Trump has now officially lost all of his postelection challenges in the Supreme Court

Trump has now officially lost all of his postelection challenges in the Supreme Court

BuzzFeed News reports: Former president Donald Trump has officially lost all of his postelection legal challenges in the US Supreme Court, after the court announced Monday that the justices had refused to take up his final case out of Wisconsin. Trump and his Republican allies lost more than 60 lawsuits in state and federal courts challenging President Joe Biden’s wins in Wisconsin and a handful of other key states. They petitioned the Supreme Court to hear a small number of…

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An ancient Greek approach to risk and the lessons it can offer the modern world

An ancient Greek approach to risk and the lessons it can offer the modern world

A vase from ancient Greek civilization depicts Apollo consulting the oracle of Delphi. G. Dagli Orti/DeAgostini Collection via Getty Images By Joshua P. Nudell, Westminster College Most of us take big and small risks in our lives every day. But COVID-19 has made us more aware of how we think about taking risks. Since the start of the pandemic, people have been forced to weigh their options about how much risk is worth taking for ordinary activities – should they,…

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Russian disinformation campaign aims to undermine confidence in Pfizer, other Covid-19 vaccines, U.S. officials say

Russian disinformation campaign aims to undermine confidence in Pfizer, other Covid-19 vaccines, U.S. officials say

The Wall Street Journal reports: Russian intelligence agencies have mounted a campaign to undermine confidence in Pfizer Inc.’s and other Western vaccines, using online publications that in recent months have questioned the vaccines’ development and safety, U.S. officials said. An official with the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which monitors foreign disinformation efforts, identified four publications that he said have served as fronts for Russian intelligence. The websites played up the vaccines’ risk of side effects, questioned their efficacy, and…

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Yes, all of the COVID-19 vaccines are very good. No, they’re not all the same

Yes, all of the COVID-19 vaccines are very good. No, they’re not all the same

Hilda Bastian writes: Public-health officials are enthusiastic about the new, single-shot COVID-19 vaccine from Johnson & Johnson, despite its having a somewhat lower efficacy at preventing symptomatic illness than other available options. Although clinical-trial data peg that rate at 72 percent in the United States, compared with 94 and 95 percent for the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, many experts say we shouldn’t fixate on those numbers. Much more germane, they say, is the fact that the Johnson & Johnson shot,…

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The virus is mutating — but we can still beat it, one vaccination at a time

The virus is mutating — but we can still beat it, one vaccination at a time

Dhruv Khullar writes: Last March, during the first wave of the pandemic, Adriana Heguy set out to sequence coronavirus genomes. At the time, New York City’s hospitals were filling up, and American testing capacity was abysmal; the focus was on increasing testing, to figure out who had the virus and who didn’t. But Heguy, the director of the Genome Technology Center at N.Y.U. Langone Health, recognized that diagnostic tests weren’t enough. Tracking mutations in the virus’s genetic code would be…

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Biden rides a Keep It Simple, Stupid strategy to early success

Biden rides a Keep It Simple, Stupid strategy to early success

Politico reports: From the day Joe Biden stepped into the White House, his top priority was clear: Pass Covid relief. Ignore skirmishes elsewhere. Keep the message to Congress simple. And keep the message to the public even clearer: The current health and financial crisis would not go unanswered. “Crisis creates urgency and they made the relief bill the singular focus of their agenda,” said Rahm Emanuel, who as President Obama’s chief of staff in 2009 ushered through a relief package…

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In Georgia, Republicans take aim at role of Black churches in elections

In Georgia, Republicans take aim at role of Black churches in elections

The New York Times reports: Sundays are always special at the St. Philip Monumental A.M.E. church. But in October, the pews are often more packed, the sermon a bit more urgent and the congregation more animated, and eager for what will follow: piling into church vans and buses — though some prefer to walk — and heading to the polls. Voting after Sunday church services, known colloquially as “souls to the polls,” is a tradition in Black communities across the…

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The many links, past and present, between the far-right extremist, Ali Alexander, and the GOP establishment

The many links, past and present, between the far-right extremist, Ali Alexander, and the GOP establishment

Luke O’Brien reports: High above Constitution Avenue, on a rooftop terrace, “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander gazed down at the U.S. Capitol and the chaos he’d helped unleash. A mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters had just stormed the U.S. Capitol, forcing members of Congress to scramble for safety. White nationalists, QAnon cultists and Make America Great Again extremists roamed the halls hunting for politicians. Some carried zip-tie handcuffs. One wore a sweatshirt that read “Camp Auschwitz.” “I don’t…

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‘It is a trap!’: Inside the QAnon attack that never happened

‘It is a trap!’: Inside the QAnon attack that never happened

Politico reports: In a joint intelligence bulletin earlier this week, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security delivered a jarring warning to state and local law enforcement: violent domestic extremists “motivated by the QAnon conspiracy theory” might be mobilized to action because they believed Donald Trump would be inaugurated on March 4. But the date came and went without serious incident. It wasn’t that the false and sprawling conspiracy theory that accuses “Deep State elites” of running a secret pedophile…

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Rep. Andy Levin on Amazon: ‘This is the biggest union election in this century’

Rep. Andy Levin on Amazon: ‘This is the biggest union election in this century’

On Friday, Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI) led a delegation of members of Congress to Bessemer, Alabama, where workers at an Amazon warehouse are striving to become the first unionized facility managed by the e-commerce giant anywhere in the country. David Dayen: Tell me what the mood was like from workers at the Alabama facility? Andy Levin: So on the one hand, the mood was upbeat. Even to some extent euphoric. But also kind of somber and determined. This is no…

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To juice the economy, Biden bets on the poor

To juice the economy, Biden bets on the poor

The New York Times reports: To jump-start the ailing economy, President Biden is turning to the lowest-paid workers in America, and to the people who are currently unable to work at all. Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic relief package, which cleared the Senate on Saturday and could be headed for the president’s signature in a matter of days, would overwhelmingly help low earners and the middle class, with little direct aid for the high earners who have largely kept their…

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One old way of keeping Black people from voting still works

One old way of keeping Black people from voting still works

Jamelle Bouie writes: This is the story of how a bill to save the vote and preserve a semblance of democracy for millions of Americans died at the hands of an intransigent, reactionary minority in the Senate, which used the filibuster to do its dirty work. In the summer of 1890, the state of Mississippi held its second constitutional convention of the post-Civil War era. The first, in 1868, was an attempt to make biracial democracy a reality. This second…

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How Never Trumpers are becoming pro-democracy Republicans

How Never Trumpers are becoming pro-democracy Republicans

Jonathan Chait writes: One of the most predictable developments of the post-Trump era was that the small band of anti-Trump conservative intellectuals and Republican officials would quickly melt away. They had been repulsed by Donald Trump’s combination of grotesque character and ideological heterodoxy — opposing American alliances, free trade, and so on – but when given the chance to support Republicans who believed in traditional Reaganite principles and weren’t career criminals, politics would go back to normal and they would…

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Georgia prosecutor probing Trump taps leading racketeering attorney

Georgia prosecutor probing Trump taps leading racketeering attorney

Reuters reports: Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has enlisted the help of Atlanta lawyer John Floyd, who wrote a national guide on prosecuting state racketeering cases. Floyd was hired recently to “provide help as needed” on matters involving racketeering, including the Trump investigation and other cases, said the source, who has direct knowledge of the situation. The move bolsters the team investigating Trump as Willis prepares to issue subpoenas for evidence on whether the former president and his allies…

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