'America the Beautiful': White House announces theme for Christmas decorations

"America the Beautiful" is this year's Christmas theme at the White House.

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  • North Korean leader Kim Jong Un may have already received an unapproved coronavirus vaccine

    Japanese intelligence officials told a US expert that Kim Jong Un received a trial COVID-19 vaccine from China within the last few weeks.

  • More than 100 civilians dead in 'gruesome' Nigeria attack blamed on Islamic jihadists

    A weekend attack on farm workers in northeast Nigeria blamed on jihadists left at least 110 dead, the UN humanitarian coordinator in the country said on Sunday, the deadliest attack on civilians this year. The attack, in a state gripped by a jihadist insurgency for more than 10 years, took place the same day as long-delayed local elections in the state. "I am outraged and horrified by the gruesome attack against civilians carried out by non-state armed groups in villages near Borno State capital Maiduguri," Edward Kallon said in a statement. "At least 110 civilians were ruthlessly killed and many others were wounded in this attack," he added. Some locals blamed the attack on Boko Haram fighters, but Bulama Bukarti, an analyst with the Tony Blair Institute, said rival group the IS-affiliated Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) were more active in the area. "ISWAP is the likely culprit," he tweeted. Kallon, in his statement, said: "The incident is the most violent direct attack against innocent civilians this year. "I call for the perpetrators of this heinous and senseless act to be brought to justice," he added. The violence centred on the village of Koshobe near the Borno state capital Maiduguri, with assailants targeting farm workers harvesting rice fields. One pro-government anti-jihadist militia said the assailants tied up the labourers and slit their throats. Kallon said the assailants - "armed men on motorcycles" - also targeted other communities in the area. "Rural communities in Borno State are facing untold hardships," he added, calling for more to be done to protect them and to head off what he said was a looming food crisis there. Borno Governor Babaganan Umara Zulum attended the burial Sunday in the nearby village of Zabarmari of 43 bodies recovered on Saturday, saying the toll could rise after search operations resumed. The victims included dozens of labourers from Sokoto state in northwestern Nigeria, roughly 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) away, who had travelled to the northeast to find work, it said. Six were wounded in the attack and eight remained missing as of Saturday. Kallon, citing "reports that several women may have been kidnapped", called for their immediate release. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari condemned the attack on Saturday, saying: "The entire country has been wounded by these senseless killings." Neither the president's statement nor Sunday's from the UN mentioned either Boko Haram or rival group ISWAP by name. But both groups have been active in Borno State, their attacks having forced the postponement of locations in Borno State, which finally took place Saturday.

  • Report: Trump has raised more than $150 million since Election Day

    Since Election Day, President Trump's political operation has raised more than $150 million, with much of the money coming from small-time donors who tend to get fired up when they believe Trump is under attack, people with knowledge of the matter told The Washington Post. In the wake of the election, the Trump campaign has sent roughly 500 pitches to donors, the Post reports, with the messages including demands to end voter fraud and a plea from Vice President Mike Pence to join the "Election Defense Task Force." The Trump campaign's website states that the Official Election Defense Fund is soliciting the money, but this account doesn't exist, the Post says, and the fundraising requests are actually coming from the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, a joint fundraising committee benefiting the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee.As of Nov. 18, a third entity is also receiving money from the joint fundraising committee: Save America, Trump's new leadership PAC. In the fine print of the most recent fundraising letters, it says 75 percent of every contribution will go to Save America, with the remaining 25 percent going to help with the RNC's operating expenses. Trump set up Save America in early November, and will be able to tap into its funds when he is out of office, the Post reports. There aren't many limitations as to how leadership PAC money can be spent, and Trump could use it for events at his properties or to pay for travel and personal expenses, the Post says.The Trump machine is raising more money now than ever before — the Trump Make America Great Again Committee's previous best month was September, when it brought in $81 million — and that's too much for some GOP donors, like Dan Eberhart. "Trump is making hay while the sun is shining," Eberhart told the Post. "He's taking advantage of all the free media coverage to pay off his campaign debt and fill his coffers for whatever comes next. I would rather give to Romney 2012 than Trump 2020 at this point."More stories from theweek.com Americans are choosing death over deprivation Chuck Grassley returns to Senate after COVID-19 infection, calls for 'long overdue relief legislation' How camp explains Trump

