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Through the coronavirus pandemic, we’ve seen one viral image after another of people lining up for help from food banks. One place you might not think about food bank lines forming is on military bases—but the need is there, too, The New York Times reports. Enlisted members of the military may be paid as little as $1,733 per month and often aren’t eligible for federal food aid due to a housing allowance many get. With the pandemic, many military spouses have lost jobs and kids aren’t getting free or reduced-price school meals.

According to one report, 7% to 18% of military families and veterans have had to seek emergency food assistance. According to another study, 39% of active duty families have needed food during the pandemic. Along those lines, requests for groceries have grown 40% at the Y.M.C.A. food pantry at Fort Bragg, with requests for peanut butter and jelly and oatmeal especially growing as kids are at home. A program distributing meals for children of military families in San Diego has seen demand grow by 400% with kids out of school.

Military spouses struggle to stay employed because of frequent moves, and when layoffs come, they are the first to lose jobs because they don’t have seniority. That adds up to a 25% unemployment rate, which combined with the low pay for junior enlisted personnel can mean considerable struggles.

According to a Pentagon spokesman, “Military members are very well paid.” How so? Because other people have it worse: “Junior enlisted members, on average, are paid better than 90 percent of the adult working population with a high school education and similar years of experience in the work force. The issue of food insecurity has been examined and found to be minimal in the military.”

Tell that to the families asking for help these days.

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Not a day goes by in Georgia without Republicans managing to further muddle their election efforts to keep the state’s two GOP-held Senate seats.

While President-elect Joe Biden is cutting pitch-perfect ads for the two Democratic candidates and deploying Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to the Peach State, Republicans dispatched Vice President Mike Pence to tell Georgians the fight continues … for Donald Trump!

Help Georgia’s grassroots get Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock elected! Give $3 right now to the groups doing critical GOTV work for a January victory.

“I promise you, we will keep fighting,” Pence told voters in Columbus, Georgia, at a rally intended to boost the candidacies of GOP Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. “We can fight for our president, and we can fight for more Republicans in the United States Senate at the same time. We can do both. We’ve been doing both.”

Inspiring. Nothing says “Vote!” like continuing to insist the election was unfairly stolen from Trump in a state run by Republicans.

This week alone, GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell conceded that Biden won the election, Trump countered that it was “too soon to give up,” Sen. Loeffler refused to rule out contesting the results during congressional certification in January, and Sen. Perdue gingerly suggested Republicans must vote to protect Trump’s legacy.

“We have to hold the line to make sure that what we’ve accomplished under Donald Trump and Mike Pence, that we hold on to what we’ve accomplished — the regulatory work, the tax work, the energy work,” Perdue said at the same rally where Pence spoke.

At the same time, McConnell-affiliated super PACs have left Trump for dead, arguing instead that the GOP Senate Majority is the last line of defense against Democratic domination in Washington, according to The Washington Post. McConnell’s PACs are also gunning to erase the fundraising advantages of Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, reserving roughly $150 million worth of broadcast advertising over the two-month window between the Nov. 3 election and Jan. 5.

And Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who has suffered withering criticism from Trump for not delivering the state, has a more pointed message for Trump’s most fervent supporters.

“It has gotten ridiculous — from death threats, (claims of) bribes from China, the social media posts that my children are getting,” Kemp told reporters following a vaccine event. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution noted that Kemp took particular issue with posters who have directed conspiracy theories at his daughter Lucy about the deadly auto accident this month that killed her longtime boyfriend, Harrison Deal.

“I can assure you I can handle myself,” Kemp said. “And if they’re brave enough to come out from underneath that keyboard or behind it, we can have a little conversation if they would like to.”

Sen. Perdue did cut an ad this week that included Trump encouraging Republicans to vote on Jan. 5. Whether that message can break through remains to be seen, but it sure as heck has a lot of competition on the right while the Democrats are damn near a vision of harmony on the left.

As of Thursday, more than 1.1 million people had already cast ballots in the runoffs between early in-person and absentee voting—”a huge turnout,” as AJC‘s Greg Bluestein notes, suggesting incredibly high voter participation.

We need all hands on deck to win the Georgia Senate runoffs on Jan. 5, and you can volunteer from wherever you are: More than 23,000 Daily Kos volunteers already have. Click here to see the Georgia volunteer activities that work best for you.

