Category: zerohedge

The last step in a US presidential election is when congress meets in a joint session on January 6 to count the Electoral College votes which have been certified and sealed by each state, and officially declare a winner.

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While most elections have included objectors from the losing party, this time will be a little different – as over 90 GOP lawmakers (77 Representatives and 13 Senators) have pledged to object to the election – even if it doesn’t change the outcome.

“I’m hoping that the American people get to hear just a small amount of evidence,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) in a Tuesday statement to the Epoch Times.

Here’s how the process for handling objections will work: Of both a House member and a Senator lodge their objection in writing, the joint session will go to recess, while the House and Senate meet separately to debate for up to two hours. Members will be allowed to speak for five minutes each, after which both chambers will vote. For an objection to succeed it needs to achieve a simple majority in both chambers.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., will preside over any House debate and has tapped Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff, Calif., Zoe Lofgren, Calif., Jamie Raskin, Md., and Joe Neguse, Colo., to lead any responses to GOP objections. But other Democrats from states Republicans are focused on are expected to also speak out against the effort as well. –NPR

Meanwhile, theories have been flying over what Vice President Mike Pence may or may not ‘do’ to overturn the results of the November election based on widespread allegations of fraud, and several last-minute procedural changes which Republicans say opened the door for manipulation.

On Tuesday – following a report in the New York Times that Pence allegedly told Trump he has no power to change the election results, President Trump issued a sharp rebuke – calling the report “fake news.”

“The New York Times report regarding comments Vice President Pence supposedly made to me today is fake news. He never said that. The Vice President and I are in total agreement that the Vice President has the power to act,” Trump said in a statement, before listing several options he says Pence has under the constitution: “He can decertify the results or send them back to the states for change and certification. He can also decertify the illegal and corrupt results and send them to the House of Representatives for one vote for one state tabulation.”

pic.twitter.com/GZkshmA7H1

— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) January 5, 2021

NPR pours cold water on the ‘Patriot Pence’ theory, however, after ‘an administration official who was not authorized to speak on the record’ said that “The VP intends to follow the law and uphold the Constitution tomorrow,” adding that Pence – a lawyer by training – has prepared for the joint session by meeting with the Senate parliamentarian, and has been reading legal opinions and studying the Constitution.

Here is the full list of planned objectors via the Epoch Times:

Senate

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.)
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.)
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.)
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.)
Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.)
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.)
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.)
Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.)
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.)
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.)
Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.)

House of Representatives

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.)
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)
Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.)
Rep. Barry Moore (R-Ala.)
Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.)
Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.)
Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas)
Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.)
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.)
Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas)
Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.)
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)
Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas)
Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.)
Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah)
Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.)
Rep. Jerry Carl (R-Ala.)
Rep. Yvette Herrell (R-N.M.)
Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.)
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.)
Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.)
Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.)
Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.)
Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.)
Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.)
Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.)
Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.)
Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.)
Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.)
Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.)
Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.)
Rep. John Joyce (R-Pa.)
Rep. Fred Keller (R-Pa.)
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.)
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.)
Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas)
Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga)
Rep. John Rutherford (R-Fla.)
Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.)
Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.)
Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.)
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)
Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.)
Rep. Ron Estes (R-Kan.)
Rep. Tracey Mann (R-Kan.)
Rep. Jacob LaTurner (R-Kan.)
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.)
Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.)
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.)
Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah)
Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho)
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.)
Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.)
Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.)
Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.)
Rep. Ron Wright (R-Texas)
Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio)
Rep. John Carter (R-Texas)
Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.)
Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.)
Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.)
Rep. Scott Franklin (R-Fla.)
Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.)
Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.)
Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.)
Rep. David Rouzer (R-N.C.)
Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio)
Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.)
Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas)
Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.)
Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas)
Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.)

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

It is now over a year since the coronavirus outbreak began in China, and yet again a team of World Health Organisation investigators has been denied access to the country to investigate where it came from.

Ten WHO officials were due to enter China this week to finally begin investigating, with a promise to look into the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a potential source of the pandemic.

