Editor's Choice: Scroll below for our monthly blend of mainstream and alternative January 2025 news and views
Note: Excerpts are from the authors' words except for subheads and occasional "Editor's notes" such as this.
Updates To Be Temporarily Postponed. A death close to this editor requires that updates to this site be temporarily postponed for several days.
Jan. 19
Top Headlines
New York Times, 3 Israeli Hostages and Dozens of Palestinian Prisoners Expected to Be Released
Reuters, Exclusive: German ambassador warns of Trump plan to redefine constitutional order, document shows, Sabine Siebold and Friederike Heine
New York Times, TikTok Goes Dark in the U.S
New York Times, L.A. Wildfires: The L.A. Fires Expose a Web of Governments, Weak by Design
Commentaries On American Democracy
Reuters, Exclusive: German ambassador warns of Trump plan to redefine constitutional order, document shows, Sabine Siebold and Friederike Heine
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: January 15, 202[ Biden Farewell Address], Heather Cox Richardson
More On Trump Cabinet Nominees
Other Top Headlines
Trump / GOP Transition News, Commentary
More U.S. Legal News
Proof, Investigative Commentary: New Q&A Series, No. 1: Answering Some Extremely Easy Questions Asked By the Worst-Informed and Most Disingenuous Far-Right Billionaires on Earth, Seth Abramson
More U.S. Politics, Governance, Elections
Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: President Biden Signs Social Security Fairness Act; The bipartisan legislation enhances benefits for millions of Americans , Aaron Parnas
Trump's Cases, Allies, Vengence, Threats, Opponents
New York Times, Trump Loses Appeal of Carroll’s $5 Million Award in Sex-Abuse Case
U.S. Public Health, RFK Jr., Healthcare CEO's Murder
President-elect Donald Trump with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump's nominee to become U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (Photo via Getty Images)
Washington Post, Democrats’ new push to stop RFK Jr.: Highlight Samoa’s measles outbreak
More On Middle East Crises: Syria, Israel, Lebanon
New York Times, In an Upended Mideast, Trump Faces New Divergence With Old Allies
More On U.S. Foreign Policy, Defense, Tariffs
New York Times, In an Upended Mideast, Trump Faces New Divergence With Old Allies
More On Presidential Pardons, Cases
Russia, Russian War Against Ukraine
Global Politics, War, Famine, Human Rights
New York Times, Genocide Committed by Paramilitary Group in Sudan, U.S. Says
U.S. Defense, Foreign Policy, Security
Daily Mail, Disturbing new details show how CIA drugged and tortured Americans in secret mind control program MKUltra, Stacy Liberatore
U.S. Immigration
Sex Assault, Trafficking, #MeToo, Abortion, Women's Health
New York Times, Trump Loses Appeal of Carroll’s $5 Million Award in Sex-Abuse Case
U.S. Economy, Jobs, Pensions
Energy, Environment, Transportation, Climate Change, Disasters
New York Times, LA Fires Reports: Dangerous Winds Are Forecast as Crews Battle L.A. Wildfires
Media, High-Tech, Culture, Education, Sports
Washington Post, TikTok Ban: Trump promises to delay TikTok ban in U.S. with Monday executive order
Top Stories
New York Times, 3 Israeli Hostages and Dozens of Palestinian Prisoners Expected to Be Released, Isabel Kershner, Hiba Yazbek, Aaron Boxerman and Bilal Shbair, Jan. 19, 2025. The first stage of a truce between Israel and Hamas prompted celebrations in Gaza and hope for an end to the 15-month war.
A long-awaited agreement between Israel and Hamas for a cease-fire and hostage release went into effect on Sunday morning, prompting celebrations in Gaza, relief for families of Israeli captives and hope for an end to a devastating 15-month war.
Joyful Palestinians honked car horns and blasted music in the central Gaza city of Deir al Balah, where celebratory gunfire rang out and children ran around in the streets. In Israel, the father of a hostage whom Hamas said would be among three released later on Sunday gave thanks in a Facebook post and said a Jewish blessing.
Achieving the agreement on a delicate, multistage cease-fire required months of talks mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States. The start of an initial, six-week phase on Sunday was delayed by almost three hours, with Israel saying it had not formally received the names of the first three hostages to be released.
During the delay, the Israeli military continued striking in Gaza. The Palestinian Civil Defense, an emergency service, said that at least 19 people had been killed and more than three dozen were wounded in the attacks. It wasn’t possible to confirm the figures independently. The truce finally came into effect at 11:15 a.m. local time (4:15 a.m. Eastern), and in the first several hours no additional attacks were reported in Gaza.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, an Israeli group representing family members of captives in Gaza, identified the three people that Hamas was expected to release on Sunday as Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher, all of whom were captured during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks in Israel that set off the war.
Israel was expected to release 90 Palestinian prisoners, all women or minors, on Sunday in exchange for the first three hostages. The exact timing and other details of the releases were not immediately clear.
Here’s what we’re covering:
Reuters, Exclusive: German ambassador warns of Trump plan to redefine constitutional order, document shows, Sabine Siebold and Friederike Heine, Jan. 18, 2025. Briefing document describes 'maximum disruption' agenda Forecasts democratic principles 'will be largely undermined' German foreign ministry vows to work closely with new US administration.
Germany's ambassador to the United States has warned that the incoming Trump administration will rob U.S. law enforcement and the media of their independence and hand big tech companies "co-governing power", according to a confidential document seen by Reuters.
The briefing document, dated Jan. 14 and signed by Ambassador Andreas Michaelis, describes Donald Trump's agenda for his second White House term as one of "maximum disruption" that will bring about "a redefinition of the constitutional order - maximum concentration of power with the president at the expense of Congress and the federal states."
"Basic democratic principles and checks and balances will be largely undermined, the legislature, law enforcement and media will be robbed of their independence and misused as a political arm, Big Tech will be given co-governing power," it says.
Trump's transition team had no immediate comment on the ambassador's assessment.
The German foreign ministry said U.S. voters chose Trump in a democratic election, and it would "work closely with the new U.S. administration in the interests of Germany and Europe."