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More than a dozen asylum-seeking parents and children who have been detained at a migrant family jail in Texas could be deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement as early as Friday, the Associated Press reports. Among the children facing imminent deportation is a 4-year-old girl whose arm was intentionally broken by a man in their home country. But while a doctor said she requires surgery, ICE hasn’t just denied her that, but also refused to release them so they can pursue care on their own.

Now the family, along with more than a dozen others, faces expulsion as soon as today. “All of them are still holding out hope that we might be able to stop their deportations and more importantly win an appeal of their cases,” Proyecto Dilley attorney Mackenzie Levy tells the AP.

The AP reports that the 4-year-old and her mom originally asked for safety in the U.S. last year, but were forced to Mexico to wait out their U.S. immigration cases under the Migrant Protection Protocols policy, or Remain in Mexico. They eventually returned to Ecuador—families have been waiting for their court dates for months and some over a year—but again returned to the U.S. after the child was violently assaulted.

They’ve been jailed and denied proper medical care by ICE at South Texas Family Residential Center, or Dilley, since. The report said that doctors the family has been allowed to see have prescribed her painkillers and have noted a discoloration at her elbow, but ICE continues to refuse to release the family even though it has every power to do so.

“The lawyers argue the families facing deportation were never given a fair chance to seek asylum under several policies enacted by President Donald Trump’s administration that courts later stopped,” the report continued. “But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Monday lifted an administrative stay and refused to bar the deportations.” ICE has also refused to release families amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The Fuller Project recently reported that a detained child who has been jailed with his mom at Dilley for over 420 days is in isolation after contracting the virus. “The prolonged detention, the constant risk of getting sick with COVID-19, and the probability of dying there, is something that affects these women a lot,” Nora Picasso, the family’s attorney, told The Fuller Project. “It’s not only their concern for themselves but … those they most love.”

Like we’ve previously noted, Dilley already has a history of abuse against children: next May will mark three years since a toddler died after being detained at the jail. In testimony to Congress in July 2019, asylum-seeker Yazmin Juárez described how officials consistently failed to provide proper medical treatment when her nearly 2-year-old daughter Mariee became sick while in custody. “I noticed immediately how many sick kids there were—and no effort was made to separate the sick from the healthy,” she said.

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Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is heading to Georgia less than a week after President-elect Joe Biden visited the state to rally support for the Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in the Senate runoffs elections there. Harris will campaign in Suwanee and Columbus on Monday.

Early voting for the January 5 elections began on December 14, and already more than a million votes have been cast. 

Help Georgia’s grassroots get Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff elected! Can you give $3 right now to the groups doing critical GOTV work for a January victory?

Harris’ visit following so soon after Biden’s reflects the importance of the runoff elections, which will determine control of the Senate, with Democrats needing to win both to have a tied Senate with Harris breaking ties on votes. At stake is whether Mitch McConnell will, as majority leader, be able to block literally every Democratic priority and every Biden nominee.

Harris campaigned in Georgia twice in the weeks before the general election, which she and Biden won narrowly, reflecting years of work by activists and organizers in this traditionally red state. Her Monday visit will be aimed at increasing turnout among Black voters.

We need all hands on deck to win the Georgia Senate runoffs on Jan. 5, and you can volunteer from wherever you are: More than 23,000 Daily Kos volunteers already have. Click here to see the Georgia volunteer activities that work best for you.

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A Friday briefing on the Russian hack into “SolarWinds” networking software on government sites left members of Congress frustrated as officials shared less information than what was already available from public sources. Meanwhile Donald Trump has finally mentioned Russia on Twitter, except it wasn’t to admit to Russia’s massive hack into federal systems, or even to finally condemn Russia’s paying bounties for the murder of American soldiers. Nope. Trump mentioned Russia just so he could expand on past lies about the Mueller investigation. Because that’s still what he considers the most important issue.

On Thursday, it became clear that Russia’s hacking extended into areas of the Energy Department that have custody of America’s nuclear arsenal, as well as critical information about the energy grid. And though the flaw that Russia exploited to gain access to systems guarding some of America’s most highly classified information has supposedly been plugged, it’s very difficult to be sure that Russian agents didn’t leave behind time bombs that can alter critical data. Or back doors that would let them in for more destructive action.

Meanwhile, Trump is standing by to veto a defense bill that contains funding and directives to guard against exactly the sort of cyber threat Russia is currently creating.

