Happy Wednesday CivMixers, welcome to the day before Thanksgiving. I hope everyone is ready for their holiday tomorrow. I can not plead enough for you all to be safe and happy this Thanksgiving. If you are gathering, practice some distancing and wash, wash wash your hands.
I am not crazy enough to believe that people are forgoing getting together with family, despite governmental officials‘ pleas to not do so. I am just wishing and hoping that everyone will remember that COVID is still a considerable risk, is still rising in this country, and that NYS is higher than it has been since early summer.
Social distance when possible, mask up when needed, and remember proper hygiene is your friend – as is hand sanitizer. Also, try not to touch your face. (She writes as she brushes the hair out of her eyes, touching her face – it is so hard).
Let’s get onto our five things, shall we?
- Fulfilling expectations today, President Donald Trump announced that he is fully pardoning General Michal Flynn, his former National Security Adviser. This has been a long-awaited and expected movement from Trump after Flynn downplayed his cooperation with the 2016 Russian election investigation tampering by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Once Flynn changed his tune from being a cooperating witness to being a victim of enemies to the President, Trump and his team celebrated the storyline he laid out for them, implying this was proof that all allegations against Trump and his campaign were a hoax.
Before serving as NSA to Trump, Flynn had a distinguished career in the military, attaining three-star general, and serving the country for over thirty years. In 2017, the General pleaded guilty to two pleas of lying to the FBI.
Meanwhile, the federal judge assigned to Flynn’s case has placed the matter into a review as he processes the request that the DOJ entered in May to dismiss all criminal charges, despite those guilty pleas. - Yesterday, a day after the General Services Administration issued their official allowance for the transition of power to begin and three weeks after the election was called for President-Elect Joe Biden, the Trump Administration finally signed off to allow the President-Elect to receive the President’s Daily Briefing.
This highly classified intelligence briefing is usually the first thing that the incoming President is allowed to sit in on to begin getting ready to receive the office’s duties. As of today, President-Elect Biden has received zero daily briefings.
The biggest obstacles to the transition of power are now out of the way as talks have begun when that first briefing will be given to Biden and his staff. This PDB is drawn up by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and delivered every day to the President, vice president, and senior advisors.
ODNI stated yesterday that they received the okay from the current administration to allow Biden to access the PDB. Statements have made it unclear if that is directly associated with Trump or not.
Trump has been focused on attempting to overturn the results of the election for the past three weeks. His relenting on this issue follows quite a few legal losses and many top Republicans coming forward to say enough is enough and request the VBiden-Harris team be allowed access to the PDB.
This growing list of Republicans urging Trump to cooperate recently grew to include Lindsey Graham, long-time SC Senator and huge Trump ally/supporter. - When the Rockefeller Christmas tree arrived in NYC, a tiny Saw-whet owl was discovered in the branches. The minuscule brown-and-white owl has turned over the Ravensbeard Wildlife Center located in Saugerties, NY. There she was given the name of Rocky.
Yesterday, the center released Rocky into the wild, videoing her taking to the sky over a conifer forest at dusk in the Catskills region. Though she came from Oneonta, NY, where the tree was cut from, she headed south as birds do in the winter.
The Norway spruce tree was donated by Al Dick, who owns Daddy Al’s General store in the small upstate city of Oneonta. The tree was cut down and loaded for its trip on the twelfth of November. On November 14th, the tree arrived in NYC, and two days after that, on the sixteenth, Rocky was found.
At that point, Rocky was dehydrated and very hungry. Once at the RWC, Rocky was placed under a vet’s care and given food and water. Once declared healthy, she was returned to the wild. - Even before the expected COVID spike across the country after the holiday, Albany County has reported increased cases.
Yesterday there were 101 cases reported throughout the country. Today, 109. Approximately a third of the total number of cases that the county has reported have been reported since the beginning of this month.
The number of people in the hospitals has risen as well, with 41 new admittances today. There have been two more deaths in Albany County reported today. - As many look forward to the holiday season with an unofficial kick-off tomorrow, tonight is known to be one of the biggest drinking nights of the year as people all get together, college kids come home, and families are under the same roof.
That may not be happening this year, but it may happen for some. No matter what, if you are drinking, be sure to be safe. Not only do we all know the dangers of drinking and driving, but the annual Statewide STOP-DWI Thanksgiving Crackdown is starting.
It will run from today to Sunday. This aggressively visible crackdown on impaired driving has reduced impaired related fatalities by 20%. Keep that in mind before you decide if you had that one too many to drive.
Usually, that would be the end of our five things, but quickly I wanted to remind people that there will be a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade this year. As with most things, This year is the 94th annual parade put on for the Thanksgiving holiday, and it will look different from any other year.
There will be balloons, there will be performances, and there will be Santa Claus. Some will be live and some pretaped. There will be no crowd. In fact, the parade will be treated like a close-set so that the NYPD will be keeping out any masses, and the only way to view the train will be on NBC and through a partnership, Verizon.
The idea of switching between life and pre-tapping reduces the number of participants there tomorrow by up to 88%.
There will be no marching bands, and no one under 18 is allowed to participate. However, there will be performances and other factors of other NYC parades that couldn’t go off at all this year due to pandemic restrictions. These include the Coney Island USA Mermaid Parad, the Pride Parade, the Saint Patrick’s Day parade, and more.
The parade will air from 9 AM to Noon EST tomorrow.
The Wonderful World of Disney: Magical Holiday Celebration, which also is held on Thanksgiving annually, is also going to be different this year, with a few live people like its hosts Derek and Julianne Hough, but will feature mainly old performances from favorites.
That will air on ABC at 9 AM.
Stay steady, stay healthy, stay safe.
Stay woke.
