December 21 political news briefs

Congressional leaders finally agreed on a deal on a new coronavirus stimulus package. This one is worth $900 billion and will include a second round of direct payments and an extension of unemployment insurance, but it is half the amounts that Americans received from the spring stimulus deal. Each eligible adult and child in the U.S. will get a $600 stimulus check. Treasury Sec. Steven Mnuchin said the new checks would go out next week.

There will be $13 billion available for increased SNAP and child nutrition benefits. Unemployment insurance benefits will be $300 per week for 11 weeks. $319 billion will be put towards loans and relief for small businesses and organizations. Democratic leaders say they hope to pass more stimulus packages when President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

[Sponsored Video from Sorenson: https://www.sorenson.com/]

Attorney General Bill Barr said this morning that he is standing by his statement that there was not enough fraud found during the 2020 election to affect the outcome. He said he saw no basis to seize voting machines. He also said he saw no reason to appoint a special counsel to investigate election fraud. There were news reports that President Trump had a meeting with pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell and others to consider appointing Powell as a special counsel to investigate the 2020 election and to issue an executive order to seize voting machines. Barr shot down these ideas, but he is resigning on Wednesday. The Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen will take over to become acting attorney general.

The Trump campaign filed a new petition with the Supreme Court to ask them to reverse the Pennsylvania election results that gave Joe Biden a victory. The campaign wants the Court to reverse three decisions from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to relax rules on signature verification, poll watchers, and mail-in ballots. CNBC said the filing was a “long shot bid,” meaning it had very little chance of success, because the filing was similar to the Texas lawsuit that the Court rejected ten days ago.

Today Biden was filmed on television receiving the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine. He said that we owe the scientists and the people who put this together a lot.

That’s all the political news briefs for today.

https://www.axios.com/stimulus-checks-congress-deal-33e713ae-501e-484b-9cea-1a77c39d32e7.html

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/21/mnuchin-stimulus-checks-next-week-449546

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/barr-basis-special-counsel-investigate-election-federal-authority/story?id=74842068

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/20/trump-files-long-shot-supreme-court-challenge-over-biden-win-in-pa.html