New York Times, TikTok Goes Dark in the U.S., Sapna Maheshwari, Madison Malone Kircher, Eli Tan and Meaghan Tobin, Updated Jan. 19, 2025. The popular video app stopped working shortly before a federal law barring U.S. companies from hosting or distributing TikTok was set to take effect today.
The popular video app stopped working shortly before a federal law barring U.S. companies from hosting or distributing TikTok was set to take effect on Sunday.
“Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now,” the message read.
Hours before a federal law banning TikTok from the United States took effect on Sunday, the Chinese-owned social media app went dark, and U.S. users could no longer access videos on the platform. Instead, the app greeted them with a message that said “a law banning TikTok has been enacted.”
“We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution,” the message said. “Please stay tuned!”
In addition, TikTok’s sister app, Lemon8, stopped working and showed U.S. users a message saying that it “isn’t available right now.” Both TikTok and Lemon8 are owned by ByteDance, a Chinese internet giant.
Apple said it removed TikTok and other ByteDance apps, including Lemon8, from its app store, and users said that Google’s U.S. app store also removed TikTok.
Washington Post, TikTok Ban: Trump promises to delay TikTok ban in U.S. with Monday executive order, Cristiano Lima-Strong, Jan. 19, 2025. President-elect Donald Trump says the order on the first day of his term will delay enforcement of the ban so “we can make a deal to protect our national security” with partial U.S. ownership of the platform.
President-elect Donald Trump confirmed Sunday that he will issue an executive order once he takes office Monday to delay the federal ban against TikTok and give the company more time to distance itself from its Chinese ownership and find an American buyer.Get concise answers to your questions. Try Ask The Post AI.
Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform that the order would “extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect” so the company and the Trump administration “can make a deal to protect our national security.” The president-elect said the order would also make clear that companies that host or distribute TikTok’s platform, such as Google and Apple, would not face liability for keeping TikTok from “going dark.”
The Washington Post first reported Wednesday that Trump was considering issuing an executive order to delay enforcement of the ban by 60 or 90 days.
While Trump did not specify Sunday how much longer he would give the company to find a buyer, he said control of the app should be split between its current owners and new ones where half of the company’s control is “set up between the U.S. and whichever purchase we so choose.”
Washington Post, Pressure builds on RFK Jr. as confirmation hearing remains unscheduled, Dan Diamond, Jan. 19, 2025. Bipartisan critics of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are sharpening their arguments that he is unfit to serve as the nation’s top health official, embracing the extra time they have been given while Kennedy waits for his confirmation hearings to be scheduled.
The Office of Government Ethics as of Friday was still evaluating Kennedy’s financial disclosures, which are required for potential Cabinet officials, delaying his anticipated hearings in front of the Senate’s finance and health committees. The prominent anti-vaccine activist and former presidential candidate recently amended some of his prior disclosures, and ethics officials are looking for potential conflicts of interest, congressional aides have said.
Senators traditionally wait to schedule confirmation hearings until that process is completed.
New York Times, Analysis: Defiance Is Out, Deference Is in: Trump Returns to a Different Washington, Peter Baker, Jan. 19, 2025. As Donald Trump prepares to take the oath of office, much of the world seems to be bowing down to him and opponents are rethinking the future.
More than 30 miles of anti-scale fencing are being erected all over the nation’s capital. Concrete barriers are being placed at key junctures. Certain roads have already been closed to traffic. Surveillance drones will flood the skies.
But if Washington looks like a war zone again, it does not necessarily feel that way. Unlike the last time President-elect Donald J. Trump took the oath of office eight years ago, the bristling tension and angry defiance have given way to accommodation and submission. The Resistance of 2017 has faded into the Resignation of 2025.
The mood leading up to the second Trump inauguration reflects how much has changed since the first Trump inauguration. Much of the world, it seems, is bowing down to the incoming president. Technology moguls have rushed to Mar-a-Lago to pay homage. Billionaires are signing seven-figure checks and jockeying for space at the inaugural ceremony. Some corporations are pre-emptively dropping climate and diversity programs to curry favor.
Some Democrats are talking about working with the newly restored Republican president on discrete issues. Some news organizations are perceived to be reorienting to show more deference. The grass roots opposition that put hundreds of thousands of people in the streets of Washington to protest Mr. Trump just a day after he was sworn in back in 2017 generated a fraction of that in their sequel on Saturday.
New York Times, The Last Migrant Caravans Before the Inauguration, Visuals by Alejandro Cegarra, Text by Annie Correal, Jan. 19, 2025. A Times photographer made two trips to southern Mexico to follow groups of migrants as they walked toward the United States.
In the weeks and days before Donald Trump was to take office as president, promising a crackdown on illegal immigrants, groups of migrants were still setting out on foot from Tapachula, in southern Mexico, hoping to somehow reach the northern border by Jan. 20, inauguration day.
They joined small caravans like one that called itself “Éxodo Trump,” or “Exodus Trump.”
Many of these caravans, which are made up of a few thousand people, do not make it far. Some get stuck for weeks in Tapachula awaiting authorization to travel through Mexico. Others are broken up by Mexican officials mere days into their trek.
Unauthorized crossings at the U.S. border have plunged after new restrictions on asylum by the Biden administration and increased enforcement by the Mexican authorities on the migrant route. About 46,000 people crossed illegally in November, the lowest monthly figure in the last four years.
Most Americans first heard of migrant caravans during Mr. Trump’s first term, when a large caravan that formed in Honduras became the focus of his anti-immigrant messaging in the run-up to the midterm elections. He claimed it was filled with criminals, members of the gang MS-13 and “Middle Easterners.”
The news media rushed to cover the caravan, and a different picture was revealed: mothers with babies, older people, migrants trudging forward on foot, even when they had to use crutches.
New York Times, A Trump Oligarchy Is Moving to Washington, and Buying Up Prime Addresses, Elisabeth Bumiller, Jan. 19, 2025. Billionaires and multimillionaires are flocking to a city where power has been more important than money, but is now deeply intertwined with it.
President Biden warned in his farewell address to the nation last week that an oligarchy is taking shape in America. In Washington, the oligarchs are already here, buying big houses.
