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One of the criticisms of former President Barack Obama in his first term was a lack of focus on judicial nominations, letting many vacancies go unfilled even while Democrats held the Senate. President-elect Joe Biden learned the consequences of letting nominations languish and is already on it, contacting Democratic senators to get their recommendations for judicial candidates. And not for just any good candidates: for the kinds of judges that have been lacking in the federal judiciary.

“With respect to U.S. District Court positions, we are particularly focused on nominating individuals whose legal experiences have been historically underrepresented on the federal bench, including those who are public defenders, civil rights and legal aid attorneys, and those who represent Americans in every walk of life,” reads a Dec. 22 letter obtained by HuffPost from incoming White House counsel Dana Remus to Democratic senators. Remus continued that Biden doesn’t just want those names for a list for potential nominees, he wants recommendations—as soon as possible and with a final deadline of Jan. 19—for any existing district court vacancies. That sets him up to get those nominations rolling literally on Day One, Jan. 20. Additionally, Remus told senators that Biden will expect nomination recommendations from them “within 45 days of any new vacancy being announced, so that we can expeditiously consider your recommendations.”

What’s got progressive court-watching groups excited is that Biden is focusing on not just demographic diversity in nominees, but professional diversity. That’s what progressive groups have been urging him to do. Former Sen. Russ Feingold, who leads the American Constitution Society, told The New York Times a few weeks ago that his group, in a coalition with other organizations, had presented Biden with more than 100 candidates. “We think there should be a broader range of experience on the courts,” Feingold said. The list they provided fills the brief: “83 are government or legal aid lawyers, 69 are plaintiff or civil rights lawyers, 52 are academics, 42 are state or magistrate judges and 25 are public defenders. At the same time, 166 of the 306 are women, 134 are Black, Indigenous or people of color and 186 are under the age of 50.”

Now, whether Biden can get these people confirmed is another question. Should Sen. Mitch McConnell keep his majority, the answer is almost certainly “no.” The only answer to that is to do exactly what Biden is doing—everything he can to help Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock win in Georgia, along with moving aggressively and quickly on nominees. That sets up an early fight that could be damaging to McConnell and his Republicans, another big raft of whom are up for reelection in 2022 after McConnell’s self-inflicted damage from refusing to allow $2,000 survival checks.

The only option for Biden and Democrats to respond is aggressively, and it sure looks like Biden has that intent. “Our view is the administration should push to make judges a critical part of the conversation,” Nan Aron, the president of the Alliance for Justice, told the Times. “The Democrats will need to fight for the judges they want.” Looks like Biden is ready for that fight.

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Donald Trump’s slew of Christmas pardons this month weren’t reserved just for his fellow crooks and mob presidency loyalists deserving of only a lump of coal this year. The impeached president issued full pardons to not one, not two, but three former Border Patrol agents who were charged and found guilty of crimes against people at the southern border while on duty. 

The Texas Tribune reports one of the three pardoned criminals was Gary Brugman, who served almost two years for violating a man’s civil rights. The other two former agents were Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and civil rights violations after they shot a man in 2005 and then tried to cover it up, Think Immigration reported. But the pardons were also in no way a Trump aberration: Both outlets reported that top Republican elected officials and figures pushed for the pardons.

The Texas Tribune reports that Brugman had in his corner both of Texas’ U.S. senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz. Also supporting him was the state’s notoriously anti-immigrant lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick. Think Immigration reports that supporting Ramos and Compean was former Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter, himself “recently convicted of stealing campaign funds.” Oh, but in the spirit of the holidays, Trump made sure there were enough pardons to go to every criminal in his orbit, and Hunter got a pardon too. Merry Christmas.

Think Immigration writes that crimes committed by Ramos and Compean in particular were “but one of countless immigration-related abuses over the years, and one of the most notorious that continues to haunt the communities all along our southern border.” A 2006 report from the Department of Homeland Security inspector general details how Ramos and Compean chased a man, first trying to hit him in the head with the butt of a shotgun and then shooting him in the buttocks. 

“Compeon and Ramos did not report the shooting as required by [Border Patrol] regulations,” the inspector general report said, “and instead covered up the crime scene by removing the spent shell casings that were ejected from their pistols during the shooting.” Both men were sentenced to over a decade in prison, but then had their sentences commuted by George W. Bush. Republicans have always been about that law and order, right? Trump’s pardon now “wipes their records clean,” Think Immigration said, “making it as though they were never guilty.”

