Tag: Michigan

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Carl Levin, Lengthy-Serving Michigan Senator, Dies at 87

Carl Levin, Long-Serving Michigan Senator, Dies at 87

Although he had no military experience, Senator Levin served for 10 years – from 2001 to 2003 and from 2007 to 2015 – chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, a platform from which he had a major influence on military appropriation and defense policy.

He exposed lavish and corrupt practices by military companies, voted to close bases, pushed for less government secrecy, and was instrumental in lifting the ban on gays in the military. He argued that military commanders and non-civilian officials should retain authority over sexual assault cases in the armed forces, arguing that doing so would provide more protection for victims.

After the 2001 terrorist attacks, he voted to give President George W. Bush the power to prosecute the perpetrators. But he became critical of the American fighting in Afghanistan and was an early opponent of the Iraq war. He expressed skepticism about the government’s claims that President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. He welcomed President Barack Obama’s decision in 2011 to withdraw American troops from Iraq.

Carl Milton Levin was born in Detroit on June 28, 1934, one of three children of Saul Levin and the former Bess Levinson. His father was a lawyer and a member of Michigan’s Correction Commission, which operated state prisons. Public affairs dominated the conversation over dinner, with the father asking Carl and his siblings Hannah for opinions on the death penalty, mayor’s decisions, and other issues.

Carl graduated from Detroit Central High School in 1952, Swarthmore College with a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1956, and Harvard Law School in 1959.

In 1961 he married Barbara Halpern. They had three daughters, Kate, Laura and Erica. He leaves behind his wife, daughters, brother and six grandchildren.

After serving five years as an attorney in Detroit, he was Deputy Attorney General and General Counsel of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission from 1964 to 1967. He helped set up the Detroit Public Defender’s Office and was its chief defense attorney from 1968-69. From 1969 to 1977 he served two terms on the Detroit City Council, the last four years as president. He also became a close associate of Coleman Young, a Democrat who became Detroit’s first African American mayor in 1974.

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Health

CDC chief says vaccinating alone will not cease Michigan Covid surge

CDC chief says vaccinating alone won't stop Michigan Covid surge

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer receives a dose of Pfizer Covid vaccine at Ford Field during an event to encourage Michigan residents to receive the vaccine on April 6, 2021 in Detroit, Michigan.

Matthew Hatcher | Getty Images

A senior health official in the Biden government said Monday Michigan should “shut things down” as it grapples with a staggering increase in coronavirus cases.

Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said an increase in Covid-19 vaccinations alone is not the answer – even as Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer urges the federal government to send her more vaccines.

“I think if we try to vaccinate our way out of what’s going on in Michigan, we’d be disappointed that it took so long for the vaccine to work and actually have the effects,” Walensky said during a White House briefing the pandemic. It took several weeks for the vaccinations to kick in and the number of cases decreased, she noted.

The state’s best bet, Walensky said, “is to really close things up.”

Walensky urged Michigan to “go back to where we were last spring, last summer, and turn things off, smooth the curve, reduce contact with each other” and step up testing and contact tracking efforts. The number of cases in Michigan has risen dramatically in the past few weeks. For the past week, an average of 7,359 new cases per day have been recorded and, according to Johns Hopkins University, the pandemic cases were nearing Thanksgiving. Deaths are also increasing.

“What we really have to do in situations like this is turn things off,” said Walensky.

Whitmer, a Democrat in a politically violet state where shutdowns were particularly controversial, was reluctant to order new restrictions in response to the recent surge in cases.

Last week, she asked residents of her state to voluntarily restrict their activities and urged schools to temporarily stop personal learning. However, she stressed that “these are, to be very clear, not orders, mandates or requirements”.

No state has more daily infections per capita than Michigan, according to a CNBC analysis of the Johns Hopkins University data.

Much of the current surge comes from a highly infectious variant of Covid, B.1.1.7, the most common strain of virus in the United States today

Whitmer on Friday called on President Joe Biden’s administration to flood their state with vaccines and called on the government to “develop a vaccination program to help states like Michigan”. The government is reportedly ready to transfer some resources to the state, but not vaccines.

Without contacting Whitmer directly, Walensky pushed back calls for additional vaccines to be shipped to states with severe outbreaks.

“There are different tools that we can use for different periods of time,” Walensky said at the meeting on Monday.