Counting President-elect Donald J. Trump himself, there are at least a dozen billionaires among his cabinet picks and those headed for senior roles in the new administration. Elon Musk tops the list with a $429 billion net worth, according to Forbes, making him the world’s richest man. Mr. Trump weighs in with an estimated $6.8 billion.
It is an extraordinary concentration of wealth in a city where power has always been more important than money, but is now more than ever intertwined with it. Mr. Trump campaigned as a populist defender of the American working class, but he has put some of his richest donors in commanding roles in the top reaches of government. A number will oversee the very industries that produced their fortunes.
“It’s tempting to liken this to the Gilded Age, but John D. Rockefeller didn’t actually run McKinley’s campaign or move into the White House,” said Michael Waldman, who was President Bill Clinton’s chief speechwriter and is now president and chief executive of the Brennan Center for Justice, which promotes legal system reforms and works to curb money in politics. He was referring to Mr. Musk, who spent more than $250 million to help Mr. Trump win and is now expected to have an office in the White House complex.
New York Times Photo by Philip Cheung
New York Times, L.A. Wildfires: The L.A. Fires Expose a Web of Governments, Weak by Design, Adam Nagourney, Jan. 19, 2025. Who’s in charge? The muddled jurisdiction of Los Angeles leaves a critical question in the air.
When two hijacked jetliners struck the World Trade Center towers in New York City on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani became the face of a city struggling with tragedy, a ubiquitous presence projecting authority, assurance and control. The reputation he forged that day would be tarnished with time, but it became a model for mayors facing crises across the country.
As Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles confronts a city dealing with devastating fires, her performance has raised questions, even among her supporters, about whether she can become the dominant executive leading a city through a crisis that New Yorkers saw more than 23 years ago.
Some of those concerns reflect her relative lack of executive experience — she is a former member of Congress and the California assembly, where she served in the powerful role of speaker. And some of those concerns have to do with the fallout from her absence from the city when the fires broke out.
But the question of who is in charge — of who is playing the role in Los Angeles that Mr. Giuliani did in New York, to use one example — is also testimony to the diffusion and, at times, dysfunction that make up the core DNA of the governance of the greater Los Angeles area. That muddled authority is a sharp, and by design deliberate, contrast with New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and other cities that are dominated by powerful, high-profile mayors.
New York Times, Support for Trump’s Policies Exceeds Support for Trump, Poll Finds, Jeremy W. Peters and Ruth Igielnik, Jan. 19, 2025 (print ed.). A new Times/Ipsos poll found that the public was sympathetic to President-elect Trump’s plans to deport migrants and reduce America’s presence overseas.
Many Americans who otherwise dislike President-elect Donald J. Trump share his bleak assessment of the country’s problems and support some of his most contentious prescriptions to fix them, according to a new poll from The New York Times and Ipsos.
A little more than half of the country expresses some desire to see Mr. Trump follow through with his harshest threat to deal with illegal immigration: deporting everyone living in the United States without authorization.
The poll, which surveyed 2,128 adults from Jan. 2 to 10, found that 55 percent of Americans either strongly or somewhat support such mass deportations.
New York Times, Trump Vowed a Crackdown on the Mexican Border, but It’s Already Quiet, James Wagner and Simon Romero, Photographs by César Rodríguez, Jan. 19, 2025 (print ed.). Ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration, migrant shelters south of the Rio Grande are far from full, a reflection of tougher measures on both sides of the border.
Migrants used to gather by the hundreds in encampments in Ciudad Juárez, on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, waiting for a chance to cross into the United States. But as President-elect Donald J. Trump prepares to take office on Monday, few people could be found this past week on the once-teeming embankments.
All that remained were extinguished campfires, discarded shoes, shirts and toothbrushes.
One Mexican city after another has reported a similar situation along the border with the United States, where the number of migrants has steadily dropped in recent months. The decline has been attributed largely to hardened restrictions introduced by the Biden administration and by Mexican and Panamanian officials meant to deter migration.
New York Times, Trump’s Deportation Plan Is Said to Start Next Week in Chicago, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Hamed Aleaziz, Jan. 19, 2025 (print ed.).The size of the planned immigration raids is unclear, but they would be the opening step in the president-elect’s goal of overseeing the largest deportation program in history.
The incoming Trump administration intends to carry out “post-inauguration” immigration raids in Chicago next week, according to two people familiar with the planning and correspondence reviewed by The New York Times, an opening step in President-elect Donald J. Trump’s goal to oversee the largest deportation operation in American history.
The plan, called “Operation Safeguard” by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, would start on Tuesday, the day after Mr. Trump is inaugurated, and last until the following Monday, according to the people familiar with it and the correspondence. The dates were still being finalized, however, and could change.
The size of the planned operation was unclear. ICE routinely conducts deportations in cities throughout the United States. But the agency was taking additional steps to ramp up enforcement for the operation and tied it to Mr. Trump’s inauguration in a message sent to personnel throughout the agency.
Hundreds of agents were asked to volunteer and participate in the “post-inauguration” operation targeting immigrants in the United States illegally. ICE is planning on sending roughly 150 agents to Chicago for the raids.
New York Times, An Illustrated Guide to Trump’s Conflict of Interest Risks, Karen Yourish, Eric Lipton and Lazaro Gamio, Jan. 18, 2025 (print ed.). President-elect Trump has a range of new business ventures that could expose him to even greater potential conflicts of interest than during his first term.
During his first administration, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s global business empire created an unprecedented number of conflicts of interest for a sitting president. Ethics experts worried that opportunists could try to curry favor by booking stays at Mr. Trump’s network of hotels, golf clubs and other properties.
Their predictions bore out: Foreign governments and lobbyists spent lavishly at his Washington hotel, which has since been sold, as well as at his Mar-a-Lago resort and other properties. The federal government itself also became an awkward customer by renting millions of dollars’ worth of rooms at his hotels and clubs.
Those concerns now seem almost quaint in light of some of Mr. Trump’s more recent business ventures. They include a publicly traded company, a cryptocurrency venture, new overseas real estate deals involving state-affiliated entities and numerous branding and licensing deals.