“Of particular note in the requests for the agents’ pardons and in the final announcement itself is how they are devoid of any reference to remorse, request for forgiveness, or acceptance of responsibility,” Think Immigration continued. “These pardons are beyond putting salt in the wound; it is salting the earth as the administration does what it can to leave the most lasting and damaging impact on its way out.”

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had already been operating with impunity but during the Trump administration dropped any illusion or appearance of trying to operate within the law, and within its own rules. That includes illegally detaining migrant children, spending emergency humanitarian funds meant for food and medical care for detained migrants on dirt bikes, and helping implement state-sanctioned kidnappings at the border. Then for the first time in a decade, children died while in custody of the agency.

Yet there has been too little accountability when it comes to CBP (as well as sibling agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement). May 2021 will mark three years since Claudia Patricia Gómez González, an unarmed Indigenous woman from Guatemala, was shot and killed by a border agent. Just like in the cases of other people attacked by CBP, officials lied about the circumstances around her killing. But according to Spanish-language media, the investigation around her case remains ongoing three years later.

There’s already so little justice when it comes to the abuses perpetrated by U.S. officials against people at the border. Now with the stroke of a pen, Trump has erased some of that justice, as he also intentionally decimates faith in American democracy because he lost the election fair and square, and continues to kill more Americans by not giving one shit about the novel coronavirus pandemic.

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France is speeding up a process that usually takes five years and expediting the citizenship applications of hundreds of immigrant front-line workers from the nation’s fight against the novel coronavirus pandemic, CBS News reports. Of the nearly 2,900 immigrants to have applied in the past several months, more than 70 are now citizens, and nearly 700 are nearing the finish line.

Officials announced in September they would be speeding up applications in recognition of the vital roles immigrants have played as essential workers. “They actively participated in the national effort, with dedication and courage,” Junior Minister for Citizenship Marlene Schiappa said at the time according to the report. Much like the U.S., the pandemic has caused delays in the processing of applications for French citizenship. But what’s different is how the two nations appear to have responded to it.

“In September, as France was bracing for a second wave of the pandemic, the government requested regional officials ‘facilitate’ and ‘accelerate’ the naturalization process for foreign workers who actively participated in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic,” CBS News reported. But here in the U.S., the immigration agency that processes naturalization paperwork refused to conduct virtual ceremonies for immigrants who were on the cusp of citizenship but couldn’t finish the process due to the cancellation of in-person oath ceremonies.

More than 2,000 immigrants were then forced to file a class-action lawsuit against U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which has been heavily politicized under the outgoing administration. In July—just weeks before France said it would speed up its process for its people—the Philadelphia field office of USCIS backed down and “opted to quickly naturalize all of them,” The Philadelphia Inquirer reported at the time. So it had the ability all that time to naturalize them, as advocates had insisted. They just didn’t want to do it.

“To be clear, the law is not as stringent as USCIS suggests and there is legal room for USCIS to make appropriate accommodations for remote oath ceremonies,” Ur Jaddou, director of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Watch and former USCIS chief counsel, said in a statement received by Daily Kos at the time. “But it takes will and interest to do so.” 

According to a recent report from the Center for American Progress (CAP), the U.S. government considers as many as 5 million undocumented immigrants “essential workers” amid the pandemic, with some carrying official letters given to them by their employers. But the reality is that they’ve always been essential workers, and their legalization would be both vital to their lives and an integral part of the nation’s recovery, CAP said in the report.

“As the incoming Biden administration and Congress tackle the coronavirus response and economic recovery, they cannot ignore the many ways undocumented workers keep the country running or what they mean to their families and communities,” CAP said. “In designing legislative and administrative programs to deliver relief to all Americans and help the country get back on the path to prosperity, providing legal status to undocumented immigrants must be considered a key tool to ensure the recovery is sufficiently robust and resilient, equitable and inclusive.”

France is showing it’s possible if, in the words of Jaddou earlier this year, there’s “will and interest to do so.” CBS News reports that in a statement this week, Schiappa said that “[h]ealth care workers, cleaning professionals, childcare workers and store clerks … They have proved their commitment to the nation. It is now up to the Republic to take a step toward them.”

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Moscow Mitch McConnell just did it again. And then did it one more time. He just stopped struggling Americans from getting a $2,000 survival check, again. Apparently just because he can. And to be a troll, actually calling survival checks “socialism for rich people.”