However, the team were denied entry due to visa issues, according to WHO’s emergencies director Michael Ryan.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organisation announced that he is “disappointed” that the Chinese government has once again blocked the investigators from entering.

“I have been assured that China is speeding up the internal procedure of the earliest possible deployment,” Tedros said, adding “We’re eager to get the mission under way as soon as possible.”

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told the BBC “there might be some misunderstanding” and “there’s no need to read too much into it”.

Yeah, OK, and they also have a bridge for sale.

Top epidemiologist Knut Wittkowski says that the massive drop in influenza cases can be attributed to the fact that many are being falsely counted as COVID-19 cases. Wittkowski, former Head of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design at Rockefeller University, cautioned that, “Influenza has been renamed COVID-19 in large part.”

Chinese officials previously refused to confirm any dates for the arrival of the team, and it is blatantly obvious that they are unwelcome in the country, with the government continuing to silence whistleblowers, and even imprison journalists.

The WHO previously complained that it had ‘not been invited’ by China to investigate the outbreak, and has continually been criticised for propping up Communist Party talking points.

A previous WHO “scouting mission” to China over the summer saw a team of investigators arrive in China, but fail to even visit Wuhan.

Dave Sharma, an Australian MP, told the Financial Times: 

“It is another disturbing incident of the WHO – which is charged with safeguarding global public health – putting the political sensitivities of a member state above the public health interests of the world”.  

In August, the WHO announced that it would not be visiting the Wuhan Institute of Virology during its investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, despite repeated calls by experts that it should be seriously looked at.

The health body then did an about turn and said it would actually be visiting the lab after all, after a backlash ensued.

Yet, the investigation STILL has not gotten underway, close to a year after the outbreak began.

The WHO notoriously repeated Chinese claims that the coronavirus was not being transmitted between humans as late as mid-January last year, as the pandemic spread around the globe.

Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳. pic.twitter.com/Fnl5P877VG

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 14, 2020

The health body only reversed its rhetoric when officials managed to get into China and were told by health workers there that the virus was spreading rapidly.

As we have documented, the WHO merely parroted China’s claims, until it was able to send a team to Wuhan on January 20th, whereupon a medical worker immediately told the organisation that the virus was contagious in humans. Even then, the WHO did not declare a pandemic until the 12th of March.

The WHO had blocked doctors from urging countries to impose border controls to stop the spread of coronavirus and repeatedly told countries not to close borders, despite this being an effective way of controlling the spread of the virus

China has lied and lied and lied about the extent of the outbreak in the country, attempting to cover up every detail, and even to profit from restricting exports of personal protection equipment.

Now, the OECD has revealed that China is set to enjoy a post-COVID economic recovery that outstrips every other major country, most of which will see debilitating drops in their GDP.

As we reported this week, top US National Security officials still believe that the most credible theory on the origin of COVID-19 is that it escaped from the Wuhan laboratory, with a whistleblower from the Wuhan institute recently providing more information to the US team.

It previously emerged that the Wuhan lab had held a coronavirus sample that was 96.2 per cent the same as Covid-19 for almost a decade. This prompted the speculation about the origin of the virus.

Several prominent researchers and scientists have also noted that the lab must be investigated given this fact.

In addition, previous reports have suggested that the Institute took a shipment of some of the world’s deadliest pathogens just weeks before the outbreak of the coronavirus. It is also known that the lab was tampering with natural pathogens and mutating them to become more infectious.

Intelligence figures across the globe have also called for the Wuhan lab to be investigated.

Chinese virologists recently fled Hong Kong and effectively defected to the West, with evidence against the Chinese Communist Party concerning its role in the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Wuhan lab director has complained that scientists at the facility are being made scapegoats in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, and that the lab has been unfairly made the centre of dangerous ‘conspiracy theories’, following US intelligence suggestions that it could have been the origin for the viral spread.

