memeorandum: New York will require masks and social distancing at scaled-back Times Square New Year's celebration (Alexandra Marquez/CNBC)

6:55 PM ET, December 23, 2021

Top Items:

William Grimes / New York Times:

Joan Didion, ‘New Journalist’ Who Explored Culture and Chaos, Dies at 87 — She established a distinctive voice in American fiction before turning to political reporting and screenplay writing. But it was California, her native state, that provided her with her richest material.

Discussion: The Paris Review, New York Post, Slate, UPI, Literary Hub, The San Francisco Standard, Rolling Stone, Joe.My.God., Hollywood Reporter, Forbes and Vanity Fair

Harrison Smith / Washington Post:

Joan Didion, who chronicled American decadence and hypocrisy, dies at 87 — Joan Didion, a virtuosic prose stylist who for more than four decades explored the agitated, fractured state of the American psyche in her novels, essays, criticism and memoirs, and who as one of the “New Journalists” …

Parul Sehgal / New York Times: Joan Didion Chronicled American Disorder With Her Own Unmistakable Style

Elaine Woo / Los Angeles Times:
Joan Didion, masterful novelist, memoirist and social critic, dies at 87

Discussion: The Guardian and The Daily Wire, more at Mediagazer »

Washington Post:

Trump asks Supreme Court to withhold records from House Jan. 6 committee — Lawyers for former president Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to block release of his White House records to a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:

What Jim Jordan knows about Trump's coup attempt — and what he may cover up — The House select committee examining Jan. 6 appears increasingly focused on a highly consequential question: What did Donald Trump say and do as he watched the violent assault on the Capitol unfold over the course of at least two hours?

Discussion: New York Times, National Journal, Truthout, Digby's Hullabaloo, BizPac Review, NPR, IJR, WSVN-TV and The Hill

Perry Bacon Jr / Washington Post:

The problem with performative centrism — In basically every major institution in America, there are powerful figures who I doubt voted for Donald Trump but nonetheless play down the radicalism of the Republican Party, belittle those who speak honestly about it or otherwise act in ways that make it harder to combat that radicalism.

Discussion: Digby's Hullabaloo

Philip Bump / Washington Post:
Trumpland has a new favorite Jan. 6 conspiracy theory

Discussion: New York Times and Raw Story

Politico:
Senate GOP feels another Trump effect: The rise of celeb candidates

Discussion: HotAir, The Hill, Edifice of Trust, Washington Examiner, The Daily Beast, Raw Story and National Review

Colby Hall / Mediaite:

Trump Pushes Back on Candace Owens Undermining Vaccine: 'People Aren't Dying When They Take the Vaccine' — Former President Donald Trump pushed back on Candace Jones during a recent interview when the conservative commentator appeared to be undermining the efficacy of the Covid-19 vaccines to hurt President Joe Biden politically.

Discussion: CNN, Washington Post, Vanity Fair, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Insider, Rigid Thinking, Washington Examiner, Twitchy, Joe.My.God., Zandar Versus The Stupid and The Daily Wire

Alex Griffing / Mediaite:

MAGA Cartoonist Ben Garrison Turns on Trump After Pro-Vaccine Comments — Controversial cartoonist Ben Garrison's latest offering takes aim at former President Donald Trump - who once invited him to the White House for a social media summit. — Garrison's cartoon shows a distraught Trump riding …

Discussion: Rolling Stone, Washington Post and Twitchy

The Daily Beast:
Trump Rebukes Candace Owens' Anti-Vax Talking Points: ‘The Vaccine Works’

Discussion: Joe.My.God., Mediaite and alicublog

Olafimihan Oshin / The Hill:
Trump pushes back on Candace Owens: 'People aren't dying when they take the vaccine'

Discussion: HuffPost, New York Post, Washington Post, KDFX-TV, HillReporter.com, Mediaite, The Root, RedState, Truthout, Snopes.com and The Daily Caller

Oren Oppenheim / ABC News:
Trump again publicly defends COVID-19 vaccines, but slams mandates

Discussion: HillReporter.com, Townhall, The Daily Caller, Mediaite and The Hill

Justice News:

Wilmington Man to Face Federal Charges For Armed Carjacking in FDR Park Yesterday Afternoon — PHILADELPHIA - United States Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams announced that Josiah Brown, 19, of Wilmington, DE, was arrested and charged by Criminal Complaint on charges of carjacking …

Discussion: CBS News, The Hill and Fox News

The Philadelphia Inquirer:
A 19-year-old has been charged in the carjacking of U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, police say. Four other teens were also arrested

Discussion: Delaware State Police, UPI and The Hill

Emily Crane / New York Post:
Two Dems who support police reform carjacked less than 24 hours apart

Discussion: Washington Times, Breitbart, Against the Grain, Daily Mail and RedState

Katherine Eban / Vanity Fair:

The Biden Administration Rejected an October Proposal for “Free Rapid Tests for the Holidays” — With omicron cases spreading like wildfire, the White House is finally taking steps to make free antigen tests available to all. But this fall, Vanity Fair has learned, it dismissed a bold plan …

Discussion: Washington Post, The White House and Slate

Ryan Lizza / Politico:
POLITICO Playbook: Biden's testing mess

Discussion: HotAir

Zachary Cohen / CNN:

CNN Exclusive: US intel and satellite images show Saudi Arabia is now building its own ballistic missiles with help of China — Washington (CNN)US intelligence agencies have assessed that Saudi Arabia is now actively manufacturing its own ballistic missiles with the help of China …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, REEDNEWSARABWORLD, Raw Story, middleeastmonitor.com, New York Post and Outside the Beltway

NBC News:

Kim Potter, ex-Minnesota officer, found guilty of manslaughter in death of Daunte Wright — Watch live: Jury reaches outcome in death of Daunte Wright — A Minneapolis jury on Thursday convicted former police officer Kim Potter on all charges she faced for fatally shooting Black motorist Daunte Wright earlier this year.

