memeorandum: Donald Trump's media company deal is being investigated by securities regulators. (New York Times)

12:40 PM ET, December 6, 2021

Top Items:

Barton Gellman / The Atlantic:

Trump's Next Coup Has Already Begun — Technically, the next attempt to overthrow a national election may not qualify as a coup. It will rely on subversion more than violence, although each will have its place. If the plot succeeds, the ballots cast by American voters will not decide the presidency in 2024.

Discussion: Uneasy Citizenship, Raw Story, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Florida Politics, FiveThirtyEight and Axios

George Packer / The Atlantic:

Are We Doomed? — A year after the insurrection, I'm trying to imagine the death of American democracy. It's somehow easier to picture the Earth blasted and bleached by global warming, or the human brain overtaken by the tyranny of artificial intelligence, than to foresee the end of our 250-year experiment in self-government.

Axios:

Right wing builds its own echo chamber — Conservatives are aggressively building their own apps, phones, cryptocurrencies and publishing houses in an attempt to circumvent what they see as an increasingly liberal internet and media ecosystem. — Why it matters: Many of these efforts …

Discussion: National Review, Raw Story, Political Wire and Twitchy

New York Times:

Donald Trump's media company deal is being investigated by securities regulators. — Securities regulators have opened investigations into the planned merger of a nascent social media company backed by former President Donald J. Trump with a so-called blank-check company that raised nearly $300 million …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Insider and Hollywood Reporter

Dan Mangan / CNBC:

Trump SPAC under investigation by federal regulators, including SEC — Federal regulators are investigating former President Donald Trump's SPAC deal. — The Securities and Exchange Commission and FINRA probes were disclosed in a filing by Digital World Acquisition Corp., the special purpose acquisition company.

Discussion: Variety, Mediaite, WTOP News, Bipartisan Report and One America News Network

Timothy L. O'Brien / Bloomberg:

Who Just Gave Trump $1 Billion? Let's Find Out. — Investments in a blank-check company backing the former president could turn out to be IOUs if he wins back the White House. — Donald Trump's new social media enterprise announced on Saturday that the blank-check company it set …

Katy O'Donnell / Politico:
Trump SPAC faces SEC investigation

Discussion: Deadline, New York Post and Talking Points Memo

Politico:

‘Absolute liars’: Ex-D.C. Guard official says generals lied to Congress about Jan. 6 — A former D.C. National Guard official is accusing two senior Army leaders of lying to Congress and participating in a secret attempt to rewrite the history of the military's response to the Capitol riot.

Discussion: Insider, New York Post, The Lid, POLITICUSUSA, Rolling Stone, Raw Story, Mediaite, Eschaton and Political Wire

Politico:

Democrats fall flat with ‘Latinx’ language — As Democrats seek to reach out to Latino voters in a more gender-neutral way, they've increasingly begun using the word Latinx, a term that first began to get traction among academics and activists on the left. — But that very effort …

Discussion: RedState and The Daily Wire

Washington Post:

Sidney Powell group raised more than $14 million spreading election falsehoods — In the months after President Donald Trump lost the November election, lawyer Sidney Powell raised large sums from donors inspired by her fight to reverse the outcome of the vote.

Discussion: Raw Story, POLITICUSUSA and Rolling Stone

Brian Murphy / Raleigh News & Observer:

Court ruling stops 2022 candidate filing in new NC districts — The North Carolina Court of Appeals has halted candidate filing in U.S. House, state Senate and state House districts, according to the state elections board. — Candidate filing starts at noon Monday in federal, state and local races across North Carolina.

Natalie Allison / Politico:
Trump brokers deal to remake the field in N.C. Senate race

Discussion: Washington Post, The Hill and The Daily Caller

Kaitlan Collins / CNN:

Biden administration expected to announce diplomatic boycott of Beijing Olympics this week — (CNN)The Biden administration is expected to announce this week that no US government officials will attend the 2022 Beijing Olympics, implementing a diplomatic boycott of the games, according to several sources.

Discussion: Washington Examiner, Human Events, UPI, Reuters, New York Post, The Mainichi, Breitbart, HuffPost, NBC News, Bloomberg, Raw Story, The Hill, The Daily Wire, Insider, Sports Illustrated and Political Wire

Wall Street Journal:
U.S. Won't Send Officials to Beijing Winter Olympics

Discussion: The Guardian and The Daily Caller

Emma G. Fitzsimmons / New York Times:

New York City sets sweeping vaccine mandate for all private employers. — Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a sweeping Covid vaccine mandate for all private employers in New York City on Monday morning to combat the spread of the Omicron variant. — Mr. de Blasio said the aggressive measure …

Discussion: New York Post, HotAir, Bloomberg, Human Events, The Gateway Pundit, NBC New York, Liberty Unyielding, National Review, Axios and Twitchy

Ryan Goodman / Just Security:

The Absence of “The Donald” — In the several hundred criminal cases brought against individuals involved in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the Department of Justice and FBI have included scores of incriminating communications posted by defendants on social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Parler.