Submitted by NewSquawk

Preview: FOMC December meeting minutes due 6th January at 19:00GMT/14:00EST

MEETING RECAP: The FOMC held the FFR target between 0.00-0.25%. It also enhanced its statement language to state a specific level for its asset purchases (USD 80bln Treasuries, USD 40bln MBS – unchanged levels) and removed references to buying at “the current pace”, while also linking purchases to further progress being made towards reaching maximum employment and price stability goals. Notably, the Fed did not extend the weighted average maturities of its purchases (analysts judged the chances as 50/50 going into the meeting), with some suggesting that a January decision may be more appropriate, allowing the Fed to see how the pandemic’s resurgence and fiscal stimulus plays out. Meanwhile, its forecasts saw near-term GDP upgraded, but 2023 onwards (including the long-term) was lowered; the unemployment rate projections were lowered across the forecast horizon, and the long-term dot was unchanged. The core inflation profile was lowered in 2020, but upped for 2021 and 2022, although interestingly, the longer-term inflation dots remained unchanged.

FISCAL STIMULUS: Going into the meeting, Fed officials had been warning heavily on the need for further fiscal stimulus. That uncertainty is now out of the way after US President Trump late December finally signed the Bill, and there is an expectation that the incoming Biden administration will continue to add fiscal support. Furthermore, with Democrats now looking to control the Senate too, Schumer has promised that one of the first things the Senate would deliver is $2,000 stimulus checks. That has helped officials become more constructive in their assessment of the medium-term (though still note the short-term challenges), since that stimulus will help protect Americans through the latest bout of the pandemic’s resurgence, which analysts say lessens the need for the Fed to act.

TAPERING: Some officials – Kaplan and Bostic, notably – have already started the discussion about when the Fed might taper the rate of its asset purchases, with some suggestion that this could be seen in 2021. (Note: tapering asset purchases must not be conflated with raising rates, which are currently expected to be held at current levels through the Fed’s forecast horizon). The updated statement links the rate of asset purchases to substantial further progress being made towards the Fed’s maximum employment and price stability goals, both of which currently have some way to go. And the language in the statement is loose enough to allow the central bank a degree of flexibility. Traders will note any discussion of the conditions the Fed will need to see before it becomes more confident in having a wider debate about tapering purchases. However, the short-term challenges may result in some language within the minutes that intimates that the Fed could add accommodation if the situation demands, so it may still be too soon to expect any hints of tapering in the December minutes.

WAM EXTENSION: As Treasury yields continue to test the top-end of their cyclical range, with 10-year yields yet to breach the psychological 1.0% mark, we continue to look for commentary to assess the likelihood that the Fed will increase the weighted average maturity of asset purchases, which is currently around 6.6 years; extending the maturity profile will allow the Fed to achieve a more ‘stimulatory effect’ and would also serve to place a soft cap on longer-dated yields. Another argument for extending WAMs is to match the issuance profile of the Treasury, which has been moving issuance further along the yield curve, while the Fed’s purchases have not kept pace. Powell was asked in the press conference about the conditions the Fed would need to see before it extended WAMs,  However, the Fed chair gave little away, and instead reiterated that the Fed could up asset purchases in circumstances required, and these could be focused on the long-end.

INFLATION: The Fed’s new inflation framework entails allowing average inflation to overshoot its 2% target during economic growth cycles before it mulls lifting rates; accordingly, its discussions on the theme should be viewed with a longer-term lens, particularly since Chair Powell has said that he is prepared to look through any short-term spikes in services inflation this year (analysts have said these are most likely to be a temporary phenomenon related to annualised base effects in Q1). The lowering of the near-term inflation profile in the projections may indicate that other officials on the Committee agree with Powell, and commentary may err on the dovish side.

Politico reports that Joe Biden has decided to tap Merrick Garland, a federal judge who gained a national profile after being nominated to the Supreme Court by President Obama (before being blocked by Mitch McConnell), to serve as his attorney general.

Garland has long been rumored to be a front runner for the job, even as many of Biden’s supporters pushed him to pick a woman, or a minority, for the role.

Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClearPolitics.com,

Mike Pence is a man of God. He is also a practiced politician of intense discipline who answers every question, no matter how aggressive or personal, with carefully prepared talking points delivered in a reassuringly measured Midwestern cadence.