“We know that if vaccines are in our arms today, we won’t see any effect from those vaccines for two to six weeks, depending on the vaccine,” she said. “So when you have an acute situation, an extraordinary number of cases like Michigan, the answer isn’t necessarily to give a vaccine. In fact, we know the vaccine will have a delayed response.”

“We also need this vaccine in other places,” said Walensky. “If we vaccinate today, we’ll have an impact in six weeks and we don’t know where the next place will be to increase.”

– CNBC’s Berkeley Lovelace Jr. contributed to this report.

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Health

Covid circumstances overwhelm Michigan well being system, Gov. Whitmer urges residents to remain dwelling

Covid cases overwhelm Michigan health system, Gov. Whitmer urges residents to stay home

In this file photo dated February 24, 2021, provided by Michigan Governor’s Office, Governor Gretchen Whitmer, the state is addressing during a speech in Lansing, Michigan. Governor Whitmer signed at least $ 2.5 billion in COVID-19 relief spending Tuesday. March 9, 2021, while she vetoed $ 650 million after the Michigan Republicans failed to negotiate with her and tied other aids to laws that would have curtailed her government’s power to impose pandemic restrictions.

Michigan Governor’s Office via AP

Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer has urged high schools to temporarily suspend face-to-face learning and residents to limit their activities as a surge in Covid-19 cases overwhelms the state’s public health system.

The governor also urged schools to voluntarily suspend youth sports games and practices, and residents to avoid in-person meals for the next two weeks.

“To be very clear, it is not about orders, mandates or requirements,” said Whitmer at a press conference on Friday. “A year later we all know what works and it has to be a team effort. We have to do this together. Life depends on it.”

Covid-19 infections have spiked across the state in recent weeks, approaching the state’s November pandemic high of 7,226 new cases a day averaging over the past week – a 23% increase from the previous week, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

The state health department is currently tracking 991 Covid outbreaks across Michigan, said the state’s chief medical executive Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, at the press conference.

“Because we see so many cases each day, our public health system is overwhelmed. We cannot get information on many cases, nor identify their close contacts. We don’t know where all cases or outbreaks are, and what we know is likely one Counting, “said Khaldun.

Whitmer and Khaldun urged all Michiganders to wear masks, maintain social distance, wash their hands, stay home and get vaccinated.

The rise in the coronavirus in Michigan is due to the fact that the highly infectious variant B.1.1.7, identified for the first time in Great Britain, has become the most common Covid strain in the USA

There were 291 outbreaks in the state between January and March that came from youth sports teams alone and that involved at least 1,091 people, Khaldun said.

“The numbers show that young people are not impervious to this virus as we’ve seen many cases in teenagers and young adult Michiganders,” Whitmer said.

State health officials recorded 58 outbreaks in restaurants and retail stores in the past week alone, Khaldun said.

“Just because something is open doesn’t mean it’s safe or that you should,” Khaldun said. “Indoor dining is one of the riskiest things to do in this pandemic.”

Whitmer also called on the federal government to develop a vaccination program to use Covid-19 vaccine doses at hotspots.

“Today it’s Michigan and the Midwest, tomorrow it could be another part of our country,” said Whitmer.

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Health

Covid Surge in Michigan Alarms Well being Specialists

Covid Surge in Michigan Alarms Health Experts

The country is a study of contrasts. New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and other northeastern states continue to report high levels of cases, and Illinois, Minnesota, and several other Midwestern states have seen worrying upward movements. In large parts of the south and west, however, the number of cases remains relatively low.

California reports continued declines of about 2,600 cases per day, compared with more than 40,000 daily for much of January. Arizona has an average of 570 cases per day, compared with more than 10,000. And in Arkansas, fewer than 200 cases are announced on most days, a decrease of 40 percent in the past two weeks.

But if any place offers any glimpse into the threat of a new climb, it’s Michigan.

Health officials attributed the rapid increase in cases in part to variant B.1.1.7, which was originally identified in the UK and is widespread in Michigan. But they have also seen a wider return to pre-pandemic life, translating into relaxation of masking, social distancing, and other strategies to slow the spread of the virus – many weeks before a significant portion of the population is vaccinated. On Thursday, Michigan officials announced that they had identified their first case of the P.1 variant, which is widespread in Brazil and has now been found in more than 20 US states.