The new additions to Mr. Trump’s portfolio could provide more direct avenues for those wishing to influence a sitting president or even to try to extort him, according to some outside ethics lawyers.Some of the new international real estate deals are among the most potentially worrisome.
Several of Mr. Trump’s recent real estate projects have connections to foreign governments in the Middle East, raising concerns that Mr. Trump’s financial interests could influence foreign policy.
New York Times, U.S. Faces Record Debt Levels as Republicans Plan Tax Cuts, Alan Rappeport, Jan. 17, 2025. The Congressional Budget Office forecasts that annual deficits will top $21 trillion over the next decade.
The United States is poised to add trillions of dollars to the national debt over the next decade as the mounting costs of social safety net programs and growing interest expenses dig the nation into a deeper fiscal hole, according to a report released on Friday by the Congressional Budget Office.
The new budget forecasts predicted that the United States will record a $1.9 trillion budget deficit this fiscal year and that annual deficits over the next decade will total $21.1 trillion. That will be piled on to a national debt that currently exceeds $36 trillion.
By 2035, the debt as a share of the U.S. economy will rise to 118 percent, the largest in history. The debt is currently 100 percent of gross domestic product.
Although the figures show slightly smaller deficits than what the C.B.O. projected last June, thanks to higher salaries and stock values, the nation’s fiscal situation is poised to become far more precarious.
Commentaries On American Democracy
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: January 18, 2025 [Cashing In on the new Presidency], Heather Cox Richardson, right, Jan. 19, 2025. Shortly before midnight 
last night, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published its initial findings from a study it undertook last July when it asked eight large companies to turn over information about the data they collect about consumers, product sales, and how the surveillance the companies used affected consumer prices. The FTC focused on the middlemen hired by retailers. Those middlemen use algorithms to tweak and target prices to different markets.
The initial findings of the FTC using data from six of the eight companies show that those prices are not static. Middlemen can target prices to individuals using their location, browsing patterns, shopping history, and even the way they move a mouse over a webpage. They can also use that information to show higher-priced products first in web searches. The FTC found that the intermediaries—the middlemen—worked with at least 250 retailers.
“Initial staff findings show that retailers frequently use people’s personal information to set targeted, tailored prices for goods and services—from a person's location and demographics, down to their mouse movements on a webpage,” said FTC chair Lina Khan. “The FTC should continue to investigate surveillance pricing practices because Americans deserve to know how their private data is being used to set the prices they pay and whether firms are charging different people different prices for the same good or service.”
The FTC has asked for public comment on consumers’ experience with surveillance pricing.
FTC commissioner Andrew N. Ferguson, whom Trump has tapped to chair the commission in his incoming administration, dissented from the report.
Matt Stoller of the nonprofit American Economic Liberties Project, which is working “to address today’s crisis of concentrated economic power,” wrote that “[t]he antitrust enforcers (Lina Khan et al) went full Tony Montana on big business this week before Trump people took over.”
Stoller made a list. The FTC sued John Deere “for generating $6 billion by prohibiting farmers from being able to repair their own equipment,” released a report showing that pharmacy benefit managers had “inflated prices for specialty pharmaceuticals by more than $7 billion,” “sued corporate landlord Greystar, which owns 800,000 apartments, for misleading renters on junk fees,” and “forced health care private equity powerhouse Welsh Carson to stop monopolization of the anesthesia market.”
It sued Pepsi for conspiring to give Walmart exclusive discounts that made prices higher at smaller stores, “[l]eft a roadmap for parties who are worried about consolidation in AI by big tech by revealing a host of interlinked relationships among Google, Amazon and Microsoft and Anthropic and OpenAI,” said gig workers can’t be sued for antitrust violations when they try to organize, and forced game developer Cognosphere to pay a $20 million fine for marketing loot boxes to teens under 16 that hid the real costs and misled the teens.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “sued Capital One for cheating consumers out of $2 billion by misleading consumers over savings accounts,” Stoller continued. It “forced Cash App purveyor Block…to give $120 million in refunds for fostering fraud on its platform and then refusing to offer customer support to affected consumers,” “sued Experian for refusing to give consumers a way to correct errors in credit reports,” ordered Equifax to pay $15 million to a victims’ fund for “failing to properly investigate errors on credit reports,” and ordered “Honda Finance to pay $12.8 million for reporting inaccurate information that smeared the credit reports of Honda and Acura drivers.”
The Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice sued “seven giant corporate landlords for rent-fixing, using the software and consulting firm RealPage,” Stoller went on. It “sued $600 billion private equity titan KKR for systemically misleading the government on more than a dozen acquisitions.”
“Honorary mention goes to [Secretary Pete Buttigieg] at the Department of Transportation for suing Southwest and fining Frontier for ‘chronically delayed flights,’” Stoller concluded. He added more results to the list in his newsletter BIG.
Meanwhile, last night, while the leaders in the cryptocurrency industry were at a ball in honor of President-elect Trump’s inauguration, Trump launched his own cryptocurrency. By morning he appeared to have made more than $25 billion, at least on paper. According to Eric Lipton at the New York Times, “ethics experts assailed [the business] as a blatant effort to cash in on the office he is about to occupy again.”
Adav Noti, executive director of the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center, told Lipton: “It is literally cashing in on the presidency—creating a financial instrument so people can transfer money to the president’s family in connection with his office. It is beyond unprecedented.” Cryptocurrency leaders worried that just as their industry seems on the verge of becoming mainstream, Trump’s obvious cashing-in would hurt its reputation. Venture capitalist Nick Tomaino posted: “Trump owning 80 percent and timing launch hours before inauguration is predatory and many will likely get hurt by it.”
Yesterday the European Commission, which is the executive arm of the European Union, asked X, the social media company owned by Trump-adjacent billionaire Elon Musk, to hand over internal documents about the company’s algorithms that give far-right posts and politicians more visibility than other political groups. The European Union has been investigating X since December 2023 out of concerns about how it deals with the spread of disinformation and illegal content. The European Union’s Digital Services Act regulates online platforms to prevent illegal and harmful activities, as well as the spread of disinformation.