David M. Drucker / Washington Examiner:

Brian Kemp moves swiftly to neuter David Perdue in primary poised to bloody Georgia GOP — Gov. Brian Kemp on Monday struck former Sen. David Perdue fast and hard, foreshadowing a bloody, months-long primary poised to tear the Georgia Republican Party asunder and elevate Democrats to power in a key battleground state.

Paul Steinhauser / Fox News:
Trump backed former GOP Sen. Perdue launches Georgia gubernatorial bid; charges Gov. Kemp ‘failed all of us’

Discussion: Washington Post, UPI, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and CNN

Wall Street Journal:

CNN President Jeff Zucker Protected Chris Cuomo. Then Came a U-Turn. — Network boss fired the star anchor on Saturday, leaving a hole in the channel's prime-time lineup — CNN President Jeff Zucker stood by Chris Cuomo last spring after revelations that the star anchor had helped his brother …

Discussion: HotAir, RedState, Washington Examiner, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Daily Wire, New York Post, Poynter, HuffPost and Associated Press, more at Mediagazer »

Lee Brown / New York Post:
Chris Cuomo claims CNN boss Jeff Zucker knew about involvement in gov scandal

Discussion: The Federalist, Ace of Spades HQ, Twitchy, National Review and HotAir, more at Mediagazer »

Ben Smith / New York Times:

How TikTok Reads Your Mind — It's the most successful video app in the world. Our columnist has obtained an internal company document that offers a new level of detail about how the algorithm works. — There are four main goals for TikTok's algorithm: .户价值, .户 …

Discussion: Althouse, more at Mediagazer »

Associated Press:

Trump-tied group pushing for voting changes in Wisconsin — MADISON, Wisc. (AP) — A group formed to support former President Donald Trump's agenda is working with Wisconsin Republicans on a ballot measure that would bypass the state's Democratic governor to change how elections are run in the battleground state.

Sarah K. Burris / Raw Story:

Charlie Sykes stuns MSNBC host with lewd description of Thomas Massie's gun photo as like pic of his privates — Speaking to MSNBC on Sunday, conservative commentator and Bulwark editor attacked Rep. Tom Massie (R-KY) after he posted a Christmas photo of him with his family in their pajamas with a bunch of guns.

Discussion: Morning Shots and HuffPost

Paulina Villegas / Washington Post:

GOP congressman's gun-toting family Christmas photo sparks outrage days after school shooting — Officials on both sides of the aisle, Michigan residents and parents of gun violence victims condemned the image from Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky — They are looking straight at the camera, smiling wide.

Discussion: CBS News, TheBlaze and Mother Jones

Miami Herald: Florida's elected leader must try to prevent gun violence

Caitlin Gibson / Washington Post:

Jamie Raskin's Year of Grief and Purpose — A son's suicide, an attack on the Capitol and a congressman's renewed sense of mission — When Jamie Raskin revisits those shattered days of January, what surfaces in his memory are the sounds. Among them: a hideous pounding …

Jessica M. Vaughan / CIS.org:

Deportations Plummet Under Biden Enforcement Policies — Jessica Vaughan is the director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies. — Immigration enforcement, as measured by the number of aliens removed from the country, has collapsed to the lowest level since the mid-1990s …

Discussion: Washington Examiner

Washington Post:

‘Rife’ cocaine use reported in U.K. Parliament — just as Boris Johnson announces crackdown on drug crime — LONDON — The speaker of Britain's House of Commons says he is calling in police to investigate reports that drug use is “rife” in Parliament — as Prime Minister Boris Johnson dressed …

Discussion: Sky News and Breitbart

Michael Schulman / New Yorker:

On “Succession,” Jeremy Strong Doesn't Get the Joke — “I take him as seriously as I take my own life,” he says of his character, Kendall Roy. … When Jeremy Strong was a teen-ager, in suburban Massachusetts, he had three posters thumbtacked to his bedroom wall: Daniel Day-Lewis in …

Kevin Liptak / CNN:

Biden considers sanctions against Putin's inner circle ahead of this week's key call — On GPS: What will Russia do next? — (CNN)US officials are currently weighing a wide set of sanctions on Russia meant to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin from launching an invasion into Ukraine …

Discussion: Defense One and Raw Story

New York Times:

Inside Tesla as Elon Musk Pushed an Unflinching Vision for Self-Driving Cars — The automaker may have undermined safety in designing its Autopilot driver-assistance system to fit its chief executive's vision, former employees say. — To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times …

Discussion: Raw Story

Politico:

Dems plot escape from Biden's poll woes — Rep. Jared Golden is facing one of the toughest reelection battles in the country. One thing he says doesn't keep him up at night, though, is President Joe Biden's sinking approval rating. — “I really don't care at all.

Discussion: HotAir, TheBlaze, New Republic, Today's Edition Newsletter, Washington Examiner and Bloomberg, more at Mediagazer »

Nelson Warfield / New York Times:

I Was Bob Dole's Press Secretary. This Is What I Learned From Him. — Mr. Warfield, a Republican, is a political media consultant who was national press secretary for Senator Dole's 1996 presidential campaign. — Early in the 1996 race for the White House, the senior leadership …

Discussion: Washington Post, Patterico's Pontifications, YouTube and Washington Examiner