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit, Townhall, JONATHAN TURLEY and Joe.My.God.

Virginia Aabram / Washington Examiner:
Jury finds former officer Kim Potter guilty in Daunte Wright's death

Discussion: The Daily Beast, National Review, RedState, NPR, Heartland Signal, Bring Me The News and Alternet.org

Washington Post:

Trump's newest business partner: A Chinese firm with a history of SEC investigations — Shanghai-based Arc Capital, an investment firm that has been the target of probes by securities regulators, is at the center of the deal to take Trump's media venture public.

Discussion: Buttermilk Sky, Joe.My.God. and Raw Story

New York Times:

Kamala Harris's Allies Express Concern: Is She an Afterthought? — The vice president's allies are increasingly concerned that President Biden relied on her to win but does not need her to govern. — WASHINGTON — The president needed the senator from West Virginia on his side …

Discussion: Politico, Washington Examiner, New York Post, spectatorworld.com, RedState, BizPac Review, Mediaite, Twitchy, The Daily Caller, Instapundit, IJR, HotAir and Outside the Beltway

New York Times:

Will Donald Trump Get Away With Inciting an Insurrection? — Mr. Tribe taught constitutional law at Harvard for 50 years. Merrick Garland was one of his students. Mr. Ayer oversaw criminal prosecutions and investigations as Ronald Reagan's U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California.

Discussion: Reason and Raw Story

Jose Pagliery / The Daily Beast:
The Obscure Charge Jan. 6 Investigators Are Looking at for Trump

Discussion: Politico, POLITICUSUSA, Digby's Hullabaloo, Raw Story and The Western Journal

Jimmy Quinn / National Review:

A Rift in the Conservative Foreign-Policy World — For years an influential foreign-policy voice on the right, the American Enterprise Institute finds itself at odds with hawkish Republicans. — hile Donald Trump's presidency realigned the foreign-policy debate on the right …

Karl Rove / Wall Street Journal:

Complete and Total Trump Campaign! — The former president's obsession with the 2020 election may lead to GOP losses in the next two. — President Trump has formally endorsed 85 Republican candidates so far this year, probably far more than any other president so soon after leaving office.

Discussion: Raw Story and Common Dreams

Jim Geraghty / National Review:

Biden Can't Remember What He Promised on Covid-19 Testing — On the menu today: I would prefer to send you off into the holidays with Christmas cheer, but unfortunately, the news this morning is grim. Roughly one year after Joe Biden pledged, “I'm not going to shut down the country …

Discussion: ABC News, New York Post, HotAir, New York Times and The Daily Caller

Darragh Roche / Newsweek:
Jen Psaki Mocked Free At-Home Tests Three Weeks Before Omicron Testing Crisis Hit America

Discussion: Ace of Spades HQ

NBC Chicago:

Illinois State Senator Carjacked in Suburban Broadview — Illinois State Sen. Kimberly Lightford and her husband were the victims of a carjacking in a Chicago suburb Tuesday evening, authorities said. — The Broadview Police Department said three masked people driving a Durango SUV hijacked …

Discussion: Chicago Tribune, CWB Chicago, justoneminute.typepad.com, The Hill and Political Wire

Margaret Talev / Axios:

Axios-Ipsos poll: Lack of trust puts the unvaccinated at risk — Unvaccinated Americans' already low trust in the federal government plummeted over the course of 2021, exacerbating the challenges in getting the pandemic under control, according to a year's worth of data from the Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index.

Discussion: Townhall and The Hill

Alexandra Marquez / CNBC:

New York will require masks and social distancing at scaled-back Times Square New Year's celebration — Attendees at the Times Square New Year's Eve celebration will have to wear masks, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Thursday. — Social-distancing rules will limit the crowd …

Discussion: Fox News, Breitbart, NPR, Forbes, NBC New York and abc7NY

Rasmussen Reports:

Voters Against ‘Zuckerbucks’ Influencing Elections — An overwhelming majority of American voters believe Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's multimillion-dollar effort to influence the 2020 presidential election was a bad thing for democracy, and most still think cheating influenced the election outcome.

Discussion: Power Line and Washington Examiner

Steve Holland / Reuters:

Jared Kushner investment firm Affinity raises $3 billion in committed funding — Jared Kushner's global investment firm, Affinity Partners, has raised more than $3 billion in committed funding from international investors, a person familiar with the fund-raising effort told Reuters on Thursday.

Discussion: Raw Story and Joe.My.God.

Louis K. Bonham / Minding The Campus:

Fighting Behind Enemy Lines: Three Tactics for Resisting Wokeness from Within — Author's Note: While I am a lawyer, I'm not your lawyer. Nothing in this article is intended to be legal advice from me, my firm, Minding the Campus, or anyone else. If you have a specific legal issue …

Discussion: National Review