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Trump administration sets wave of executions for days leading up to Biden inauguration

Trump administration sets wave of executions for days leading up to Biden inauguration

The Washington Post reports: After nearly two decades without any federal executions, the Justice Department reversed course this summer by carrying out three death sentences in four days. Now the department is planning a similarly busy schedule of executions during the Trump administration’s final days, before a president who staunchly backs capital punishment is succeeded by one who opposes it. The Justice Department’s push to carry out executions during the run-up to President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration — including scheduling three…

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I wrote the special counsel rules. Barr has abused them

I wrote the special counsel rules. Barr has abused them

Neal K. Katyal writes: Attorney General William Barr’s decision on Tuesday to name John Durham, the U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut appointed by President Trump, as special counsel to investigate matters surrounding the 2016 election violates the rules for special counsels as well as fundamental democratic principles. There may be reasons the inquiry by Mr. Durham — an investigation that began in 2019 into the Trump-Russia inquiry — should continue, but there is absolutely no reason to permit…

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Physicists nail down the ‘magic number’ that shapes the universe

Physicists nail down the ‘magic number’ that shapes the universe

Natalie Wolchover writes: As fundamental constants go, the speed of light, c, enjoys all the fame, yet c’s numerical value says nothing about nature; it differs depending on whether it’s measured in meters per second or miles per hour. The fine-structure constant, by contrast, has no dimensions or units. It’s a pure number that shapes the universe to an astonishing degree — “a magic number that comes to us with no understanding,” as Richard Feynman described it. Paul Dirac considered…

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Why Trump might just fade away

Why Trump might just fade away

Yascha Mounk writes: President Donald Trump has made one thing painfully clear: After he grudgingly leaves the White House, he will keep doing what he can to stay in the news. He will tweet insults and conspiracy theories. He may start his own television channel. And according to members of his inner circle, he may even run for president in 2024. After half a decade under his spell, many pundits and political observers assume that Trump will succeed in keeping…

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People depolarize after elections as their attachment to their preferred political party weakens

People depolarize after elections as their attachment to their preferred political party weakens

PsyPost reports: Affective polarization — one’s level of animosity towards political rivals – tends to decline in the wake of elections, according to new research that examined data from 42 countries. The study, published in the journal Electoral Studies, indicates that this depolarization is partially the result of citizens becoming less strongly attached to political parties over time. “Affective polarization is one of the main concerns for the health and quality of contemporary democracies. Some polarization may be beneficial for…

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Minority rule is unsustainable in America

Minority rule is unsustainable in America

Kenneth Owen writes: Minority rule is fast becoming the defining feature of the American republic. In 2000 and 2016, presidential candidates who received fewer votes than their opponents were nevertheless sent to the White House. Joe Biden’s 2020 victory came not because he won nearly 7 million more votes nationally than President Donald Trump, but rather because he won about 200,000 votes more in a handful of swing states. Congress has seen a similar dynamic: Though Republican senators make up…

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The climate debt the U.S. owes the world

The climate debt the U.S. owes the world

Bill McKibben writes: Central America has been through a wet version of Hell these past few weeks, as first a Category 4 and then a Category 5 hurricane crashed into the same part of Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast, dumping crippling amounts of rain on that country, Guatemala, and Honduras. Delphine Schrank opened an account of the toll on Honduras’s second-largest city, San Pedro Sula, for the Washington Post with this anecdote: “Blanca Costa crouched on a wooden cart with her three…

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What Rudy Giuliani is really up to

What Rudy Giuliani is really up to

Peter Stone writes: In his frenzied crusade to help President Donald Trump overturn the 2020 election result, Rudy Giuliani has displayed many of the characteristics that Trump has long demanded in his personal lawyers—albeit with more surreal and comedic elements. Giuliani has shown unswerving loyalty, gleefully obfuscated facts, launched wild attacks on the media, hosted circus-style press conferences, and gone to court, all in a fruitless, evidence-free quest to persuade several states to block Joe Biden’s electoral victories. But that…

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Facebook and YouTube accused of complicity in Vietnam repression

Facebook and YouTube accused of complicity in Vietnam repression

The Guardian reports: Facebook and YouTube are complicit in “censorship and repression on an industrial scale” in Vietnam, according to a report by Amnesty International that accuses the platforms of openly signalling that they are willing to bow to the wishes of authoritarian regimes. Facebook’s executives have repeatedly promoted the platform as a bastion of “free expression”, but in Vietnam, where there is little tolerance for dissent, the company complied with hundreds of requests to censor content earlier this year….

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Study reveals connection between gut bacteria and vitamin D levels

Study reveals connection between gut bacteria and vitamin D levels

UC San Diego Health: Our gut microbiomes — the many bacteria, viruses and other microbes living in our digestive tracts — play important roles in our health and risk for disease in ways that are only beginning to be recognized. University of California San Diego researchers and collaborators recently demonstrated in older men that the makeup of a person’s gut microbiome is linked to their levels of active vitamin D, a hormone important for bone health and immunity. The study,…

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Georgia elections official: Trump and GOP leaders are complicit in threats of violence

Georgia elections official: Trump and GOP leaders are complicit in threats of violence

  Politico reports: Gabriel Sterling, a top official in the Georgia secretary of state’s office, condemned President Donald Trump and the state’s two Republican senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, in a fiery press conference Tuesday after a local election worker received death threats. Sterling, who works for Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, opened the press conference by saying an election contractor in Gwinnett County had received death threats after conspiracy theorists spread videos of the worker on social…

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Disputing Trump, Barr says no widespread election fraud

Disputing Trump, Barr says no widespread election fraud

The Associated Press reports: Disputing President Donald Trump’s persistent, baseless claims, Attorney General William Barr declared Tuesday the U.S. Justice Department has uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election. Barr’s comments, in an interview with the The Associated Press, contradict the concerted effort by Trump, his boss, to subvert the results of last month’s voting and block President-elect Joe Biden from taking his place in the White House. Barr told the…

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Justice Department investigating potential presidential pardon bribery scheme, court records reveal

Justice Department investigating potential presidential pardon bribery scheme, court records reveal

CNN reports: The Justice Department is investigating a potential crime related to funneling money to the White House or related political committee in exchange for a presidential pardon, according to court records unsealed Tuesday in federal court. The case is the latest legal twist in the waning days of President Donald Trump’s administration after several of his top advisers have been convicted of federal criminal charges and as the possibility rises of Trump giving pardons to those who’ve been loyal…

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Trump fired me for saying this, but I’ll say it again: The election wasn’t rigged

Trump fired me for saying this, but I’ll say it again: The election wasn’t rigged

Christopher Krebs writes: On Nov. 17, I was dismissed as director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a Senate-confirmed post, in a tweet from President Trump after my team and other election security experts rebutted claims of hacking in the 2020 election. On Monday, a lawyer for the president’s campaign plainly stated that I should be executed. I am not going to be intimidated by these threats from telling the truth to the American people. Three years ago, I…

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