Nationwide, more than 2,300 coronavirus patients are being hospitalized, a number that has more than doubled since the beginning of March. Five hospitals in the Henry Ford system in the Detroit area had a total of 75 coronavirus patients in the week of March 8. As of Tuesday, the hospitals were up to 267 patients. On Monday, the health system announced that it would reintroduce a policy to limit visitor numbers at several hospitals in response to the recent surge.

Dr. Adnan Munkarah, clinical director of the Henry Ford health system, said more coronavirus patients are now surviving the disease than in 2020, also because they are younger.

But he’s frustrated, he said, and his staff is exhausted. “We were hoping that we would have better control of things now,” he said.

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Politics

On Trump, Michigan Republicans Lean One Method: ‘Fealty at All Prices’

On Trump, Michigan Republicans Lean One Way: ‘Fealty at All Costs’

ROCKFORD, me. – When Representative Peter Meijer voted against Donald J. Trump in January, making him one of ten Republicans in the House who opposed their party, he bluntly admitted that “it may have been an act of political suicide” .

That month, during Mr Meijer’s first town hall event since that impeachment vote, some of his constituents made it clear to the newly elected Congressman that they shared his view – not that Mr Trump had committed an impeachment act by helping to contribute to a riot to trigger the impeachment of the Capitol, but that crossing was an unforgivable sin.

“I took action against people who told me not to vote for you, and I’ve lost that belief,” said Cindy Witke, who lives in Mr. Meijer’s district, that of Grand Rapids and small communities like this one in West Michigan is anchored.

Nancy Eardley, who spoke next, asked Mr. Meijer to stop saying that the election had not been stolen. She said he “betrayed” his Republican base.

“I couldn’t have been more disappointed,” said Mrs. Eardley. “I don’t think there is much you can say that will ever change my mind about not firing you in two years.”

Mr Trump’s acquittal on Saturday in his impeachment trial was the first test of his continued influence over Republicans. All but seven senators in the party voted against the condemnation. But in Michigan, one of the major battlefield states that Mr Trump lost in the November election – and which is home to two of the ten House Republicans who backed his indictment – there are growing signs that a party is not in the River is but agree to double the same issues that defined Mr. Trump’s political style: conspiracy theories, allegiance to the leader, a web of misinformation and intolerance.

The recent elections in the nationwide Republican Party resulted in the uprising of Meshawn Maddock, a Conservative activist who helped organize busloads of Michigandans traveling to Washington on January 6, the day of the Capitol Assault. Mike Shirkey, the Senate majority leader and Michigan’s best-elected Republican, was caught on a hot microphone arguing that the riot was “staged” and a “hoax,” an unmasked conspiratorial claim that is now popular with Mr. Trump’s supporters . And in a vivid reference to a divided state, the attempt by local Republicans to reprimand Mr Meijer for supporting impeachment stalled between 11-11.

In the state’s sixth district, which hugs Lake Michigan, two GOP branches have already voted to convict Representative Fred Upton, a veteran Republican who also supported the impeachment.

Victor Fitz, a Cass County prosecutor and Republican official who supported efforts to reprimand Mr Upton, said the current gap between the party’s base and its founding wing was the largest he has ever seen.

“There is deep disappointment” with Mr. Upton, said Mr. Fitz. “And to be honest with you, I think there are some who believe that with this vote he crossed the Rubicon.”

With loyalty to Mr Trump as the overarching point of contention, Republicans are grappling with the idea of ​​the proverbial big tent, and politicians like Mr Upton and Mr Meijer are at the forefront of the conflict. In the months since election day, when the president attacked the democratic process and a mob came to the seat of the American government on his behalf, the dangers of walking in his political shadow have rarely been clearer. But it is also clear that his party shows little desire to break with him or his complaints.

The outcome of this tug-of-war will determine the direction of a party that is out of control in Congress and the White House and needs to focus on winning the 2022 midterm elections. The GOP tent has made room for conspiracy theories like obstetrics and QAnon, as well as extremist elected officials like Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. Is there room for anti-Trumpers?

“The Michigan Republican Party is’ more Trumpy today than it was before the elections,” said Jeff Timmer, former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party. The former president’s electoral coalition has failed, but its supporters are so vehement in their belief that the party has made its mistakes cannot recognize or learn from it.