He is always on message. He has hardly ever, as vice president, strayed from the MAGA line.

When asked about his prayers during the pandemic, Pence explained in one breath how he offers prayers of intercession (that the suffering would be comforted), prayers of petition (that leaders would be given wisdom), and prayers of thanksgiving (that Donald Trump is his boss). “I have to tell you,” he told RealClearPolitics aboard Air Force Two shortly after accepting the nomination for vice president in August, “I really could not be more proud of this president’s leadership through this global pandemic.” That Pence would turn a question about faith into an answer about Trump is not surprising.

He has been nothing but dedicated to the president, and no controversy — not the Ukraine scandal, not the St. John’s church photo op, not even the “Access Hollywood” tape — has ever caused Pence to abandon his post. Disciplined. On message. Loyal. Pence is all of that: A vice president straight out of central casting, who has backed up Trump at all costs but who will now risk four years of earned goodwill in one afternoon. He has to count votes.

As vice president, Pence serves also as president of the Senate, meaning that on Wednesday he will preside over a pro forma certification of the Electoral College vote. The duty is normally procedural. But by clinging to power and alleging widespread voter fraud, Donald Trump has foisted an uncomfortable decision on his loyal lieutenant: ratify the victory of President-elect Joe Biden or back his boss.

“There is a famous verse coming out of the Book of Esther,” David McIntosh, president of the conservative Club for Growth and a longtime friend of Pence, told RCP. “I think that applies to Mike right now.” Pence knows the scriptural passage McIntosh is talking about. It is the story where the queen in Babylonian exile must decide whether to denounce a plot to slaughter the Jewish people or to say nothing and ensure her own safety. The Word of the Lord:

For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for a time such as this?

The parallel is obvious. The choice, less so. Pence is faced with a difficult decision that will affect not only the nation but his entire legacy. The vice president, no doubt, is seeking divine wisdom. And for a time such as this, he has reportedly sought guidance from political advisers and legal experts and the Senate parliamentarian. McIntosh, for his part, didn’t say who the “Babylonians” are in this case.

Trump has made his thoughts known. “I hope that Mike Pence comes through for us. He’s a great guy,” the president said Monday night at a rally in Georgia. The hopes of Trump World rest on playing the so-called Pence Card, the idea being that the vice president would unilaterally reject the election results. “Of course, if he doesn’t come through,” Trump added, “I won’t like him quite as much.”

This would be a bitter pill for Pence, who is widely believed to harbor Oval Office ambitions of his own. Being a party to a quixotic attempt to overturn the election results, however, could very well make him a pariah in any future general election.

But close friends as well as current and former colleagues stress that the vice president has a higher allegiance.

“He’s very loyal to President Trump, who obviously is very interested in the outcome, but the most important feature about Mike is that he really is a constitutionalist,” McIntosh said.

As for the gaggle of Senate Republicans who plan to challenge some state results, McIntosh predicted that Pence would limit himself simply to using “the chair to give them an appropriate hearing for their motion.” Nothing more.

The task before Pence is simple, at least on paper.

The vice president is to open envelopes that contain the Electoral College votes reported from the individual states and then, “in the presence of” both chambers of Congress, hand them to the tellers of the House and Senate. Trump adviser Peter Navarro argued that Pence has broader authority, that he could delay the process and grant a 10-day audit of the results. Pence is apparently unmoved by this curious theory.

“Peter Navarro is many things,” the VP’s chief of staff, Marc Short, told the Wall Street Journal. “He is not a constitutional scholar.”

While Pence has signaled that he is open to GOP efforts to overturn the election result, he hasn’t tipped his hand. It still isn’t clear what he will do, other than serve his constitutionally mandated clerical role. The vice president, his office said in a statement, “welcomes the efforts of members of the House and Senate to use the authority they have under the law to raise objections and bring forward evidence before the Congress and the American people on January 6th.”

