Toddler-In-Chief Decides To Do His Job - 12/29/2020

On today's Quick News Daily, we'll be talking about the Brexit deal from last week, a pretty crappy move by GoDaddy.com, and the latest news on the fiasco with the stimulus deal in Congress. 

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Sources:

GoDaddy Employees Were Told They Were Getting a Holiday Bonus. It Was Actually a Phishing Test. 
Twitter Thread on GoDaddy Phishing 
Trump Signs Coronavirus Relief And Spending Bill 
Details Of Coronavirus Relief Bill: Direct Payments, Unemployment
New Year's Eve from the CDC 
Panic! At The Disco - Roaring 20s (Official Audio) 

"Roaring 20s" by Panic! at the Disco is the property of the band, their record label, distribution companies, and any of the other original owners. You can download the full "Pray for the Wicked" album here: https://patd.lnk.to/PrayForTheWickedID or listen to it on YouTube using the link above in the Sources list.

Mostly Accurate Transcript:

OPEN

Today is Tuesday, December 29th; welcome once again. Today, we have some stories that I wanted to get to yesterday, but the show was already running a bit over 20 minutes, so I figured I'd just save them until today. So, we'll be talking about the Brexit deal from last week, a pretty crappy move by GoDaddy.com, and some news on the fiasco with the stimulus deal in Congress. Let's keep right on rolling this week and get caught up. 

GO DADDY

Let's start by talking about this horrible, tone-deaf initiative that happened to employees of GoDaddy.  

About two weeks ago, GoDaddy employees got an email from the email address "[email protected]". The email read:

 "2020 has been a record year for GoDaddy, thanks to you! Though we cannot celebrate together during our annual Holiday Party, we want to show our appreciation and share a $650 one-time Holiday bonus! To ensure that you receive your one-time bonus in time for the Holidays, please select your location and fill in the details by Friday, December 18th.”

So, about 500 GoDaddy employees filled in their information and sent it back. A ton of folks are struggling through this pandemic, so this $650 would really mean a lot to them. Well, sadly, this wasn't real. A couple of days later, they got another email from GoDaddy's chief security officer, Demetrius Comes, that said: 

“You’re getting this email because you failed our recent phishing test. You will need to retake the Security Awareness Social Engineering training.” 

As I mention quite frequently, I'm in school for IT, so I've learned quite a bit about how to keep information safe on the internet and phishing scams and all of that. Honestly, unless there was some type of warning a couple of weeks before this, I think I probably would have filled this out too. I think the only things that would be suspicious would be that they're asking you for your information, and that the email was from "happy holiday @godaddy.com", not "happy holidays". I haven't learned this yet in school, but frankly, if they have "@godaddy.com" in their email address, that would probably mean that the hackers already got into the GoDaddy system. At that point, they'd already have almost everything that they wanted, and the company would have a lot bigger worries than employees giving information. 

The emails were brought to the world's attention because three employees decided to forward them to The Copper Courier, who first broke the story. 

That story also says, "Despite the company surpassing 20 million customers this year and reporting 'record customer growth', the company laid off or reassigned hundreds of employees during the coronavirus pandemic, including in Arizona, Iowa, and Texas." That always drives me up the wall when companies say that they're having such a great year, but as an employee, you look around and half your department is gone, or your benefits are getting cut, or something like that. As we learn more and more about Ronald Reagan, there are many things to hate about his presidency, but this stupid idea of "trickle down economics" is maybe the most dangerous. When wealthy people get more wealth, they don't pass jack down to regular people. 

One of the dumber things about this is that GoDaddy wasn't even the first company to try this. In September, Tribune Publishing, which owns several major newspapers around the country, sent a similar email to its employees that promised $5,000-10,000  bonuses. That company eventually ended up apologizing, and GoDaddy should too. Again, so many people are struggling this year, especially the workers at GoDaddy since they're getting laid off left and right, so this is the worst kind of email you can send. Yes, hackers can be very good and send convincing emails like this one, but there were almost no warning signs in this email. There was one typo where they put "submittals" instead of "submissions", one grammar issue with a missing comma, and then they also put the standard "free money, claim it now!" saying in there, which are all a bit suspicious. At the same time, people do not spell as well or have as good of grammar as they used to, even HR people. Spellcheck is really a crutch, and people use it as such, so besides that "free money" thing, I wouldn't think this email was suspicious at all. 

Not only does GoDaddy need to apologize for this, but more importantly, they need to cough up those bonuses as part of that apology. If you can't afford that, then don't send out the email. 

