Trump Rushes To Lock In Oil Drilling In Arctic Wildlife Refuge Before Biden's Term

Source: NPR

In a last-minute push, the Trump administration announced Thursday that it will auction off drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in just over a month, setting up a final showdown with opponents before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

The announcement of a lease sale comes sooner than some expected: The Bureau of Land Management did not wait for the comment and nominations period to officially end before scheduling a sale date.

The sale, which is now set for Jan. 6, could cap a bitter, decades-long battle over whether to drill in the coastal plain, and it seals the administration's efforts to open the land to development. But the Trump administration's plan for the sale may also draw legal challenges from drilling opponents, who could target the aggressive timeline in court.

Environmental groups have vowed to continue to fight to keep drill rigs out of the coastal plain and have filed lawsuits challenging the Trump administration's environmental reviews.



Read more: https://www.npr.org/2020/12/03/942052004/trump-administration-sets-last-minute-oil-lease-sale-for-arctic-wildlife-refuge?utm_campaign=politics&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_term=nprnews

Mike Pence Backs Away From the Trump Election 'Fraud' Train Wreck

Source: The Daily Beast

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But that changed late last month. Since Nov. 25, not a single fundraising email from the Trump campaign or its Republican National Committee fundraising account has featured Pence’s name in the “from” field. And this week, that Republican National Committee joint fundraising committee, the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, made another subtle change: a handful of its emails swapped out the official Trump-Pence campaign logo for one featuring just the president’s name.

At first blush, those may seem like minor tweaks to gimmicky portions of Team Trump’s fundraising strategy. A source familiar with the process said the fundraising emails do not go to Vice President Pence's team for clearance and an RNC official said the digital team was merely testing a new logo around the end of the month deadline. Indeed, some of the joint fundraising committee’s emails this week have included the original campaign logo with Pence’s name below Trump’s.

But several high-level sources say that the graphics change, along with Pence’s disappearance from the headers of President Donald Trump’s increasingly frantic and conspiratorial pleas, are not actually coincidental. According to four people with knowledge of the matter, they reflect an effort by the vice president and his team to distance Pence from some of the president’s more outlandish claims about a conspiracy to undermine the election and illegally deny him a second term in office.

“It is an open secret [in Trumpworld] that Vice President Pence absolutely does not feel the same way about the legal effort as President Trump does,” said a senior administration official. “The vice president doesn’t want to go down with this ship…and believes much of the legal work has been unhelpful.”


Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/mike-pence-backs-away-from-the-trump-election-fraud-train-wreck

Trump Spokeswoman Says If It's Safe to Loot, It's Safe to Party

Source: Bloomberg

President Donald Trump’s spokeswoman defended White House plans to hold numerous holiday season receptions and parties despite the pandemic, saying that if it’s safe for Americans to “loot businesses” then it’s safe for them to celebrate indoors.

“If you can loot businesses, burn down buildings, engage in protests, you can also go to a Christmas party,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters at a briefing on Wednesday. “You can celebrate the holiday of Christmas and you can do it responsibly.”

The remark appeared to be another jab at people who have joined nationwide protests against police brutality. Trump has frequently belittled the mostly peaceful protesters as looters and rioters.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the White House plans to hold at least 25 Christmas and Hannukah parties during Trump’s final holiday season in Washington. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised Americans that staying home during the holidays is the best way to avoid contracting Covid-19 as the virus surges around the country.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-02/trump-spokeswoman-says-if-it-s-safe-to-loot-it-s-safe-to-party

Pelosi and Schumer back $900 billion coronavirus stimulus plan as basis for negotiations

Source: CNBC

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to use a $908 billion bipartisan stimulus plan as the basis for relief talks as Congress scrambles to send aid to Americans before the end of the year.

In a joint statement, the Democratic leaders endorsed a more narrow aid approach than they have previously. The California and New York Democrats had insisted on legislation that costs at least $2.2 trillion.

“While we made a new offer to Leader McConnell and Leader McCarthy on Monday, in the spirit of compromise we believe the bipartisan framework introduced by Senators yesterday should be used as the basis for immediate bipartisan, bicameral negotiations,” Schumer and Pelosi said.

Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., was set to speak to McConnell on Wednesday about a pandemic relief measure. Earlier, the No. 2 House Democrat told reporters he hopes the parties can strike a deal by the end of the weekend and pass it by next week.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/02/congressional-leaders-.html

White House warns COVID-19 cases at dire levels, says patient care could be compromised

Source: The Hill

The White House coronavirus task force is issuing a dire warning to states, writing that given the already rampant spread of the virus across the U.S., a further surge in cases following Thanksgiving threatens to overwhelm the health care system and compromise patient care.

