memeorandum: Ex-Jeffrey Epstein girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell seeks $28.5 million bail package (CBS News)

10:46 AM ET, December 15, 2020

Top Items:

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

Inside the Right-Wing Media Bubble, Where the Myth of a Trump Win Lives On — The Electoral College has affirmed Biden's victory. That doesn't mean that Trump-friendly news outlets have accepted it. — President Trump's media criticism is usually binary — there are “good stories,” favorable to him, and then the other category.

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, The Nation, CBS News, NPR, Common Dreams, Raw Story, Politico and Detroit Free Press

Politico:

‘Time for everybody to move on’: Senate GOP accepts Biden's win — Senate Republicans are finally starting to recognize Joe Biden as the next president of the United States — even if they waited until the very last minute. — When asked on Monday afternoon whether Biden was the president-elect …

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, Axios, New York Times, No More Mister Nice Blog, The American Independent, CNN, DemCast, CBS Chicago, Business Insider, The Week, Mediaite and BuzzFeed News

Jeremy Barr / Washington Post:

‘This is the reality’: Newsmax and One America grapple uneasily with Biden's electoral college victory — For the past six weeks, two upstart cable news channels — Newsmax and One America News — have tried to outflank Fox News from the right by embracing President Trump's strategy of election denialism.

Discussion: Daily Kos, The Carpentariat and The Week

Aaron Rupar / Vox:
Biden's post-Electoral College speech was a stinging rebuke of Trump

Discussion: CBS News, Mediaite, Washington Examiner, COURIER, IJR, Talking Points Memo, UPI, HotAir, Power Line, TMZ.com, NECN and Associated Press, more at Mediagazer »

Washington Post:
As electoral college formalizes Biden's win, Trump backers hold their own vote

Discussion: Raw Story, ABC News, Washington Examiner, Associated Press, BuzzFeed News, Law & Crime, The Hill, HotAir, CBS San Francisco, Bloomberg, Fox News and The Guardian

Wall Street Journal:
More Republicans Now Say Joe Biden Is President-Elect

Discussion: Roll Call, CBS News, Associated Press, The Week, Outside the Beltway, Raw Story, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Axios, Washington Post, Washington Times and One America News Network

New York Times:

Moderna Vaccine Is Highly Protective and Prevents Severe Covid-19, Data Show — The positive review likely ensures that the F.D.A. will approve a second coronavirus vaccine this week for millions of Americans. — WASHINGTON — The coronavirus vaccine made by Moderna is highly protective …

Discussion: Politico, CBS News, CNBC, Balloon Juice, The Week, abc7NY and The Verge

Wall Street Journal:
FDA Finds Moderna Covid-19 Vaccine ‘Highly Effective’

Discussion: STAT, Washington Examiner, UPI, Denver Post, Cyprus Mail, New York Post, abc7NY and NBC Boston

Mary Ilyushina / CNN:

Putin finally congratulates Biden on US election victory — Biden: Trump's entire presidency has been a gift to Putin — Moscow (CNN)Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Joe Biden on his victory in the US presidential election Tuesday, six weeks after the vote …

Discussion: Washington Examiner, USA Today, Business Insider, TASS, Associated Press, NBC News, Bloomberg, Raw Story and Crooks and Liars

Anton Troianovski / New York Times:

Putin Congratulates Biden After Electoral College Vote — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had delayed acknowledging the victory of President-elect Joseph R Biden Jr. for over a month, citing President Trump's legal challenges. — MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin …

Discussion: Washington Post, Slate, The Hill, New York Post and The Week

President of Russia:
Congratulations to Joseph R. Biden on winning US presidential election

Discussion: Vox, CBS News, NPR, New York Times, Lawyers, Guns & Money, CNBC, IJR and Mediaite

CNN:
CNN-Bellingcat investigation identifies Russian specialists who trailed Putin's nemesis Alexey Navalny before he was poisoned

Discussion: The Moscow Times, Washington Examiner, KIFI-TV, The Week and bellingcat

Ruth Marcus / Washington Post:

Barr failed at his job. His bootlicking resignation letter made that clear. — William P. Barr told friends, when he was tapped for attorney general two years ago, that he was returning to the position to help save the Justice Department. Barr failed spectacularly at that task and ruined his reputation in the process.

