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In late December, scientists in California began searching coronavirus samples for a fast-spreading new variant that had just been identified in Britain. They found it, though in relatively few samples. But in the process, the scientists made another unwelcome discovery: California had produced a variant of its own. That mutant, which belongs to a lineage known as CAL.20C, seemed to have popped up in July but lay low till November. Then it began to quickly spread. CAL.20C accounted for more than half of the virus genome samples collected in Los Angeles laboratories on Jan. 13, according to a new study...

It is infuriating that the Trump administration left so many of these things undone. I wish I could tell you that the incoming Biden administration had a genius plan for combating Covid-19, thick with ideas no one else had thought of and strategies no one else had tried. But it doesn’t. What it does have is the obvious plan for combating Covid-19, full of ideas many others have thought of and strategies it is appalling we haven’t yet tried. That it is possible for Joe Biden and his team to release a plan this straightforward is the most damning indictment...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly signaled support for impeachment, saying the Democrats’ move could help the GOP get rid of President Trump and his movement. The New York Times initially claimed that McConnell was “pleased” that House Democrats had introduced an article of impeachment against Trump. Fox News adds that multiple sources have confirmed McConnell is “done” and “furious” with the President. The Kentucky Republican, according to Fox, “told associates that impeachment will help rid the Republican Party of Trump and his movement.” McConnell’s anger, according to the article, stems not only from the way President Trump handled the...

After excusing and ignoring riots from leftists all year, Democrats and their allies in the media are ready to condemn riots now that the turmoil has shifted to fit their narrative.Democrats and their allies in the media are ready to condemn riots now that the turmoil has shifted to fit their narrative. On Wednesday, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building. It was an astonishing display of anarchic protest that delayed congressional certification of the Electoral College vote formally handing former Vice President Joe Biden the keys to the White House. he scenes from the dark day...

President Trump claimed in a statement on Tuesday night he and Vice President Mike Pence are in "total agreement" on the vice president's authority regarding the Electoral College count, after multiple news outlets reported Pence told Mr. Trump he lacks the power to alter the election results. The New York Times and other news outlets reported Tuesday that Pence told Mr. Trump he doesn't believe he possesses the power to block Congress' certification of President-elect Joe Biden's win. On Tuesday night, Mr. Trump called that report "fake news." Mr. Trump, in a statement issued by the Trump campaign, claimed he...

Vice President Mike Pence told President Trump on Tuesday that he did not believe he had the power to block congressional certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the presidential election despite Mr. Trump’s baseless insistence that he did, people briefed on the conversation said. Mr. Pence’s message, delivered during his weekly lunch with the president, came hours after Mr. Trump further turned up the public pressure on the vice president to do his bidding when Congress convenes Wednesday in a joint session to ratify Mr. Biden’s Electoral College win. “The Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently...

It’s easy to see why the American Left loved Sami al-Arian. Leftists hate Israel, too. Longtime FrontPage readers will remember Sami Al-Arian, the former University of South Florida professor who for years was a darling of the Leftist intelligentsia. IPT News reported Monday that he has resurfaced, but that the stalwart old Jew-hater hasn’t changed: while he has reined in his rhetoric a bit and speaks in a more civilized manner, he is still calling for Israel’s destruction, which would result in the murder of millions of Jews. Back in 1991, during a speech in Chicago, al-Arian screamed: “The Quran...

ATLANTA — President Trump took to Twitter Friday evening to make the unfounded assertion that Georgia’s two Senate races are “illegal and invalid,” an argument that could complicate his efforts to convince his supporters to turn out for Republican candidates in the two runoff races that will determine which party controls the Senate. The president is set to hold a rally in Dalton, Ga., on Monday, the day before Election Day, and Georgia Republicans are hoping he will focus his comments on how crucial it is for Republicans to vote in large numbers for Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, the...

Senator Mitch McConnell blocked an attempt by Democrats on Tuesday to hold an immediate vote on increasing stimulus checks to $2,000 from $600, leaving the fate of the measure unclear as President Trump continued to demand the larger payouts and more Republicans publicly endorsed the idea. Instead, Mr. McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, provided vague assurances that the Senate would “begin the process” of discussing $2,000 checks and two other issues that Mr. Trump has demanded lawmakers address: election security and removing legal protections for social media platforms. Mr. McConnell would not say whether he planned separate...

At 15, Mimi Groves said the n-word word in an attempt to be 'cool,' and the video sat for years. It wasn't until it was weaponized against her that anyone cared at all.A high school senior is proud of having ruined a classmate’s life by posting a three-second video clip the classmate had long since forgotten about. In fact, he thinks of it as a learning moment, and he’s happy about it. So is The New York Times.In an article that went viral over the weekend, Times writer Dan Levin walked readers through the triumphant tale of Jimmy Galligan, who...