Today in Washington, D.C., the National Mall was filled with thousands of people voicing their opposition to President-elect Trump and his policies. Online speculation has been rampant that Trump moved his inauguration indoors to avoid visual comparisons between today’s protesters and inaugural attendees. Brutally cold weather also descended on President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration, but a sea of attendees nonetheless filled the National Mall.
Trump has always understood the importance of visuals and has worked hard to project an image of an invincible leader. Moving the inauguration indoors takes away that image, though, and people who have spent thousands of dollars to travel to the capital to see his inauguration are now unhappy to discover they will be limited to watching his motorcade drive by them. On social media, one user posted: “MAGA doesn’t realize the symbolism of [Trump] moving the inauguration inside: The billionaires, millionaires and oligarchs will be at his side, while his loyal followers are left outside in the cold. Welcome to the next 4+ years.”
Trump is not as good at governing as he is at performance: his approach to crises is to blame Democrats for them. But he is about to take office with majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate, putting responsibility for governance firmly into his hands.
Right off the bat, he has at least two major problems at hand.
Last night, Commissioner Tyler Harper of the Georgia Department of Agriculture suspended all “poultry exhibitions, shows, swaps, meets, and sales” until further notice after officials found Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, or bird flu, in a commercial flock. As birds die from the disease or are culled to prevent its spread, the cost of eggs is rising—just as Trump, who vowed to reduce grocery prices, takes office.
There have been 67 confirmed cases of the bird flu in the U.S. among humans who have caught the disease from birds. Most cases in humans are mild, but public health officials are watching the virus with concern because bird flu variants are unpredictable. On Friday, outgoing Health and Human Services secretary Xavier Becerra announced $590 million in funding to Moderna to help speed up production of a vaccine that covers the bird flu. Juliana Kim of NPR explained that this funding comes on top of $176 million that Health and Human Services awarded to Moderna last July.
The second major problem is financial. On Friday, Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen wrote to congressional leaders to warn them that the Treasury would hit the debt ceiling on January 21 and be forced to begin using extraordinary measures in order to pay outstanding obligations and prevent defaulting on the national debt. Those measures mean the Treasury will stop paying into certain federal retirement accounts as required by law, expecting to make up that difference later.
Yellen reminded congressional leaders: “The debt limit does not authorize new spending, but it creates a risk that the federal government might not be able to finance its existing legal obligations that Congresses and Presidents of both parties have made in the past.” She added, “I respectfully urge Congress to act promptly to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.”
Both the avian flu and the limits of the debt ceiling must be managed, and managed quickly, and solutions will require expertise and political skill.
Rather than offering their solutions to these problems, the Trump team leaked that it intended to begin mass deportations on Tuesday morning in Chicago, choosing that city because it has large numbers of immigrants and because Trump’s people have been fighting with Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson, a Democrat. Michelle Hackman, Joe Barrett, and Paul Kiernan of the Wall Street Journal, who broke the story, reported that Trump’s people had prepared to amplify their efforts with the help of right-wing media.
But once the news leaked of the plan and undermined the “shock and awe” the administration wanted, Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan said the team was reconsidering it.
![President Grover Cleveland, above, shown in 1892, was the first Democrat to win the presidency after the Civil War. More from Wikipedia: He was one of only two presidents to serve nonconsecutive terms.[b] Cleveland was elected mayor of Buffalo in 1881 and governor of New York in 1882. While governor, he closely cooperated with state assembly minority leader Theodore Roosevelt to pass reform measures, winning national attention.](/images/jip/d-h-photos/grover-cleveland.jpg "Click to view larger image")
President Grover Cleveland, above, shown in 1892, was the first Democrat to win the presidency after the Civil War. More from Wikipedia: He was one of only two presidents to serve nonconsecutive terms. Cleveland was elected mayor of Buffalo in 1881 and governor of New York in 1882. While governor, he closely cooperated with state assembly minority leader Theodore Roosevelt to pass reform measures, winning national attention.
MSNBC TV: Opinion: Grover Cleveland’s presidential ‘comeback’ is a true cautionary tale for Trump, Alexis Coe (Presidential historian), Jan. 19, 2025. They both won a second term after losing the previous election. But Cleveland’s second administration was such a disaster it put his party out of power for decades.
Grover Cleveland and Donald Trump are two presidential phoenixes rising from the ashes of electoral defeat. But in the land of second chances, some sequels are best left on the cutting-room floor. Cleveland’s second act was a tragedy in four years, a cautionary tale the GOP seems hellbent on remaking, this time with more hairspray and fewer facts.
In 1892, Cleveland, like Trump in 2024, was resurrected by unwavering party loyalty despite losing the previous election. Both men, separated by time but united in their disdain for the “establishment,” demanded fealty with the fervor of medieval kings suffering from lead poisoning.
But the true test of a leader comes not from an audacious encore but the improvisation when chaos reigns. When faced with national crises, their ability to pivot was akin to that of the Titanic avoiding its infamous iceberg — tragically nonexistent and disastrously consequential.
The true test of a leader comes not from an audacious encore but the improvisation when chaos reigns.
For Cleveland, a Democrat, it was the Panic of 1893, a severe economic depression triggered by railroad overbuilding and shaky financing, which set off a series of bank failures. Within months, unemployment skyrocketed to nearly 20%, over 15,000 companies and 500 banks failed, and farmers in the South and Midwest faced ruin as crop prices plummeted. His inflexibility exacerbated the crisis as he rigidly hung on to the gold standard and fiscal conservatism, fracturing his Democratic Party. ADVERTISING
Trump, meanwhile, faced the Covid-19 pandemic with a mix of self-absorption and pseudoscience that would make snake oil salesmen blush. Trump’s erratic policy shifts on tariffs, immigration and foreign relations threaten to create both domestic and global chaos.
Despite their contrasting styles — Cleveland’s stubborn adherence versus Trump’s mercurial shifts — both approaches risk the same disastrous end: a party in disarray. Just as Cleveland’s policies led to William Jennings Bryan’s populist takeover of the Democrats in 1896, Trump’s volatility could trigger a schism between MAGA loyalists and traditional conservatives, fracturing the GOP coalition. Jack Smith's January 6 investigation report released06:15
Trump, at 78, would be the oldest president ever inaugurated. As we learned from President Joe Biden, the commander in chief’s age isn’t just a number; it can be a problem. While some argue that Trump’s base is unbreakable, history suggests that even the most seemingly unassailable political figures face internal challenges, particularly as they age. Their grip on power wanes. Why wouldn’t it? Trump’s glory days are likely behind him; Republicans need to chart a course for the future.
