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Category: Politics

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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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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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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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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GOP silence on Trump’s false election claims recalls McCarthy era

GOP silence on Trump’s false election claims recalls McCarthy era

Ronald Brownstein writes: The silence of congressional Republican leaders as President Donald Trump’s unfounded claims of election fraud grow wilder and more venomous increasingly resembles the party’s deference to Sen. Joe McCarthy during the worst excesses of his anti-Communist crusade in the early 1950s. In McCarthy’s era, most of the GOP’s leaders found excuses to avoid challenging conspiracy theories that they knew to be implausible, even as evidence of their costs to the nation steadily mounted. For years, despite their…

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Republicans to Trump: Georgia fraud claims could cost us the Senate

Republicans to Trump: Georgia fraud claims could cost us the Senate

Politico reports: Donald Trump’s sustained attacks on the integrity of Georgia’s presidential election tally are threatening the Republican Senate majority — and GOP senators are starting to fret. Even as the key battleground states have certified their results and Trump’s legal challenges are crumbling, the president is refusing to let go of his baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and fight to overturn the election results. Moreover, the official presidential transition is already in motion, and President-elect Joe Biden received…

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Trump hustles $170 million from his gullible supporters

Trump hustles $170 million from his gullible supporters

The New York Times reports: President Trump has raised about $170 million since Election Day as his campaign operation has continued to aggressively solicit donations with hyped-up appeals that have funded his fruitless attempts to overturn the election and that have seeded his post-presidential political ambitions, according to a person familiar with the matter. The money, much of which was raised in the first week after the election, according to the person, has arrived as Mr. Trump has made false…

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States with few coronavirus restrictions are spreading the virus beyond their borders

States with few coronavirus restrictions are spreading the virus beyond their borders

ProPublica reports: As the number of COVID-19 cases skyrockets nationwide, the extent of the public health response varies from one state — and sometimes one town — to the next. The incongruous approaches and the lack of national standards have created confusion, conflict and a muddled public health message, likely hampering efforts to stop the spread of the virus. The country’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said last month that the country needs “a uniform approach” to fighting…

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The pandemic will be tamed, but not before a horrible winter

The pandemic will be tamed, but not before a horrible winter

Donald G. McNeil Jr. reports: The regions of the country now among those hit hardest by the virus — Midwestern and Mountain States and rural counties, including in the Dakotas, Iowa, Nebraska and Wyoming — are the ones that voted heavily for Mr. Trump in the recent election. The president could help save his millions of supporters by urging them to wear masks, avoid crowds and skip holiday gatherings this year. But that seemed unlikely to occur, many health experts…

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Trump administration leaves states to grapple with how to distribute scarce vaccines

Trump administration leaves states to grapple with how to distribute scarce vaccines

Politico reports: The Trump administration is shunting to the states hard decisions about which Americans will get the limited early supplies of coronavirus vaccines — setting up a confusing patchwork of distribution plans that could create unequal access to the life-saving shots. Federal and state officials agree that the nation’s 21 million health care workers should be first in line. But there is no consensus about how to balance the needs of other high-risk groups, including the 53 million adults…

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Fired director of U.S. cyber agency Chris Krebs explains why this election was the ‘most secure in American history’

Fired director of U.S. cyber agency Chris Krebs explains why this election was the ‘most secure in American history’

  60 Minutes: Though the transition has begun, President Trump remains largely holed up in the White House tweeting false accusations of a rigged election from behind a crumbling wall of lawsuits. No legal challenge, no recount, no audit has changed the outcome in any state. Mr. Trump’s claim that millions of votes were deleted or switched is denied by the official he chose to secure the nation’s election systems. Christopher Krebs called the 2020 vote “the most secure in…

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