NOT QUITE A TRUMP CARD

Donald Trump will today close out his last full day as president with at least 60, and possibly more than 100 pardons or commutations, with The New York Times’ live blog noting names under consideration include disgraced former New York Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver and rapper Lil Wayne.

According to CNN sources, other names could come from a list of several proposed by criminal justice reform groups.

NBC also reports Trump has indicated a push to resume international travel with Europe and Brazil, a move incoming Democrats have panned.

And in his final day as secretary of state — and just a day after Martin Luther King Jr Day, Mike Pompeo dubbed multiculturalism, along with “woke-ism” and “all the -isms”, to not be “who America is”. As Business Insider reports, the openly racist tweet claimed these traits, “distort our glorious founding and what this country is all about”, and follows previous denunciations of multiculturalism.

Finally, according to AP, two National Guard members have been removed from Joe Biden’s inauguration due to their connections to far-right militia groups.

PATHWAY THERE

According to CNN, Joe Biden will unveil a multi-year pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants in his first day of office, and, separately, will introduce new ethics guidelines for the public service that would ban new political appointments from receiving payments from former employers.

ABC reports Biden will also make history by nominating transgender doctor and Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine as assistant health secretary, while, ahead of inauguration on Wednesday (Thursday 3am AEST), the Senate is currently holding confirmation hearings for five cabinet nominees.

Senate Democrats have also confirmed the first bill of the new Congress will be the reintroduction of the For The People Act, which the House passed in 2019 and Daily Kos explains would remove barriers to expanding voting access, establish public financing in House elections to “level the playing field”, and ban congressional gerrymandering — which is a state responsibility — by requiring every state create a nonpartisan redistricting commission subject to nonpartisan criteria.

HOUSE RULES

According to The Age, National Australia Bank has told mortgage brokers it will not accept any applications after today for mortgage payment pauses, months after the big four banks agreed to the emergency scheme set to close in March.

Simultaneously, The Australian ($) is lauding “obtained” Treasury data suggesting a tripling in the number of $25,000 HomeBuilder grants — provided, for clarity, on projects worth a minimum of $150,000 — in December has taken the expected number of new builds from 27,000 to beyond 75,000.

Elsewhere, The New Daily reports Scott Morrison has appeared to rebuff calls for a JobKeeper-style assistance package for the tourism sector, while The Oz ($) also reports that Restaurant and Catering Australia has proposed a six-month “HospoKeeper” replacement for JobKeeper to Josh Frydenberg.

Finally, Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman Kate Carnell has called on the government to extend JobKeeper to new employees to help businesses faced with replacing outgoing staff.