The Trump campaign and its allies have filed no fewer than 60 legal challenges alleging widespread fraud. None have been successful in court. Meanwhile, there has been whispering among White House staff that the vice president is not a true believer when it comes to election conspiracies. The New York Times reported that Pence even told the president that he didn’t believe he has the power to block congressional certification of a Biden victory. This, Trump said late Tuesday night, was “fake news.”

“The Vice President and I are in total agreement that the Vice President has the power to act,” Trump said in statement, later adding that the “election was corrupt in contested states” and therefore “was illegal.”

“Our Vice President has several options under the U.S. Constitution,” Trump’s statement added.

“He can decertify the results or send them back to the states for change and certification. He can also decertify the illegal and corrupt results and send them to the House of Representatives for the one vote for one state tabulation.”

If Pence doesn’t exercise those oddball options as Trump prescribes, he could alienate the president’s base. But what good is a base that isn’t large enough to win national elections? That is the question of GOP strategists surveying the wreckage of 2020. Trump couldn’t secure his own reelection, let alone keep Republican Senate majority which, as of Wednesday morning, appears lost.

There may be an opportunity in all of the chaos, a chance for Pence to place a steady hand on the wheel of government as the peaceful transition of power begins. “It only helps his future ambitions,” said Rep. Jim Banks, the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee that Pence once helmed.

“Only the wacky fringe elements of the Republican Party believe that Mike Pence should stand up before the nation, on the floor of the House, and not perform his constitutional duties of counting the electors from the States,” added Banks, who predicted, “Pence will be president one day.”

Those ambitions were evident to former Rep. Mark Souder from early on. The two Hoosiers served in Congress together, and Souder watched as Pence moved steadily through House leadership to the Indiana governor’s mansion and finally to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building across a parking lot from the White House. “He is gonna have to choose,” Souder said of the vice president’s last, and most consequential, decision. “Pence respects the institution too much; he’s signaled it, and he is not going to overturn the vote, court cases, and state election officials because he built his career on states’ rights.”

“I can’t see him selling out,” Souder added. “Not for this guy.”

Pence will preside over a joint session of Congress, his office confirmed late Tuesday night, to count electoral votes at 1 p.m. 

A minor (G1-class) geomagnetic storm watch is in effect for Jan. 6 as a coronal mass ejection (CME) is expected to strike Earth’s magnetic field, according to SpaceWeather. 

NOAA forecasters say there is a chance of G1-class geomagnetic storms on January 6th when a double CME – that erupted on January 2nd – likely strikes Earth’s magnetic field.pic.twitter.com/QO2gTcJhnt

— Disclose.tv 🚨 (@disclosetv) January 4, 2021

On Jan. 2, the Sun released a blast of energy that has taken at least four days to reach Earth. 

“The fact that it has taken at least four days to reach Earth marks the CME as a slow-mover; the longer it takes to arrive, the weaker its impact will be,” SpaceWeather.com said. 

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory filmed the eruption from the Sun. 

NASA’s Space Weather Prediction Center shows the Planetary K-index, used to characterize the magnitude of geomagnetic storms, is already showing the Earth’s magnetic field is being disrupted at the moment.

The Sun’s highly-charged particles slamming into the Earth’s atmosphere should produce auroras. 

For the most part, the solar storm appears to be weak. It may not have the intensity to disrupt satellite-based technology that powers GPS navigation, mobile phone signal, and satellite TV. 

How Solar Storms Disrupt Technology On Earth 

Last month researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research discovered that the Sun is about to wake up into a new solar cycle that could make solar storms a regular occurrence, something that may jeopardize the digital economy. 

A rebound in real yields (as nominal rates surge) has slammed the brakes on precious metals (even as the dollar dives)…

Source: Bloomberg

And as PMs suffer, cryptos are surging higher with Ethereum now back above $1200…

Source: Bloomberg

And, as JPMorgan previously noted, the ‘structural’ flow from gold to crypto continues…

Source: Bloomberg

JPMorgan’s goalseeked conclusion is clear:

we believe that the valuation and position backdrop has become a lot more challenging for bitcoin at the beginning of the New Year. While we cannot exclude the possibility that the current speculative mania will propagate further pushing the bitcoin price up towards the consensus region of between $50k-$100k, we believe that such price levels would prove unsustainable.