Despite it being regarded as “must pass legislation” which is required to keep America’s military operations up and running, Trump has repeatedly threatened to veto the latest defense spending authorization. Trump’s reason? Twitter. Specially, he doesn’t like the way that Twitter has been slapping warnings on his destructive lies that, in the mildest terms possible, inform readers that what he is saying is kind of, sort of, just maybe BS.

As The New York Times reports, that bill doesn’t just contain money that supports the boots on the ground around the world, it features two-dozen anti-hacking proposals approved by a bipartisan commission. Among other things, it would expand the power of the federal government hunt down foreign hackers intruding into U.S. government systems, and it would establish the role of a ”cyberdirector” to coordinate online defenses.

If those tools already existed, the government might be much more effective in clearing out Russian hackers and closing the door firmly behind them. If the rules were already in place, the hacking might not have happened in the first place.

As it stands, Russian intrusions into government systems remained undetected, and unsuspected, until a private firm pointed out a vulnerability that exists in several systems, including that of Texas-based SolarWinds. That firm located the problem after they were hacked by state actors that were also likely Russian intelligence. In the process, Russia stole tools that “white hat” hackers use in protecting systems from their shadier namesakes. That theft is likely to give Russia an advantage in avoiding traps in the future.

At the moment, Trump hasn’t vetoed the defense bill, but that doesn’t mean he’s feeling any more supportive. Instead, Trump is waiting until the last second to affix a big “Nyet” to his Sharpie-scrawl. That makes it far more inconvenient on Congress to override Trump’s veto, because it would mean cutting short a Christmas recess.

As Fareed Zakaria notes at The Washington Post, Russia’s cyber attack was more than just a little poking around. it was “massive, unprecedented and crippling.” Even determining which systems were violated could take years, and even that doesn’t mean those systems are now secure. This isn’t espionage, it’s “hybrid warfare” in which Russia has deliberately invaded and damaged systems in charge of critical infrastructure as well as military assets.

On this subject Trump … remains remarkably silent.

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On Aug. 15, 2020, 35-year-old former Kansas City, Kansas, police detective Lionel Womack, who is Black, was pulled over while traveling through Kiowa County for an “alleged traffic violation.” The Associated Press reports that according to Womack, he was not speeding, nor was he under the influence of anything when a Kansas Highway Patrol officer flashed his lights. Womack says he pulled over. What happened next is the basis of a civil rights lawsuit Womack has filed against against Sheriff’s Deputy Jeremy Rodriguez in U.S. District Court in Kansas. 

Womack told the AP that he left the police force at the beginning of August in order to pursue his own security business. He was driving back from California on Aug. 15 when he was pulled over on a rural country road in Kansas. It was late at night, and Womack says he “freaked out” when suddenly “three additional vehicles pulled up quickly and started to surround my car.” Womack says he took off, leading Kansas police on a high speed chase that ended with Womack running, shirtless and unarmed, through an empty field. As a dash cam video that has been recently released shows, a police SUV, driven by Sheriff’s Deputy Jeremy Rodriguez, comes upon Womack and turns into Womack, running him over.

The only good news is that Womack is alive, though he says he sustained serious injuries to his back, his pelvis, and both legs. Womack is still in jail four months later on “felony charges of attempting to elude a law enforcement officer by engaging in reckless driving and interference with a law enforcement officer.” He also seems to have had a slew of misdemeanor charges—including improper signaling and driving without headlights—added to his docket. Meanwhile, nothing seems to have happened to censure Deputy Rodriguez.

Womack’s wife, Zee, is also a Kansas Police officer—the two met on the force more than 10 years ago. She told the news that she couldn’t believe what her husband was telling her when he said that the police had intentionally run him over. She says she has watched dash cam video over and over again. “I’m a police officer, we are pro-police, so you always want to believe that we would do the right thing. I just couldn’t find a justification based on what I saw.”

Zee says her husband told her he had been afraid. Specifically, after being pulled over, Womack says her husband noticed the other cars pulling up behind him, “both blacked out,” and felt that something wasn’t right. He told his wife that he felt he needed “to get to somewhere where there are people, there are cameras, witnesses, lights, something.”

Lionel Womack’s wife is not the only police officer in the family. His mother is a police officer, his stepfather is a retired police sergeant from Kansas City, and both of his aunts are police dispatchers.