For Cleveland, the second-term midterms were a political bloodbath, ushering in nearly two decades of Democratic exile from power. In a stunning reversal, Republicans gained 130 seats in the House of Representatives, the largest swing in a midterm election in U.S. history, while also securing a 10-seat majority in the Senate. By 1896, Cleveland, 59, found himself a pariah in the party he once led.More from MSNBC Daily
If Trump’s second term is a disaster right out of the gate, his party may take a beating in the 2026 midterms. And it’s also not hard to imagine a third party capitalizing on widespread electorate cynicism toward Democrats and Republicans. After Cleveland’s presidency, the People’s Party (or Populists) briefly threatened the two-party system — until the Democrats absorbed them. As electoral cynicism reaches levels that would make Diogenes proud, the preconditions for a third party to find its footing might soon be complete.
If Trump’s second term is a disaster right out of the gate, his party may take a beating in the 2026 midterms.
Comebacks can be pyrrhic victories, triumphs that contain the seeds of their own destruction. Cleveland’s presidency imploded in a shower of broken promises and shattered alliances. So, too, might Trump’s — and with it, the future of a party that has hitched its wagon to a reality star that may well be a supernova in disguise. The stage is set for a performance that could reshape not just Trump’s legacy, but the very foundations of the Republican Party.
Will the GOP heed this historical cautionary tale before the midterms or are they doomed to star in a remake of a flop, hoping against hope that this time, the ending will be different? As the curtain rises on this improbable second act, one thing is certain: In the theater of American politics, the most tragic plays are often those we’ve seen before.Alexis Coe
Alexis Coe is a presidential historian, senior fellow at New America, and New YorkTimes bestselling author of "Young Jack: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1957(2025)," "You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington(2020)," and "Alice+Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis (2014)."
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: January 15, 202[ Biden Farewell Address], Heather Cox Richardson, right, Jan. 16, 2025. It is somehow fitting that President Joe Biden’s farewell address to the nation, scheduled for 8:00 Eastern time tonight, was overshadowed today by the dramatic announcement that after months of negotiation backed by the United States and facilitated by Egyptian and Qatari mediators, negotiators from Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire and to exchange Israeli hostages taken on October 7, 2023, for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
This afternoon, Biden appeared, flanked by Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “Good afternoon,” he said to the press. “And it’s a very good afternoon, because at long last I can announce a ceasefire and a hostage deal has been reached between Israel and Hamas. [After] more than 15 months of conflict that began with [Hamas’s] brutal massacre of October the seventh, more than 15 months of terror for the hostages, their families, the Israeli people, more than fifteen months of suffering by the innocent people in Gaza, fighting in Gaza will stop and soon the hostages will return home to their families.”
“The elements of this deal were what I laid out in detail this past May,” Biden said. That plan “was embraced by countries around the world and endorsed overwhelmingly by the U.N. Security Council.”
It has three phases. Phase one is a six-week ceasefire in which Israeli forces will withdraw from all the populated areas of Gaza and Palestinians can return to their homes. Hamas will release the women, elderly, wounded, and American hostages it holds. Humanitarian assistance will surge into Gaza.“During the next six weeks,” Biden said, “Israel will negotiate the necessary arrangements to get to phase two, which is a permanent end of the war.”
The ceasefire will continue throughout the negotiations, even if they take longer than six weeks. Once phase two begins, the remaining living hostages will come home and all remaining Israeli forces will be withdrawn from Gaza. In phase three the final remains of hostages who have been killed will be returned to their families, and a major reconstruction plan for Gaza will begin.
Biden noted that he has worked in foreign policy for decades and that “[t]his is one of the toughest negotiations I’ve ever experienced.”
Hopium Chronicles, Political Opinion: President Biden's Farewell Address: "An Oligarchy Is Taking Shape In America," Simon Rosenberg, right, Jan. 16, 2025. In his last speech President Biden takes a big swing.
The President spoke to the nation last night, and had important things to say. Here are a few passages from the speech that are getting the most attention:
That’s why my farewell address tonight, I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern. And this is a dangerous — and that’s the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultrawealthy people, and the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked. Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.
We see the consequences all across America. And we’ve seen it before.More than a century ago, the American people stood up to the robber barons back then and busted the trusts. They didn’t punish the wealthy. They just made the wealthy play by the rules everybody else had. Workers want rights to earn their fair share. You know, they were dealt into the deal, and it helped put us on the path to building the largest middle class, the most prosperous century any nation the world has ever seen. We’ve got to do that again.AndYou know, in his farewell address, President Eisenhower spoke of the dangers of the military-industrial complex. He warned us that about, and I quote, “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power.”
Six days — six decades later, I’m equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech-industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country as well.Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power. The free press is crumbling. Editors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact-checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit. We must hold the social platforms accountable to protect our children, our families and our very democracy from the abuse of power.
Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is the most consequential technology of our time, perhaps of all time.
And in a democracy, there is another danger — that the concentration of power and wealth. It erodes a sense of unity and common purpose. It causes distrust and division. Participating in our democracy becomes exhausting and even disillusioning, and people don’t feel like they have a fair shot. We have to stay engaged in the process. I know it’s frustrating. A fair shot is what makes America America. Everyone is entitled to a fair shot, not a guarantee, just a fair shot, an even playing field. Going as far as your hard work and talent can take you.
The Hartmann Report, Historical Commentary, American Caesar: Trump’s Path to Power Mirrors Rome’s Darkest Days, Thomas Hartmann, right, How ancient Rome’s 
democratic collapse set the stage for America’s current crisis…
Last night, President Biden warned America that an oligarchy is forming in Washington DC and that it threatens our republic. Turns out, this is not a new story.
For 482 years (509 BCE–27 BCE), ancient Rome ran as a democratic republic. America has lasted in that state for 236 years (1789-2025).