BREXIT

Some other big international news that broke towards the middle of last week was a sort of Brexit deal that the UK and European Union designed. Officially, it's called the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Member countries of the EU and British Parliament are both expected to approve the agreement within the next week, but the European Parliament still has to approve it, which might not happen until later in January or February. It technically takes effect on January 1st, but it doesn't become permanent until the European Parliament approves. 

To put it mildly, British citizens were not happy about it. Apparently, it's worse than the deal that Theresa May originally made, and that deal caused Boris Johnson to have a fit and resign his cabinet position in disgust. A lot of people are pointing out the hypocrisy of him coming out and trying to sell this deal, which is worse than the old one. On the one hand, it's important because it makes sure that the UK can still trade with the EU without facing tariffs or quotas.

However, the UK loses a lot of privileges. Everything from access to fishing waters and energy markets, as well as uncertainties about traveling between the two, education exchanges. There are also worries about whether the UK will still get real-time info from EU law enforcement databases and whether they'll have access to the EU markets since the financial services sector is so important for Britain. 

Stay tuned everyone, this is going to keep devloping over the next couple of months. 

DEFENSE BILL VETO AND STIMULUS

Yesterday, we found out that the House voted to overturn Trump's veto of the annual defense authorization bill. I believe the final tally was about 322-87. The article from NPR that I was reading about it mentioned that it's super unusual for the House to have to override a veto on the defense spending bill, but that's because it's even more unusual for the president to veto it in the first place.  

NPR said, "The political popularity of the military typically means the National Defense Authorization Act has a high likelihood of passage and becomes one of the last vehicles of the year for compromise and enactment." I'm just going to pause right here and say that I hate the stigma that if you even  question the enormous amount of spending on the military, you're somehow "disrespecting the troops". No, you can respect the troops and wonder why so much of the military budget is for these blacked-out parts of the budget that means that we can't see how the money is being spent, or why regular supplies cost so much more than fair market value. Respecting the troops means making sure that they're fighting for freedoms, not to help private defense companies get rich. 

But back to the story here, Trump opposed the bill because it would rename military bases named for Confederate figures like Robert E. Lee, and he also was angry that Democrats in Congress didn't agree to a bargain in which they'd lift some legal protections for tech companies, which is the famous Section 230 that he's been ranting about for weeks now. 

Again, it's important to set the record straight on what this Section 230 actually is, because I guarantee you that a ton of people in Congress who say they oppose it don't even know what it is. Section 230 is supposed to help protect free speech on the internet, so it says that tech companies like Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc. are not liable for what users post on there. This is why Facebook doesn't get in any legal trouble for having all of those right-wing groups who use it to post death threats or plot to kidnap governors, or why Twitter isn't liable for a toddler tweeting "STOP THE STEAL" or "when the looting starts, the shooting starts". Really, it's for any website with user-generated content, because the website owner technically isn't responsible for what other people post, and places like YouTube have so much content that they'd never be able to go through every single thing. Sure, that's a bit of an excuse, but it's the truth. The internet as we know it would change without this. 

That's the irony here: Trump hates Section 230, but if he takes it away, he'll be the first one who's banned. He tweets false stuff, and even threats, nearly every day of the week. Usually, it's multiple times a day. 

As for the COVID stimulus bill, that also finally passed after Trump originally said he wouldn't be signing it. It includes a lot of what I went over last week on Monday, which was the first time that it looked like it was going to pass, before Trump went off the rails and said he wouldn't sign it. It has funding or changes for about 9 categories of things, so they jammed a ton of stuff in here just because they could. Anyways, let's go through those.

Individual Benefits
⦁ $600 direct payment checks for every adult and child earning up to $75,000. Individuals earning between $75,000 and $99,000 would get smaller checks, and the benefit cuts out entirely for individuals earning over $99,000.
⦁ Unemployment benefits: they agreed to extend enhanced unemployment benefits for jobless workers, who will receive up to $300 per week through mid-March. Self-employed people and gig workers will also receive extended assistance.
⦁ Rental assistance: $25 billion to help families pay their rent, and it extends the eviction moratorium now in effect until Jan. 31.
⦁ SNAP assistance: The measure includes an additional $13 billion for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. 

Small-Business Help

PPP loans: The agreement includes some $284 billion for Paycheck Protection Program loans. Democrats say they expanded eligibility for the loans to include nonprofits and local newspapers, along with TV and radio stations. Also, $15 billion would be reserved for live venues, independent movie theaters and cultural institutions, which have been struggling due to pandemic-forced closures.

Vaccines

$68 billion to purchase and distribute COVID-19 vaccines and help states conduct testing — $20 billion of that funding will make the vaccine available at no cost for anybody needing it.