  • Nike, Coca-Cola, Apple among Companies Lobbying against Uyghur Forced Labor Bill

    Multinational corporations including Nike and Coca-Cola are lobbying to water down legislation that would ban products made with forced labor in China's Xinjiang province, the New York Times reported on Sunday.China has attempted to cement state power over millions of Muslim citizens in Xinjiang, mostly Uyghur Muslims along with Kazakhs and other minorities. The ruling Communist Party has placed Uyghurs in so-called reeducation camps that attempt to erase their attachment to Islam, and has also embarked on a campaign of forced sterilization of Uyghur women.Numerous global supply chains are based in Xinjiang, including for cotton and coal, and China has employed forced Uyghur labor for various factories. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which passed the House 406-3 in September and is currently under consideration in the Senate, would ban imports of good from Xinjiang unless U.S. customs officials could verify that the goods were not produced using forced labor.However, multinational companies are lobbying against the legislation, saying that while they do not support use of forced labor, the bill could have a detrimental impact on their supply chains. Along with Nike and Coca-Cola, tech giant Apple is also pushing to weaken some restrictions, the Washington Post reported last week.Coca-Cola "strictly prohibits any type of forced labor in our supply chain" and employs third-party auditors to enforce the policy, the company said in a statement to the Times. Nike said it "did not lobby against" the legislation but had "constructive discussions" with congressional aides on keeping its supply chain free of forced labor.Pro-business groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have also joined the lobbying efforts.A report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in March of this year concluded that at least 80,000 Uyghurs have been sent away from their homes to labor in factories in other parts of China.

  • Families sue California, say state fails to educate poor, minority students amid pandemic

    The impoverished students, who range from kindergarten to high school and were only identified by first name in court documents, were not provided devices and internet connections to attend online classes, according to the lawsuit, the first of its kind in the United States. The children attend schools in Oakland and Los Angeles, and many were described as Blacks and Latinos. The lawsuit also claims that schools did not meet academic and mental health support needs, English language barriers and the unmet needs of homeless students.

  • Kremlin-Funded TV Airs Mind-Numbingly Racist Blackface Attack on Obama

    The news that former Vice President Joe Biden would become the next president of the United States was met in Russia with grim resignation, bordering on despair. Experts on Russian state television have described Biden’s presidency as “Obama’s third term” and predicted a slew of new sanctions dreaded by the Kremlin. This anticipation revived the wave of racist attacks against former President Barack Obama, which were commonplace during his administration.Overt racism in Russian state media is far from uncommon but nonetheless continues to be shocking. Tigran Keosayan—the husband of Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the Kremlin-funded RT and Sputnik—took racist mockery to new lows on his program Mezhdunarodnaya Pilorama (“International Sawmill”). Keosayan described Barack Obama as “the dark page of American history,” while introducing a highly offensive sketch by an actress in blackface impersonating the former president, which was first reported by the Moscow Times.The purported portrayal of Obama was tasteless and crude, with the actress in a bandana gesticulating as a rapper and describing the former president as a “chocolate bunny.” The show, which aired on NTV—a network funded by state-owned gas company Gazprom, mocked “Black Lives Matter” and claimed that none of Obama’s relatives know how to write. The sketch concluded with a recommendation that rather than read Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope, viewers should opt for “reading the label on the bathroom air freshener.”Facing worldwide condemnation for the latest racist episode, Margarita Simonyan—heralded as one of the most influential women in news media—attempted to backpedal, using her husband’s Armenian ethnicity as some kind of an excuse for his indefensible racism. She described the offensive sketch as a “parody of Obama” and disingenuously claimed, “As someone who is part of an ethnic minority in Russia, Tigran regularly makes fun, on the air, of his large 'ethnic' nose and his belonging to a 'Black' community (look it up if you don't know which ethnicities are referred to as 'Black' in Russia).”Despite Simonyan’s clumsy excuses, her husband is not the only one who considers himself somehow entitled to mock Black Americans. In June, RT’s editor-in-chief shared a despicably racist article from the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, which made references to “muscular criminal Negroes,” described “twerking” as the “national Negro dance,” recommended the use of amphetamines, and encouraged violence and death.Russian state media outlets have long expressed their desire for civil unrest in the United States. The author of the article, Dmitry Steshin, urged, “Beat the whites until they turn Black.” Simonyan shared the article, describing it as a piece of “good advice from an international journalist to the negroes of Minnesota and the United States.”Simonyan’s husband followed up the obscene sketch on his program with a ludicrous assertion: “There is no racism in Russia.” It was no more believable than the notorious Soviet claim, “There is no sex in the USSR.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get 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.

