🌞 Twitter Sheriffs – January 26 2021

True Bill

Happy Tuesday. Grover would love to see some of your pet photos. Lockdown has him feeling lonely. Snap pics of your fur baby and we’ll show them on the live show.

Send to [email protected].

 

credit: clayton morris

In Case You Missed It. 

⚧ President Biden reversed President Trump’s ban on transgender people serving in the military.


🇵🇹 Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was re-elected for a second term as the President of Portugal. His approval rating is over 70%.


🇪🇪 Estonia has elected Kama Kallas as its first female Prime Minister.


🐾 The First Lady confirmed that the First Dogs have moved into the White House. There was talk of them also getting a cat but so far no cat has shown up. First failed campaign promise??


🥥 Target will no longer carry coconut milk that is said to be made in Thailand

with monkey labor.


🗳 Dominion Voting Systems has filed a $1.3 billion lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani for spreading disinformation about its products.

 

Coronavirus Update: 😷 Total confirmed U.S. cases as of 8 p.m. ET Monday: 25,258,210 — Total deaths: 420,830 — Total tests: 293,694,286


INTEREST RATES

 
CONFIRMING LOAN
Program Rate Change APR Change
30 year 2.77%  0.07% 2.82%  0.07%
15 year 2.35%  0.01% 2.44%  0.00%
 

The Lead: Stalling Stimulus


credit: getty

The Biden stimulus plan may not get a vote until March, meaning it will be another down-to-the-wire relief package given that current unemployment payments expire in March.


What stands in the way?

Politics. Democrats and Republicans have been struggling to work out power-sharing agreements related to the filibuster now that the balance has shifted in the Senate. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Monday that he is comfortable with the agreement and is ready to move ahead with the business of governing. Still, no stimulus vote has been scheduled in either chamber.


Impeachment

Despite this delay, impeachment is moving forward. The House of Representatives has sent articles of impeachment to the Senate for former President Trump for his role in inciting violence on the U.S. Capitol. This means that a trial is an eventuality. 

How will this go? Who knows! Will they hear witnesses? Recall that Senate Leader Mitch McConnell refused to hear witnesses in President Trump’s first impeachment trial, which was less than a year ago but feels like a decade ago. 

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Twitter Is Looking For a Few Good ‘Karens’


credit: giphy

Twitter announced a watchdog group called Birdwatchers, aimed at flagging Tweets that contain misinformation. Anyone can become a Birdwatcher as long as they have a valid Twitter account and have not been flagged themselves for misinformation. 

These self-selected Birdwatchers will act like Hall Pass Monitors, roaming the halls of Twitter to make sure no shenanigans go down on their turf. Their notes will appear on a separate Birdwatch site for discussion.


This is unlike Facebook’s Oversight Board, which is a content moderation board that runs independent of Facebook and makes decisions that Facebook cannot effect. Twitter Birdwatchers rely on the same principles as Wikipedia, hoping that users can police each other so that truth wins out.


Nice theory but that is not how things work on Wikipedia. Misinformation abounds there too. And does anyone else see a problem with awarding self-selected Twitter users a deputy Sheriff’s badge? Yikes.


Birdwatch is only available in the U.S. for now.


Side note: Twitter banned My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell for repeatedly insisting that Donald Trump won the Presidential election. He joins his buddy former President Trump in permanent Twitter exile.

Man’s Best Friend


credit: nypost

A man in New York City went to jail for refusing to give up his dog. Well, it isn’t really his dog. We’ll tell you the story and you decide.


Barry Myrick worked for a pest control company that provided him a bedbug-sniffing pit pull named Roxy to do this work. Myrick was laid off during the pandemic after four years with the company. Roxy was trained and bought by the company and Myrick did sign an agreement to give her back in the event of his termination. But she lived with him and his wife for four years and they lodged and fed her and came to love her.


The company sent the NYPD to retrieve the dog and Myrick refused to give her up. He spent the night in jail but was released while this goes to trial. A judge says that he can keep Roxy until the case is decided.


The company says that Roxy cost $15,000 and her training was expensive and that they are not about to just gift the pricy pup to a laid-off employee. Understandable. But heartless. 

News By The Numbers


credit: getty

$20. The Biden administration says that it will speed up the process of putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. This plan was stalled under the Trump administration.


8 million. That is how many people could be considered “poor” in 2020 compared to 2019. This is the sharpest rise in poverty levels since the 1960s. 


$130 million. That is how much it costs to buy Sylvester Stallone’s Los Angeles mansion. It is 21,000 square feet and has an annual tax bill of $125,000. No wonder he’s leaving California for Florida.


11,000 acres. That is how much forest land IKEA bought up in Georgia with a commitment to leaving it undeveloped. This is part of the company’s pledge to protect the environment and become carbon neutral. They’ve got to make a *lot* fewer plastic hangers to achieve this goal but this is a good start.


40%. That is how much revenue was down for President Trump’s businesses in 2020 compared to 2019. The pandemic hit his travel-based businesses hard but the Capitol riots are expected to hit them even harder. 

Today’s Live Show


Grover Rewards


On Today’s Live Show:


  • Republicans cave to Democrats, so what happens to stimulus?
  • Twitter’s new Birdwatch censorship program
  • GOP tries to stop student debt cancellation

Join us at 9 AM Eastern over your cup of coffee or tea. Click here to watch and subscribe. 

A Fourth Time Is a Charm?


giphy.gifcredit: giphy

Scotland may try to leave the United Kingdom again. Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon says that she will push to issue a referendum, which will give Scots the opportunity to vote on the matter.


Recall that Scotland tried that in 2014 and the proposal was voted down. Scotland did not however vote in favor of Brexit and they have suffered the consequences. Scotland wanted to stay in the European Union and, if the country votes for sovereignty, it may try to re-join.


Current polls show that Scots highly favor leaving the UK. Sturgeon says that she wants to schedule the vote after the pandemic, whenever that will be.


So then we need a clever name! We had Brexit. We had Trump-exit, which was what some countries called their influx of American citizens who left the U.S. under the Trump Administration. So what would we call this one? Scotexit? Clanexit? Scot-egress? Lad and lass withdrawal? Highland Hightail? Sassenach ditching? None of these have quite the right ring. We’re open to your ideas! 

How Stella Stingray Got Her Groove Back


giphy.gifcredit: sea life kelly tarlton’s aquarium

Two eagle rays had pups on New Year’s Eve in an aquarium in Auckland. Scientists are wondering how they did that when neither has been around a male eagle ray for over two years.


So two single gals reproduce without any males and on the same day? What are the chances!?


Scientists say that the only explanation that they can think of is that the rays stored sperm in their bodies from the last time they were around any gentlemen rays. Fish sometimes do this but two years is an exceptionally long time to have done it. Talk about a dry spell! 

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