“That’s why Trumpism will continue long after Trump. People who weren’t there four years ago, ”he said,“ people we had never heard of are now controlling the party’s levers. “

He added, “When you make a deal with the devil, the story usually ends with the devil gathering your soul. You don’t get it back and you have a happy ending. “

Places like West Michigan are a landmark for conservatism, mirroring the Republican Party’s path from a political coalition defined by Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan to a coalition focused on Mr. Trump. Given the strong opposition to the big government and the decline in production that is leaving deep scars, this region of the state also has a libertarian bias and independence, as evidenced by former representative Justin Amash, a prominent Trump critic.

During interviews, business stops and the virtual town hall event, Mr Meijer tried to explain his impeachment decision on a similar principle. He responds with grace to his Republican critics, calmly pointing out the lack of evidence to support Mr. Trump’s allegations of electoral fraud. He opened City Hall by describing the immense fear he and other lawmakers felt during the January mob violence.

“This was a moment when we needed guidance, and I don’t think the President intended to do that,” he said of Mr Trump.

Even so, the ground is shifting under Mr. Meijer’s feet, party officials in Michigan warn, including some in his own district, the Third Congress. Angry people leave messages of “traitors” in response to his social media posts. News outlets backing Mr Trump have pinned Mr Meijer and other Republican incumbents who supported the impeachment by highlighting their key challengers. Furthermore, Mr. Trump’s vision lives on: Many in the party want to look backwards at grievances such as perceived electoral fraud rather than focus on the next election cycle and reach out to the swing voters he lost.

People like Mr Timmer have asked the party to look into the suburban Democratic bias that has plagued Republicans across the country. Ms. Maddock and others have focused on unsubstantiated allegations of election fraud. Her husband, a member of the Michigan Legislature, and other state lawmakers signed a brief request to the Supreme Court to give state-elected officials the power to dismiss the election results.

Several Michigan Republican officials, including Ms. Maddock, Mr. Shirkey, and recently-elected GOP chairman Ron Weiser, did not respond to multiple requests for comments on this article. Mr Upton and Mr Meijer declined to be interviewed, and several county and local officials who voted to reprimand the elected officials did not comment.

The collective public silence of many Michigan Republican leaders signals a party that is walking on eggshells without a clear leader or unifying ideology. Mr. Weiser is a former member of the University of Michigan’s Board of Regents and a powerful Republican donor, but he needed Ms. Maddock’s early support as a conduit for the Trumpian base.

Mr Meijer is already facing a main challenger, although he is still considered a favorite. Several Republicans in Mr. Upton’s orbit have raised the possibility of him retiring rather than embarking on a potentially bloody re-election campaign.

The rise of Republicans who were in Washington on Jan. 6 or vociferously supported Mr. Trump’s allegations of electoral fraud like Ms. Maddock has messed up a state with a rich history of business-friendly Republicans in the form of former President Gerald Ford, the state’s native son .

Tony Daunt, a Republican official who acts as an election guard and has advised Republican heads of state, said he hoped the party would not use Trump loyalty as a litmus test.

“I think with the right kind of leadership, the people we need would eagerly come back to the group,” Daunt said. “There are some good things from the Trump administration and even from Trump’s political instincts that are worth bringing into the Republican camp. But Donald Trump is neither the vehicle nor the messenger for it. “

Jason Watts isn’t that confident. As an election officer in Allegan County and party secretary in the Sixth Congressional District, he has seen the party transform to the point where it is now unrecognizable, he said. He doubts the necessary guidance will come.

“I almost feel like a person without a home,” said Mr Watts. “Because you can change candidates, but until we are ready to act as a party, we will wallow in this defeat for a few cycles.”

Mr Watts also has a secret to reveal: he never voted for Mr Trump despite organizing more than 15,000 yard signs for the Republican ticket in the county. In 2016, he supported Ohio Governor John Kasich in the primaries and long-term independent candidate Evan McMullin in the general election. That year, Mr. Watts voted for the libertarian candidate – a silent expression of discomfort with the former president that he has only released since the Capitol attack.

Does he wish he had spoken earlier?

“I just felt like it would be a brief storm if I rummaged through,” said Watts. “But this undertone of hatred, this loyalty at all costs, will harm us.”