In other words, bitcoin may well triple from here, but it could also drop.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

Ninety Republicans have committed to objecting to electoral votes during the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, according to an Epoch Times tally.

That includes 13 senators.

Congress is convening in Washington to count ballots sent by state electors, under the Electoral College system. Congress will determine who is president-elect based on the votes.

President Donald Trump ran for a second term against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Objections must be in writing and have the support of at least one senator and one representative. An objection triggers a withdrawal from the joint session and a two-hour debate, followed by a vote. A majority vote in each chamber votes upholds an objection, which would nullify the contested electoral votes.

“I’m hoping that the American people get to hear just a small amount of evidence” during the debates, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) told The Epoch Times on Tuesday.

House Democrats are planning to use the debate time to present their “constitutional, historical, and thematic justification for respecting the will of the people,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told colleagues in a Jan. 5 letter.

A candidate must reach 270 electoral votes to win. If neither candidate does, a secondary system is triggered wherein each state’s representatives combine in one vote to elect the next president. The Senate would do the same for vice president.

Pelosi and fellow Democrats say Biden has already won the election. Trump and others assert the election isn’t over.

Trump this week signaled he’d continue challenging the election even if Biden is certified the winner by Congress.

“That was a rigged election, but we’re still fighting it and you’ll see what’s going to happen,” he told a rally in Georgia.

See the full list of planned objectors below. This list will be updated if others commit.

Senate

• Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)
• Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)
• Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.)
• Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.)
• Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.)
• Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.)
• Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.)
• Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.)
• Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.)
• Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.)
• Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.)
• Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.)
• Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.)

House of Representatives

• Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.)
• Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)
• Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)
• Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.)
• Rep. Barry Moore (R-Ala.)
• Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.)
• Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.)
• Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas)
• Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.)
• Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.)
• Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas)
• Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.)
• Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)
• Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas)
• Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.)
• Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah)
• Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.)
• Rep. Jerry Carl (R-Ala.)
• Rep. Yvette Herrell (R-N.M.)
• Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.)
• Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.)
• Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.)
• Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.)
• Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.)
• Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.)
• Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.)
• Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.)
• Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.)
• Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.)
• Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.)
• Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.)
• Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.)
• Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.)
• Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.)
• Rep. John Joyce (R-Pa.)
• Rep. Fred Keller (R-Pa.)
• Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.)
• Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.)
• Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas)
• Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga)
• Rep. John Rutherford (R-Fla.)
• Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.)
• Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.)
• Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.)
• Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.)
• Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)
• Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.)
• Rep. Ron Estes (R-Kan.)
• Rep. Tracey Mann (R-Kan.)
• Rep. Jacob LaTurner (R-Kan.)
• Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.)
• Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.)
• Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.)
• Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah)
• Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho)
• Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.)
• Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.)
• Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.)
• Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.)
• Rep. Ron Wright (R-Texas)
• Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio)
• Rep. John Carter (R-Texas)
• Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.)
• Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.)
• Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.)
• Rep. Scott Franklin (R-Fla.)
• Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.)
• Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.)
• Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.)
• Rep. David Rouzer (R-N.C.)
• Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio)
• Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.)
• Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.)
• Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas)
• Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.)
• Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas)
• Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.)

The Minister of Health of Peru told the Congress of Peru on Tuesday that “controversy” had developed over a liability waiver in negotiations with Pfizer Inc. over COVID-19 vaccines, according to Reuters. 

Health minister Pilar Mazzetti told lawmakers that she has been in “constant contact” with Pfizer since July. She was not able to elaborate in-depth due to a confidentiality agreement with the American multinational pharmaceutical company. But she did say contract disputes materialized in December. 

“With Pfizer, there are some details where there is no agreement,” Mazzetti said. She added, “this has to do with prices and the delivery schedule” as well as “the waiving of important elements such as … jurisdictional immunity.”

