“Unhinged and kind of boring”

The Supreme Court rejects a GOP election lawsuit; Canada and the UAE approve Covid-19 vaccines.   Tonight's Sentences was written by Cameron Peters. TOP NEWS Trump's efforts to overturn the election aren't working Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images On Tuesday, the Republican effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election suffered yet another defeat when the US Supreme Court rejected a case brought by Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Kelly. [Philadelphia Inquirer / Jeremy Roebuck] Kelly's suit alleged that Pennsylvania's mail-in voting system was unconstitutional and called on the Court to either throw out millions of mail-in ballots or allow the state's Republican legislature to select electors. Either would have disenfranchised voters on an unprecedented scale. [NYT / Adam Liptak] The lawsuit was dismissed unanimously by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court last month, and there were no noted dissents in Tuesday's single-sentence court order denying Kelly's "application for injunctive relief." [NPR / Barbara Sprunt] It marks the latest in a long string of legal defeats for the Trump campaign and its allies: All told, they are 1-51 in court cases since the election, according to Democratic voting rights lawyer Marc Elias. [Twitter / Marc E. Elias] Nonetheless, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday launched a new suit challenging the election results in four states — Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — won by President-elect Joe Biden. [Texas Tribune / Emma Platoff] It's still unclear whether the Supreme Court will hear the case, but its prospects for affecting the election outcome are virtually nonexistent. A spokesperson for Georgia's Republican attorney general said that Paxton was "constitutionally, legally and factually wrong about Georgia." [ABC News / Matthew Mosk, Olivia Rubin, Alex Hosenball, and Devin Dwyer] In addition to his ill-fated and baseless legal strategy, Trump has now pressured lawmakers in multiple states to help him overturn the election results so he can stay in power. [Washington Post / Amy Gardner, Josh Dawsey, and Rachael Bade] He's also tweeting through it: According to CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale, Trump is amplifying "completely imaginary" conspiracies, "and it's both unhinged and kind of boring." [Twitter / Daniel Dale] None of Trump's efforts have amounted to much, and two deadlines — Tuesday's "safe harbor" date, now passed, and the formal Electoral College vote on December 14 — will further cement Biden's win. [Vox / Andrew Prokop] Good vaccine news from Canada and the UAE On Wednesday, Canada, following in the footsteps of the UK last week, became the second Western nation to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for widespread use. [Guardian / Leyland Cecco] That approval clears the way for a mass vaccination campaign to begin next week, according to the AP. Canada expects to have nearly 250,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine available this month. [AP / Rob Gillies] Separately, the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday signed off on a Chinese-developed vaccine, which it says is 86 percent effective (though data from the phase 3 trial has not yet been released). Ten other countries are still conducting clinical trials on the vaccine. [NPR / Jaclyn Diaz] The vaccine, produced by Sinopharm, has already been approved for emergency use in China and administered widely. According to the manufacturer, nearly 1 million people have already been vaccinated. [Washington Post / Eva Dou and Paul Schemm] Though the Sinopharm vaccine appears to be somewhat less effective than those produced by Pfizer and Moderna, it also has some upsides. Notably, it doesn't require the same ultra-cold storage temperatures as the other candidates, which could make distribution logistics easier. [Bloomberg] MISCELLANEOUS 46 states and the FTC are accusing Facebook of using its "dominance and monopoly power to crush smaller rivals" in a major new antitrust lawsuit. [NYT / Cecilia Kang and Mike Isaac] Despite a bipartisan Covid-19 relief proposal, stimulus talks are running into trouble on Capitol Hill. [Politico / Burgess Everett and Heather Caygle] "Failure to launch": How the pandemic is devastating recent college graduates. [Vox / Terry Nguyen] Mount Everest, already the world's highest mountain, is now officially even taller. [BBC / Navin Singh Khadka] VERBATIM "If I would say to you, 'I don't want to do it,' I'd get my house bombed tonight." [Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward, a Republican, on why she hasn't pushed back against President Trump's attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election / NYT] LISTEN TO THIS Alex Ward joins Dara and Matt to analyze the Biden national security team. [Spotify / Alex Ward, Dara Lind, and Matthew Yglesias] Read more from Vox   The "two dose" problem for Covid-19 vaccines, briefly explained   Biden's building the most diverse Cabinet ever — but many Democrats say he's doing it wrong   The Saved by the Bell reboot gave me an existential crisis   How to keep the smart speaker you got for the holidays and still keep some of your privacy, too   Why Biden's Pentagon pick is causing so much controversy   Facebook Twitter YouTube This email was sent to edwardlorilla1986.paxforex@blogger.com. Manage your email preferences, or unsubscribe to stop receiving all emails from Vox. 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