“As Kamala Harris prepares for the vice presidency, she is learning from a person who knows more about the job than almost anyone in the world: President-elect Joe Biden. Harris has told people close to her that she wants to shape her vice presidency after the way Biden worked with President Barack Obama over eight years: testing and pushing the administration in private, while in public remaining a dedicated and loyal lieutenant.”

“Harris, in effect, wants to be Biden’s Biden and has spent the past several weeks playing a key role in the formation of the next administration, interviewing each eventual Cabinet nominee and spending considerable time talking to Biden about the process, sources said. She has also worked to get to know the President-elect by talking on the phone nearly every day, something Harris believes will help her better understand the kind of partner Biden wants her to be” – CNN.

MLive.com: “A Grand Haven couple will have to pay for disposing of their son’s pornography collection. The only question is how much. David Werking, 42, sued his parents, Beth and Paul Werking, after they tossed out what a judge called ‘a trove of pornography and an array of sex toys.’ U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney in Kalamazoo granted the son’s request for summary judgment in his favor. The parties have until mid-February to file written submissions on damages. The parents’ attorney, Anne Marie VanderBroek, said she is working to establish the value of the items that were disposed of but declined to comment about the case.”

“David Werking contends damages are around $25,000. His attorney, Miles Greengard, contends that his client should receive treble damages, which is allowed under his claim of conversion of property. ‘We have asked the Court for treble damages, which we believe are warranted given the wanton destruction of the property,’ he said. He was pleased with the judge’s ruling. The case wasn’t just about a guy and his dirty magazines. ‘This was a collection of often irreplaceable items and property,’ Greengard said. His client had moved into his parents’ home in late 2016 after a divorce. After he left for Muncie, Indiana, he expected them to deliver his belongings. He later realized that a dozen boxes of pornographic films and magazines were missing. His father said in an email: ‘Frankly, David, I did you a big favor getting rid of all this stuff.’ The judge earlier rejected the parents’ request to dismiss the case. ‘Getting to the heart of the coconut now, the legal issue before the court is whether Paul and Beth converted David’s pornography ‘to their own use,’’ Maloney wrote earlier. He found that they did.”

There is no clash between Secretary @stevenmnuchin1 and me. We are simply working to resolve interagency mechanics of an important executive order.

— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) December 18, 2020

Soft drink giant Coca Cola announced that it will eliminate 1,200 jobs in the United States, 12% of its employees in nation, as part of 2,200 job cuts worldwide done as the company restructures its workforce, CNBC reports.

The company currently employs 10,000 people in the US and more than 85,000 around the world.  It’s seen a 9% drop in sales during the pandemic, as people cut back on the consumption of soft drinks in the workplace and away from home.

The job cuts come after a previous round of layoffs in August, when the company offered financial incentives to 4,000 employees to volunteer for layoffs.  Between the two rounds of layoffs, the company expects to spend between $350 million and $550 million on severance costs.

Business Insider: “Jared Kushner approved the creation of a shell company that spent almost half of the Trump campaign’s $1.26B war chest, a person familiar with the operation told Insider exclusively. Kushner directed Lara Trump, Vice President Mike Pence’s nephew John Pence, and Trump campaign CFO Sean Dollman to serve on the shell company’s board, the person told Insider. American Made Media Consultants became the source of consternation for President Donald Trump’s own campaign staff, who were kept in the dark about its operations. Despite its $617 million spending through AMMC, the Trump campaign publicly disclosed little information about the company, including how it used the money.”

According to Twitter users who can read Chinese, despite McDonald’s using the word “Oreo” in the marketing campaign, the cookie crumbles are some generic “Cookies and cream” pieces and not official Oreo brand. The Spam is 100% official Hormel Spam however. From Kotaku.

President-elect Joe Biden observed the 48th anniversary of the death of his first wife, Neilia, and their 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, in a car accident by attending a church service Friday morning, the Washington Post reports.

Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, their daughter Ashley and her husband, Howard Klein, attended a service at St. Joseph on the Brandywine Roman Catholic Church in Delaware this morning.  The church is also the location of the cemetery where Neilia and Naomi are buried, and the Bidens visited their graves before leaving.

Biden’s two sons, Beau and Hunter, then 4- and 3-years-old respectively, were also in the car at the time of the accident and were severely injured.  The accident happened just weeks after Biden was elected to his first term in the U.S. Senate, and he considered stepping away from the position to help his sons’ recovery.

“BREAKING: Senator Ron Johnson blocks $1,200 checks for Americans sought by Senator Josh Hawley. Johnson cites the deficit.” — Steven Dennis of Bloomberg News

Twenty percent of people in American prisons have contracted the coronavirus, significantly higher than the confirmed case rate of 5% in the general public, a study by the Associated Press found.

More than 275,000 prisoners and people in custody have become infected, with 1,700 people dying of the disease, calling into question the management of the health of prisons by local, state and federal officials–as well as private prison corporations–responsible for the safety of those jailed.

Homer Venters, the former chief medical officer at New York’s Rikers Island jail complex, called the number a “vast undercount,” citing the lack of testing in prison facilities. 

