Georgia election official: We've 'crossed a tipping point' where many Republicans' distrust of system will suppress vote

President Trump’s efforts to undermine the results of the November election in Georgia will “absolutely” hurt Republicans in two U.S. Senate runoff races there, an election official in the state said Monday. “We’ve crossed a tipping point where ... there may be some Republicans who don’t trust the outcomes of the system at all, and say, ‘Why bother to vote,’” Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s voting system implementation manager, told Yahoo News.

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    Emily Murphy, the General Services Administration administrator tasked with making millions of dollars in transition funding available to President-elect Joe Biden ahead of his inauguration, said Monday she would clear the way for that process to begin.

  • Coronavirus vaccine dilemma: Who gets it first?

    Two highly effective coronavirus vaccines are now on the horizon, but the next challenge for federal, state and local leaders will be distributing a vaccine equitably so that communities that have been hit hardest by the pandemic can have access.

  • Melania welcomes White House tree after being caught on tape saying ‘who gives a f***’ about Christmas

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  • Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong detained for 2019 illegal assembly

    Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong was remanded in custody on Monday after pleading guilty to charges of organising and inciting an unauthorised assembly near the police headquarters during last year's anti-government protests. Wong, who was just 17 years old when he became the face of the 2014 student-led Umbrella Movement democracy protests, faces a maximum three-year jail term. On Twitter afterwards, Wong said attention should be directed to the 12 Hong Kong people detained virtually incommunicado in China after being arrested at sea in August as they were attempting to flee by boat to Taiwan to escape charges related to last year's protests in the city.

  • Pennsylvania Republicans File Emergency Lawsuit to Block Certification of Election Results

    A group of Pennsylvania Republicans filed a lawsuit over the weekend to block certification of the state's election results in an eleventh-hour attempt to overturn Joe Biden's victory in the key battleground state.The emergency petition, filed in state court, takes issue with a voting reform bill that passed Pennsylvania's Republican-held legislature in October last year. The lawsuit claims that the law's allowance of  no excuse mail-in voting is "unconstitutional" and seeks to block Pennsylvania counties from certifying their vote results ahead of the deadline on Monday to do so and invalidate millions of mail-in ballots cast in the 2020 election.The group is led by Pennsylvania Representative Mike Kelly and GOP congressional candidate Sean Parnell, who has not conceded since his defeat this month by his Democratic rival, Representative Conor Lamb. Their suit names Democratic Governor Tom Wolf, the GOP-led legislature, and Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar as defendants.Meanwhile, a federal judge on Saturday dismissed a lawsuit from the Trump campaign that sought to invalidate millions of votes in Pennsylvania and block the certification of the state’s election results. Trump wrote in a tweet Saturday night that he plans to appeal the decision.About 2.6 million voters in Pennsylvania cast mail ballots in the general election this month. Biden won three out of every four mail ballots cast in the state, according to an analysis of data from Pennsylvania's state department.Biden won Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes over President Trump and is expected to be awarded the Keystone State's coveted 20 electoral votes. States have until December 8 to resolve election disputes, and electors will meet on December 14 to formally vote for the next president.Over the past several weeks, Trump has made allegations that voter fraud occurred on a massive scale through mail-in ballots. The president has claimed he won the election and has refused to concede even though his lawyers have not produced evidence of fraud widespread enough to alter the election outcome.

  • Clever’s 2020 Gift Guide Is Here and It Just Wants You to Have a Nice Time

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  • Rush Limbaugh: Trump’s Legal Team ‘Promised Blockbuster Stuff and Then Nothing Happened’

    Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Monday criticized President Trump’s legal team over their chaotic press conference last week that failed to provide any evidence to back up their claims that the 2020 election was rigged.“You call a gigantic press conference like that — one that lasts an hour — and you announce massive bombshells, then you better have some bombshells,” Limbaugh said during his show on Monday. “There better be something at that press conference other than what we got…I talked to so many people who were blown away by it, by the very nature of the press conference. They promised blockbuster stuff and then nothing happened, and that’s just, it’s not good.”He added, “If you’re gonna do a press conference like that with the promise of blockbusters, then there has to be something more than what that press conference delivered.”He also questioned the role of lawyer Sidney Powell, who was present at the press conference but has since cut ties with Trump’s legal team.Though Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis said Powell is “not a member of the Trump legal team” or a personal lawyer to the president, Limbaugh argued it’s a “tough thing to deny she was ever part of it because they introduced her as part of it."“She was at that press conference last week,” he said.During the press conference on Thursday, Giuliani claimed to have evidence of a "national conspiracy" to steal the election for President-elect Joe Biden, though he said he could not yet release any evidence as the judges presiding over the campaign's lawsuit might object and because his witnesses might face retribution if their names became public. He said he had “at least ten” witnesses ready to describe instances of voter fraud, he couldn’t reveal them publicly because “they don’t want to be harassed.”

  • Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan is 'embarrassed' his GOP is helping Trump make the U.S. look like 'a banana republic'

    Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) is no longer sure Trump will "do the right thing" and acknowledge his loss to President-elect Joe Biden, but he's certain Biden will be sworn in Jan. 20, 2021, he told CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday's State of the Union. Hogan, who has been critical of Trump, said he voted for the late President Ronald Reagan this year.Pressuring state legislators in Michigan and other states to "somehow change the outcome with electors was completely outrageous," Hogan said. "We used to go supervise elections around the world, and we were the most respected country with respect to elections. And now we're beginning to look like we're a banana republic. It's time for them to stop the nonsense. It gets more bizarre every single day, and frankly, I'm embarrassed that more people in the party aren't speaking up."> Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan says he is "embarrassed that more people in the party aren't speaking up" regarding President Trumps' refusal to concede https://t.co/2wEl0kWIoX CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/ht8v9oi0O5> > -- CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) November 22, 2020John Bolton, Trump's former national security adviser, was also critical of both Trump and his Republican Party, but he did offer some advice to those Republican officials scared of Trump. "Look, for those who are worried about Trump's reaction, there's strength in numbers," he said. "The more who come out and say, 'He doesn't represent us, he is not following a Republican game plan here,' the safer they will be." > "The Republican Party is not going to be saved by hiding in a spider hole. We need all of our leaders to come out and say, 'the election is over.' We're not talking about an abstract right for Trump to use his legal remedies. We've past that," John Bolton says. CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/pUFsiFj7PC> > -- State of the Union (@CNNSotu) November 22, 2020More stories from theweek.com I was wrong about Mitt Romney Biden is stealing the spotlight. Trump can't stand it. There's a very simple, extremely plausible reason Trump won't admit Biden won

  • This Gun Coffee Brand Was MAGA Royalty. Then It Turned on Kyle Rittenhouse.

