Top Items:
Greg Hilburn / The News Star:
Louisiana Congressman-elect Luke Letlow dies with COVID — Louisiana Congressman-elect Luke Letlow has died at Ochsner LSU Health in Shreveport with COVID-19, a family friend confirmed Tuesday night. — Letlow, 41, was transferred from St. Francis Medical Center to the Ochsner LSU Health ICU …
Discussion:
Fox News, Washington Post, National Review, KALB-TV, RedState, New York Post, Twitchy, Townhall, Slate, Crooks and Liars, The Hill, Roll Call, The Sun, The Federalist, KDFX-TV and HotAir
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Melanie Zanona / Politico:
Louisiana congressman-elect dies of Covid — Rep.-elect Luke Letlow (R-La.) has died from the coronavirus, multiple sources confirmed Tuesday evening. He was 41. — Letlow, who announced on Dec. 18 that he tested positive for Covid-19, had been in the intensive care unit at Ochsner LSU Health in Shreveport.
Discussion:
Vox, Louisiana Illuminator, New York Times, National Review, The Right Scoop, Mediaite, UPI, Business Insider, Townhall, RedState, Axios, The Daily Caller and New York Post
Sam Karlin / New Orleans Times-Picayune:
Congressman-elect Luke Letlow, 41, dies from coronavirus complications; 'we're all in disbelief' — Congressman-elect Luke Letlow died Tuesday evening from complications with COVID-19, shaking the Louisiana political world weeks after his election to represent Louisiana's 5th District …
Discussion:
Fox News, BuzzFeed News, NBC News, Balloon Juice, ABC News, HuffPost, NewsNation Now, TheGrio and Political Wire
Melinda Deslatte / Yahoo Money:
Louisiana Congressman-elect Luke Letlow dead from COVID-19 — BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Luke Letlow, Louisiana's incoming Republican member of the U.S. House, died Tuesday night from complications related to COVID-19 only days before he would have been sworn into office. He was 41.
Discussion:
Townhall, The American Independent, WITF, Conservative News Today and Bloomberg
Bryan Pietsch / New York Times:
A congressman-elect from Louisiana died from Covid-19 complications.
A congressman-elect from Louisiana died from Covid-19 complications.
Discussion:
CBS News, Talking Points Memo, Deadline, NPR, Towleroad Gay News and Lawyers, Guns & Money
Natalie Allison / The Tennessean:
Girlfriend warned Nashville police Anthony Warner was building bomb a year ago, report shows — NASHVILLE — Sixteen months before Anthony Quinn Warner's RV exploded in downtown Nashville on Christmas morning, officers visited his home in Antioch after his girlfriend reported that he was making bombs …
Discussion:
USA Today, The Daily Caller, Associated Press, New York Times, Axios, ABC News, Mediaite, National Review, CNN, Outside the Beltway, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Slate, HotAir, Raw Story, Conservative News Today, Crooks and Liars, RedState, The Lid, KDFX-TV, The Week, The US Sun, Towleroad Gay News, The Hill, Washington Examiner, New York Post, WKRN-TV and The Western Journal
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Ben Hall / WTVF-TV:
Anthony Warner's girlfriend warned police he was building bombs in his RV last year
Anthony Warner's girlfriend warned police he was building bombs in his RV last year
Discussion:
Big League Politics, NBC Bay Area, WKRN-TV, NPR and New York Times
James Arkin / Politico:
Strong early-vote turnout gives Dems hope in Georgia runoffs — Early voting in the Georgia Senate runoffs is breaking records — and Democrats have reasons for hope in the numbers. — More than 2.3 million people have voted as of Tuesday morning through mail-in ballots or in-person early voting …
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Lachlan Markay / The Daily Beast:
Ted Cruz Is Pocketing the Money He's Raising for Georgia GOPers. He's Not Alone. — The runoff is a gold mine for politicians. And now that they can run Facebook ads in Georgia, they're rushing for it. — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) needs your help to keep the U.S. Senate in Republican hands.
John Wagner / Washington Post:
Biden, Harris to make closing pitches in Georgia's Senate runoff contests
Biden, Harris to make closing pitches in Georgia's Senate runoff contests
Discussion:
Politico, CBS News, New York Magazine, NBC News, Fox News, National Review and Florida Politics
John Wagner / Washington Post:
Trump calls for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a fellow Republican, to resign — President Trump on Wednesday called for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp to resign, escalating his criticism of a fellow Republican who has refused to intervene in the state's presidential election or embrace Trump's baseless claims of widespread fraud.