The end of the democratic phase of the Roman republic was brought about by wealthy, elite Romans like Marcus Licinius Crassus (115–53 BCE) — the richest man in the nation at the time — who frankly hated the Roman “free bread for all” welfare system.
He and others like Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great, 106–48 BCE) wanted to end the voice of the public in political decisions (because they were demanding free bread, paid for with rich peoples’ taxes), so they used their massive wealth to promote rightwing authoritarian populism and buy off legislators who’d then be loyal to them.
This created political gridlock in the Senate, leading many Romans to lose faith in their democratic form of government. Three primary elements were used by the morbidly rich of that era to erode the power of Rome and replace it with sycophants loyal to them: polarization and elite gridlock, the erosion of democratic norms, and the concentration of power in the hands of a small elite who funded and thus controlled Rome’s senators.
It took decades, but they finally succeeded in using that lack of faith in government to replace Roman democracy with Caesarism, aka authoritarian strongman rule, kicked off by Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon River to seize the seat of government in Rome and finalized by Augustus Caesar ending any semblance of democracy.
Here in America, a handful of rightwing billionaires have spent decades fighting to end the New Deal and Great Society programs that use their tax dollars to distribute “free bread” to Americans in the form of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, food stamps, quality free primary education, and cheap or free college.
While their efforts began in earnest in the 1970s following Lewis Powell’s infamous Memo, they really kicked into high gear when the billionaires succeeded in the 1990s in installing Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House.
Newt pioneered a new form of American politics based on political warfare, delegitimization of the US government and programs of the New Deal and Great Society, manipulation of the media, populist messaging, and using obstruction as a political strategy.
His efforts were amplified by billionaire-owned media like Fox “News” and rightwing hate radio, always trash-talking New Deal and Great Society programs, calling for more tax cuts to de-fund government, and encouraging hatred of politicians and the political process.
The result was political gridlock, the end of democratic norms of collegiality and compromise, and the concentration of power in the Speaker’s office and ultimately the GOP itself. This led most Americans (over 75%) to eventually lose faith in our government; out of that came today’s increasing calls for an American version of Julius and Augustus Caesar.
One of the first was rightwing blogger and JD Vance mentor Curtis Yarvin, who began arguing over a decade ago — with his “dark enlightenment” movement — that America needed a new Caesar to free us from gridlock and stagnation.As JD Vance noted in a 2021 podcast:“
There’s this guy Curtis Yarvin who’s written about some of these things. One has to basically accept that the whole thing is going to fall in on itself. …
The task of conservatives right now is to preserve as much as can be preserved and then when the inevitable collapse comes you build back the country in a way that’s actually better.”
Others who could be characterized (or characterize themselves) as American Caesarists include Trump advisors Michael Anton and Charles Haywood, and Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts.
So, here we are, with Joe Biden’s warning.— Just like in the Roman republic, America’s morbidly rich and their business interests have funded efforts to denigrate popular government and its programs for decades, all to serve their own financial and political interests.
More On Trump Cabinet Nominees
New York Times, Trump’s Pick for Justice Dept. to Face Questions About Her Independence, Glenn Thrush and Devlin Barrett, Jan. 15, 2025. Pam Bondi will be asked if she can stand up to Donald Trump, who has made it clear that he wants the government’s top lawyer to execute his commands.
Pam Bondi, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice for attorney general (shown above right, will head into her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday with a solid reputation as a prosecutor and a critical question looming: Would shestand up to Mr. Trump?
Mr. Trump selected Ms. Bondi, the former Florida attorney general and lobbyist, to replace his first pick, Matt Gaetz, the former Republican representative of Florida who withdrew after a furor over allegations of sexual misconduct, including with an underage girl.
Most Democrats are still likely to oppose Ms. Bondi, 59, but she is a far more conventional, qualified candidate than Mr. Gaetz. That virtually ensuressupport among Senate Republicans, with the distinct possibility she will pick up a Democrat or two.
If her hearings do not produce much drama, her tenure at the department almost certainly will. An emboldened Mr. Trump, embittered by the two federal prosecutions against him, has made it clear that he wants senior Justice Department officials to execute his 
policy commands, investigate those who investigated him and perhaps prosecute his political enemies.
“The Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones,” she declared on Fox News in 2023, when asked whether it would be appropriate to open cases related to the department’s prosecutions under Jack Smith, the special counsel.
Richard Donoghue, the former Justice Department official who resisted Mr. Trump’s effort to install election-denying loyalists to top department posts after he lost the 2020 election, said the ideal candidate operates above partisanship. “You want, ideally, to ensure that partisan political considerations never play into the department’s decisions and positions when it comes to investigations and prosecutions,” he said.
“There is no fourth branch of government called the Justice Department — you work for the president — but people in power have to understand that they are not the president’s lawyer,” he added.
MSNBC, Opinion: Pam Bondi can't be trusted with the power of the Justice Department, Anthony Coley, Jan. 15, 2025. This time, Donald Trump is determined to get exactly what he wants at the Justice Department: a compliant attorney general and total control.
On Wednesday, the Senate will consider the president-elect's request to install Pam Bondi, right — a MAGA enthusiast and election denier — to serve as attorney general. Bondi is wholly unqualified for the role.
Granted, she might appear qualified on paper. She spent nearly two decades as a state prosecutor and was elected twice as the attorney general in Florida. She became the first woman in the role. Even some Democrats, including former Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg, whom I respect, speak highly of her.
But serving as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer requires independence and sound judgment and the ability to accept court rulings even when you disagree with them. On these counts, Bondi fails — miserably.
New York Times, A Neo-Nazi Helped Incite U.K. Riots. Elon Musk Criticized His Sentencing, Megan Specia, Jan. 14, 2025. Andrew McIntyre, a British extremist who played a key role in fomenting last summer’s unrest, was sentenced last week to seven years in jail.
Hours after a deadly knife attack in the northern English town of Southport last July, Andrew McIntyre set up a Telegram channel called “Southport Wake Up.” Amid posts riddled with anti-Islamic, antisemitic and anti-immigrant abuse, he urged people to take to the streets, directing them to a mosque and calling for “war.”
