It’s been a week of split-screens in American politics. The nation’s attention is divided between the president and the president-elect; between the coronavirus vaccine and the rising death toll from the pandemic; between congressional attempts to reach compromise and congressional attempts to rebuff Donald Trump. As the days tick down until the holidays, and a new year, and a new Congress and a new president, here are some of the key political stories from this week.
It was yet another rough week for the president’s efforts to reverse the results of his November defeat in the US presidential election. First, the “safe harbour” date for states certifying the results arrived on Tuesday with all but one, Wisconsin, meeting the deadline. That will make it much more difficult for Trump’s allies in Congress to contest the results of the election in January. Tuesday also delivered a one-two legal punch to the president. The Arizona Supreme Court unanimously ruled that there was no evidence of fraud or misconduct in Joe Biden’s victory in that state. And the US Supreme Court batted down a legal challenge to the Democrat’s win in that state with a terse, one-sentence “application denied” order.(BBC)…[+]