“We are in a very dangerous place due to the current, extremely high COVID baseline and limited hospital capacity; a further post-Thanksgiving surge will compromise COVID patient care, as well as medical care overall,” reads the White House report sent to states and obtained by The Hill.

The report includes a series of urgent warnings, a stark contrast to President Trump himself, who has been largely quiet on the coronavirus crisis recently and has focused on vaccine development when he does discuss it.

The warnings come as the United States is reporting a record-setting level of more than 150,000 new cases every day. More than 98,000 people are in hospitals with COVID-19, placing extreme stress on the facilities' capacity. Experts fear that a further surge will come soon in the wake of Thanksgiving gatherings and travel.

Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/528331-white-house-warns-covid-19-cases-at-dire-levels-says-patient-care-could-be

Biden plans to keep Wray as F.B.I. director.

Source: NYTimes

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has no plans to remove Christopher Wray, the F.B.I. director installed by President Trump, if he is still in the job when the new administration comes in, according to a senior Biden official.

The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said Mr. Biden’s team was “not removing the F.B.I. director unless Trump fired him.”

Two spokesmen for Mr. Biden did not respond to a request for comment.

But the decision to leave Mr. Wray in place would be a return to the norms around F.B.I. directors, who are confirmed by the Senate and are supposed to have 10-year terms, and are rarely fired. Dismissing them requires an explanation about why such an extraordinary measure would be taken.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/12/02/us/joe-biden-tump#biden-plans-to-keep-wray-as-fbi-director

Wisconsin governor calls Trump lawsuit an 'assault'

Source: AP

MADISON, Wis. -- President Donald Trump's attempt to overturn Wisconsin's election results by tossing ballots only from the state's two most heavily Democratic counties is an “assault on democracy,” attorneys for Democratic Gov. Tony Evers said in filings with the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

The filings, made late Tuesday, come as the state's highest court is weighing Trump's request to disqualify more than 221,000 ballots in Milwaukee and Dane counties. Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump by a 2-to-1 margin in those counties on his way to a 20,682-vote win statewide.

Trump is not challenging any ballots in the state's other 70 counties, the majority of which Trump won. Trump's legal challenges in other states to overturn election results have failed.

In Wisconsin, Trump wants to skip lower courts, saying in his lawsuit that there isn't time to go through the normal process due to the looming Dec. 14 date when electors will gather to cast the state's 10 Electoral College votes.

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/wisconsin-governor-calls-trump-lawsuit-assault-74505294?cid=social_twitter_abcnp

Release of PPP loan recipients' data reveals troubling patterns

Source: NBC News

Sweeping data released by the Small Business Administration on who benefited from pandemic relief programs raises questions about the equitability and distribution of loans intended for small businesses, an initial analysis by NBC News shows.

The analysis found that properties owned by the Trump Organization as well as the Kushner Companies, owned by the family of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, profited from the program.

After months of litigation, the SBA released the dataset Tuesday night on every small business that received a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) or Economic Injury Disaster (EIDL) loan.

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Over 25 PPP loans worth more than $3.65 million were given to businesses with addresses at Trump and Kushner real estate properties, paying rent to those owners. Fifteen of the properties self-reported that they only kept one job, zero jobs or did not report a number at all.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/release-ppp-loan-recipients-data-reveals-troubling-patterns-n1249629

Parscale says Trump should have been more empathetic on coronavirus

Source: The Hill

Former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale says that President Trump’s biggest policy error ahead of the 2020 election was showing a lack of public empathy about the novel coronavirus.

“People were scared,” Parscale said in an interview with Fox News host Martha MacCallum that aired Tuesday evening. “I think if he would have been publicly empathetic, he would have won by a landslide there. He could have leaned into it instead of run away from it.”

Parscale, who was pushed out of the role of campaign manager over the summer, said Trump’s decision to push for reopening the country instead of displaying empathy about COVID-19 hurt him with suburban voters in swing states like Georgia and Pennsylvania that Trump ultimately lost to Joe Biden, who is now president-elect.

Parscale described the move as the biggest “policy error” of the campaign, differentiating it from technical errors.

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/528279-parscale-says-trump-should-have-been-more-empathetic-on-coronavirus

Georgia election official addresses Trump directly and demands he stop inciting violence