“One indeed needs the vaccine, but it is also true that there are aspects related to aspects of our sovereignty that the country has to protect … it has to do with risk for future generations,” she said. 

She told lawmakers, “we hope that the controversy will be resolved so we will be able to determine when the vaccine will arrive.”

Mazzetti said the deal for Pfizer to provide the country with 10 million vaccine doses in late November has stalled because some clauses in the agreement need further examination to determine whether they comply with Peruvian law.

Other South American countries have raised similar concerns about liability waivers with Pfizer, including Argentina and Brazil. 

On Tuesday, World Bank officials said they were working with governments to resolve the “liability waiver issue.” They said it was one of the biggest obstacles in signing vaccine supply deals. 

In August, a senior executive from AstraZeneca, Britain’s second-largest drugmaker, told Reuters that his company was granted protection from all legal action if the company’s vaccine led to damaging side effects.

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro recently voiced his concern about legal liability waivers with big pharma firms, saying, “it is quite clear that they are not responsible for any side effects. If you become an alligator, it’s your problem.”

Big pharma shedding liability for rushed coronavirus treatments is alarming and has certainly been the holdup for Pfizer’s vaccine distribution across South America. 

Authored by Clifford Humphrey via The Epoch Times,

Today, the U.S. Congress will vote to certify the Electoral College vote for the 2020 presidential election, certifying Joe Biden as the next president … or not. However unlikely, it’s constitutionally possible for Congress to nullify the Electoral College vote and to force the decision onto the members of the House of Representatives, voting en bloc state by state, in a contingent election.

We’ve been told that such a move is “manifest nonsense” and even “a threat to the republic,” as if 2020 were any normal election year, and more importantly as if a contingent election were unprecedented and contrary to American principles of government. Likewise, a growing number of Republican election dissenters hold that the general election was befouled with sufficient illegal skulduggery to reject outright, and that that fraud is in fact the real threat to the republic.

Both sides of this disagreement believe they are defending the will of the American people, and each is right to some degree. We may never know.

But this disagreement obfuscates another problem, one more insidious, one that, unlike the above disagreement, will remain with us long after inauguration day. That problem is the gaslighting and mass censorship accomplished by mainstream media and big tech social media in combination with the Democratic Party.

The original “corrupt bargain” emerged from the fraught presidential election of 1824.

The cooperation of the media and the Democratic Party we witnessed this year is the corrupt bargain of 2020. If this bargain isn’t broken up, then every election hereafter could be stolen … legally. I say “stolen,” not necessarily because of kraken-level computer hacks, but because of something worse: a hack of the American public mind. This hack subverts the sovereign people’s will and makes them believe the candidate put forward by a small cadre of self-appointed experts is the people’s own choice.

Such a hack is an actual “threat to the republic” because, in effect, it replaces the (small “r”) republican form of government with a kind of oligarchic or technocratic one. James Madison defined republican government as “a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people; and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior.” He then specified that “It is essential to such a government, that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it” (original emphasis).

In truth, both those who oppose a contingent election and those who favor it today have republican reasons for doing so. History is a great aid to weighing these concerns justly against the danger of the new “corrupt bargain.”

The ‘Corrupt Bargain’ of 1824

In January 1823, John Taylor of Caroline, an aged senator from Virginia, proposed an amendment to the Constitution respecting the election of president and vice president. Taylor was convinced by circumstances surrounding the rise of party politics that the work he and others had done in passing the 12th Amendment 20 years earlier was yet incomplete. The exceptional process of allowing the House of Representatives to elect the president in a contingent election in such circumstances, he feared, was insufficiently republican and too easily susceptible to the accidents and force inherent in the petty divisions within the House.

The Senate debated Taylor’s proposed amendment for over a year. In the end, though, it died in the Senate, and then, just four months later, Taylor did too. Just six months after that, in the presidential election of 1824, Taylor’s exact fear was realized.