It’s going to hurt Georgia Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in their reelection bids, and he apparently doesn’t give a damn. On Wednesday, he declared there is “no realistic path to quickly pass” the survival checks in the Senate. But there would be if he had the vote. Even Sen. Lindsey Graham thinks as much. McConnell is insisting on poisoning an eventual bill by tying it to Trump’s fever dreams of voter fraud and persecution by tech platforms. Graham on Thursday said he’s “urging Senator McConnell to give a stand-alone vote in the new Congress after January 3rd on all three measures.” Of course, if it happens in the new Congress, the House has to pass it again before it can become law, but as Graham says: “We have seven Republicans who’ve already said they would vote for it. We need five more. I think if we had the vote, we would get there.”
 

We’ve got one last shot at taking McConnell’s Senate Republican majority away in January. Please give $3 right now to send the GOP packing.

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Sen. Chuck Schumer leapt on that suggestion from Graham Thursday, telling McConnell on the floor that if he’ll allow a standalone vote on survival checks, he’d support a vote on “whatever right-wing conspiracy you’d like,” even whether Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger “has a brother named Ron.” (He doesn’t. And I’m not sure how I feel about Schumer paying that much attention to right-wing conspiracy theories, but it’s a hell of a zinger.)

McConnell knows there isn’t a person in the world who (legitimately) believes the survival checks are going to rich people. Hell, they wouldn’t even reach a lot of newly poor people—they are means tested based on 2019 income, and plenty of people who made $75,000 in 2019 made drastically less than that in 2020. McConnell also knows that this is a key issue for voters in Georgia. Apparently he’s feeling invincible right now, so much so that he’s telling Loeffler, Perdue, Donald Trump, Lindsey Graham, all the voters, every struggling person in America to just fuck off. So that he can troll Pelosi and Schumer, and maybe prevent just that little bit of improvement in the economy for soon-to-be President Joe Biden.

So Georgia, America. You know what to do. The only thing that can be done at this point since there isn’t a single damned spine among Senate Republicans to stand up to McConnell is to end his majority by electing Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.

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As cases of the novel coronavirus continue to increase nationwide, many individuals who once denied the virus are either apologizing for downplaying the virus or suffering from it. Amongst them is celebrity doctor Drew Pinsky, known as Dr. Drew, who revealed on Instagram Tuesday that he tested positive for the virus.

His Instagram post included a picture of him in bed holding up an energy drink while his wife wore a face mask. “Drew is home, under survelliance and fever is down,” the post read. “Thanks Dr. Zelenko, Dr. Yo and Dr. Jeff for the superior care and advice. Drew is feeling better and will hopefully get well soon.” The caption also noted that his wife tested negative.

Pinsky’s diagnosis follows the apologies he made earlier this year for both downplaying the virus and mocking individuals who warned against it. In various media appearances at the start of the pandemic, Pinsky consistently disregarded the severity of the virus and compared it to the common flu. In a viral TV interview on March 2, he called the coronavirus pandemic “a press-induced panic.”

“Way less serious than influenza — that should be the headline,” he said during the interview with KTLA-TV. By April as the virus spread to millions across the globe, Pinsky apologized for his ignorance in a series of videos shared on YouTube. The videos consisted of clips from both his online show, “Ask Dr. Drew,” his podcast, and other media appearances during which he claimed the virus was not a big deal.

According to USA Today, the apologies were prompted by an online video shared anonymously on Twitter that puts together clips from his media appearances, including one in which he noted that the probability of dying from COVID-19 was less than being hit by an asteroid.

“My early comments about equating coronavirus and influenza were wrong. They were incorrect. I was part of a chorus that was saying that, and we were wrong. And I want to apologize for that,” he said in a video. “I wish I had gotten it right, but I got it wrong.”

After sharing his coronavirus diagnosis on Instagram, Pinsky also shared a video on the platform thanking his fans for their support and added that he has taken “a lot of good medication.”

“COVID is no fun, I don’t recommend it, but I’m sort of through the viral phase, which is when the virus is reproducing,” he said, before revealing that he had been “wishing for” a positive coronavirus test “because I had this terrible acute febrile illness and was testing negative, and if I did not have COVID, I had acute lymphocytic leukemia, which I did not want to have,” he said.

“So COVID would explain the whole thing nicely and we have some many good treatments now for COVID. And I look forward to the immunity on the other side of this,” he continued.

As The Hill noted, while some people who recover from COVID-19 are believed to have developed at least some lasting immunity to the virus due to antibodies that are produced to fight infection, it is unclear how long this protection lasts in immune system memory. According to the World Health Organization, while contracting COVID-19 a second time is uncommon, it is not impossible.