    The far right thought it had found the ideal breakfast beverage company. Then it took a big sip of Black Rifle Coffee and checked the news.For years, Black Rifle Coffee Company has been at the vanguard of an emerging conservative coffee movement. Customers can start their day with a “Thin Blue Line” Keurig cup, or wind down with a nice mug of “Combat Cocoa.” This isn’t coffee for WIMPS and CIVILIANS, the company’s branding implies; it’s TACTICAL CAFFEINATION for OPERATORS.But not even that branding has been enough to save BRCC from attacks by its far-right former fans, who accuse the company of being inadequately militant because it declined to sponsor a teenager accused of murdering Black Lives Matter protesters.‘All Combat Takes Place at Night’: Kyle Rittenhouse’s Lawyer Urges Trump Fans to ‘Dust Off’ Gun RightsBRCC’s trouble began shortly after accused murderer Kyle Rittenhouse was bailed out of jail last week. Rittenhouse is accused of shooting three people (two of them fatally) at a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin earlier this year. Rittenhouse, 17, became a hero of the militant far right, especially of groups like the Proud Boys that openly lust for violence against the left.Shortly after supporters posted Rittenhouse’s $2 million bail, the host of a conservative podcast that partners with BRCC tweeted a picture of Rittenhouse in a BRCC shirt. The picture, plus its caption (“Kyle Rittenhouse drinks the best coffee in America”) led viewers to believe BRCC was partnering with Rittenhouse.That wasn’t the case, BRCC clarified this weekend. In a video, the company’s CEO Evan Hafer stated that BRCC had not and would not sponsor Rittenhouse.“We’re not in the business of profiting from tragedy,” the CEO of the gun-themed coffee company said. “We’re not in the business of profiting from this event. We have zero interest in collecting one dollar from any of this. It is ethically inappropriate for us to do so, or even give the perception [of profiting].”That would be an uncontroversial statement from virtually any other CEO. But not, apparently, from a leader in the world of conservative coffee. Hafer’s statement prompted a hypercaffeinated meltdown from portions of the right, which castigated BRCC as traitors.> Lmfao, reactionaries are turning on Black Riffle Coffee because BRC doesn’t want their product associated with Kyle Rittenhouse pic.twitter.com/cNOBz70Flf> > — Rational Disconnect (@RationalDis) November 23, 2020Far-right internet personalities like blogger Cassandra Fairbanks formally “disavowed” BRCC—in doing so, taking a break from accusing the left of being censorious. Others accused BRCC of just exploiting the right for profit.“Civilians are just cash cows to you, so you and your veteran buddies can get rich,” one prominent white supremacist account railed at Hafer. The Proud Boys, a far-right paramilitary group that has championed Rittenhouse, accused BRCC of trying to market to “genderless college students,” and photoshopped the BRCC logo to look like it supported Black Lives Matter (which, in Proud Boys parlance, is intended as an insult).On Parler, a social media platform popular among the far right, supposed ex-BRCC fans flooded the company’s page with insults. “Boycott these liberals and every brand associated with them,” commented a user, whose profile picture was Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg photoshopped to look like a Nazi.“Turns out Black Rifle Coffee Is deep state...🤣😂🤣,” another former fan wrote on BRCC’s Parler page. “My husband is pissed...he said his election was stolen away by Democrats, and then his coffee!”“And just like that you have to change your name to LGBTQ snowflake coffee,” a third wrote. “Never will drink your coffee.”Parler users became so incensed they started searching the Federal Election Commission site for Hafer’s political contributions, which revealed that he’d donated $500 to Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a Hawaii Democrat. (Gabbard, who has served in the military like Hafer, saw some support from a fringe of far-right personalities during her 2020 presidential campaign.)The accusations were a stunning reversal in fortune for BRCC, which, for years, has positioned itself as the go-to coffee for conservative gun fans. “I want people who voted for Trump to know that there is another option for you,” Hafer said in a 2017 interview. “[Starbucks’ then-CEO] Howard Schultz doesn’t want your business. I do. I’ll be proud to take it.”When Starbucks announced a plan to hire 10,000 refugees in 2017, BRCC shared a meme that photoshopped Starbucks cups onto ISIS fighters. “Starbucks vows to hire 10,000 refugees,” the meme read, followed by a picture of U.S. troops with the caption “Black Rifle Coffee Company vows to hire 10,000 veterans.”BRCC might have been the most popular conservative-aligned coffee brand–but it wasn’t the only one. Other right-wing coffee companies, including those with similar military branding, launched around the same time, many of them in response to the perceived liberalism of brands like Starbucks.At least two conservative coffee shops opened this February alone. One, Covfefe Coffee and Gifts in Maine, sells brews named after Trump. The other, Conservative Grounds in Florida, includes a makeshift Oval Office with cardboard cutouts of Donald and Melania Trump. Conservative Grounds’ owner told the Washington Post the shop was “a place for conservatives to feel welcome,” and noted that the store had a sign leading out to the dumpsters with a label “liberal safe space, enter here.”Why Does Starbucks Melt Conservative Brains?A third right-wing coffee brand is now gunning for BRCC’s customers, promoting stickers that advocate throwing communists to their deaths from helicopters, and patches mocking the corpse of a man Rittenhouse killed. The brand earned an endorsement from the Proud Boys after it released a statement lauding Rittenhouse on Sunday.When a Twitter user accused the company of revealing “fascist views,” the brand account replied, “We were never in hiding sweet cheeks.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

  • Fauci says it’s ‘unrealistic’ to think we’ll be able to celebrate normally with families during spring holiday season

    In an interview with Yahoo News National Correspondent Alexander Nazaryan, Dr. Anthony Fauci said that even with a vaccine rollout beginning later this year, he hopes Americans can gather safely for the spring holidays, but it’s “unrealistic” to think Easter and Passover celebrations will be completely back to normal.

