My Call With Ron Johnson: He Knows Biden Won But Won't Admit It  —  The Wisconsin senator says it would be “political suicide.”  —  November 14, 8:37 a.m. my phone rings.  I do a double take on my caller ID and realize who is calling.  I take a deep breath and answer the phone.

MAGA-ite in Manhattan?:  Ivanka Trump's political ambitions seek new home after the White House  —  Friends and former associates say they expect the first daughter to think about running for office, or at least get involved in some way in Republican politics.

Trump likely to announce 2024 bid, but GOP rivals say power will fade post-White House  —  President Trump is likely to announce he'll run again in 2024, perhaps before this term even ends, sources tell Axios.  —  Why it matters: Trump has already set in motion two important strategies …

Biden: 'We're Going to Fight Like Hell by Investing in America First'  —  My talk with Joe Biden on his first few months, and his next four years.  —  President-elect Joe Biden was in a good mood as we talked on the phone Tuesday evening for an hour — he in Delaware and me in Bethesda, Md. He apologized, though, for being late.

Release of PPP loan recipients data reveals troubling patterns  —  Following months of litigation between the Small Business Administration and news organizations seeking data about who benefited from pandemic relief programs, the agency on Tuesday night released a sweeping dataset …

Covid-19: Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine judged safe for use in UK from next week  —  The UK has become the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, paving the way for mass vaccination.  —  Britain's medicines regulator, the MHRA, says the jab …

The GOP's electoral mischief  —  MO PROBLEMS — Scooplet: Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) has been telling colleagues and allies that he plans to challenge the Electoral College votes when Congress officially certifies Joe Biden's victory on Jan. 6, as long as a Senate Republican joins him in the long-shot effort, sources tell your Huddle host.

Presidential Transition Live Updates: Biden to Discuss Virus-Weakened Economy Amid Stalemate Over Aid  —  President-elect Joe Biden is set to meet virtually with small-business owners and workers hurt by the pandemic.  The Justice Department is investigating a potential bribery scheme for a Trump pardon.

The Kelly Loeffler, Raphael Warnock runoff crosses a line  —  One of Kelly Loeffler's first public appearances as a U.S. senator came last January at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.  —  “I am so humbled to be here with you today in this sacred place …

Confessions of a Clintonworld Exile  —  Doug Band worked alongside Bill Clinton every day for nearly two decades, first as a body man and then as one of the primary architects of his lucrative and often-fraught post-presidency.  Then came a seismic falling out with accusations of self-dealing and soap-opera-level psychodrama.

RNC blasts Politico over Michigan election story  —  Politico chief political correspondent Tim Alberta packed a lot into his sizzling Nov. 24 feature, “The Inside Story of Michigan's Fake Voter Fraud Scandal.”  There's a tight narration of the Trump campaign's destructive effort to undo the Michigan vote …

Congress shoots down Trump's threat to veto defense bill  —  Congress is moving forward on a must-pass defense policy bill without repealing a legal shield for social media companies, rejecting a last-minute veto threat from President Donald Trump.  —  The final version of the National …

No-kill, lab-grown meat to go on sale for first time  —  Singapore's approval of chicken cells grown in bioreactors is seen as landmark moment across industry  —  Cultured meat, produced in bioreactors without the slaughter of an animal, has been approved for sale by a regulatory authority for the first time.

Obama: Criminal justice reformers ‘lost a big audience’ with defund the police rhetoric  —  Former President Barack Obama suggested in a new interview that “defund the police” was little more than a “snappy slogan” that polarized many Americans and was ineffectual at producing broader reforms …

There Wasn't That Much Split-Ticket Voting In 2020  —  The narrative of the 2020 election is that Joe Biden did pretty well ... but down-ballot Democrats, not so much.  And while this is true if you look simply at the results — Republicans defended most of their vulnerable Senate seats …

Walter Williams, R.I.P.  —  The great economist and freedom fighter Walter Williams has died.  This is an incredibly sad news.  Walter was a great communicator of ideas and a prolific, provocative and uncompromising writer.  He was the John M. Olin distinguished professor of economics at George Mason University.

U.N. Reclassifies Cannabis as a Less Dangerous Drug  —  A United Nations commission voted to remove marijuana for medical use from a list of the most risky narcotics, such as heroin.  —  A United Nations commission voted on Wednesday to remove cannabis for medicinal purposes from a category …

Why Did Palantir Technologies Move Its Headquarters From Silicon Valley to Denver?  —  The secretive and controversial data-mining firm moved its headquarters to LoDo earlier this year.  And while some city and state government officials lobbied for the relocation, others are furious.

China Has One Powerful Friend Left in the U.S.: Wall Street  —  Trade deal left many U.S. industries disappointed, but financial firms such as BlackRock see a potential windfall  —  In February 2018, Beijing's chief trade negotiator was in Washington to try to avert a trade war.

Robert Mueller does rare interview in ‘Oath’ podcast  —  NEW YORK (AP) — Chuck Rosenberg makes no secret of his admiration for Robert Mueller.  —  Keep that in mind, along with the format of Rosenberg's podcast “The Oath,” now that NBC announced that the former special counsel who looked …

Roger Stone, Who Had His Ass Saved by Barr, Turns on ‘Deep State’ Attorney General  —  SNAKE PIT  —  Remember in February when Attorney General Bill Barr trashed his department's reputation to override the recommended prison term for Roger Stone and push for a much shorter sentence?

Anticipating Senate bottlenecks, Biden races to fill agency jobs  —  Now that he's chosen a big chunk of his Cabinet nominees, President-elect Joe Biden's transition team is focusing increasingly on selecting candidates for government positions that do not require Senate confirmation.

Hungary's rightwing rulers downplay MEP ‘gay orgy’ scandal amid hypocrisy accusations  —  József Szájer had boasted of rewriting constitution to define marriage as heterosexual institution  —  Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has condemned the behaviour …

The “racial wealth gap” is a class gap  —  Rich people are very white, but most white people aren't rich  —  Good morning it's Wednesday!  —  And what a fine day to discuss an unfashionable leftist view of mine.  The discussion “racial wealth gap” is a somewhat perverse way to think about the real issue …

Pro-Trump Attorney Lin Wood and Pardoned Michael Flynn Call for Trump to Declare Martial Law  —  Lin Wood, an Atlanta-based lawyer who says President Donald Trump asked him to join the effort to challenge Joe Biden's election victory, is promoting a right-wing group's call for Trump …

WHISTLEBLOWER: I Drove ‘Thousands of Ballots’ From New York to Pennsylvania  —  On Tuesday, a truck driver testified that he had driven thousands of ballots from Bethpage, N.Y., to Lancaster, Pa., two weeks before Election Day.  Phill Kline, a former attorney general of Kansas and director …