Biden Should Call for a Commission to Investigate the 2020 Election
Confront the conspiracies and let Congress and Biden focus on governing.
Leading The Bulwark…
Biden Should Call for a Commission to Investigate the 2020 Election
PETER D. FEAVER: It would definitively address conspiracy theories about the election being ‘stolen’—and let Congress and the new administration focus on governing.
🎧 On the Pods… 🎧
Molly Jong-Fast on the Dark Political Winter of 2020
On today’s Bulwark podcast, Molly Jong-Fast joins Charlie Sykes to discuss the dark politics unfolding during the darkest time of the year.
GOP Crack-Up
Charles Lane joins to discuss how Biden is doing. Is GOP terminally Trumpy? A look at the Georgia run-off. Plus, is huge government debt actually ok?
For Bulwark+ Members… (Unlocked!)
MORNING SHOTS: Impeach Him... Again?
CHARLIE SYKES: And a COVID relief bill that nobody likes.
THE TRIAD: MAGA Marks and the Future of Democracy
JONATHAN V. LAST: How do you run a functional democracy when 40 percent of the people are willing suckers?
Normally, these newsletters are only for members, but as a Christmas-week gift, we’ve unlocked them both today. Not yet a member? Please consider joining:
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From The Bulwark Aggregator…
Mitt Romney: GOP has “strayed” from core values – Fadel Allassan, Axios
Inside Trump’s pressure campaign to overturn the election – Anita Kumar and Gabby Orr, Politico
Joe Scarborough: Why Even Have the 25th Amendment if We Don’t Use it After Trump Talks Martial Law? – Colby Hall, Mediaite
A Conservative Justice in Wisconsin Says He Followed the Law, Not the Politics – Reid J. Epstein, The New York Times
Chris Wallace defends Jill Biden: No one ‘made a fuss’ over calling Martin Luther King Jr. a ‘doctor’ – Zack Budryk, The Hill
Trump Is Already Wondering What Airport Will Bear His Name – Asawin Suebsaeng, The Daily Beast
In Today’s Bulwark….
Lou Dobbs Debunks Himself
MONA CHAREN: Fox was forced to issue a correction. The New York Times did so willingly.
The Trade: Meet the New Red Dog Democrats
TIM MILLER: The two parties have traded voters—whether the old political class likes it or not.
The Origins of a Warning from Voltaire
WALTER OLSON: An investigation.
Medals of Democracy
LENNY GLYNN: President Biden should lay out a new vision of patriotism, accountability, and courage for public servants.
Taking ‘The Stand’
BRENT ORRELL: It’s early days in the new miniseries but longtime fans of Stephen King’s book have reason to hope.
🚨OVERTIME 🚨
Happy Monday… Hope you had a great weekend. We did a little housekeeping for the holidays, and my wife tried out a new recipe for Guinness Braised Short Ribs. They were wonderful, and we’re just considering and experimenting with some new recipes for the Christmas season. Remember, some items from our Thanksgiving Cookbook made by staff and readers might have something worth trying!
A programming note… This newsletter (and the daily podcast) will be taking off Thursday and Friday, to return next week. Stay tuned to the site for new content on those days. Unless there’s fiery news wreckage, we’re going to try and log off and spend some time with our families….
Speaking of fiery wreckages… Utz-oh! A semi-truck full of delicious cheese balls wrecked and caught fire on the Beltway. No word if they were local favorite Utz, or Planters, or another brand.
How they’re coping in Queens.
It’s perfect… My alma mater is having a gingerbread contest, and somebody did one of my college bar and place of employ, since closed.
This is not a good sign…
Chat with your fellow Bulwarkers! Did you know we have both a Reddit group and a discord? Both are unofficial, but I try to jump in to chat from time to time. Remember, you can always reach me at swift@thebulwark.com. I try to get back to everyone.
Falling for Martin Shkreli… This is quite the story. A Bloomberg reporter fell for her subject and basically upended her life for him.
The Cleveland Browns have 10 wins. While I still remain pessimistic about the playoffs, it is fun not to be the laughingstock of the NFL. I was a Baker Mayfield skeptic early on, but he’s really come into his own this season, and I’m happy to have been wrong.
That’s what must be done… This Aussie took Premier of Victoria Dan Andrews’s COVID-19 warning, which was turned into a viral remix, and went whole hog in doing a whole Christmas lighting show around it.
A right wing holiday gift guide. It’s probably getting too late, but in case you have a white elephant party (no relation to the GOP), here are some ideas.
How it started vs. how it’s going. Smartmatic and Dominion sent some lawyer letters to the networks, and well, (read Mona’s item above), but Ben Smith in the NY Times highlights how bad a lawsuit could be for Fox, Newsmax, and OAN.
And hoo boy, did Newsmax cave quickly. (Will it save them completely? We’ll see!)
And this statement is going to get read by a lot of Newsmax people in the coming days.
But, at One America News Network… Hold their beer.
Why are people numb to the COVID-19 death stats? An important read in WaPo:
Something happens in the brain when fatalities reach such high numbers, say psychologists who have studied genocides and mass disasters. The casualties become like a mountain of corpses that has grown so large it becomes difficult to focus on the individual bodies.
With the coronavirus in particular, experts say, the deaths have been hidden from sight even from friends and family — the human cost sequestered in hospitals and nursing homes.
And meanwhile, at Mar-A-Lago… The Daily Beast reports about a Turning Point USA party there where: “South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe, and Roger Stone were among those who attended the gala, where hundreds flouted Palm Beach COVID-19 measures.” Kayleigh McEnany was there, too.
MAGA, a Marriage of Idiocy and Influence… At ArcDigital, our pal Berny Belvedere has this important column on why “[T]he Trumpian governing class is a fundamentally unserious political entity. But power has a way around that modest shortcoming.”
Here’s a bit a quite like:
In the Year of Covid, Trump wanted to steal an election by problematizing the only form of socially distanced voting we had. This is distressingly ironic, as it suggests a self-reinforcing attack: first, Trump catastrophically mismanages the pandemic, and second, he leverages that failure into a legal technique by which he can steal the presidential election.
That’s it for me for today. We’ll see you back here tomorrow. If you’re not a member yet of Bulwark+, we hope you’ll consider joining.
And remember, we do offer gift memberships.
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