Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:
• The Capitol rioters put themselves all over social media. Now the FBI is watching. How law enforcement and internet detectives are identifying the Capitol rioters. (Vox) see also The Police’s Tepid Response To The Capitol Breach Wasn’t An Aberration Authorities are more than twice as likely to break up a left-wing protest than a right-wing protest. (FiveThirtyEight)
• Why the Vaccine Rollout Has Been Such a Disaster Blame a lack of leadership from the top as the president chose to focus instead on overturning the lawful results of an election while ignoring institutions like FEMA and the US Army. (Slate) see also Vaccine ‘train wreck’ leaves Tampa Bay seniors scrambling for shots Hillsborough County’s vaccination phone line was receiving an estimated 2,000 phone calls per minute at midday, a spokeswoman said. Websites and phone lines were down for hours. (Tampa Bay Times)
• How scammers siphoned $36B in fraudulent unemployment payments from US Coronavirus-era unemployment fraud was first identified in the state of Washington in May and since has spread to all 50 states, skipping to new targets as government agencies plug holes exposed by the massive scams. Mayowa and his crew of foreign scammers focused in November on Hawaii, Florida and Pennsylvania. (USA Today)
• ‘I just want to find 11,780 votes’: In extraordinary hour-long call, Trump pressures Georgia secretary of state to recalculate the vote in his favor The rambling and at times incoherent conversation offered a remarkable glimpse of how consumed and desperate the president remains about his loss, unwilling or unable to let the matter go and still asserting he can reverse the results in enough battleground states to remain in office. (Washington Post) see also Trump’s call was despicable. But was it criminal? Trump’s bid to pressure a state official to declare him the winner of a state that he lost was amoral and undemocratic. But was it criminal? Quite possibly. Trump has significant issues under state and federal law. (Popular Information)
• Here’s Why Car Thefts Are Soaring (Hint: Check Your Cup Holder) The technology that once made cars nearly impossible to steal has ushered in a new era of joyriding in some cities, thanks to carelessness with key fobs. (New York Times)
• Worse Than Treason: No amount of rationalizing can change the fact that the majority of the Republican Party is advocating for the overthrow of an American election. (The Atlantic)
• Trump Supporters Who Attempted The Coup At The US Capitol Flaunted Racist And Hateful Symbols: The mob of rioters carried Confederate flags, hung nooses, and paraded white supremacist symbols as they violently breached the Capitol (Buzzfeed)
• A Nation’s Economy Divided: Breadlines vs. Bread Makers An economy is its people. Alongside the 19 million infected and more than 330,000 killed in the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S., there are millions more whose lives have been upended by the economic collapse that has come with it.(Businessweek)
• America Is in a Reality Crisis For years, professional grifters, trolls, true believers and political opportunists have sowed conspiratorial lies. We are now witnessing the reaping. (New York Times)
• A remarkable GOP admission: Undermining the electoral college threatens our best path to the White House What’s not common is to hear people explicitly articulate the actual reason so many Republicans think the electoral college is useful: It tips the scales in their favor in presidential elections. (Washington Post)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Sébastien Page, head of T. Rowe Price’s Multi-Asset Division, which manages $363.5 billion. T. Rowe Price’s total AUM was $1.31 trillion.
Almost Half of GOP Voters Approve US Capitol Riot, a Threat to Democracy
Source: YouGov
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