  • Catholic Church cancels Guadalupe pilgrimage over pandemic

    Mexico’s Roman Catholic Church announced the cancellation Monday of what’s considered the world’s largest Catholic pilgrimage, for the Virgin of Guadalupe, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Mexico’s Episcopal Conference said in a statement that the basilica will be closed from December 10-13. The Virgin is celebrated on Dec. 12 and for weeks in advance, pilgrims travel from across Mexico to gather by the millions in Mexico City.

  • Iowa congressman notorious for racist remarks asks Kamala Harris if she was descended from slave owners

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  • Oregon Gov. Kate Brown Encourages Residents to Call Police on Neighbors Violating COVID Rules

    Oregon Governor Kate Brown is encouraging residents to call the police on any neighbors who flout state COVID-19 restrictions, which include limiting in-home gatherings to a maximum of six people.“This is no different than what happens if there's a party down the street and it's keeping everyone awake,” Brown said in an interview Friday. “What do neighbors do [in that case]? They call law enforcement because it's too noisy. This is just like that. It's like a violation of a noise ordinance.”Last week the Democratic governor instituted a new round of restrictions aimed at mitigating the spread of coronavirus in the state via executive order, including a two-week “freeze” limiting indoor and outdoor gatherings to no more than six people from no more than two households just ahead of Thanksgiving. Residents are also prohibited from eating out at restaurants and going to the gym, though faith-based gatherings of up to 25 people indoors and 50 people outdoors are allowed.Violators can face up to 30 days in jail, $1,250 fines or both. The Marion County Sheriff’s office said in a statement on Friday that it believes “we cannot arrest or enforce our way out of the pandemic.”“We believe both are counterproductive to public health goals.”Brown pushed back, calling criticisms of the new restrictions "irresponsible."“This is about saving lives and it's about protecting our fellow Oregonians,” she said. “We have too many sporadic cases in Oregon. We can't trace these cases to a particular source. We have to limit gatherings and social interactions.”On Sunday, new COVID-19 cases reached a record high in the state for the third straight day, with 1,517 new infections recorded, bringing the state total to 65,170.

  • GOP Sen. Pat Toomey: Trump trying to pressure state legislatures to overturn election is 'inconsistent' with democracy

    Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) is speaking out against President Trump's attempt to get state legislatures to "dismiss the will" of voters, calling this idea "inconsistent" with a democratic society.The Pennsylvania Republican on Monday reiterated his belief that Trump should "accept the outcome" of the 2020 election that he lost to President-elect Joe Biden after exhausting all of his legal options in the key battleground state. Toomey also slammed the president for calling on state legislatures to overturn the results of the election due to baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud."The idea that a sitting president would try to, I don't know, pressure, cajole, persuade, state legislators to dismiss the will of their voters and select their own group of electors and send them to the Electoral College, it's completely inconsistent with any kind of truly democratic society," Toomey told CNBC. "So that shouldn't be going on, in my view."After holding a meeting with Michigan lawmakers at the White House on Friday before the certification of the vote in that state, Trump called on the "the Courts and/or Legislatures" to "do what has to be done to maintain the integrity of our elections." Those Michigan lawmakers who Trump met with, however, after the meeting said they haven't "been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan," a state Biden was projected to win.Toomey previously shot down Trump's claims of widespread voter fraud in Pennsylvania during the election, saying he's not aware of "any significant wrongdoing." And over the weekend, after a key Trump campaign lawsuit was dismissed in Pennsylvania, Toomey congratulated Biden and said Trump "should accept the outcome of the election and facilitate the presidential transition process." > Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), who endorsed, campaigned for and supports Trump, says the time has come: "At some point, you exhaust those possibilities. I think the president has reached that point in PA, he appears to have reached that point in GA, Michigan wasn't even close..." pic.twitter.com/wlyzUD2Ydz> > -- The Recount (@therecount) November 23, 2020More stories from theweek.com I was wrong about Mitt Romney Biden is stealing the spotlight. Trump can't stand it. There's a very simple, extremely plausible reason Trump won't admit Biden won

  • NYC sheriffs broke up a sex party with 80 people, a room full of mattresses, and boxes of condoms

    The dozens of attendees were all mask-less at Caligula, an illegal sex club, violating New York state COVID-19 regulations.