Discussion:
Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Political Wire
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Mark Niesse / Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
No fraud: Georgia audit confirms authenticity of absentee ballots — Law enforcement and election investigators didn't find a single fraudulent absentee ballot during an audit of over 15,000 voter signatures, according to a report by the Georgia secretary of state's office released Tuesday.
Max Greenwood / The Hill:
Trump calls on Georgia Gov. Kemp to resign — President Trump called for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp's (R) resignation on Wednesday, hammering him for refusing to back up the president's claim that he carried Georgia in the November presidential election — despite his loss by 12,000 votes …
Discussion:
HuffPost, IJR, Mediaite, POLITICUSUSA and Washington Times
Katherine Rosman / New York Times:
Hilaria Baldwin Talks Spain, Boston, Alec and Instagram — Accused of a “decade long grift where she impersonates a Spanish person,” the entrepreneur (and spouse of Alec Baldwin) talks about being the main character in this last week of 2020. — The first signs that Hilaria Baldwin's life …
Discussion:
New York Post, Twitchy, People.com, The Daily Beast, Power Line, Washington Post, Mediaite, Daily Mail, Page Six and Mercury News
Missy Ryan / Washington Post:
Biden to tap longtime officials for top Pentagon roles — President-elect Joe Biden plans to nominate two former senior officials to fill the Pentagon's No. 2 and No. 3 jobs, transition officials said, further signaling the new administration's intent to forge a more predictable foreign policy …
Discussion:
Politico, New York Daily News, Fox News, Accuracy in Media, The Week and IJR
Wall Street Journal:
Covid-19 Vaccine Made by AstraZeneca, Oxford Is Authorized by U.K. — Green light for emergency use comes as Britain grapples with a surge in cases and a new variant — LONDON—The U.K. authorized a Covid-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca PLC …
Discussion:
Financial Times, ABC News, HotAir, CBS News, CNN, The Week, Bloomberg, Associated Press, Fortune, NewsNation Now and Newsy
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Washington Post:
N.Y. prosecutor hires forensic accounting experts as Trump criminal probe escalates — NEW YORK — The Manhattan District Attorney's Office has retained forensic accounting specialists to aid its criminal investigation of President Trump and his business operations, as prosecutors ramp …
Discussion:
The Hill, Raw Story, Business Insider, The Week and The Intellectualist
Joey Garrison / USA Today:
GOP seeks to roll back mail-in voting in states like Georgia and Pennsylvania that Trump lost — WASHINGTON - As President Donald Trump continues to level baseless claims of voter fraud almost two months after his Nov. 3 election loss, Republican lawmakers in states Trump contested are pushing …
Discussion:
Israpundit and Reuters
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Robert Burns / Associated Press:
US bomber mission over Persian Gulf aimed at cautioning Iran — WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States flew strategic bombers over the Persian Gulf on Wednesday for the second time this month, a show of force meant to deter Iran from attacking American or allied targets in the Middle East.
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Washington Post
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Kyle Cheney / Politico:
How Congress and coronavirus could quash Trump's Electoral College gambit — President Donald Trump's last-gasp bid to overturn his 2020 election defeat appears doomed on Jan. 6, when Congress is set to certify President-elect Joe Biden's victory. — But the byzantine process …
Discussion:
pjmedia.com, Associated Press, CNN, Washington Post, USA Today, Salon, ABC News, New York Times, Raw Story, IJR, The Week, Alabama Political Reporter, The Hill, Israpundit, Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, Axios, The Nation, The Dispatch, The Guardian and Infidel753
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Tal Axelrod / The Hill:
Pence refused to sign on to plan to overturn election, lawyers say
Pence refused to sign on to plan to overturn election, lawyers say
Discussion:
Politico, The Election Wizard, Newsmax, Dallas Morning News and TheBlaze
Austin Carr / Bloomberg:
The Cruise Ship Suicides — Confined mostly to tiny cabins as the pandemic unfolded, crew members struggled to cope. — At first, Jozsef Szaller's crewmates didn't think much of his absence. Szaller, after all, usually skipped going to dinner on the Carnival Breeze …
Alex Weprin / Hollywood Reporter:
CNN's Don Lemon, PBS' Yamiche Alcindor and NBC's Chuck Todd to Guest Author Politico's Playbook (Exclusive) — Politico is turning to high-profile journalists, including Recode co-founder Kara Swisher and Washington Free Beacon editor-in-chief Eliana Johnson, to helm Playbook until a new team starts later in January.
