting is an entirely virtual one, so this isn’t a matter of getting all the advisory committee members into one place. It’s just a matter of scheduling. The earliest we could get Paxlovid into doctors’ offices or pharmacies is mid-December. 

More. 

 

Biden twice refers to the "Palmist" in Thanksgiving address, reminiscent of Obama twice referring to a soldier as "corpse-man"

 

Current projection for US coronavirus deaths by the end of September

On May 20 I projected about 262,000 US deaths by Thanksgiving.

Two months later it's time to revisit the projection.

Johns Hopkins lists deaths at 144,524 as of right now.

Using New York Times data we're at 144,283, as of yesterday.

The interim daily new deaths low occurred on Jun 21 with 257 in that data set.

From Jun 23 through Jul 23 the United States has added 1.69 million new cases.

The vast majority of those new cases have occurred in CA AZ TX and FL, where we know about 66% of cases have been aged 0-49.

That would imply approximately 1.12 million of the new cases in the last month have been aged 0-49, and approximately 575,000 have been aged 50+.

Using California data as a proxy, we know 7% of coronavirus deaths there have been 0-49, and cases 0-49 have been 69% of total cases.

That means the case fatality rate among the 0-49 in CA has been just 0.19% (562/293,675).

The situation for those 50+ is far more grave.

93% of coronavirus deaths in California have been aged 50+, and cases 50+ have been just 31% of total cases, which means the case fatality rate among the 50+ has been 5.66% (7,465/131,941).

Applying those CFRs to the new case population Jun 23 -- Jul 23 we project 2,119 new deaths aged 0-49 and 32,526 new deaths aged 50+, probably in the next 8 weeks.

That puts us, at minimum, at 179,000 total coronavirus deaths before the end of September.

Add as many again another two months after that, which is by no means certain, of course, but not unthinkable, and you're at approximately 214,000 deaths by Thanksgiving. Clearly not as bad as 262,000 but still bad enough. A bad flu season in America, remember, was 80,000 flu deaths in 2017-18. Normal is about 34,000. We are way past the flu comparisons, and those who were making them have shut up about it. They should be reminded of their ignorance and stupidity, which misled many. 

The future of this all depends on case growth, and whether the infection profile changes back from younger to older. It's always been about stopping the spread because spread inevitably leads to deaths.

Case growth continues to trend up robustly in California as of today, but appears to have rolled over in Arizona, Texas and Florida, flattening the curve for the United States overall. But even with flattening that means we're still feeding the beast.

Stay tuned.

Missed this 33K spike in jobless claims compared with a year ago the day before Thanksgiving last week

On sale for Thanksgiving

Newborn baby offered for sale in a Miami Craigslist ad. The state is investigating

They also stormed the southern border at Thanksgiving time 2013

Dramatic video of "border rush"

"Staged by a few instigators"

Hm.

Nikolas Cruz was failed at least twice, by the cops months before the shooting he perpetrated, and by his school

He had called the cops on himself around Thanksgiving 2017, as The New York Times reported in February.

Now it turns out his school failed to inform him he was eligible for counseling services when he asked for help around the same time.

His mother had died on November 1, 2017. His father had died years earlier, in 2004. So this was an already troubled young man who became lost and alone in the world before he did what he did.

Nikolas Cruz called the cops on himself, but not even they listened, or cared

Are you listening, America? To anyone?

The New York Times reports, here:

Mr. Cruz, 19, himself called the authorities just after Thanksgiving, describing how he had been in a fight and was struggling with the death of his mother. “The thing is I lost my mother a couple of weeks ago, so like I am dealing with a bunch of things right now,” he said in a childlike voice, sounding agitated and out of breath.

Most Americans will be hoodwinked by Republican tax reform because they never do their own taxes

56% use a paid preparer, and 34% use tax software, according to figures reported here.

That means 90% of individual filers really have no idea how the numbers have worked in the past, and therefore they are most likely going to have not the slightest idea how the tax reform will change them.

I'm betting Republicans are counting on this as they try to rush this through by Thanksgiving.

Your goose is cooked, sir.