Viral News: The drug company Moderna is on the brink of being granted emergency status for its coronavirus vaccine, giving the nation a second supply of bullets against Covid-19. It could be distributed as early as Monday.

  The Moderna vaccine had an efficacy rate of 94.1 percent in a trial of 30,000 people, which is extremely good. The side effects of  fever, headache and fatigue are described as common and unpleasant, but not dangerous.

  Another 3,373 Americans died of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours and the country added nearly 15,000 new cases.

  Te pandemic continues to be a political issue for the ardent deniers. The mayor of Dodge City, Kansas, Joyce Warshaw, has resigned after receiving threats over the city’s indoor mask mandate. She said, “They were loud, and they were aggressive, and they frightened me and my family.” 

Denial Ain’t a River: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell begrudgingly admitted Joe Biden won the election as President Trump re-tweeted a call for the Georgia Governor and Secretary of State to be sent to prison.

  Trump re-posted the message written by Virginia State Sen. Amanda Chase, who describes herself as “Trump in heels.” Trump amplified her call for martial law to prevent his removal from office.  Chase tweeted about President-elect Joe Biden, “Not my President and never will be.” She said,  “The American people aren’t fools. We know you cheated to win and we’ll never accept these results.”

  Georgia lawyer Lin Wood is advising Trump supporters to stock up on food, batteries and “2nd Amendment supplies.” He wants Trump to send the Georgia governor and secretary of state to prison for allowing the President  to lose the election. “He gave @BrianKempGA & @GaSecofState every chance to get it right. They refused. They will soon be going to jail,” Wood wrote.

  White House Presse Secretary Kayleigh McEnany described the Electoral College vote as merely “one step in the constitutional process” and that President Trump “has taken all statutory requirements necessary to either ensure a smooth transition or a continuation of power.”

  Continuation? 

  By comparison Mitch McConnell, who never conceded to the reality of the popular vote, is a rational man. He finally gave in to Monday’s Electoral College decision saying, “Many millions of us had hoped the presidential election would yield a different result, but our system of government has processes to determine who will be sworn in on January the 20th. The electoral college has spoken.”

 Right wing media and pundits immediately condemned McConnell for caving in to election fraud,

By Appointment: Joe Biden plans to name the popular former South Bend mayor and presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg to be Secretary of Transportation. Despite a base of popularity, “Mayor Pete” dropped out of the race, but not before he and Biden became friends. If confirmed, he would be the first openly gay member of the cabinet.

  Biden is also naming former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm to head the Department of Energy. She was elected to the first of two terms as governor in 2002, the state’s first woman governor. She’s a big proponent of electric cars. 

Requiem for a Heavyweight: Journalist George Packer writes in The Atlantic, that President Trump will leave a legacy of destruction and personal enrichment. He says, “America under Trump became less free, less equal, more divided, more alone, deeper in debt, swampier, dirtier, meaner, sicker, and deader. It also became more delusional.” 

  In a single paragraph summarizing the Trump presidency, Packer says, “Trump reversed 80 environmental rules and regulations. He appointed more than 220 judges to the federal bench, including three to the Supreme Court—24 percent female, 4 percent Black, and 100 percent conservative, with more rated ‘not qualified’ by the American Bar Association than under any other president in the past half century. The national debt increased by $7 trillion, or 37 percent. In Trump’s last year, the trade deficit was on track to exceed $600 billion, the largest gap since 2008. Trump signed just one major piece of legislation, the 2017 tax law, which, according to one study, for the first time brought the total tax rate of the wealthiest 400 Americans below that of every other income group. In Trump’s first year as president, he paid $750 in taxes. While he was in office, taxpayers and campaign donors handed over at least $8 million to his family business.”

  Bret Stephens boils it down a little more in The NY Times saying, “It may take Americans decades to figure out just what kind of damage Trump did in these last four years, and how to go about repairing it. The good news: no global thermonuclear war. The bad: a different kind of radioactivity that first destroys our trust in institutions, then in others, and finally in ourselves. What the half-life is for that kind of isotope remains unmeasured.”

  The Rev. Franklin Graham, son of the Bible thumping Billy, says he “grateful to God” for the Trump presidency. He said, “I’m grateful for a president and a vice president who recognized the importance of prayer and were not ashamed of the name of Jesus Christ. I’m thankful that the president stood against the secularists who wanted to take Christ out of Christmas and that he brought back the greeting “Merry Christmas!”

Flake News!: A major winter storm is moving into the mid-Atlantic and northeast today, bringing big winds and heavy wet snow, 10 inches to a foot in some areas, maybe up to 24 inches in parts of Pennsylvania. It’s threatening to be one of the biggest storms to hit the Northeast in years. 

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