Top Items:
Pfizer:
Pfizer and BioNTech Provide Update on Omicron Variant — Preliminary laboratory studies demonstrate that three doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine neutralize the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529 lineage) while two doses show significantly reduced neutralization titers
Discussion:
CNN, HotAir, STAT, Washington Examiner, The Hill, Reason, Politico, Forbes, Reuters, The Daily Caller, Al Jazeera, New York Post, UPI, The Times of Israel, Mediaite, Raw Story, One America News Network, EU Reporter, IJR, Fox 8 Cleveland WJW and Bloomberg
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Berkeley Lovelace Jr / NBC News:
Pfizer says booster dose of vaccine protects against omicron variant — Pfizer releases new data about effectiveness of its booster against omicron — A booster dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine appears to provide strong protection against the omicron variant, the companies announced Wednesday.
David Brooks / The Atlantic:
What Happened to American Conservatism? — I fell in love with conservatism in my 20s. As a politics and crime reporter in Chicago, I often found myself around public-housing projects like Cabrini-Green and the Robert Taylor Homes, which had been built with the best of intentions but had become nightmares.
Discussion:
Raw Story, Press Watch and The American Conservative
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Thomas B. Edsall / New York Times:
Trump Won't Let America Go. Can Democrats Pry It Away? — Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C. on politics, demographics and inequality. — Do you believe, as many political activists and theorists do, that the contemporary Republican Party poses a threat to democracy?
Discussion:
New York Daily News, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Raw Story and Mock Paper Scissors
Aaron Zitner / Wall Street Journal:
Hispanic Voters Now Evenly Split Between Parties, WSJ Poll Finds — Republicans have made rapid gains among a crucial voting demographic that has long favored Democrats — The nation's large and diverse group of Hispanic voters is showing signs of dividing its support between Democrats …
Discussion:
Fox News, The Hill, RedState, Townhall, Mediaite, Snopes.com, MSNBC, Political Wire and New York Times
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Sonny Bunch / The Bulwark:
Against “Latinx” — A politically dubious neologism, sure, but one that makes up for it by also being monstrously ugly. — Of all the weird and grating modern linguistic imperatives, few are weirder or more grating than the attempted imposition of “Latinx.”
Discussion:
Breitbart, Reason and Commentary Magazine
FiveThirtyEight:
Trump's 2022 Endorsements Are Earlier, Bolder And More Dangerous Than When He Was President — Almost since the moment of his inauguration, former President Donald Trump has been the kingmaker of the Republican Party. In both the 2018 and 2020 elections, Trump-endorsed candidates won almost every Republican primary they competed in.
Discussion:
Insider, NBC News, Raw Story and POLITICUSUSA
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BBC:
Sanna Marin: Finland's PM sorry for clubbing after Covid contact — Finland's Prime Minister Sanna Marin has apologised for going clubbing after coming into close contact with a Covid-19 case. — Sanna Marin went on a night out in Helsinki on Saturday, hours after her foreign minister had tested positive.
Mike Ives / New York Times:
Fox News Christmas Tree Catches Fire in Manhattan — The police said that a man was in custody in relation to the blaze. The 50-foot tree had been ceremonially lit days earlier in an “All-American” festive broadcast. — A 50-foot-tall Christmas tree caught fire outside the Fox News headquarters …
Discussion:
NBC New York, CBS News, New York Post, Mediaite, Politico, Breitbart, Mic, YouTube, The Daily Beast, NBC10 Philadelphia, abc7NY, The Western Journal, POLITICUSUSA, Deadline, Raw Story, The Wrap, The Hill, TheBlaze, National Review, POLITICUSUSA, ABC7, Page Array, Insider, Raw Story, The Daily Wire, Mediaite, CBS Chicago, Twitchy, Forbes and BizPac Review
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Washington Post:
Jan. 6 committee says it will move to hold former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows in criminal contempt — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol announced that it is preparing to hold Mark Meadows, former president Donald Trump's chief of staff …
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Quinnipiac University Poll:
Abbott Leads O'Rourke By Double Digits In Texas Governor's Race, Quinnipiac University Texas Poll Finds; Texas-Mexico Border Dominates Issues For Voters — mail_outline — In a head-to-head matchup in the race for governor of Texas, Republican Governor Greg Abbott leads Democratic …
Discussion:
Twitchy and Political Wire
Bill Hutchinson / ABC News:
'It's just crazy': 12 major cities hit all-time homicide records — “It's worse than a war zone around here lately,” police official said. — At least 12 major U.S. cities have broken annual homicide records in 2021 — and there's still three weeks to go in the year.
Giulia Heyward / New York Times:
Schools Are Closing Classrooms on Fridays. Parents Are Furious. — Desperate to keep teachers, some districts have turned to remote teaching for one day a week — and sometimes more. Families have been left scrambling to find child care. — DETROIT — Caitlin Reynolds, a single mother …
Philip Bump / Washington Post:
The right's rationalization of Putin colors the Russia-Ukraine tension — The word “great,” of course, has multiple meanings. One meaning is that something is superlatively good. Another is that something is simply superlative, great in the sense of massive or important.
