White House rebukes Trump’s suggestion to suspend Constitution over 2020 election

White House rebukes Trump’s suggestion to suspend Constitution over 2020 election

The Washington Post reports: The White House issued a stern rebuke on Saturday after former president Donald Trump suggested suspending the Constitution in his ongoing crusade to discredit the results of the 2020 election. “Attacking the Constitution and all it stands for is anathema to the soul of our nation and should be universally condemned,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement, calling the Constitution a “sacrosanct document.” “You cannot only love America when you win,” he added….

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Supreme Court weighs ‘most important case’ on democracy

Supreme Court weighs ‘most important case’ on democracy

The Associated Press reports: The Supreme Court is about to confront a new elections case, a Republican-led challenge asking the justices for a novel ruling that could significantly increase the power of state lawmakers over elections for Congress and the presidency. The court is set to hear arguments Wednesday in a case from North Carolina, where Republican efforts to draw congressional districts heavily in their favor were blocked by a Democratic majority on the state Supreme Court because the GOP…

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Iranian protesters call for three-day strike as pressure on regime builds

Iranian protesters call for three-day strike as pressure on regime builds

The Guardian reports: Protesters in Iran have called for a three-day strike this week amid conflicting reports that the nation’s “morality police” had been shut down, and as the US said the leadership in Tehran had locked itself into a “vicious cycle” that had cut it off from its own people and the international community. The call steps up pressure on Iranian authorities after the attorney general said this weekend that the morality police – whose detention of a young…

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Musk and Taibbi said ‘Twitter Files’ revealed a political scandal, but the information itself did the opposite

Musk and Taibbi said ‘Twitter Files’ revealed a political scandal, but the information itself did the opposite

Nicholas Grossman writes: It was hyped as a big revelation, proof of a political conspiracy. Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk gave journalist Matt Taibbi access to some of Twitter’s internal communications from before he took over, saying they would show “what really happened with the Hunter Biden story suppression,” referring to an October 2020 New York Post article about a laptop allegedly belonging to then presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son. Musk promised it’d be “awesome.” Conservative media figures, Elon Musk…

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Non-religious voters wield clout and tilt heavily Democratic

Non-religious voters wield clout and tilt heavily Democratic

The Associated Press reports: When members of the small Pennsylvania chapter of Secular Democrats of America log on for their monthly meetings, they’re not there for a virtual happy hour. “We don’t sit around at our meetings patting ourselves on the back for not believing in God together,” said David Brown, a founder from the Philadelphia suburb of Ardmore. The group, mostly consisting of atheists and agnostics, mobilizes to knock on doors and make phone calls on behalf of Democratic…

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Trump ought to face the charge of seditious conspiracy just as the Oath Keepers did

Trump ought to face the charge of seditious conspiracy just as the Oath Keepers did

Frank Figliuzzi writes: Tuesday’s convictions of five Oath Keepers — including founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes and top deputy Kelly Meggs who were found guilty of the gravely serious charge of seditious conspiracy — may seem like game-winning goals, but they’re just critical points the Justice Department put on the board right before halftime. The government’s successful prosecution sidelines some strong players, but the captains and coaches we have reason to suspect called the shots on Jan. 6, 2021 (former President…

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Musk brings one of America’s most prominent Nazis back to Twitter

Musk brings one of America’s most prominent Nazis back to Twitter

Rolling Stone reports: Neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin has been reinstated to Twitter under Elon Musk’s new policies for the platform. The founder of the white supremacist website The Daily Stormer had been banned from Twitter since 2013. Neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin, who was booted off Twitter in 2013, has had his account restored. pic.twitter.com/sEv5UDVUw2 — Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) December 2, 2022 Anglin has publicly indicated that the goal of his operation and adherence to white nationalist ideology is to “ethnically cleanse White nations…

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Surging Twitter antisemitism unites fringe, encourages violence, officials say

Surging Twitter antisemitism unites fringe, encourages violence, officials say

The Washington Post reports: Current and former federal officials are warning that a surge in hate speech and disinformation about Jews on Twitter is uniting and popularizing some of the same extremists who have helped push people to engage in violent protests including the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress. The officials are predicting that Twitter will contribute to more violence in the months ahead, citing the proliferation of extreme content, including support for genocidal Nazis by celebrities with wide…

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How Europe lets Iran and Russia get away with murder

How Europe lets Iran and Russia get away with murder

Matthew Karnitschnig reports: On a balmy September evening last year, an Azeri man carrying a Russian passport crossed the border from northern Cyprus into southern Cyprus. He traveled light: a pistol, a handful of bullets and a silencer. It was going to be the perfect hit job. Then, just as the man was about to step into a rental car and carry out his mission — which prosecutors say was to gun down five Jewish businessmen, including an Israeli billionaire…

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Apple makes plans to move production out of China

Apple makes plans to move production out of China

The Wall Street Journal reports: In recent weeks, Apple has accelerated plans to shift some of its production outside China, long the dominant country in the supply chain that built the world’s most valuable company, say people involved in the discussions. It is telling suppliers to plan more actively for assembling Apple products elsewhere in Asia, particularly India and Vietnam, they say, and looking to reduce dependence on Taiwanese assemblers led by Foxconn Technology Group. Turmoil at a place called…

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Cooked leftovers suggest Neanderthals were foodies

Cooked leftovers suggest Neanderthals were foodies

The Guardian reports: If you thought Neanderthals survived on a diet of foraged berries and uncooked animal flesh, think again. Charred remnants of what appears to be the world’s oldest cooked meal ever found have been unearthed in a cave complex in northern Iraq, prompting speculation that Neanderthals may have been foodies. “Our findings are the first real indication of complex cooking – and thus of food culture – among Neanderthals,” said Chris Hunt, a professor of cultural paleoecology at…

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The GOP can’t hide from extremism

The GOP can’t hide from extremism

Ronald Brownstein writes: The role of extremist white nationalists in the GOP may be approaching an inflection point. The backlash against former President Donald Trump’s meeting with Nick Fuentes, an avowed racist, anti-Semite, and Christian nationalist, has compelled more Republican officeholders than at any point since the Charlottesville riot in 2017 to publicly condemn those extremist views. Yet few GOP officials have criticized the former president personally—much less declared that Trump’s meeting with Fuentes and Ye, the rapper (formerly known…

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No one, including federal judges and former presidents, stands above the law

No one, including federal judges and former presidents, stands above the law

Shan Wu writes: Let’s be clear: Judge Cannon tried to halt a national security investigation by enjoining DOJ from access to documents seized in the search warrant through what’s called “equitable relief’ – the powers judges use to issue injunctions. The 11th Circuit appeals judges explicitly recognized the danger in Judge Cannon’s action, noting that Trump’s arguments for a special master “would allow any subject of a search warrant to invoke a federal court’s equitable jurisdiction”–in other words, every criminal…

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