Top Items:
New York Times:
Trump Gives Clemency to More Allies, Including Manafort, Stone and Charles Kushner — It was the second wave of pardons and commutations by the president in two days, showing his willingness to use his power aggressively on behalf of loyalists. — President Trump doled out clemency …
Discussion:
The Dispatch, The Sun, Forbes, Breitbart, The Daily Caller, Mock Paper Scissors, TalkLeft, Fortune, Alternet.org, Vox and Associated Press
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CNN:
Trump issues 26 new pardons, including ones for Stone, Manafort and Charles Kushner — Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump on Wednesday evening announced 26 new pardons, including ones for longtime ally Roger Stone, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner's father, Charles.
Discussion:
Mother Jones, Los Angeles Times, KTVZ-TV, Slate, Outside the Beltway, Washington Times, Meduza.io, Raw Story, Bloomberg, Talking Points Memo, Mediaite, POLITICUSUSA, Deadline and RedState
The White House:
Statement from the Press Secretary Regarding Executive Grants of Clemency — Today, President Donald J. Trump granted Full Pardons to 26 individuals and commuted part or all of the sentences of an additional 3 individuals. — James Kassouf — President Trump granted a full pardon to James Kassouf.
Discussion:
Business Insider, CNN, The Last Refuge, USA Today, Power Line, FOX 5 San Diego, The Texas Tribune, Reason, Raw Story and WTOP
Tim Miller / The Bulwark:
The Treasonous Pardon of Paul Manafort — Trump, Russia, and the swamp won. America lost. — For four years we've been force-fed the preposterous dual notions that Donald Trump intended to “drain the swamp” and that any suggestion his campaign colluded with Russia in its interference in the 2016 election was a media hoax.
Discussion:
Raw Story, FOX 5 San Diego and NBC Bay Area
Emma Austin / Courier-Journal:
President Trump grants pardon for Louisville activist Christopher 2X — A prominent Louisville activist has been granted a full pardon by President Donald Trump, according to a press release from the White House. — Christopher 2X, who runs a nonprofit in Louisville dedicated …
Discussion:
Reason
Clarence Williams / Washington Post:
Trump pardons former Prince George's County police officer — President Trump granted a pardon Wednesday to a former Prince George's County canine police officer who was convicted of a federal civil rights violation for releasing her police dog on an unarmed homeless man in 1995.
Zachary Basu / Axios:
Trump pardons Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Charles Kushner — President Trump granted full pardons to 26 more people on Wednesday night, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, longtime associate Roger Stone and Charles Kushner, the father of Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Discussion:
New York Magazine, Jezebel, LifeZette, Law & Crime, Fox News and Townhall
Noah Bookbinder / USA Today:
The craven corruption of Trump's pardons: Separate justice system for friends and allies — For Trump, whether the crime is corruption, lying to law enforcement or even war crimes, justice does not apply to those who have been loyal to him. — The pardon power is traditionally viewed …
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo and Roll Call
Michael Kranish / Washington Post:
Trump vowed to drain the swamp. Then he granted clemency to three former congressmen convicted of federal crimes.
John Eligon / New York Times:
Black Doctor Dies of Covid-19 After Complaining of Racist Treatment — “He made me feel like a drug addict,” Dr. Susan Moore said, accusing a white doctor of downplaying her complaints of pain and suggesting she should be discharged. — Lying in a hospital bed with an oxygen tube hugging her nostrils …
Discussion:
Raw Story
Greg Sargent / Washington Post:
Oops! Trump stomps all over David Perdue's dishonest TV messaging — As we have noted, a great many Republican ads in the Georgia runoffs feature endless fearmongering about phantom threats — scary non-white socialists, defunded police departments, Antifa mobs destroying property.
Discussion:
Business Insider, The Dispatch, Talking Points Memo and CBS News
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William Saletan / Slate:
Trump's Coup Attempt Could Cost Republicans the Senate
Discussion:
CNN, USA Today, IJR, Sara A. Carter, One America News Network, Raw Story, Alternet.org and The Signorile Report
Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
Republicans just voted to defund the police — President Trump and Republicans campaigned in 2020 by scaring Americans into thinking Democrats would “defund the police” and unleash a crime spree. — This helped Republicans keep control of the Senate (for now) and grow their numbers in the House.
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal and NBC Bay Area
Isaac Arnsdorf / ProPublica:
Inside Trump and Barr's Last-Minute Killing Spree — Private executioners paid in cash. Middle-of-the-night killings. False or incomplete justifications. ProPublica obtained court records showing how the outgoing administration is using its final days to execute the most federal prisoners since World War II.