Of the four candidates—Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and William Crawford—not one garnered 50 percent of the Electoral College vote, and so the election fell to the House. In spite of Jackson winning more electoral votes, the House elected Adams. Shortly after the election, though, a plausible rumor emerged that Adams had offered Clay the position of Secretary of State in his cabinet if Clay’s supporters in the House backed Adams.

Jackson was furious and dubbed the backroom dealing the “corrupt bargain.” He beat Adams over the head with that label for four years, and in 1828 won more than double Adams’s votes in the Electoral College, leaving Adams, like his father before him, a one-term president.

That “corrupt bargain” was exactly the kind of shenanigans that Taylor was hoping to prevent. The contingent election in 1824 allowed “an inconsiderable proportion” of the American people to decide who would be president. Taylor’s proposed constitutional amendment would have required a run-off election within the Electoral College if no candidate won 50 percent, thereby requiring a contingent election only if there was an exact tie after the run-off, a highly unlikely situation.

At all costs, Taylor wanted to avoid the people’s choice being supplanted by that of members of the House. He agreed with the logic of Federalist 68 that, in order to avoid “cabal, intrigue, and corruption”—“these most deadly adversaries of republican government”—no one “who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the president in office” should be an elector for the president.

The American framers of the Constitution always intended the contingent election option to be exceptional. In 1823, however, Taylor could foresee that what was expected to be exceptional was becoming more probable.

From this historical context, today’s opponents of the contingent election, then, appear right in their condemnation of it as anti-republican. They are wrong, though, to conclude that it’s necessarily so, for the framers intended this exception to protect, not subvert, the people’s choice. If five candidates all split the Electoral College vote and four received 19 percent of the vote and one received 24 percent, could it really be said that “the people” had chosen the winner? In such a case, it seems at least more republican for the people’s representatives, voting by state, to choose the best candidate.

Those Republicans who favor a contingent election for our recent election do so because they believe that the general election was illegitimate due to various kinds and degrees of voter fraud. That claim, however, has been shown to be difficult if not impossible to prove in the court of public opinion and hence politically moot, at least for now.

The ‘Corrupt Bargain’ of 2020

A more forceful argument, based on undeniable evidence, against a more insidious and more dangerous threat is that of the corrupt bargain of 2020.

The guardians of political speech in the United States—mainstream and big tech social media giants—have demonstrated no shame about being the servants of the Democratic Party ever since Donald Trump became a serious political force in 2016. In fact, they have considered it their duty to “resist” Trump in every way possible.

The Democrats have naturally tried to turn every event, policy, tweet, press conference, international affair, ad infinitum into the scandal of the century, but they would never have been successful without the all-powerful help of the media, both mainstream and social. The most egregious example of this corrupt bargain must be the two-year Russian collusion con on the American people, for which, rather than apologize, the media congratulated and praised itself in a Swiftian parody of professional journalism’s former self.

Another example—one that had a definite effect on the outcome of the election—was the censoring of the New York Post’s story on Hunter Biden’s laptop and his substantiated ties to foreign governments. Only after the election—when it was thought safe to do so—the media started to get interested in the story.

These outrages against the American people are not limited to sins of commission but of omission too: The media has simply ignored stories that would hurt the Democratic Party such as California Rep. Eric Swalwell’s revealed relationship with a suspected Chinese spy.

There are many such cases.

The pundits and talking heads this week will all focus on the dramatic debate between those members of Congress who oppose and those who favor rejecting the results of the Electoral College in several key states. Just remember, this is all largely a distraction of the corrupt bargain of 1824 variety. A contingent election is not as dangerous to the republican form of government as we will hear.

In fact, the larger, more dangerous threat is the 2020-style corrupt bargain, that between the main levers of mass communication in this country and a single political party. That latter form of corruption will still be with us in two weeks, while the former will likely be only a distant memory by then.

John Taylor could see the constitutional danger that was coming in his day, but his efforts to prevent it failed. In our own day, we have already experienced the ill effects of the corrupt bargain of 2020. Will we continue to do nothing, or will Republicans somehow follow Andrew Jackson’s example and use the revealing of this corruption to their advantage in 2024?