Discussion: Law & Crime, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Washington Examiner, Denver Post and New York Post

Mona Charen / The Bulwark:

Bye-Bye, Bill Barr — The mostly tarnished legacy of Trump's mostly complicit attorney general. — Some heads snapped when Attorney General William Barr told the truth on December 1. “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”

Discussion: Washington Free Beacon, Politico, RedState, Townhall, The Guardian, Boston Herald, CNN and TalkLeft

Jerry Lambe / Law & Crime:

Georgia's Supreme Court Rejected Trump's Suit Over the Weekend. His Proxy Appealed Another Case and Lost Immediately on Monday. — Not long after rejecting outgoing President Donald Trump's election gripes, the Supreme Court of Georgia received and shredded an appeal by the lame duck's proxy on Monday.

Discussion: Mediaite

Michelle Goldberg / New York Times:
Just How Dangerous Was Donald Trump?

Discussion: Lawyers, Guns & Money, Progressive Eruptions, Daily Kos and American Interregnum

Robert Tracinski / The Bulwark:
It's Not About This Election, It's About the Next One

Discussion: Media Matters for America, Vox, RealClearPolitics, New York Times, National Review, Blue Virginia, Washington Post, Daily Kos, Wisconsin Examiner and WPRI-TV

Alex Isenstadt / Politico:

Trump antagonizes Republicans with Georgia fundraising ploy — President Donald Trump couldn't make it any clearer: He needs his supporters to fork over cash for the all-important Georgia Senate runoff elections. — “We MUST defend Georgia from the Dems!” he wrote in one recent text message.

Discussion: Washington Post, Washington Examiner, Savannah Morning News, The Hill, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Talking Points Memo, Florida Politics, Raw Story, Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg, Georgia Recorder, Associated Press and Common Dreams

Kylie Atwood / CNN:

Pompeo to meet Biden's secretary of state nominee this week — Washington (CNN)President-elect Joe Biden's pick for secretary of state is expected to visit the State Department and meet with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday for the first time since Biden's victory, according to three sources familiar with the planning.

Discussion: The Guardian

John Wagner / Washington Post:
Live updates: With his victory cemented, Biden heading to Georgia to campaign for pair of Senate candidates

Discussion: Associated Press, ABC News, New York Times and The Guardian

Politico:
Biden puts skin in the game in Georgia

Discussion: New York Magazine, NBC News, Washington Examiner, New York Post and One America News Network

Jonathan Swan / Axios:

Scoop: Trump's frenetic, fanciful, bitter final plea — Right up to Monday's Electoral College vote, President Trump held the false hope that Republican-controlled state legislatures would replace electors with allies who'd overturn Joe Biden's win, two people who discussed the matter with him told Axios.

Discussion: HotAir and Raw Story

New York Times:

Scope of Russian Hack Becomes Clear: Multiple U.S. Agencies Were Hit — The Pentagon, intelligence agencies, nuclear labs and Fortune 500 companies use software that was found to have been compromised by Russian hackers. The sweep of stolen data is still being assessed.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, MIT Technology Review, Reuters, Talking Points Memo, The Week, Washington Post, WTOP, The Last Refuge, UPI, The Daily Caller, The Verge, Vanity Fair, New Republic and Vox, more at Techmeme »

Eric Geller / Politico:
‘Massively disruptive’ cyber crisis engulfs multiple agencies

Discussion: Washington Post, Raw Story, Boing Boing, The Gateway Pundit, The Daily Beast, NOQ Report, CNN and Lawfare, more at Techmeme »

Fox News:

Top Facebook, Twitter execs donated tens of thousands of dollars to Biden campaign — No Facebook or Twitter executives were found to have donated to Trump's campaign — Big Tech has shown a ‘consistent hostility’ towards the center-right: Karl Rove — Top executives at Facebook …