Discussion:
Washington Examiner, ABC News, Politico, Task & Purpose, TheBlaze and The Daily Caller
Tony Romm / Washington Post:
Republicans ready new push to defund, repeal Biden vaccine and testing policies — The latest salvo is set to arrive this week, as GOP lawmakers force another Senate vote to revoke the president's policy requiring shots or tests at private employers — Congressional Republicans are planning …
Thomas Lecaque / The Bulwark:
As Grifters Squabble, QAnon's Bloodlust Gets More Open — QAnon influencers hope to unite the right in a sea of blood. — Not merely rhetorical violence, though that's important. QAnon is violence in its ideology, in its end goal, and in its imagination: the “Storm,” …
Discussion:
Raw Story
Allison Quinn / The Daily Beast:
Boebert Shows Off Rifle-Toting Kids in Christmas Photo — TONE DEAF — Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) shared a photo of her children wielding rifles in front of their Christmas tree late Tuesday, the latest gun-themed holiday photo released by Republicans in the wake of a deadly high school shooting.
Discussion:
ABC News, Washington Post and Insider
Neal Rothschild / Axios:
Young Dems more likely to despise the other party — Nearly a quarter of college students wouldn't be friends with someone who voted for the other presidential candidate — with Democrats far more likely to dismiss people than Republicans — according to new Generation Lab/Axios polling.
Discussion:
RedState, The Federalist, Outside the Beltway, Politico, Voice of America and Political Wire
Kate Briquelet / The Daily Beast:
Ghislaine Maxwell and the Ecstasy of the Feet — Photos reveal just how close the pedophile billionaire and his accused madam were. — When the feds raided Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan mansion in 2019, they unearthed a trove of evidence including binders of CDs containing tens of thousands of photographs.
Discussion:
New York Post, The Daily Caller, Raw Story, Metro.co.uk and Insider
Patrick Marley / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Conservative group finds no signs of widespread voter fraud in Wisconsin but urges changes to election processes — MADISON - A conservative group issued a report Tuesday saying it found no evidence of widespread fraud in Wisconsin's presidential election but believed officials did not closely follow all the state's voting laws.
Discussion:
Wisconsin Institute …, Wisconsin Examiner and Insider
New York Times:
Beijing Silenced Peng Shuai in 20 Minutes, Then Spent Weeks on Damage Control — This article is published with ProPublica, the nonprofit investigative newsroom. — When inconvenient news erupts on the Chinese internet, the censors jump into action. — Twenty minutes was all it took …
Discussion:
Insider
Hugh Hewitt / The Hugh Hewitt Show:
Former President Trump On Boris Johnson's Woes, Sidney Powell's Dough And More — Former President Trump joined me this morning: — Audio: — 12-08hhs-trump — Transcript: — HH: I'm joined now by former president of the United States, Donald Trump. Mr. President, good morning.
Vicky Prodeline / Monmouth University Polling …:
Rising Prices Are Top Kitchen Table Worry — Partisanship has more effect than income on driving negative trend — West Long Branch, NJ - Paying everyday household bills, and inflation specifically, top the list of concerns American families say they currently face, with the number saying …
Discussion:
Political Wire
Politico:
Senate Dems launch last-ditch effort to change the rules of the chamber — It's the Senate version of “Waiting for Godot”: Democrats are once again trying to find an answer to their filibuster dilemma in the hopes of passing voting rights legislation before it's too late.
Brett Kelman / The Tennessean:
COVID-19: Medical board deletes anti-misinformation policy amid GOP pressure — Health Department attorney: Rep. John Ragan threatened to dissolve the Board of Medical Examiners — Tennessee's medical licensing board voted Tuesday to delete a policy opposing coronavirus misinformation …
Discussion:
Rolling Stone, Talking Points Memo and Tennessee Lookout
Rajesh Roy / Wall Street Journal:
Bipin Rawat, India's Top Military Official, Dies in Helicopter Crash — Chief of defense staff and 12 others are killed in crash in Tamil Nadu, air force says — NEW DELHI—India's top military official, Bipin Rawat, died in a helicopter crash in the southern state of Tamil Nadu …
Discussion:
One America News Network and Voice of America
Jessica Chasmar / Fox News:
Black Lives Matter stands in solidarity with Jussie Smollett: ‘We can never believe police’ — BLM leader Melina Abdullah called trial a ‘white supremacist charade’ — Jussie Smollett takes the stand — A Black Lives Matter leader said Tuesday that the movement will continue …
Discussion:
Washington Examiner
Rod Dreher:
Italian Lives Matter — Italian reader Giuseppe Scalas says that the murder in NYC of an Italian researcher by a black gang member out on parole has turned the left-wing Milan daily Corriere della Sera against The New York Times. He sent a translation of the Federico Rampini commentary in the Corriere today.
Drew Harwell / Washington Post:
Utility giants agree to no longer allow sensitive records to be shared with ICE — The records had been used to hunt immigration violations. Advocates cheer the closing of a ‘dangerous’ loophole. — A nationwide group of utility companies that provided sensitive data from millions of Americans' cable …
Matt Richtel / New York Times:
The pandemic worsened young people's mental health crisis. — The United States surgeon general on Tuesday warned that young people are facing “devastating” mental health effects as a result of the challenges experienced by their generation, including the coronavirus pandemic.