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 …

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 …

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.”

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.

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.

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 …

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.

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 …

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.

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 …

FDA vaccine experts give positive review to Moderna coronavirus shots, clearing way for authorization  —  The Food and Drug Administration's panel of vaccine advisors on Thursday gave the green light for federal regulators to grant Moderna's vaccine emergency use authorization …

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.

Dominion demands that Sidney Powell retract ‘baseless and false allegations’ about voting machines.  —  Dominion Voting Systems sent a blistering letter on Wednesday night to the right-wing lawyer Sidney Powell, demanding that she publicly retract her “wild, knowingly baseless and false accusations” …

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 …

McConnell getting much of what he wants in emerging relief deal  —  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is getting much of what he wants in an emerging coronavirus relief package, after months of digging in his heels against a demand by Democratic leaders to pass a multi-trillion-dollar package …

DHS Inspectors Found ICE Detainees Who Were Kept In Solitary Confinement For 300 Days  —  Nearly a dozen immigrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement were kept in solitary confinement for more than two months, including two people who were isolated for more than 300 days …

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.

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 …

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.

How Offshore Oddsmakers Made a Killing off Gullible Trump Supporters  —  On Dec. 9, Donald Trump tweeted something incorrect but at least closer to the ballpark of the truth than most of what he's posted since losing his reelection campaign.  —  “At 10 p.m. on Election Evening, we were at 97% …

Antrim County hand tally affirms certified election results  —  Clara Hendrickson Paul EganDetroit Free Press  —  An audit conducted Thursday of the votes cast in the November presidential election in Antrim County, the heart of a conspiracy theory about Dominion Voting Systems leveling false allegations …

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 …

How Homeland Security Blurs Jurisdictions  —  Fusion centers were established after 9/11 to facilitate the sharing of counterterrorism intelligence among different agencies.  —  This list of intelligence reports was obtained through a request filed by The Nation under the Florida Sunshine Law, the state's open records statute.