Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, and Debt:

The legislative mechanism for doing that, though, is still unclear. Senate Democrats have shown no interest in attaching it to BBB — as McConnell has suggested for the last five months — and there’s no interest from House Democrats or Senate Republicans to adding it onto the defense authorization bill, which Schumer has floated. So party leaders need to find a vehicle for a debt-limit increase. It won’t be the CR, although that would make the most sense in a lot of ways. But sense and Congress don’t always go together.
What’s notable here is the lack of incendiary language from McConnell and Senate Republicans on the issue this time around. Schumer and McConnell have met and discussed resolving the debt limit, but they haven’t said much beyond that. Hopefully there’ll be some more clarity this week. Wall Street is watching closely.

Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:

Thousands protest coronavirus restrictions in Czech capital

How the WHO Settled on ‘Omicron’ for New Variant

When it came time to name the potentially dangerous new variant that has emerged in southern Africa, the next letter in alphabetical order was Nu, which officials thought would be too easily confused with ‘new.’
The letter after that was even more complicated: Xi, a name that in its transliteration, though not its pronunciation, happens to belong to the leader of China, Xi Jinping. So they skipped both and named the new variant Omicron.

Czech President Appoints Prime Minister from Glass Box

When the Czech President Milos Zeman formally appointed Petr Fiala as the country’s new Prime Minister on Sunday, he did so sitting inside an acrylic glass box accompanied by health workers covered head to toe in hazmat suits.
Zeman tested positive for the coronavirus earlier this week, and is currently recovering after a lengthy stay at a hospital for non-Covid related serious illness at the presidential retreat in Lany, west of the capital city of Prague.

Politics:

Republicans Court Anti-Vaxxers with Jobless Aid

Republican officials around the country are testing a creative mechanism to build loyalty with unvaccinated Americans while undermining Biden administration mandates: unemployment benefits.
Florida, Iowa, Kansas and Tennessee have changed their unemployment insurance rules to allow workers who are fired or quit over vaccine mandates to receive benefits.

Michael Cohen Says Trump Absolutely Committed Crimes

“You can bet your bottom dollar that Allen Weisselberg is not… the key to this. They are going after Donald. They’re going after Don Jr, Eric, Ivanka, a whole slew of individuals, family as well.”

Dear @January6thCmte

If Trump, his children and senior White House and re-election staff are going to invoke their 5th Amendment right against self incrimination make them do it on national television in front of the world like mobsters.

Now. Not in April of 2022.
— Don Winslow (@donwinslow) November 28, 2021

The beheading of a diplomat’s daughter shows how badly Pakistan is failing its women

Omicron Is Feeding the Republican Conspiracy Beast

Why would a congressman spread wacky theories linking the variant to the midterm elections? Because the incentives that drive normal political parties don’t work in today’s GOP…
I suppose I should point out how unlikely it is, to put it mildly, that Democrats would be capable of getting the entire world to pretend there’s a new, potentially dangerous variant of the virus that causes Covid-19, which would then serve as a pretext for absentee voting, which somehow Democrats would supposedly be able to use to cheat, even though no such cheating was detected by a series of Republican states in 2020 — and even though those all-powerful, devious Democrats also, for this to make sense, wouldn’t be able to find any other way of cheating. Oh, and that’s not to mention that the timing is all wrong. And that surely more devastation from the pandemic would be, you know, actually really bad for the incumbent party.