Texas Tribune: “To celebrate Gov. Greg Abbott’s reelection last year, his inaugural committee paid a whopping $1.7 million to hire country crooner George Strait and his band. A coterie of top political aides and staff got more than $1 million, some of it paid out in six-figure bonuses. And a handful of lucky charities received $800,000 in unspent money. Left out of that tally: the $116,000 taxpayers spent to keep all those inaugural expenditures secret. Abbott and the 2019 Texas Inaugural Committee spent months fighting the disclosure of documents detailing how they spent a record-setting $5.3 million that event organizers raised mostly from corporations and wealthy donors.”

“But The Texas Tribune sued the committee under the Texas Public Information Act and earlier this year successfully obtained the bank statements and spending ledger in an out-of-court settlement. The result is the most detailed and complete account of inaugural spending in decades. Austin attorney Bill Aleshire, who represented the Tribune in the lawsuit, said the legal fight he had to wage to get the records highlights the need for better transparency in state inaugurations, which suck up gobs of corporate money but face little regulation over how it gets spent. ‘We just don’t have that level of transparency written into the law,’ Aleshire said.”

“The first daughter, Trump’s presidential advisor, will be visiting Georgia Monday to campaign on behalf of Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. Ivanka Trump plans to highlight accomplishments of the Trump Administration with the help of the Republican Senate Majority, along with the importance of voting in the Georgia runoff elections, according to the press release. She will also make three additional stops during her visit, which include Milton, Suwanee and Walton County” – CBS46.

The Supreme Court dismissed a challenge to a proposed Trump Administration policy to exclude undocumented immigrants from official Census counts used to determine representation in the House of Representatives and allocation of federal funds, CNN reports.

In a 6-3 ruling, with the conservatives voting as a bloc, ruled that the plaintiffs–a coalition of states and immigrants’ rights groups–could not yet prove they incurred an injury by Trump’s policy because Trump has not yet defined the policy nor implemented it.

The judgement simply puts off inevitable Court challenges to Trump’s proposal until after he defines the rule and attempts to implement it.  It made no ruling on the legality of changing the way the Census counted the numbers of people in the nation.

CBS46: “Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will be returning to Georgia next week to campaign for both Democratic Senate candidates Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. Vice President-elect Harris will be in town on December 21 in Suwanee and Columbus, Georgia.”

“Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller ordered a Pentagon-wide halt to cooperation with the transition of President-elect Biden, shocking officials across the Defense Department, senior administration officials tell Axios. A top Biden official was unaware of the directive. Administration officials left open the possibility cooperation would resume after a holiday pause. The officials were unsure what prompted Miller’s action, or whether President Trump approved.”

“Miller’s move, which stunned officials throughout the Pentagon, was the biggest eruption yet of animus and mistrust toward the Biden team from the top level of the Trump administration. Meetings between President Trump’s team and the Biden team are going on throughout the government, after a delayed start as the administration dragged its feet on officially recognizing Biden as president-elect. Then on Thursday night, Miller – who was appointed Nov. 9, when Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper right after the election – ordered officials throughout the building to cancel scheduled transition meetings” – Axios.

AP: “Sheriff’s officials say they’ve busted an illegal winery that was operating at a municipal sewage plant in a small north Alabama town. The DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement it received an anonymous tip about an alcohol operation at a municipal building in the town of Rainsville on Thursday. Investigators then uncovered what’s described as a large illegal winery inside the Rainsville Waste Water Treatment Plant. Photos released by investigators show glass containers, buckets, a fermenting rack and other equipment often used by people who make wine at home. The agency says officers seized a lot of illegal alcohol, and arrests are expected.”

“The town of about 5,100 people is 100 miles northeast of Birmingham. ‘I want to thank the mayor for his cooperation and willingness to allow law enforcement to do our job and shut something like this down,’ Sheriff Nick Welden said in a statement. ‘This is definitely one of the biggest operations we’ve seen in our county and possibly our state.'”

.@senatemajldr and Republican Senators have to get tougher, or you won’t have a Republican Party anymore. We won the Presidential Election, by a lot. FIGHT FOR IT. Don’t let them take it away!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 18, 2020

Axios: “President Trump plans to issue a wave of pardons today, moving to expedite acts of clemency before Christmas, according to a source with direct knowledge and advocates who have been briefed on the plans. Trump has been considering pardons for friends and allies, as Axios reported, interrupting conversations with associates to spontaneously suggest he add them to his pardon list. He already pardoned his former national security advisor Michael Flynn. It was unclear who will be included in this batch.”

“’I didn’t feel a thing. Well done,’ Vice President Pence says after receiving the coronavirus vaccine. Dr. Anthony Fauci and CDC Director Redfield are in the room. President Trump is not” – CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins.

MIT Technology Review: “Data shows that during the election, disinformation was highly targeted locally, with voters in swing states exposed to significantly more online messages about voter intimidation, fraud, ballot glitches, and unrest than voters in other states. In a data set provided by Zignal Labs, we looked at mentions across social media of over 30 terms related to voter suppression or intimidation, fraud, technical errors, and unrest that focused on a particular polling location. Our sample of 16 states found that between October 1 and November 13, swing states had more than four times the amount of such mentions: a median of 115,200, while non-swing states saw a median of 28,000 related mentions.”