  • Brazil Amazon deforestation rises to highest level in over a decade

    Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest surged to a 12-year high in 2020, official government data showed on Monday, with destruction soaring since President Jair Bolsonaro took office and weakened environmental enforcement. In 2020, destruction of the world's largest rainforest rose 9.5 per cent from a year earlier to 11,088 square kilometers (2.7 million acres) - seven times the size of London - according to data from Brazil's national space research agency Inpe. That means Brazil will miss its own target, established under a 2009 climate change law, for reducing deforestation to roughly 3,900 square kilometers. The consequences for missing the target are not laid out in the law but could leave the government open to lawsuits. The official annual measure, known as PRODES, is taken by comparing satellite images from the end of July 2020 with those from the beginning of August 2019. These dates are chosen to coincide with the Amazon's dry season, when there is less cloud cover to interfere with the calculations. The Amazon is the world's largest rainforest and its protection is crucial to stopping catastrophic climate change because of the vast amount of carbon dioxide it absorbs. The latest annual destruction is a substantial increase from the 7,536 square kilometers that were deforested in 2018, the year before Mr Bolsonaro took office. While environmentalists blamed the government for the rise, federal officials hailed the figures as a sign of progress in fighting deforestation, as the increase was far lower than the 34 per cent increase recorded in 2019. "While we are not here to celebrate this, it does signify that the efforts we are making are beginning to bear fruit," Vice President Hamilton Mourao told reporters at Inpe headquarters in the Sao Paulo satellite city of Sao Jose dos Campos.

  • Georgia secretary of state suggests people are misleading Trump with claims of election fraud

    At a news conference on Monday, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger suggested that President Trump was being misled to believe there was election fraud in Georgia.

  • Mitch McConnell is still playing hardball on coronavirus relief

    It's been four months since Congress' coronavirus relief bill expired, and the Senate and House still seem no closer to agreeing on a new one.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and the White House have debated for months over what to include in the next stimulus package, with Senate Republicans seeking a far smaller bill than Democrats. But McConnell said Monday that some Democrats are now willing to accept "half a loaf" rather than delay relief any longer, pushing the onus on Pelosi to bring a smaller package to the House.House Democrats passed a $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill months ago, while Senate Republicans have refused to accept a price tag anywhere close to that. But McConnell said Monday that "there is no reason" Congress shouldn't pass something by the end of the year, especially since some Democrats seem willing to accept Republicans' slimmer proposals; Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), for example, said Monday that "both sides are going to have to compromise."Pelosi also doesn't have quite the negotiating power she had before the 2020 election given that Democrats ended up losing seats in the House, McConnell added. He failed to acknowledge that President-elect Joe Biden will be bringing his Democratic administration to the White House in less than two months.While boosted unemployment insurance expired with the CARES Act at the end of July, unemployment benefits for some Americans may disappear altogether if a new bill isn't passed soon. Federal unemployment programs for people who aren't covered by traditional jobless benefits, as well as extended benefits for those who have exhausted state unemployment, are set to expire at the end of the year, along with an eviction moratorium and other provisions.More stories from theweek.com Americans are choosing death over deprivation Chuck Grassley returns to Senate after COVID-19 infection, calls for 'long overdue relief legislation' How camp explains Trump

  • Trump Lawyer Says Krebs Should Be ‘Taken Out at Dawn and Shot’ for Defending Election