Discussion: The Federalist

Bernard Goldberg / The Hill:
Don't expect any ‘media culpas’ over ignoring Hunter Biden before the election

Discussion: The American Spectator and New York Post

Jake Tapper / CNN:

Congressman cites Trump's efforts to overturn election in announcing decision to quit GOP — (CNN)In an exclusive interview, Rep. Paul Mitchell, Republican of Michigan, told CNN that his disgust and disappointment with President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the election …

CNN:
READ: Rep. Paul Mitchell's letter quitting the GOP, fearing ‘long-term harm to our democracy’ with its support for Trump's actions

Discussion: Detroit Free Press, Washington Post, New York Times, VICE, CNBC, Washington Examiner, HotAir, Raw Story, Liberty Unyielding, The Hill, Washington Times, BuzzFeed News, KIFI-TV, Business Insider and The Intellectualist

dagbladet.no:

Dagbladet can reveal that Norwegian authorities intervened when Saudi Arabia deployed a mysterious ten-man security team to Norway. — The Norwegian Police Security Service has informed a Norway-based critic of the Saudi regime about the case. — He fears for his safety. — Line Fransson

Danielle Paquette / Washington Post:

Boko Haram claims kidnapping of over 300 boys in Nigeria, marking an alarming move west — DAKAR, Senegal — Boko Haram asserted responsibility Tuesday for laying siege to a secondary school in northwestern Nigeria and abducting more than 300 boys, marking a striking leap from the extremist group's usual area of operation.

Discussion: Al Jazeera, The Guardian and UPI

John Sudworth / BBC:

China's ‘tainted’ cotton — China is forcing hundreds of thousands of Uighurs and other minorities into hard, manual labour in the vast cotton fields of its western region of Xinjiang, according to new research seen by the BBC. — Based on newly discovered online documents …

Discussion: Center for Global Policy, The Guardian and CNN

Charles Bethea / New Yorker:

Asking All Georgians: Are You Seventeen and a Half? — There are twenty-three thousand teen-agers in the state who weren't old enough to vote in November, but who will be old enough to vote in the Senate runoffs, in January. These volunteers tried to find them.

Luke Broadwater / New York Times:

No Labels, Planning Centrist Push in New Congress, Taps Larry Hogan — The bipartisan organization has selected the Maryland governor, a Republican, as a leader, ramping up its campaign to influence the new Congress. — WASHINGTON — The bipartisan political organization No Labels plans …

Discussion: The Hill

New York Times:

So Jeffrey Toobin Had a Zoom Incident. What Now? — How a leading man of legal journalism lost his sweetest gig. — Until Jeffrey Toobin's fateful appointment with Zoom on Oct. 15, his quarantine was going better than most people's. — In August, his eighth book, “True Crimes and Misdemeanors …

Discussion: Forbes and Twitchy

James Kirkup / Spectator:

The madness of the Covid Christmas amnesty — London will enter Tier 3 Covid restrictions on Wednesday, because people are mixing too freely and thus spreading a deadly virus. Next week, those restrictions will vanish for five days, allowing people to mix more freely, thus spreading a deadly virus.

Mike Brest / Washington Examiner:

Fauci recommends Biden and Harris get COVID-19 vaccine right away — Dr. Anthony Fauci urged President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to get the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible. — Fauci, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force and an infectious disease expert …

Discussion: Politico, Associated Press, The Week and Talking Points Memo

Associated Press:

Pandemic backlash jeopardizes public health powers, leaders — Tisha Coleman has lived in close-knit Linn County, Kansas, for 42 years and never felt so alone. — As the public health administrator, she's struggled every day of the coronavirus pandemic to keep her rural county along the Missouri border safe.

Jeff Stein / SpyTalk:

Can the FBI Stop the Trump Extremists? — The president's backers are openly calling for sedition, secession, even murder, while police struggle with sympathizers in their ranks — Last month a young Georgia man and his girlfriend were stopped by Washington, D.C. police as they sauntered across …