  • Alleged mafia members 'Joey Electric,' 'Tony Meatballs,' 13 others indicted

    Conspiracy, illegal gambling, loansharking and drug trafficking among charges unsealed, U.S. attorney says.

  • Reports: Israeli PM flew to Saudi Arabia, met crown prince

    Israeli media reported Monday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Saudi Arabia for a clandestine meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which would mark the first known encounter between senior Israeli and Saudi officials. The reported meeting was the latest move by the Trump Administration to promote normalized ties between Israel and the broader Arab world and reflected the shared concern of all three nations about Iran. The Israeli news site Walla, followed quickly by other Hebrew-language media, cited an unnamed Israeli official as saying that Netanyahu and Yossi Cohen, head of Israel's Mossad spy agency, flew Sunday night to the Saudi city of Neom, where they met with the crown prince.

  • UK considers whether to remove British judges from Hong Kong court

    Britain is considering pulling its judges out of Hong Kong's highest court, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said on Monday, in its latest response to what it considers China's breaches of its international obligations in the territory. Britain, which ruled Hong Kong for over 150 years until it handed it back to China in 1997, says a new security law imposed on the territory by Beijing in July was a breach of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration that paved the way for the handover. London has also objected to new rules imposed by mainland China to disqualify elected legislators in Hong Kong, and to what it describes as retribution by the territory's executive against political opposition and silencing of dissent.

  • There's a very simple, extremely plausible reason Trump won't admit Biden won

    President Trump lost his bid for re-election by 6 million votes and counting, and 74 electoral votes, and his legal team is consistently losing its court battles to disqualify President-elect Joe Biden's voters. And yet he persists, even as a growing number of Republicans are urging him to concede — or at least allow the Biden team to start its transition. So why does Trump keep slogging on? One theory being pushed by some of his supporters and allies is revenge."Trump told an ally that he knows he lost, but that he is delaying the transition process and is aggressively trying to sow doubt about the election results in order to get back at Democrats for questioning the legitimacy of his own election in 2016, especially with the Russia investigation," CNN reports, citing a source familiar with Trump's thinking. Pointing to "those who he claims undercut his election by pointing to Russian interference efforts," Trump "has suggested it is fair game to not recognize Joe Biden as the president-elect.""Will anyone be honest enough to acknowledge that most of what is happening right now has more to do with payback for how the Democrats behaved after 2016 then [sic] about legitimate claims of fraud in the election?" asked Erick Erickson, a sometime Trump critic on the right. Washington Post columnist Daniel Drezner responded by efficiently dismantling this "false equivalence between 2016 and 2020."The simpler explanation is that Trump always alleges fraud when he loses — and even when he wins — and that's just who he is: a sore loser.> Not just the 2016 Iowa caucuses, but popular vote in 2016, Arizona Senate race in 2018, and the results in 2012, when Trump was tweeting from the sidelines. It's not "revenge for the Russia investigation," Trump just says everything he loses was stolen. https://t.co/ZpViWOCpKh> > — Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) November 21, 2020The Washington Post complied a highlight reel of Trump's fraud claims.One piece of evidence bolstering this theory comes from Trump himself, who told CNN's Chris Cuomo in August 2015 that National Review's Rich Lowry is "probably right. I am the most fabulous whiner. I do whine because I want to win. And I'm not happy if I'm not winning. And I am a whiner. And I'm a whiner and I keep whining and whining until I win."More stories from theweek.com I was wrong about Mitt Romney Biden is stealing the spotlight. Trump can't stand it. Can an old Blob learn new tricks?

  • Wisconsin police arrest 15-year-old boy for Mayfair Mall shooting, say 'bullets started flying' during altercation

    While witnesses described the shooter as a white man in his 20s or 30s, Wauwatosa Police Chief Barry Weber said the suspect is an Hispanic teenager.