As the year comes to an end, health officials predict the spread and conditions of the pandemic will only increase and worsen. Healthcare facilities and hospitals across the nation are reaching capacity as high numbers of individuals are being admitted daily. According to the COVID Tracking Project, at least 121,235 patients were hospitalized with COVID-19 in the U.S. on Monday alone. To date, more than 19.5 million people in the U.S. have been infected with the novel coronavirus and over 340,000 have died as a result, according to The New York Times database. At least 228,700 new cases of COVID-19 were reported on Dec. 30.

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Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s promise to back the $2,000 stimulus checks House Democrats passed and President Donald Trump backs rings about as hollow as, well, any of her other promises. She told Fox News she’s proudly stood by the president “100% of the time” and that we “absolutely” need to get relief to Americans now but that a vote is up to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. ”He knows I support it; he’s supported it himself, but we have to look at the process in the Senate and see if that’s going to come to the floor. If it does, I will support it,” Loeffler said. It’s an awfully safe position for Loeffler to take considering McConnell has repeatedly stood in the way of helping Americans struggling to survive during the coronavirus pandemic. 

The Georgia runoff is Jan. 5. Click here to request an absentee ballot.

He has called for what he deems “smart targeted aid, not another fire hose of borrowed money.” He blasted the $464 billion cost of the proposed relief and said Wednesday in a Senate speech that the House bill “has no realistic path to quickly pass the Senate.”

“It’s no secret that Republicans have a diversity of views about the wisdom of borrowing hundreds of billions more to send out more non-targeted money including to many households that have suffered no loss of income during the crisis,” he said. “COVID-19 has not affected all households equally, not even close.”

He’s right about that. While Rep. Ilhan Omar pointed out that “millions of Americans can’t afford to put food on the table or pay their rent,” Loeffler “benefited from stock transactions she made beginning on the same day she received a private briefing for senators early in the COVID-19 outbreak,” The Pointer Institute reported. Republican Sen. David Perdue, who is facing challenger and investigative journalist Jon Ossoff in the Senate runoff, similarly benefited from the pandemic. Only it’s hard to know by how much, because when he faced concerns about insider trading, “he abruptly sold virtually all of his stock holdings — between $3.2 million and $9.4 million worth,” The New York Times reported.

“We have a United States senator, Kelly Loeffler, unelected by the people of Georgia who, when she heard about COVID-19 seemed much more focused on her own portfolio than the people she was sent there to represent,” Loeffler’s Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock said on MSNBC. “She profited from the pandemic.”

Helen Kalla, a spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told The Augusta Chronicle Loeffler and Perdue only pretend to care about Georgians. “Two of the wealthiest senators in Washington can’t be bothered to demand a vote on a bill that will provide more relief to Georgians,” Kalla said.

Alex Floyd, a spokesman for the Democratic Party of Georgia, echoed that criticism in a media statement emailed to Daily Kos Thursday. “Senator Kelly Loeffler is truly all hat and no cattle when it comes to actually delivering relief for Georgians,” he said. “For days, Senator Loeffler has tried to claim credit for relief her own party’s president called ‘ridiculously low.’ But when given the chance to actually increase stimulus checks, Senator Loeffler once again sided with Mitch McConnell and her Washington Republican backers over Georgia.”

RELATED: McConnell’s refusal to allow $2,000 survival checks threatens the Senate’s New Year’s Day

Let’s give GOP Leader Mitch McConnell the boot! Give $4 right now so McConnell can suffer the next six years in the minority.

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From the early vote, it looks like Georgia is more than willing to take on the burden of saving the nation by saving the Senate. This is Thursday, the crack of dawn on New Year’s Eve, and the last day of early voting in Cobb County—look at these people and bow down to their commitment to democracy!

The story of Georgia’s early vote has Republicans freaking out. “We’re fully aware of the energy on the other side, and think we’ve been reminded about that,” Dale Washburn, a Republican state legislator told Republicans at a rally for Kelly Loeffler. “We know demographics have changed in recent years. And if our side hasn’t been aware of that, they’re rapidly becoming aware of that. The Biden victory had a big part.” As of Wednesday, more than 2.5 million Georgians had already cast their ballots, and it’s the Democratic strongholds that are leading: Fulton and DeKalb Counties in metropolitan Atlanta. Black voters statewide are “voting their weight and then some,” said Charles S. Bullock III, a political scientist at the University of Georgia.