Broadband Access

$7 billion to increase access to broadband Internet, including a new Emergency Broadband Benefit that Democrats say will help millions of students' families and unemployed workers afford the broadband they need during the pandemic.

Transportation Aid

 $45 billion in transportation-related assistance, including:

⦁     $16 billion for airlines to pay the salaries of workers and contractors.
⦁     $14 billion for mass transit agencies.
⦁     $10 billion for highways.
⦁     $1 billion for Amtrak.

Education

$82 billion in funding for schools and universities to assist with reopening, including $2.75 billion for private K-12 education.

Agriculture

$13 billion in the measure for farmers and agriculture, including money under the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program for growers and livestock, dairy and poultry producers.

Medical Bills

The measure also includes a provision ending surprise medical billing. Republicans say patients would be required to receive a "true and honest cost estimate" three days before any scheduled procedure and that billing disputes would be subject to arbitration.

Tax-Deductible Meals
Lawmakers also included a provision sought by Trump, making the cost of meals a deductible business expense.

NEW YEAR'S EVE GUIDANCE FROM CDC

The CDC has guidance for how to celebrate New Year's Eve "safely", but that's kind of misleading. There's really no way to safely celebrate New Year's Eve like we would any other year; it's essentially about reducing risk. 

I know that I'm probably preaching to the choir here because if you're listening, you're probably taking COVID fairly seriously. However, it's good to keep hearing these things to remind ourselves, or maybe you're just tuning in and you're not as familiar with all the ways to stay safe. I want this show to be useful to as many people as possible. 

So, if you do celebrate:
⦁ Wear a mask
⦁ Social distance = 6ft = 2 arms lengths
⦁ Avoid crowds, especially in poorly ventilated indoor spaces
⦁ Wash your hands
⦁ Stay home if you're sick
⦁ Get your flu shot ASAP
⦁ Get your COVID vaccine

If you host: 
⦁ Talk with guests ahead of time to set expectations for celebrating together.
⦁ Limit the number of guests.
⦁ Keep celebrations outdoors, if possible.
⦁ If indoors, open windows and doors. Use a window fan to blow air out, which will pull fresh air in through the open windows.
⦁ Clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces and items between use.
⦁ Have guests bring their own food, drinks, plates, cups, and utensils.
⦁ Have extra unused masks available for your guests and encourage everyone to wear them inside and outside.
⦁ Keep background music volume low so guests don’t need to shout
⦁ It’s okay if you decide to postpone or cancel your gathering. Do what’s best for you.

If you're an attendee: 
⦁ It’s okay if you decide to stay home and remain apart from others. Do what’s best for you.
⦁ If traveling for a celebration, know what to do before, during, and after travel.
⦁ Bring your own food, drinks, and disposable plates, cups, and utensils.
⦁ Wear a mask indoors and outdoors and safely store your mask while eating and drinking.
⦁ Avoid alcohol and drugs that can alter judgement and make it difficult to practice COVID-19 safety measures.
⦁ Avoid shouting and singing.
⦁ Avoid areas where food is prepared, such as the kitchen.
⦁ Use single-use options, like condiment packets.

Alternatives to traditional celebrations:
⦁ Virtual celebrations (concerts, performances, countdowns to midnight, dinner or dessert with friends/family)
⦁ Plan your party for the people you live with
⦁ Reach out to family, friends, and neighbors
⦁ Call, text, or leave a voicemail for family, friends, and neighbors wishing them a happy new year.
⦁ Call friends and family to count down to the new year together.
⦁ Plan a neighborhood countdown to midnight. People who live with each other can stand in front of their house and cheer together at midnight.

Other ideas:
⦁ Watch a livestreamed firework display, concert, First Night event, or other New Year’s programming from your home, such as the Times Square New Year’s Eve ball drop. Virtual events are happening across the United States.
⦁ Take care of yourself and do something you enjoy, such as reading a book or taking a walk.
⦁ Pick up a special meal from a local restaurant to share with your household.
⦁ Plan an outdoor activity with people you live with such as a hike or sledding.
⦁ Set new year resolutions. Find out if your hometown is sponsoring a special social media event and share your resolutions.

I have to be honest though, it's pretty depressing to think about where we were 1 year ago versus New Year's Eve this year. There was so much hype about the new decade and the roaring 20s and the Great Gatsby and all of that, but it seems like we got what the actual roaring 20s were like. I don't know what else to say, frankly. Just hang in there, and think of the massive, massive celebrations that'll be happening when this is all over. I don't even think we can imagine what it'll be like when every band you've wanted to see is on tour at the same time, all of the sports are back, theater and movies are back, etc.