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Supreme Court follows public health guidance in remote hearings but blocks limits on religious gatherings

Supreme Court follows public health guidance in remote hearings but blocks limits on religious gatherings

The Associated Press reports: The Supreme Court said Wednesday it will continue to hear arguments by telephone through at least January because of the coronavirus pandemic. The court’s announcement extended telephone arguments by a month. “The Court will continue to closely monitor public health guidance in determining plans for the February argument session,” the court said in a statement. Politico reports: The Supreme Court signaled a major shift in its approach to coronavirus-related restrictions late Wednesday, voting 5-4 to bar…

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Did American democracy really hold? Maybe not

Did American democracy really hold? Maybe not

Jeff Greenfield writes: That breeze you felt recently was a national sigh of relief that the 2020 election might finally, at long last, be over. Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and the other close states have, or soon will have, certified the results. Judges have unceremoniously thrown out the dubious legal claims that thousands, or hundreds of thousands or millions of votes should be disallowed. Foreign leaders and business tycoons are reaching out to President-elect Joe Biden, and that General Services Administration…

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Trump’s conspiracies have MAGA world talking Georgia boycott

Trump’s conspiracies have MAGA world talking Georgia boycott

Politico reports: President Donald Trump’s demonization of mail-in voting may have cost him votes in the recent election. Now, his demonization of Georgia’s entire electoral system is hurting his party’s chances at keeping the Senate. Driven by Trump’s insistence that Georgia’s elections are indelibly rife with fraud, conspiratorial MAGA figures are calling for a boycott of the two Senate runoff races, slated for Jan. 5, that will determine which party controls the upper chamber. Their reason: The two GOP candidates,…

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A growing number of Americans are going hungry

A growing number of Americans are going hungry

The Washington Post reports: More Americans are going hungry now than at any point during the deadly coronavirus pandemic, according to a Post analysis of new federal data — a problem created by an economic downturn that has tightened its grip on millions of Americans and compounded by government relief programs that expired or will terminate at the end of the year. Experts say it is likely that there’s more hunger in the United States today than at any point…

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Pandemic restrictions riddled with contradictions

Pandemic restrictions riddled with contradictions

Amanda Mull writes: Two weeks ago, I staged a reluctant intervention via Instagram direct message. The subject was a longtime friend, Josh, who had been sharing photos of himself and his fiancé occasionally dining indoors at restaurants since New York City, where we both live, had reopened them in late September. At first, I hadn’t said anything. Preliminary research suggests that when people congregate indoors, an infected person is almost 20 times more likely to transmit the virus than if…

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Pennsylvania slams judge’s ‘overreach’ in certification ruling

Pennsylvania slams judge’s ‘overreach’ in certification ruling

Bloomberg reports: Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf and other state officials assailed a Pittsburgh judge for issuing what they described as an unprecedented order halting additional steps in the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s election victory. “Since the birth of our nation nearly 250 years ago, no court has ever issued an order purporting to interfere with a state’s ascertainment of its presidential electors — until today,” state officials said in an appeal filed shortly after Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia McCullough’s…

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Trump races to weaken environmental and worker protections, and implement other last-minute policies

Trump races to weaken environmental and worker protections, and implement other last-minute policies

ProPublica reports: Six days after President Donald Trump lost his bid for reelection, the U.S. Department of Agriculture notified food safety groups that it was proposing a regulatory change to speed up chicken factory processing lines, a change that would allow companies to sell more birds. An earlier USDA effort had broken down on concerns that it could lead to more worker injuries and make it harder to stop germs like salmonella. Ordinarily, a change like this would take about…

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Georgia’s Senator Perdue profited from the pandemic

Georgia’s Senator Perdue profited from the pandemic

The Associated Press reports: As the ravages of the novel coronavirus forced millions of people out of work, shuttered businesses and shrank the value of retirement accounts, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged to a three-year low. But for Sen. David Perdue, a Georgia Republican, the crisis last March signaled something else: a stock buying opportunity. And for the second time in less than two months, Perdue’s timing was impeccable. He avoided a sharp loss and reaped a stunning gain…

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Trump pardons former national security adviser Flynn

Trump pardons former national security adviser Flynn

Politico reports: Outgoing President Donald Trump pardoned his former national security adviser Michael Flynn on Wednesday for lying to FBI agents investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. “It is my Great Honor to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has been granted a Full Pardon,” the president tweeted. “Congratulations to @GenFlynn and his wonderful family, I know you will now have a truly fantastic Thanksgiving!” Trump’s move is an extraordinary intervention on behalf of an ally who pleaded guilty…

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Where is the dividing line between you and the world

Where is the dividing line between you and the world

Frédérique de Vignemont and Colin Klein write: Heini Hediger, a noted 20th-century Swiss biologist and zoo director, knew that animals ran away when they felt unsafe. But when he set about designing and building zoos himself, he realised he needed a more precise understanding of how animals behaved when put in proximity to one another. Hediger decided to investigate the flight response systematically, something that no one had done before. Hediger found that the space around an animal could be…

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Yes, the Biden administration should hold Trump accountable

Yes, the Biden administration should hold Trump accountable

Philip Allen Lacovara writes: After the final tumultuous months of the Nixon presidency, Gerald R. Ford decided to end the “long national nightmare” that was Watergate by pardoning his predecessor, thus sparing Richard M. Nixon from the dock where his senior aides awaited trial. Because I considered Ford’s pardon a serious mistake, I resigned in protest as the counsel to the Watergate special prosecutor. I hope that when President-elect Joe Biden assumes office, he will not repeat the same mistake….

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Why Trump can’t grant himself a pardon

Why Trump can’t grant himself a pardon

Eric L. Muller writes: As Donald Trump’s tenure in office comes in for its landing, a major question is whether the president—facing questions about liability for offenses including bank and tax fraud—can pardon himself. This might seem like the right operational question, but it is imprecise as a constitutional one. Article II of the Constitution says that the president “shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” Did you…

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Trump should not be left off the hook

Trump should not be left off the hook

Andrew Weissmann writes: When the Biden administration takes office in 2021, it will face a unique, fraught decision: Should Donald Trump be criminally investigated and prosecuted? Any renewed investigative activity or a criminal prosecution would further divide the country and stoke claims that the Justice Department was merely exacting revenge. An investigation and trial would be a spectacle that would surely consume the administration’s energy. But as painful and hard as it may be for the country, I believe the…

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Trump stress-tested the election system, and the cracks showed

Trump stress-tested the election system, and the cracks showed

The New York Times reports: As President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election have steadily disintegrated, the country appears to have escaped a doomsday scenario in the campaign’s epilogue: Since Nov. 3, there have been no tanks in the streets or widespread civil unrest, no brazen intervention by the judiciary or a partisan state legislature. Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s obvious victory has withstood Mr. Trump’s peddling of conspiracy theories and his campaign of groundless lawsuits. In the end —…

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