Kaitlan Collins / CNN:
Giuliani told to preserve all records as lawyers for Dominion warn legal action is ‘imminent’ — (CNN)A defamation law firm representing Dominion Voting Systems has sent letters to White House counsel Pat Cipollone and President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani instructing …
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Veronica Stracqualursi / CNN:
Voting machine company executive sues Trump allies for defamation
Discussion:
Law & Crime, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Forbes, Summit News, Washington Examiner and the way of improvement …
Paul Campos / New York Magazine:
Pence Should Remove Trump From Office on Sunday — In what are supposed to be the final days of his presidency, Donald Trump has been discussing invoking martial law to overturn the results of the 2020 election and seizing supposedly fraudulent voting machines that — according …
Discussion:
Outside the Beltway and Lawyers, Guns & Money
Politico:
‘Complete clusterf—’: Trump leaves Washington in limbo — President Donald Trump has once again thrown Washington into chaos, making uneven demands that have left lawmakers baffled and Americans coping with a global pandemic uncertain when they'll be getting long-promised financial help.
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Politico:
New cracks emerge among Democrats over Biden's Pentagon pick — President-elect Joe Biden's historic choice for secretary of defense is running into hurdles on Capitol Hill, as key Democrats express concerns publicly and privately about whether installing a retired four-star general at the helm …
Business Insider:
EXCLUSIVE: A deputy to Eric Trump helped build a campaign shell company to protect the president from grift. But the secretive operation morphed into a mystery — even for top Trump campaign staffers. … - One of Eric Trump's top deputies played an important role overseeing …
CNN:
Tensions intensify between Biden and Pentagon over stalled transition briefings — (CNN)President-elect Joe Biden's transition team on Wednesday disputed suggestions from Pentagon officials who questioned the accuracy of Biden's assertion a day earlier that the Department of Defense has refused …
Discussion:
Raw Story
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Reese Oxner / NPR:
Twitter Will Reset @POTUS Account To 0 Followers After Biden Transition
Discussion:
CBS San Francisco, Al Jazeera, Newsbusters, UPI, Deadline and New York Post, more at Techmeme »
Karen Tumulty / Washington Post:
Trump is trashing the government on his way out. Biden is confident he can fix it. — President Trump, growing more unhinged by the hour, appears to be doing his best to trash the federal government on his way out — a matter of no small concern to the successor who, starting at noon on Jan. 20 …
Discussion:
Forbes, The Moderate Voice, The Daily Caller, Washington Examiner, NPR, The Daily Beast, The Guardian, LifeZette, Breitbart, Center for Public Integrity, HotAir and Mediaite
Yascha Mounk / Persuasion:
Why I'm Losing Trust in the Institutions — The CDC came scarily close to adopting a plan that would, according to its own models, have killed thousands of Americans. — 1 hr ago — Who should be first in line to get the vaccine against Covid-19? — These kinds of decisions are never easy …
Robert Kuttner / American Prospect:
Biden's Cabinet: The Scorecard So Far — The Biden administration's nominee for secretary of the interior, Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM), speaks at the Queen Theater in Wilmington, Delaware, December 19, 2020. — As Prospect readers know, we've worked since March to shed light on appointments …
The Daily Beast:
‘This Is Just What Jared Does’: Kushner Bails on Trump's Mission to Destroy the 2020 Election — The president's son-in-law has developed a reputation in Trumpland for being conspicuously absent when things turn rocky. — As President Donald Trump tries to nullify the 2020 election …
Discussion:
New York Times, Lawfare, Alternet.org and Election Law Blog
David Sirota Andrew Perez / Jacobin:
Where in the World Is Kamala Harris? — Vice president-elect Kamala Harris made headlines earlier this year pushing $2,000 checks for all American. But suddenly, despite being desperately needed right now, she's nowhere to be found on the issue. — Our new issue, “Failure Is an Option,” is out now.
Discussion:
Fox News, CBS Boston and Alternet.org
Brooke Singman / Fox News:
DOJ officials in ‘ongoing discussions’ about Hunter Biden special counsel, some say it's ‘warranted’: sources — Former Attorney General Bill Barr, who left the DOJ on Wednesday, said this week that he had “not seen a reason” to appoint a special counsel to probe Hunter Biden.
Discussion:
Washington Examiner
NBC New York:
Andrew Yang Files Paperwork to Run for New York City Mayor — Businessman and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang has filed paperwork to run for mayor of New York City, the city's Campaign Finance Board confirmed on Wednesday. — Yang's filing has the potential to immediately upend …
Discussion:
City & State NY, New York Post, The Daily Caller, Forbes, Politico, The Hill, The Verge, Breitbart and Fox News
Jeremy Page / Wall Street Journal:
How the U.S. Misread China's Xi: Hoping for a Globalist, It Got an Autocrat — Early hopes that Xi Jinping would want closer integration with the U.S.-led global order have become one of the biggest strategic miscalculations of the post-Cold War era — BEIJING—In the two years …
Betsy Klein / CNN:
White House coronavirus task force no longer proactively sending reports to states — (CNN)The White House coronavirus task force has informed states that it will no longer proactively send its weekly state reports with tailored data and recommendations, according to multiple state officials.
Discussion:
Raw Story
Helen Raleigh / The Federalist:
Meet The Black ‘Trumpsters’ Who Helped Fire Up Minority Voters In 2020 — For the first time in their lives, Reggie Carr and Johnny Thomas registered as Republicans and voted for Trump in the 2020 election — and they aren't stopping their new mission any time soon.
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