Attorney Michael Kuckelman has brought the case against the deputy on behalf of Womack. He told the AP that the dash cam video is easily the most transparent defense of Womack, and also a damnation of Rodriguez’s actions. “It is impossible to watch a video of a deputy driving his truck over Mr. Womack without feeling sick. There was nowhere for Mr. Womack to go. It was an open field, and he was trapped, yet the deputy drove his truck over him anyway.”

The dash cam comes from inside of a vehicle pursuing Womack and shows an unarmed man running through a dark field at night, with police in pick-up trucks following him. Their headlights have him illuminated and he is going nowhere. The vehicle driven by Rodriquez pulls up directly behind Womack, turns to come alongside Womack, and then quickly swerves and runs the large front wheel over Womack. The office inside of the vehicle with the dash cam can be heard exclaiming “Holy shit!” as this shocking thing takes place.

Kiowa County Sheriff Chris Tedder did not respond to calls from the AP to talk about the lawsuit, which alleges, amongst other things, that Kuckelman has “urged Tedder in person and in letters to fire Rodriguez, and the sheriff has refused. Rodriguez remains on patrol. Kuckelman also wants Rodriguez charged criminally and has accused the sheriff of engaging in a coverup of the deputy’s conduct.”

The dash cam video was released to the public for the first time on Thursday. According to Womack’s attorney, his client has remained in jail based on a warrant out of Oklahoma. According to Oklahoma records, Womack sped through their territory a few days before this incident but was able to “elude” them.

Lionel told the AP that he believes most police officers are good people. “But we have to hold law enforcement accountable when they cross the line.”

Warning: The video is short, disturbing, and very graphic. 

The longer AP story.

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On Thursday, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel of outside experts voted to approve providing an emergency use authorization (EUA) for Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine. The agency is expected to complete the creation of the EUA on Friday, which would free up shipments of the vaccine to get on their way across the country this weekend. But they may have to get in line, because the first vaccine that was approved is already failing to reach states in the quantities expected. 

Despite months of listening to Donald Trump brag about the incredible military operation he had put together to distribute a vaccine that did not then exist, states are suddenly discovering that the shipments they were expecting have been drastically reduced without explanation. Meanwhile Pfizer seems just as confused—it says there are millions of doses sitting in its warehouse ready to go, but Trump’s team is allowing them to gather dust.

As Bloomberg reports, some states were informed on Wednesday that their supply of Pfizer’s vaccine would be cut drastically. For Oregon, that means a 40% drop in the 74,000 doses they had been expecting. Gov. Kate Brown tweeted that this was a federal decision made through “Operation Warp Speed.” Oregon is not alone. As The Washington Post reports, officials in multiple states were alerted that their shipments of the mRNA vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech would be “drastically cut” for next week.

Notices that they would not be getting what they were earlier told was on the way went out to at least six states. That list includes Illinois, Washington, and Maine, in addition to Oregon. Meanwhile, Florida officials seem to have lost their shipments of vaccine altogether, saying they disappeared from the online shipping system.

The changes in available doses are forcing states to scramble to change plans and cancel events at which workers at hospitals and nursing homes were expected to receive the vaccine. Some states were also going to begin giving the vaccine to nursing home residents, but those plans are on hold following the reduction in numbers.

A statement for Operation Warp Speed blamed states for “requesting an expedited timeline.” But on Thursday Pfizer put out a statement making it clear: “We have millions more doses sitting in our warehouse but, as of now, we have not received any shipment instructions for additional doses.”

The sudden change in availability would be less suspicious had Trump not spent so much time touting the supposed military efficiency of his distribution system. And a lot less suspicious had Trump not spent the spring threatening governors over the availability of personal protective equipment and respirators.

“I want them to be appreciative,” said Trump. He also stated that he had told Mike Pence not to call the governors of Washington or Michigan because they were not supportive enough of Trump. “If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call,” said Trump.

It seems highly coincidental that at least three of the states now being shortchanged on vaccine—Washington, Oregon, and Illinois—are precisely the same states that Trump complained about not being supportive earlier. That includes calling Washington Gov. Jay Inslee “a snake” for criticizing Trump’s handling of the pandemic in March, and repeated attacks on Gov. Brown over her handling of protests during the summer.

As the Moderna vaccine becomes available over the next week, it should begin addressing shortages. However, that doesn’t make Operation Warp Speed seem any more effective. When they’ve literally been preparing for this moment for the last 10 months, it seems odd for them to be so … unprepared.