Biden picks Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) to be first Native American interior secretary  —  Tribal and progressive activists lobbied hard to put an indigenous leader in charge of a department that helps oversee Indian County  —  President-elect Joe Biden has tapped Democratic Rep. Deb Haaland …

Where Is the President of the United States?  —  Donald Trump is AWOL.  And his disgrace is hiding in plain sight.  —  Before we start: Tonight we're doing a livestream that I'm hoping will go down in legend as The Bulwark version of the Star Wars Holiday Special.  The first 12 minutes will be entirely in Wookie.

Top Biden aide walks back expletive description of Republicans  —  Jen O'Malley Dillon, President-elect Joe Biden's campaign manager and incoming White House deputy chief of staff, walked back comments she made in a recent interview suggesting that congressional Republicans were “a bunch of f—ers.”

Georgia Senate Runoffs: Breaking Down November, Looking to January  —  Dear Readers: This is the last issue of the Crystal Ball this year.  We wanted to finish off our 2020 publishing schedule by taking a deep look at the Georgia Senate runoffs, which will decide control of the Senate on Tuesday, Jan. 5.

Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught  —  The Energy Department and National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, have evidence that hackers accessed their networks as part of an extensive espionage operation that has affected …

Texas lawsuit was the last straw.  I'm leaving the Republican Party: Former NH GOP chair  —  The GOP has ransacked our Constitution and attempted a coup.  The Republican Party of Lincoln is no more.  I'm switching my registration to independent.  —  My mother spent a lifetime trying to teach me to stand for what is right.

Biden picks top North Carolina environmental official to run EPA  —  Michael Regan has forged a multibillion-dollar clean up of coal ash and worked with the state's GOP legislature  —  President-elect Joe Biden will choose to nominate Michael S. Regan, who heads the North Carolina Department …

Uninstalling Stephen Miller  —  How one man's mastery of the dark bureaucratic arts made life a living hell for immigrants and refugees.  —  In November 2019, a former staffer from Breitbart leaked emails from 2015 in which White House advisor Stephen Miller recommended The Camp of the Saints …

Congress flirts with short shutdown as negotiators near stimulus deal  —  Congress is preparing for the possibility of a short government shutdown as leaders attempt to wrap up a nearly $1 trillion coronavirus relief package ahead of a Friday deadline.  —  As of Thursday afternoon …

Pence prepares to oversee Trump's loss — and then leave town  —  On Jan. 6, Vice President Mike Pence will oversee final confirmation of President-elect Joe Biden's victory.  —  Then he'll likely skip town.  —  As vice president, Pence has the awkward but unavoidable duty of presiding …

Sweden's king says ‘we have failed’ over COVID-19, as deaths mount  —  STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Sweden's king said his country had failed in its handling of COVID-19, in a sharp criticism of a pandemic policy partly blamed for a high death toll among the elderly.

Peter Strzok's Declassified Messages Give Insider View Of FBI's Trump Campaign Probe  — The Justice Department declassified a batch of internal FBI messages from Peter Strzok, the former counterintelligence investigator who oversaw Crossfire Hurricane.  — The messages provide a real …

Man really did hack Trump's Twitter account by guessing password, ‘maga2020!,’ Dutch prosecutors say  —  Six years ago, Dutch hacker Victor Gevers logged into President Trump's Twitter account by guessing the password: “yourefired.”  —  Then he did it again.

2020 Election Map  —  Permanent link to this comic: https://xkcd.com/2399/  —  Image URL (for hotlinking/embedding): https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/2020_ election_map.png  —  Comics I enjoy:  —  Three Word Phrase, SMBC, Dinosaur Comics, Oglaf (nsfw), A Softer World, Buttersafe …

Hang On for Three More Months  —  Hunkering down to wait out the coronavirus isn't easy.  The costs of isolation are steep.  Quarantine fatigue is real.  The chance to gather with extended family and friends this holiday season is particularly alluring to those of us battling loneliness.

Axios Buys Charlotte Agenda, a Digital Start-Up, as Part of Push Into Local News  —  The site focuses on service journalism for North Carolina's largest city.  Now it has been scooped up in a deal valued at nearly $5 million and will be a partial model for other cities.

Joe Biden's looming disaster  —  Pity Joe Biden.  He is the dog that finally caught the bus and he is soon to be political roadkill.  While he celebrates his victory in the Electoral College, powerful forces already are engaged to doom him and his presidency.

This hedge-fund billionaire is a huge fan of Sen. Kelly Loeffler — but why?  —  Finance mogul Ken Griffin gave big chunks of cash to Kelly Loeffler's PAC — and the timing is intriguing  —  On Oct. 9, billionaire Ken Griffin, the head of a multinational financial services company …

States report confusion as feds reduce vaccine shipments, even as Pfizer says it has ‘millions’ of unclaimed doses  —  Officials in multiple states said they were alerted late Wednesday that their second shipments of Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine next week had been reduced, sparking widespread confusion …

For NY Times, no news is fit to print about Rep. Swalwell and a spy  —  If you're a New York Times subscriber who also watches the broadcast network evening news and considers that your news diet, there's a very good chance you haven't heard about Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and his ties to an accused Chinese spy a few years ago.

Wyoming lawmaker apologizes for tweet about Wyoming's first Black sheriff  —  A Wyoming legislator has apologized after posting a tweet with racist connotations about Wyoming's first Black sheriff earlier this week.  —  Rep. Cyrus Western, R-Sheridan, said he has since called newly appointed …

NYC's Plummeting Real Estate Sales Cost City $1.2 Billion  —  The pandemic's slowdown in real estate deals has cost New York City $1.2 billion in lost revenue so far this year.  —  Sales of commercial and residential properties — everything from office buildings to hotels and condo units …