WTF Just Happened Today

Monday, December 6, 2021

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1/ The Biden administration announced a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, citing China’s “ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses.” American athletes, however, are free to participate in the games. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, as well as human rights advocates, have called on the Biden administration to pressure Beijing over abuses against the Uyghur community (which has been declared a genocide both by Biden and the Trump administration), a crackdown on pro-democracy free speech protests in Hong Kong, China’s recent aggression toward Taiwan, pursuit of hypersonic weapons, and its secrecy surrounding the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the White House is looking to send a “clear message” that the human rights abuses in China mean there cannot be “business as usual.” (New York Times / Politico / NBC News / Washington Post / Bloomberg / CNN / CNBC)

2/ The Justice Department sued Texas over its plan to redraw congressional and state legislative voting districts, alleging that the Republican-led legislature’s redistricting plans disenfranchise minorities in violation of the Voting Rights Act. Texas’ redistricting plan “denies Black and Latino voters the equal opportunity to participate in the election process,” and was created “with discriminatory intent,” Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said. The suit claims Texas is “refusing to recognize the State’s growing minority electorate” and asks the court to stop the state from holding elections under the new maps and to redraw Texas’s congressional and state House districts for 2022. The Justice Department previously sued Texas, as well as Georgia, over laws limiting ballot access. (Politico / NBC News / Washington Post / New York Times / Wall Street Journal / USA Today / CNBC)

3/ The metadata in a draft letter written by a Trump Justice Department official “indicates some involvement with the White House” in Trump’s failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election. In Dec. 2020, Jeffrey Clark drafted a letter to the Georgia governor and legislative leadership urging them to convene a special session of the le...

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