By their reckoning, white evangelicals have become reckless plague-bearers with no regard for the poor and oppressed, and their cruelty rightly earns them the world’s opprobrium.So much for peace on earth and goodwill to men. America’s legacy media elites used the Sunday before Christmas for extra Christian-bashing, with white evangelicals the preferred targets. Writing in The New Yorker, Michael Luo complained that “white evangelical Protestants, once again, overwhelmingly supported President Trump in the election,” and that “churches, particularly conservative ones, fought lockdown orders and rebuffed public-health warnings.” New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof interviewed leftist pastor Jim Wallis, with the...

It should be no surprise as 2020 comes to an end that corporate media covered a horrific year as horrifically as expected. From its laudatory coverage of the presidential impeachment it encouraged to the blatant gaslighting about this year’s riotous protests, the nation’s least accountable institution performed as usual, only escalating its protection of Democrats and leftism, and shameless manipulation of the facts while demanding total power to determine them. Here are 20 top mortifying moments of the media in 2020.20: Iranian Terrorist Was A War HeroThe Trump administration rang in the pre-pandemic new year with the execution of Iranian...

What, in today's political culture, is a "centrist"? Old-fashioned political nerds define it by support for legislation and policy proposals. If you love really big tax cuts and favor abolishing several Cabinet departments, you're not a centrist. If you want to "defund the police" and "end fossil fuels," you're also not a centrist. This is one of those matters of political categorization that our most prestigious newspapers mangle on a regular basis. Liberal editors and reporters have an annoying tendency to define the center as the precise location where they stand on the ideological spectrum. Case in point: The New...

In a meeting at the White House on Friday, the president weighed appointing Sidney Powell, who promoted conspiracy theories about rigged voting machines, to probe voter fraud. President Trump on Friday discussed making Sidney Powell, who as a lawyer for his campaign team unleashed a series of conspiracy theories about a Venezuelan plot to rig voting machines in the United States, a special counsel investigating voter fraud, according to two people briefed on the discussion. It was unclear if Mr. Trump will move ahead with such a plan. Most of his advisers opposed the idea, two of the people briefed...

Fact checks on the United States' COVID vaccine timeline expose how outlets like NBC, The New York Times, and The Washington Post are willing to attack American aspirations to score political points.Long gone are the days of Snopes assuring readers there isn’t a million dollars waiting in a Nigerian bank account for them. Distant are the happier times when fact-checks assured us there was no hook-handed hitchhiker killing our grandparents on the local highway. Today, we see an alliance between corporate media and corporate tech titans to squelch debate, silence conservatives, and literally censor regular Americans, dissenting scientists, newspaper competitors,...

Donald Trump’s refusal to accept his electoral defeat is alarming, but unsurprising. It is Mr. Trump’s character to reject even reality itself when it conflicts with his ego. More alarming is the long list of state and national Republican leaders cravenly falling in line behind his desperate efforts to topple American democracy. On Friday, the Supreme Court rejected a Texas lawsuit to overturn the election, a legal challenge that was as frivolous as it was anti-constitutional. Yet more than 60 percent of House Republicans signed a supporting brief, joining 18 Republican attorneys general who filed their own and embraced entirely...

Looking at reporting and discussion of the 2020 presidential campaign, has any word been misused as often as "misinformation"? In much political debate, it was used to mean "information I don't like," rather than something that was provably false. That confusion extends to a new survey of American attitudes done by Gallup and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The survey questioned 2,752 respondents and was conducted in mid-November. Gallup found that 64 percent of Americans believe they were subjected to more "misinformation" in the 2020 campaign than in earlier campaigns. That number included 52 percent of Democrats,...

The 538 members of the Electoral College are meeting today to cast ballots for president based on the election results in their states, formalizing Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory. This year, Mr. Biden won states with 306 electoral votes, and President Trump won 232. Despite Mr. Trump’s refusal to concede defeat, every state has certified its election results and appointed electors pledged to the candidate who carried its votes.

Walter E. Williams, a prominent conservative economist, author and political commentator who expressed profoundly skeptical views of government efforts to aid his fellow African-Americans and other minority groups, died on Tuesday on the campus of George Mason University in Virginia, where he had taught for 40 years. He was 84.His daughter, Devon Williams, said he died suddenly in his car after he had finished teaching a class. She said he had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and hypertension.As a public intellectual, Mr. Williams moved easily between the classroom and public forums that gave him wide reach. He wrote a syndicated column,...

The joint operation by big tech and big media to bolster former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign likely landed Democrats in the White House.President Donald Trump has been deriding the election as unfair ever since the race was called for Joe Biden last month. Launching a series of lawsuits in target swing states decided by razor-thin margins, the president has now hinged his 2020 hopes on the existence of voter fraud big enough to tip the outcome. Whether there was enough ballot corruption to manipulate the result remains an open question, one to be decided in the courts. Whether fraud...