Daily Kos has set up a get-out-the-vote (GOTV) channel to find out all the ways you can get plugged in to helping us elect Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock. Over 23,000 Daily Kos members have already signed up to volunteer for the Georgia runoff on Jan. 5.

So are young voters. More than 281,000 Georgians under 30 voted early, easily on par if not more than the young vote on Nov. 3. The vote that handed the state to Joe Biden. That includes George Lefkowicz, who hadn’t turned 18 by Nov. 3, but will by Jan. 5. He voted for Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock because he got the message: “I’ve always been super interested in voting,” Lefkowicz, a high school senior, told The Washington Post. “But this one’s super important because it will decide the future of American politics for the next two years, and if you want to get anything done, you have to work through the Senate.” Absolutely right.

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When Donald Trump heaved off to Mar-a-Lago for his latest “golf vacation,” there seemed a fair chance that he’d not bother returning to Washington. After all, Trump has already made it clear he’s going to defy every single tradition that has marked a peaceful transition over the last century. He’s not going to call Joe Biden and offer his congratulations. He’s not going to invite Biden and his family for a White House tour. He’s not going to share a car with Biden for that last awkward drive to the inauguration. So it seemed like Trump might as well stay in Florida and carry on exploring the depths of the 12th hole bunkers. It’s not like he was going to do any work back at the White House. After all, why start now?

But after selling hundreds of tickets to the New Year’s Eve warm shrimp and all the pardons you want buffet at his we-are-never-calling-it-the-southern-White-House, Trump made an abrupt change of plans. He’s flying back to Washington, D.C. unexpectedly on Thursday morning, leaving everyone back at Mar-a-Lago to worry about how they’re going to explain that little tax problem if they don’t get a chance to join Trump in the luxury ketchup line. And it leaves everyone there, and elsewhere, wondering just what Trump is doing now.

Donald Trump may be the best delegator to ever occupy the White House. Though, admittedly, that task is made much easier if you simply don’t care about the outcome. There are few situations that seem to require Trump’s physical presence. (At least, few that don’t involve getting a chance to stand in front of a camera.) So what’s worth a fast trip back to Washington, leaving his dues-paying fans in Florida disappointed? Coup plotting.

According to CNN, Trump has been “single minded” during his stay in the south. Even though the nation is experiencing record levels of COVID-19 and hospitals are overflowing as deaths pass 350,000, Trump is completely focused on one thing: How can he disrupt the Jan. 6 congressional count of the vote from the Electoral College?

Trump’s record in court is now 1 to … it doesn’t matter. All the krakens are slain. The level of ridiculous has been reached where Trump’s team filed a fresh lawsuit in Wisconsin asking that the state send a slate of alternate electors when the electors have already voted. That time is past. It’s not electors waiting in the box that Mike Pence is set to open on Jan. 6, it’s just their votes—306 of which are for Joe Biden.

But, says CNN, Trump has been in “a mood during most of the trip.” And Trump seems confused over why Pence doesn’t just crack open the vote box, peek inside, and declare Trump the victor. Not only has Trump retweeted calls for Pence to refuse to ratify the electoral vote, he’s backed a lawsuit by Rep. Louie Gohmert calling on Pence to set aside votes from enough states to make Trump’s 232 votes a “win.”

Not only would that mean putting tens of millions of votes from seven states in the dumpster—Pence simply doesn’t have that authority. His role next Wednesday is to open the box, and … that’s pretty much it. Clerks will tally the vote. If, as seems almost certain at this point, Republican members of the House and Senate combine to mount an objection to the announced totals, it will be Congress that votes on those objections.

During his time in Florida, Trump has apparently made a lot of calls from the fairway back to senators and congresspeople soliciting their participation in this last-ditch scheme to overturn democracy. Not only has he continuously brought up the Jan. 6 date with anyone who would listen, Trump has also been tweeting for his most reprehensible followers to gather in the capital that day for a “wild” time.

Still, even for a coup to overturn a centuries-old Republic, six whole days in Washington seems like a lot of effort for Trump. Is he really scrambling back to Washington on Thursday just to plan which balcony is best for naming himself dictator-for-life? Maybe. It could also be that Trump feels like he needs a couple of extra days to brow-beat the wholly brow-beatable Pence into forgetting that he can’t actually just ignore the results of the election in declaring the winner.

But honestly, that’s the good outcome. Considering that Trump sent B-52 bombers to raise hackles in Iran on Wednesday, everyone should just hope that he’s devoting so much of his attention to his plans for wild rumpusing that he doesn’t get around to a last-minute war.