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In the Trump era, Real Clear Politics changed its tone, and funding sources

In the Trump era, Real Clear Politics changed its tone, and funding sources

The New York Times reports: For three days after every major news organization declared Joseph R. Biden Jr. the victor of the presidential election, one widely read political site maintained that Pennsylvania was still too close to call. The delay was welcome news to allies of President Trump like Rudolph W. Giuliani and friendly outlets like The Gateway Pundit, which misrepresented the site’s decision in their efforts to spread false claims that Mr. Biden’s lead was unraveling. That site, Real…

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The Republican Party is dead. It’s the Trump cult now

The Republican Party is dead. It’s the Trump cult now

Jonathan V. Last writes: Donald Trump is the past, present, and future of the Republican Party. And that is because the GOP is no longer a traditional political party designed to win elections so that it can enact a policy agenda. It is a personality cult built around grievance. To understand its true nature, you must first understand how weak Trump was as an electoral force. It is devilishly hard to unseat an elected president. Trump is only the third…

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Georgia secretary of state says fellow Republicans are pressuring him to find ways to exclude legal ballots

Georgia secretary of state says fellow Republicans are pressuring him to find ways to exclude legal ballots

The Washington Post reports: Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Monday that he has come under increasing pressure in recent days from fellow Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), to question the validity of legally cast absentee ballots in an effort to reverse President Trump’s narrow loss in the state. In a wide-ranging interview about the election, Raffensperger expressed exasperation over a string of baseless allegations coming from Trump and his allies about the integrity of the Georgia…

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Trump coronavirus adviser tells Michigan to ‘rise up’ against new shutdown orders

Trump coronavirus adviser tells Michigan to ‘rise up’ against new shutdown orders

The Washington Post reports: On Sunday, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) announced a three-week “pause to save lives,” closing colleges, high schools, workplaces and in-person dining as new coronavirus cases have spiked. After she appealed to the Trump administration to intervene in the pandemic, White House coronavirus adviser Scott Atlas responded with a call to action. But instead of supporting Whitmer’s efforts to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus in Michigan, he urged residents to reject the state’s public…

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Pfizer vaccine: what an ‘efficacy rate above 90%’ really means

Pfizer vaccine: what an ‘efficacy rate above 90%’ really means

F8 Studio/Shutterstock By Zania Stamataki, University of Birmingham There was – rightfully – a lot of excitement when Pfizer and BioNTech announced interim results from their COVID vaccine trial. The vaccine, called BNT162b2, was reported to have an “efficacy rate above 90%”. This was soon translated in the press to be 90% “effective” at preventing COVID-19. Efficacy, effectiveness – what’s the difference? We academics are very precise in our language and it can be a cause of considerable frustration when…

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Trump officials rush to auction off rights to Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before Biden can block it

Trump officials rush to auction off rights to Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before Biden can block it

The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration is asking oil and gas firms to pick spots where they want to drill in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as it races to open the pristine wilderness to development and lock in drilling rights before President-elect Joe Biden takes office. The “call for nominations” to be published Tuesday in the Federal Register allows companies to identify tracts on which to bid during an upcoming lease sale on the refuge’s nearly 1.6 million…

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A former right-wing media creator on how a ‘different reality’ became so prominent

A former right-wing media creator on how a ‘different reality’ became so prominent

The New York Times reports: Matthew Sheffield started his first conservative website in 2000, dedicating it to criticizing the former CBS News anchor Dan Rather, who Mr. Sheffield believed was a partisan liberal and not critical enough of President Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Mr. Sheffield then went on to help create NewsBusters, another right-leaning website that criticized the mainstream media for liberal bias. Later, he became the founding online managing editor of the Washington Examiner, another popular outlet…

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A Ukrainian neo-Nazi group is organizing on Facebook despite a year-old ban

A Ukrainian neo-Nazi group is organizing on Facebook despite a year-old ban

BuzzFeed reports: Despite attempts to drive it off the platform, a violent Ukrainian far-right group with ties to American white supremacists is using Facebook to recruit new members, organize violence, and spread its far-right ideology across the world. Although it banned the Azov movement and its leaders more than a year ago, Facebook continues to profit from ads placed by the far-right organization as recently as Monday. Since July, Azov, which sprung up during the Russian invasion in 2014, has…

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It’s time to hunker down

It’s time to hunker down

Zeynep Tufekci writes: The end may be near for the pestilence that has haunted the world this year. Good news is arriving on almost every front: treatments, vaccines, and our understanding of this coronavirus. Pfizer and BioNTech have announced a stunning success rate in their early Phase 3 vaccine trials—if it holds up, it will be a game changer. Treatments have gotten better too. A monoclonal antibody drug—similar to what President Donald Trump and the former Governor Chris Christie received—just…

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The third covid surge is breaking health workers

The third covid surge is breaking health workers

Ed Yong writes: On Saturday morning, Megan Ranney was about to put on her scrubs when she heard that Joe Biden had won the presidential election. That day, she treated people with COVID-19 while street parties erupted around the country. She was still in the ER in the late evening when Biden and Vice President–elect Kamala Harris made their victory speeches. These days, her shifts at Rhode Island Hospital are long, and they “are not going to change in the…

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People of color make up nearly half of Biden transition team

People of color make up nearly half of Biden transition team

CNN reports: As President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office in January, nearly half of the transition team laying the groundwork for his administration is made up of people of color, and women are in the majority. Forty-six percent of the transition staff are people of color, according to new diversity data of the transition team provided to CNN, and 41% of the senior staff are people of color. The majority of transition staff — 52% — are women, and…

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We opposed each other in Bush v. Gore. Now we agree: Biden won

We opposed each other in Bush v. Gore. Now we agree: Biden won

David Boies and Theodore B. Olson write: Twenty years ago, we represented the opposing sides in Bush v. Gore. We still don’t agree about how the Supreme Court ruled, but we completely agree that nothing in that case — or in the Supreme Court’s decision — supports the challenges now being thrown about in an attempt to undermine President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. Yet, over the past week, we have heard repeated assertions that the outcome of this election is somehow…

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Why Trump carried out his Pentagon purge

Why Trump carried out his Pentagon purge

Dexter Filkins writes: In 2018, as American officials in Kabul were sitting down to negotiate with the Taliban, a bleak joke circulated in the U.S. Embassy that at any moment the talks could be derailed by “the Tweet of Damocles”—a unilateral decision by President Trump to withdraw all American soldiers from the country without any deal at all. Now, in the waning days of his term, Trump may attempt to impose such a withdrawal, if not by tweet then by…

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Parler makes play for conservatives mad at Facebook, Twitter

Parler makes play for conservatives mad at Facebook, Twitter

The Wall Street Journal reports: As Facebook and Twitter have taken a more assertive role in curbing content on their platforms, prominent conservatives on both platforms have responded with a frequent retort: Follow me on Parler. Launched in 2018, the libertarian-leaning social network was the most downloaded app on both Android and Apple devices for most of last week, according to data from Google and analytics firm App Annie. Its leaders envision it as a free-speech-focused alternative to the giants…

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