And what happens now?

“If they’re crazy, so be it,” he said. “You can vote me out in two years.”

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‘It’s Numbing’: 9 Retired Nuns in Michigan Die of Covid-19

‘It’s Numbing’: Nine Retired Nuns in Michigan Die of Covid-19

The religious sisters, who were retired at the Dominican Life Center in Michigan, followed strict rules to avoid a coronavirus outbreak: they were kept in isolation, visitors were banned, and masks were required from everyone on campus.

But months after it was held in check, it found its way in.

On Friday, the Adrian Dominican Sisters said nine sisters died from complications from Covid-19 on the Adrian campus, about 75 miles southwest of Detroit, in January.

“It’s numbing,” said Sister Patricia Siemen, head of the order. “We had six women die in 48 hours.”

The death of the sisters in Michigan contributed to a well-known trend in the spread of the virus as it destroys religious communities by infecting retired, aging populations of sisters and nuns who had tacitly dedicated their lives to others.

Now some of these sisters have come out into the open as details of their names, ages, and lifetimes are highlighted as part of the national discourse about Americans lost to the coronavirus.

“It’s a moment of reckoning with the place they now have in our culture,” said Kathleen Holscher, a professor who holds the Endowed Chair of Roman Catholic Studies at the University of New Mexico. “Fifty or 60 years ago you were the face of American Catholicism, in schools and in hospitals.”

Some of the women who died on the Adrian Dominican Sisters campus were nurses or teachers. Others had devoted decades of their lives to worship.

“Americans are being reminded that they are older and are still there,” said Dr. Holscher. “But now they live in these communal situations and take care of each other.”

Accounting for deaths in the nation’s religious communities began in the first half of 2020 as the country took note of the fatal transmission of the virus and the lives associated with it.

Last April, May and June 13 Felician sisters died of Covid-19 at the presentation of the Convent of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Michigan. They pursued teaching, pastoral care and prayer service.

In a suburb of Milwaukee, at least five sisters died at the Convent of Our Lady of the Angels as of April last year. They worked in parishes, schools and universities, taught English and music, and served the elderly and the poor.

In December, eight Roman Catholic sisters, educators, music teachers and social activists died of Covid-19-related diseases in a Wisconsin old people’s home in Notre Dame by Elm Grove, near Milwaukee.

“Nuns were the real grassroots workers in the Church,” said Jack Downey, professor of Catholic studies at the University of Rochester. “It is really the nuns that people interact with on a daily basis. You made Catholic life in the United States possible. “

Updated

Jan. 29, 2021, 4:46 p.m. ET

“This is how communities of nuns that go this way become particularly tragic,” he added.

While deaths have increased, losses have placed a focus on the future of these communities in a country where its population is not only shrinking but aging rapidly.

Michael Pasquier, a professor of religious studies and history at Louisiana State University, said interest in institutional religious life had waned since the 1960s, an era of cultural change that brought more women into the workplace. There are now about 40,000 Roman Catholic nuns or sisters in the country – mostly in the mid to late 1970s and older – compared to about 160,000 in the 1970s, he said.

The death toll from the virus, he said, “reminds us all that the makeup and face of Catholic sisters today are old.”

The losses have underscored the virus’ tendency to hunt down older adults, people with underlying medical conditions, and places where people are in close contact, such as nursing homes, which are particularly hard hit by the pandemic.

Dr. Holscher said the “poignant or tragic” part of the nuns’ deaths was that, unlike nursing homes, women forego a traditional family structure when entering religious life.

“They have no children, spouses or close family members,” she said. “And they signed up to take care of each other.”

Many of the aging religious orders took precautions in early 2020 to protect their communities. At Elm Grove, the nuns followed federal guidelines on masks and social distancing, as well as staggered meal times in the communal dining room.

The Dominican sisters imposed similar restrictions, including weekly tests for staff and sisters, cancellation of meals and personal prayers, and permission for the sisters to leave for medical appointments only.

“We worked so hard to keep it in check because when it gets into a building like a nursing home you are really pretty helpless,” said Sister Siemen. “The residents are already so vulnerable.”

However, on Jan. 14, the order announced that there had been an outbreak of nurses and workers at the Dominican Life Center, a qualified care center that had had a Covid-19 unit in place for months and not in use.