    Trump campaign lawyer Joe diGenova declared Monday that the Trump administration's former cybersecurity chief deserves to be put to death for claiming that the presidential election was the “most secure” in the country's history.President Trump fired Chris Krebs, his head of cybersecurity, earlier this month after Krebs disputed Trump's claim that the 2020 election was rigged against him. Krebs found himself at odds with the president after he called the election the “most secure in United States history.”“Anybody who thinks the election went well, like that idiot Krebs who used to be the head of cybersecurity that guy is a class A moron. He should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot,” diGenova, who is also a former U.S. Attorney, said during an appearance on the Howie Carr show, broadcast on Newsmax, in comments first reported by The Bulwark.Before he was fired by Trump in a tweet, Krebs had served as the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at the Department of Homeland Security since November, 2018.In his tweet announcing Krebs's termination, Trump called his former cybersecurity chief's assessment of the election's security "highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud - including dead people voting, Poll Watchers not allowed into polling locations, 'glitches' in the voting machines which changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more."Krebs appeared on CBS News' "60 Minutes" on Sunday and doubled down on his defense of the election's integrity."There is no foreign power that is flipping votes. There's no domestic actor flipping votes. I did it right. We did it right. This was a secure election," Krebs said in the interview.The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on diGenova's remarks.The Trump legal team has failed to produce evidence of fraud widespread enough to change the election outcome despite claiming such fraud occurred, and many of the campaign's legal challenges to the election results in swing states won by Joe Biden have already fallen flat. Nevertheless, DiGenova claimed as recently as last week that the level of election fraud and deception that took place in Pennsylvania is “truly staggering.”

  • Merkel: Challenge with China is finding right balance between values and interests

    Europe must stand up for its values in its dealings with China, but given the country's sheer population and economic importance, there will always be a trade-off between the EU's values and its interests, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. "We must define our own European interests, and this also includes common ground (with China) on foreign policy, on economic policy and digital policy and many more," she said.

  • Thousands flee as Indonesian volcano bursts to life

    Thousands have fled the scene of a rumbling Indonesian volcano that burst to life for the first time in several years, belching a massive column of smoke and ash, the disaster agency said. The evacuation of more than 4,400 residents came as Mount Ili Lewotolok erupted Sunday, spouting a thick tower of debris four kilometres (2.5 miles) into the sky, triggering a flight warning and the closure of a local airport. The crater's last major eruption was in 2017. There were no reports of injuries or damage from the eruption in a remote part of the Southeast Asian archipelago. But authorities advised residents to wear masks to protect themselves from volcanic ash spouting from the crater in East Nusa Tenggara - the southernmost province of Indonesia - and to be alert for possible lava flows.

  • California governor warns new stay-at-home order likely as COVID-19 hospitalizations rise

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) warned on Monday that if the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations continues to quickly rise, projections show the state's intensive care units could reach capacity by mid-December.Because of the risk of overwhelming parts of the state's health care system, Newsom said, he may soon have to impose a "more dramatic" and "arguably drastic" stay-at-home order for certain areas, so California can get its coronavirus numbers back down. The state, he said, will not "just sit back" and plans to "improve upon our existing efforts."There are 7,733 ICU beds in California, and 75 percent of them are now occupied. Newsom said 1,812 of the ICU beds are filled by coronavirus patients, the Los Angeles Times reports. As of Sunday, there were 7,787 coronavirus patients hospitalized in California, an increase of about 89 percent from two weeks ago. Over the last week, California has averaged 13,937 new cases per day, nearly a 75 percent increase from two weeks ago. More than 19,100 Californians have died from the coronavirus.Los Angeles County has placed new capacity limits at stores and banned most gatherings of people not from the same household, and this had to be done because "we are at the most difficult moment in the pandemic," L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said. "We don't really have any choice but to use all the tools at hand to stop the surge. Until there is a vaccine, each of us needs to protect all of those around us — both those we know and those we don't. The virus is running rampant through almost every part of our county."More stories from theweek.com Americans are choosing death over deprivation Chuck Grassley returns to Senate after COVID-19 infection, calls for 'long overdue relief legislation' How camp explains Trump

  • Arizona Certifies Election Results for Biden as Giuliani Pushes Unfounded Fraud Claims