Todd Frankel / Washington Post:
Trump's big policy win: Stronger showers, faster dishwashers. It's something almost no one asked for. — One change he talked about frequently won't happen: A reversal of water limits on toilet flushes — President Trump was on a roll, standing before an adoring crowd in Carson City …
Susan B. Glasser / New Yorker:
The Trümperdämmerung Is a Fitting End to 2020 — As the awful year of 2020 and the awful tenure of Donald Trump both come to an end, the President has partied with the unmasked in Palm Beach and taken credit for a vaccine against a virus that he once counselled could be beaten with bleach.
Discussion:
Breitbart and Washington Times
Washington Free Beacon:
2020 Man of the Year: MAGA Matt Yglesias — You know how it goes: You oppose defunding the cops, and a million rose emojis scream at you for hours. You sign a letter tepidly endorsing free speech, and your colleagues denounce you to your bosses and Twitter.
Discussion:
The Daily Caller
Joel Rose / NPR:
Even If It's ‘Bonkers,’ Poll Finds Many Believe QAnon And Other Conspiracy Theories — Toggle more options — A significant number of Americans believe misinformation about the origins of the coronavirus and the recent presidential election, as well as conspiracy theories like QAnon, according to a new NPR/Ipsos poll.
Discussion:
Raw Story
Yahoo News:
Why the Nashville explosion is confounding terrorism experts — Christmas Day explosion in Nashville, Tennessee, is puzzling even for terrorism commentators and scholars. It employed many familiar features of terrorist attacks in modern history, but the particular combination was unprecedented, raising interesting questions about the
Stephanie Nebehay / Reuters:
Trump pardon of Blackwater Iraq contractors violates international law - UN — GENEVA (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's pardon of four American men convicted of killing Iraqi civilians while working as contractors in 2007 violated U.S. obligations under international law, U.N. human rights experts said on Wednesday.
Discussion:
The Hill and POLITICUSUSA
Marco Rubio / Fox News:
Dr. Fauci lied about coronavirus to manipulate our behavior — that's appalling — Placing blind faith in unelected celebrity scientists has its limits, and we must not be afraid to call them out — Fauci under fire for moving herd immunity goalposts — Thanks to our news media's …
Discussion:
Washington Times and Louder With Crowder
Christina Maxouris / CNN:
US hits record for daily Covid-19 deaths. Winter will be ‘awful’ before we see ‘some light,’ expert says — Nurse uses social media to warn public about Covid-19 — (CNN)The US set two more devastating Covid-19 records as it counted down the hours to the end of what has been a calamitous year for the nation.
Discussion:
New York Post, Talking Points Memo, CBS News, KDFX-TV, CNBC and The Election Wizard
Eric Alterman / The Nation:
Look Beyond the Media Frenzy and Focus on the Fundamentals — In my last column, I'd like to leave you with what I've learned covering the media for more nearly 25 years. — I've been writing a version of this column in just about every other issue of The Nation for nearly 25 years.
Judy Maltz / Haaretz:
Former Jewish American Spy Jonathan Pollard Lands in Israel — Pollard, who was convicted in 1987 of spying for Israel, served 30 years in prison and five years on strict parole in the United States — Former Jewish American spy Jonathan Pollard and his wife Esther landed in Israel …
Discussion:
The Guardian, Associated Press, New York Post and Bloomberg
Alexander Reid Ross / The Daily Beast:
Proud Boys Are at War With Their Female Extremist Wing — A transphobic MMA fighter has announced herself to be the “Den Mother” of the Proud Girls, but some members of the extremist, misogynistic Proud Boys don't want her in the ranks. — BEAST INSIDE — When Donald Trump tweeted …
Discussion:
Raw Story
Aaron Blake / Washington Post:
4 of the most undersold political stories of 2020 — For several years now, I have greeted the new year by recapping some stories from the preceding 12 months that didn't get their due. These are stories that might have escaped casual political followers' attention but merit some reflection either …
Discussion:
Crooks and Liars
NBC News:
Operation Warp Speed at a crawl: Adequately vaccinating Americans will take 10 years at current pace — The Trump administration's Covid-19 vaccine distribution program needs a major shot in the arm because at the current rate, it would take almost 10 years to inoculate enough Americans …
Discussion:
Reason, The Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Magazine and Talking Points Memo