Prisons across the U.S. are facing their greatest swell in COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic. Nearly a quarter-million incarcerated people in the U.S. have been infected with COVID-19, according to the Marshall Project, and advocates are pushing for incarcerated people to be prioritized in the country’s vaccine rollout.
President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris officially won the Electoral College Monday, as electors met in their respective state capitols to formalize their victory. President Trump continued to claim without evidence he was the victim of a massive conspiracy to rig the election. Republicans across the country attempted to undermine the election results, and right-wing supporters threatened violence.
William Barr is resigning as attorney general, leaving his post after angering President Trump for not backing his baseless claims of widespread voter fraud more strongly. But despite their split, Barr has been one of Trump’s staunchest allies, echoing much of the president’s inflammatory rhetoric about Black Lives Matter and antifascist activists this year even while downplaying the threat posed by far-right extremists.
I basically lost two friends because of this.
Parenting advice on spanking, parental preference, and grandparents.
Vaccine euphoria is giving economic forecasters hope for a blockbuster 2021 and stretching stock market valuations to historic highs. It’s a setup that leaves no room for error.
Years of bending over backward for Trump and his allies did not buy the social network a regulatory hall pass.
Congress should help Americans who really need it before helping those who don’t.
Critics say the platform enables fraud and exploits holes in the social safety net.
A former high-level employee at Heather Boushey’s think tank publicly aired the accusations on Tuesday night.
“That disqualifies almost every Republican senator and 90 percent of the administration,” the president-elect said of GOP criticism.
Taxpayers are backing more than a trillion dollars in home mortgages, but the agencies buying them are neglecting to consider climate risks.
Brian Deese is an executive at investment giant BlackRock.
The president-elect intends to name Cecilia Rouse, Neera Tanden and Wally Adeyemo to senior roles in his administration.
Joe Biden’s nominee for defense secretary, retired four-star Army General Lloyd Austin, would make history as the first African American to lead the Pentagon if confirmed by the Senate. But Austin can only be confirmed if he secures a waiver from Congress due to laws designed to preserve the civilian control of the military, and several leading Democratic senators have indicated they would oppose granting a waiver.
Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week
37 DAYS UNTIL JOE BIDEN AND KAMALA HARRIS TAKE THE OATH OF OFFICE
Becca Andrews at Mother Jones writes—“This Process Was Not Designed for People Who Look Like Me.
A key panel blessed the president’s promised drug-discount cards, surprising even some officials who worked on the plan.
A key panel blessed the president’s promised drug-discount cards, surprising even some officials who worked on the plan.
Avid Donald Trump backer Jerry Falwell Jr. was booted from his position as head of Liberty University this summer after the board of the white conservative evangelical “university” finally had enough of him.
For more than four months, women and gender nonconforming people in three Philadelphia jails have been living with mold, roach and rat infestations, extreme heat and cold, poor ventilation, and ongoing abuse from correctional officers. Conditions like those would be deplorable even if the country wasn’t in the midst of a pandemic, but with the added threat of COVID-19, they may be deadly.
The Trump administration is a swamp. The great con that Trump was able to to perpetrate on the Americans who voted for him was that his political outsider credentials—which were and remain real—would allow him to clean up the big money corruption developed and fostered predominantly by the Republican Party in Washington, D.C.
With his Electoral College victory secured, the president-elect is putting Trump’s ploy to overturn the election results in the rearview mirror.
With the vote of California’s electors, President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College win over Donald Trump is formalized. States have been voting throughout the day, but it took California’s 55 votes to bring Biden over the 270 needed to win.
Hawaii’s four electors still have to cast their votes, but Biden’s win is sealed. Not that we should expect a gracious—or any—acknowledgement from Trump.
In a nutshell: Biden won the election.
In most ways, it would be hard to find two men much more different than Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr: One is a slow-drawling anti-immigration fanatic from Alabama; the other is a dry, intellectually engaged bagpiper from New York. One spent his career on the fringes of conservatism before a sudden late-career elevation to the Cabinet; the other is a consummate establishment figure who led the Justice Department twice, three decades apart.
With the attorney general stepping down next week, Twitter critics are stepping up their barrage against the president’s “festive” announcement.
Every weekday evening, our editors guide you through the biggest stories of the day, help you discover new ideas, and surprise you with moments of delight. Subscribe to get this delivered to your inbox.Ricardo TomásScience defeated the coronavirus, my colleague Ed Yong reports in our latest cover story
This spring, thousands of researchers paused their projects in order to study the deadly disease, COVID-izing their disciplines.
Surprise medical bills have been surprisingly difficult for legislators to fix. There’s finally hope.
The attorney general had said there was a lack of evidence of any widespread voter fraud in the presidential election, breaking with Donald Trump.