    Arizona certified its presidential election results in favor of President-elect Joe Biden on Monday as Rudy Giuliani urged Republican state legislators at a hearing in Phoenix to override the certification.Arizona’s Secretary of State Katie Hobbs commended her state for conducting “easily the smoothest” and “most secure election in recent history” even amid the coronavirus pandemic.“Despite the unprecedented challenges, Arizonans showed up for our democracy,” Hobbs, a Democrat, said.“This election was conducted with transparency, accuracy and fairness in accordance with Arizona’s laws and elections procedures, despite numerous unfounded claims to the contrary,” she added.The certification gives Biden 11 Electoral College votes. According to projections by the Associated Press, Biden will receive 306 electoral votes to President Trump’s 232 votes.Republican Governor Doug Ducey praised the state’s election as well, saying “the system is strong, that’s why I have bragged on it so much.”“This is America, and no voter should be disenfranchised,” Ducey said. “The votes have been tabulated, all 15 counties have certified their results.”Also on Monday, Giuliani and other members of Trump’s legal team attended a scheduled hearing with the Arizona State Legislature on the integrity of the 2020 election.Trump’s team continued to push a number of unproven claims of election fraud at the hearing and called on Republican state legislators to appoint pro-Trump electors in defiance of the popular vote.“What is the right count, or how can we get as close to the right count as possible? If we can, then have the courage to select that person to get the electors, because that person won the honest vote,” Giuliani said.“In history, I swear to God, you will be heroes,” he said. “If you can’t make a determination, then don’t certify.”Wisconsin is expected to certify its election results for Biden on Monday as well.

  • 'I don't see any way around it': Former Navy SEAL McRaven says retaliation for assassination of top Iranian nuclear scientist all but certain

    "The Iranians are going to be in a position where they have to retaliate. I don't see any way around it," retired Adm. William McRaven said.

  • Mother of teenager killed by police is shot during funeral service, report says

    Sincere Pierce, 18,  was one of two teenage victims in the 13 November killing by a Brevard County deputy officer

  • Switzerland halves new infections without national lockdown as pubs and restaurants stay open

    Switzerland is emerging as a model for how the coronavirus can be contained without a national lockdown, after daily new infections halved since the start of November despite pubs, restaurants, gyms and sports remaining open in much of the country. The figures were hailed as a triumph for the “Swiss special way” by Swiss government doctors last week, and will be seen as evidence that regional tiers can work in the UK. Rather than ordering a general lockdown, Switzerland allowed regions to decide their own measures and only the worst-hit imposed tough restrictions. But critics have charged that the success came at too high a price, after the country experienced some of the highest death rates in Europe. Switzerland has been described as the “new Sweden” after it refused to follow the UK and other countries into a second lockdown this month. The Swiss government imposed only minimal restrictions at a national level, including a limit of ten on private gatherings, an 11pm curfew for restaurants and the compulsory use of facemasks in crowded areas.

  • Chuck Grassley returns to Senate after COVID-19 infection, calls for 'long overdue relief legislation'

    Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has returned to his Washington office two weeks after he tested positive for COVID-19, his team announced Monday.While Grassley wasn't the first lawmaker to contract the virus, many people were concerned about the diagnosis because the senator is 87. It turned out, however, that he remained asymptomatic throughout the course of his infection and was able to keep working remotely.Still, Grassley didn't let his fortunate situation reshape his stance on the severity of the pandemic. In a statement, he noted that the disease "affects people differently" and "more than a thousand Americans are dying every day and many more are hospitalized." So, Grassley said, he'll "continue to wear a mask and practice social distancing."He also repeated his previous calls for Congress to pass a "long overdue," bipartisan relief bill to "help families, businesses, and communities get through this crisis." Tim O'Donnell> Grassley, 87, is back at the Senate today after testing positive for Covid-19. His office says he was asymptomatic the entire time. pic.twitter.com/qJImIJl8ZC> > -- Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) November 30, 2020More stories from theweek.com Americans are choosing death over deprivation How camp explains Trump The Electoral College is only getting worse