The first positive test took place on December 20th and several sisters died within weeks, some within days of each other.

Sister Jeannine Therese McGorray, 86, died on January 11 and Sister Esther Ortega, 86, died on January 14. Sister Dorothea Gramlich, 81, died on January 21.

Three sisters died on January 22nd: Sister Ann Rena Shinkey, 87; Sister Mary Lisa Rieman, 79; and Sister Charlotte Francis Moser, 86. The next day, Sister Mary Irene Wischmeyer, 94, and Sister Margaret Ann Swallow, 97, died. The last death was this week: Sister Helen Laier, 88, died Tuesday.

Sister Siemen said that the Order is used to mourning their sisters due to its aging population, but this series of losses has given them a sense of “solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of families who have lost loved ones to Covid. ”

Even so, she said that her faith helps them get through.

“There is obviously grief,” said Sister Siemen, “but as women of faith we know that going through this door of death is not the last for us.”

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Michigan Rep. Mitchell quits GOP for refusal to just accept Trump loss to Biden

Michigan Rep. Mitchell quits GOP for refusal to accept Trump loss to Biden

Michigan MP Paul Mitchell resigned from the Republican Party on Monday because the GOP refused to admit that President Donald Trump lost the election to President-elect Joe Biden.

Mitchell wrote in a damning letter to GOP leaders that Trump’s unsubstantiated claims alleging widespread electoral fraud and the Republican Party’s tolerance of these claims threatened “long-term damage to our democracy.”

“It is unacceptable for political candidates to treat our electoral system as if we were a Third World nation and create suspicion of something as fundamental as the sanctity of our voting,” Mitchell wrote to Ronna McDaniel, Chair of the Republican National Committee Minority Chairperson Kevin McCarthy of California.

“Also, it is unacceptable for the President to attack the United States Supreme Court because its Liberal and Conservative justices failed with his side or because ‘the Court has failed him,'” wrote Mitchell, whose letter was first reported from CNN.

Mitchell will retire from Congress when the current session ends early next year.

Trump has claimed he lost Michigan and several other battlefield states whose votes gave Biden his margin on the electoral college for illegally suppressing votes for him and artificially inflating Biden’s ballot.

The electoral college will meet on Monday, and California’s votes have pushed Biden over the 270-vote threshold required to win the White House by 5:30 p.m. ET.

Mitchell wrote, “If Republican leaders sit back together and tolerate unsubstantiated conspiracy theories and” stop “the rallies without advocating our electoral process, which the Department of Homeland Security has called” the safest in American history, “our nation will be do corrupt. “

“I have spoken out clearly and firmly against these messages,” he wrote.

“However, since the leadership of the Republican Party and our Republican Conference in the House of Representatives actively participate in at least some of these efforts, I fear long-term damage to our democracy.”

Mitchell, who represents Michigan’s 10th Ward, said last year he would not seek a third term in Congress and complained that the “rhetoric and vitriol” he saw in Washington overwhelmed the real work of policy making.

Mitchell said that with more than 155 million eligible voters, “both administrative errors and even fraudulent votes are likely to have occurred”.

But he also said Trump “didn’t lose Michigan to Wayne County,” a Democratic stronghold that the president claims has counted fraudulent ballots.

“Rather, it lost to dwindling support in areas like Kent and Oakland Counties, both of which were former Republican strongholds,” the congressman wrote.

Mitchell said in his letter that he voted for Trump “for about four more years under his leadership despite some reservations.”

But he also wrote: “The stability and strength of our democracy is a constant concern of mine.”

“I expressed great concern about the president’s reaction to Charlottesville, the rhetoric against immigrants they are sending back, and even the racist comments made by my own colleagues in the House.”

Even after Mitchell left the GOP, the president and his deputies continued to struggle to undermine public confidence in Biden’s victory, arguing that on January 6, Congress would have the final say in the selection of the next president.

This is the day that Congress is due to confirm the electoral college vote.

Trump, his campaign and his allies have lost or withdrawn any suit that questioned the validity of Biden’s ballot papers. On Friday, the US Supreme Court denied a motion from Texas to file a lawsuit against the voting processes in Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Before the Supreme Court responded to the request, Trump had described the Texas case as “the big one” that would undo Biden’s victory.