  • Trump’s Disgraceful Endgame

    President Trump said the other day that he’d leave office if he loses the vote of the Electoral College on December 14.This is not the kind of assurance presidents of the United States typically need to make, but it was noteworthy given Trump’s disgraceful conduct since losing his bid for reelection to Joe Biden on November 3.Behind in almost all the major polls, Trump stormed within a hair’s breadth in the key battlegrounds of winning reelection, and his unexpectedly robust performance helped put Republicans in a strong position for the post-Trump-presidency era. This is not nothing. But the president can’t stand to admit that he lost and so has insisted since the wee hours of Election Night that he really won -- and won “by a lot.”There are legitimate issues to consider after the 2020 vote about the security of mail-in ballots and the process of counting votes (some jurisdictions, bizarrely, take weeks to complete their initial count), but make no mistake: The chief driver of the post-election contention of the past several weeks is the petulant refusal of one man to accept the verdict of the American people. The Trump team (and much of the GOP) is working backwards, desperately trying to find something, anything to support the president’s aggrieved feelings, rather than objectively considering the evidence and reacting as warranted.Almost nothing that the Trump team has alleged has withstood the slightest scrutiny. In particular, it’s hard to find much that is remotely true in the president’s Twitter feed these days. It is full of already-debunked claims and crackpot conspiracy theories about Dominion voting systems. Over the weekend, he repeated the charge that 1.8 million mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania were mailed out, yet 2.6 million were ultimately tallied. In a rather elementary error, this compares the number of mail-ballots requested in the primary to the number of ballots counted in the general. A straight apples-to-apples comparison finds that 1.8 million mail-in ballots were requested in the primary and 1.5 million returned, while 3.1 million ballots were requested in the general and 2.6 million returned.Flawed and dishonest assertions like this pollute the public discourse and mislead good people who make the mistake of believing things said by the president of the United States.Elected Republicans have generally taken the attitude that the president should be able to have his day in court. It’s his legal right to file suits, of course, but he shouldn’t pursue meritless litigation in Hail Mary attempts to get millions of votes tossed out. This is exactly what he’s been doing, it’s why reputable GOP lawyers have increasingly steered clear, and it’s why Trump has suffered defeat after defeat in court.In its signature federal suit in Pennsylvania, the Trump team argued that it violated the equal-protection clause of the U.S. Constitution for some Pennsylvania counties to let absentee voters fix or “cure” their ballots if they contained an error while other counties didn’t. It maintained that it was another constitutional violation for Trump election observers not to be allowed in close proximity to the counting of ballots. On this basis, the Trump team sought to disqualify 1.5 million ballots and bar the certification of the Pennsylvania results or have the Pennsylvania General Assembly appoint presidential electors.By the time the suit reached the Third Circuit, it had been whittled down to a relatively minor procedural issue (whether the Trump complaint could be amended a second time in the district court). The Trump team lost on that question, and the unanimous panel of the Third Circuit (in an opinion written by a Trump appointee) made it clear that the other claims lacked merit as well. It noted that the suit contained no evidence that Trump and Biden ballots or observers were treated differently, let alone evidence of fraud. Within reason, it is permissible for counties to have different procedures for handling ballots, and nothing forced some counties to permit voters to cure flawed absentee ballots and others to decline to do so.Not that it mattered. The court pointed out that the suit challenged the procedures to fix absentee ballots in seven Democratic counties, which don’t even come close to having enough cured ballots to change the outcome in the state; the counties might have allowed, at most, 10,000 voters to fix their ballots, and even if every single one of them voted for Biden, that’s still far short of Biden’s 80,000-plus margin in the state.The idea, as the Trump team stalwartly maintains, that the Supreme Court is going to take up this case and issue a game-changing ruling is fantastical. Conservative judges have consistently rejected Trump's flailing legal appeals, and the justices are unlikely to have a different reaction.Trump’s most reprehensible tactic has been to attempt, somewhat shamefacedly, to get local Republican officials to block the certification of votes and state legislatures to appoint Trump electors in clear violation of the public will. This has gone nowhere, thanks to the honesty and sense of duty of most of the Republicans involved, but it’s a profoundly undemocratic move that we hope no losing presidential candidate ever even thinks of again.Getting defeated in a national election is a blow to the ego of even the most thick-skinned politicians and inevitably engenders personal feelings of bitterness and anger. What America has long expected is that losing candidates swallow those feelings and at least pretend to be gracious. If Trump’s not capable of it, he should at least stop waging war on the outcome.

  • South Dakota's governor encouraged people to go shopping the same day the state reported its highest single-day COVID-19 death total

    Noem, a Republican, has refused calls to issue a mask mandate, disputing their effectiveness even as cases in South Dakota surge.