Mr. McIntyre, 39, who took part in two of several riots that rattled Britain last summer, was sentenced to seven years in prison last Monday.
He pleaded guilty to encouraging violent disorder and criminal damage, and to possession of a knife. A day after his conviction, Elon Musk, the billionaire tech mogul, bemoaned Mr. McIntyre’s sentencing in a post on his social media platform X, declaring: “Over 7 years prison for social media posts … Whoever gave that sentence deserves prison themselves.”
Mr. Musk’s post, which has been viewed 34 million views times, is just one in a flurry of comments he has made about Britain in recent weeks that have included attacks on the governing Labour Party, and that have increasingly echoed far-right talking points laced with disinformation.
Recent Relevant Headlines
Lance's Substack, Political Commentary and Opinion: Why Biden must issue Sweeping Preemptive pardons For Trump Retribution Targets, Lance F. Rosen, 
right, Dec. 15, 2024. Kash Patel Is A Lunatic.
This MSNBC article by author and writer Jay Michaelson makes a strong case for Biden to carry out sweeping pre-emptive pardons to protect those targeted for revenge prosecutions by Trump and his incoming "Himmler," Kash Patel, left.
The counterarguments by legalists, MAGA fascists and several Biden-bashing liberal media pundits are fairly well refuted, and in fact shown to be bogus in each example.
Americans by and large are letting their fears affect their judgment, and are either blocking out the Trump/Patel threat to our constitutional system and targeted individuals, or have resigned themselves to it and are retreating into a psychological bunker mentality.
The only remedy is effective political action. Throwing junk memes up against your Facebook wall is no solution and represents a net negative as far as wasted time and energy.
Facebook is part of the apparatus which will be deployed to identify us and pick us off, one by one. Be clear that this is a devolving Orwellian type of platform designed to neutralize Trump's political opposition.
I should not have to make this case. You all saw what Facebook did with their algorithm to spike most of the posts about Project 2025 when that became the leading issue in the campaign. And of course it was soon determined that the corporate figure who designed that algorithm in charge of so-called “community guidelines” was a Trump guy.
And now you have Zuckerberg crawling to Mar-a-Lago to kiss Trump's bone spurs, then funding his inaugural to the tune of 1 million, with who knows what other kinds of backroom deals were struck to keep Trump off his back. Same with Bezos.
My days here are numbered. You also saw this week that my page was hijacked and I lost all but a handful of my 1400 readers. My wife posted a notice on my timeline to notify everyone that I have a new page, and how to find it. That message was removed, either by Facebook or the hijacker.
So this place is a dead end for those resisting the regime. That is where we are. I'm taking steps this weekend to backup and safeguard my Substack archive of a 1000 articles going back six years. Others who are writers and posters should consider taking similar steps to preserve their data.
Don't block on this, we are headed into dark territory.
Trump Legal Cases, Strategies, Allies
Legal Schnauzer, New York Times reports that Judge Aileen Cannon plans to make another pro-Trump ruling, but experts say she likely lacks jurisdiction to make such a move, Roger Shuler, Jan. 7, 2025. The New York Times reported this morning that U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, of Florida, intended to issue an order that would temporarily block Special Counsel Jack Smith from releasing his report on the criminal investigation of President-Elect Donald Trump.
The order would be in line with Cannon's history of making dubious rulings that favor Trump, the president who nominated her for the federal bench. By this afternoon, legal experts were stating that Cannon probably does not have authority to make such a ruling, according to a report at Raw Story (RS) under the headline "'No basis': Experts believe Aileen Cannon may not have power to block Jack Smith report." RS's Brad Reed writes:
MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin on Tuesday (1/7/25) questioned whether Judge Aileen Cannon has the authority to block the United States Department of Justice from releasing special counsel Jack Smith's report on his two criminal investigations into President-elect Donald Trump.
"It is not clear... whether she has jurisdiction because earlier this year, she threw out the Mar-a-Lago documents case explaining that, from her reasoning, Jack Smith did not have constitutional authority to bring that prosecution under the appointments clause of the Constitution," Rubin said.
"And so there is no basis here to block the report in part because it is not clear there is a case or controversy in front of her, but if there were, the argument that Trump is making -- that presidential immunity also precludes the release of the report -- is a stretch of the Supreme Court's ruling that a president cannot be prosecuted for acts having to do with his presidency while he is a sitting president."
Rubin was not the only expert to take issue with Cannon's plans. Reed reports:
Legal analyst Barbara McQuade, meanwhile, speculated that Cannon's move was simply to help Trump run out the clock until his inauguration on January 20th.
"I don't think she has any jurisdiction, but delay is the name of the game," she said. "If they can stop the clock until January 20th. then the Department of Justice will be a Trump appointee, and they will kill the whole thing. That's the goal here."
Relevant Recent Headlines
Deadline, Donald Trump, On ‘Meet The Press,’ Again Pledges To Pardon January 6th Rioters, Says Liz Cheney And Other Committee Members “Should Go To Jail
Public Health, RFK Jr., Healthcare CEO's Murder
New York Times, U.S. Surgeon General Calls for Cancer Warnings on Alcohol, Roni Caryn Rabin, Jan. 3, 2025. Dr. Vivek Murthy’s report cites studies linking alcoholic beverages to malignancies, including breast cancer. But to label them, Congress would have to act.
Alcohol is a leading preventable cause of cancer, and alcoholic beverages should carry a warning label as packs of cigarettes do, the U.S. surgeon general, above, said on Friday.
It is the latest salvo in a fierce debate about the risks and benefits of moderate drinking as the influential U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans are about to be updated. For decades, moderate drinking was said to help prevent heart attacks and strokes.
That perception has been embedded in the dietary advice given to Americans. But growing research has linked drinking, sometimes even within the recommended limits, to various types of cancer.
Labels currently affixed to bottles and cans of alcoholic beverages warn about drinking while pregnant or before driving and operating other machinery, and about general “health risks.”
But alcohol directly contributes to 100,000 cancer cases and 20,000 related deaths each year, the surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, said.
He called for updating the labels to include a heightened risk of breast cancer, colon cancer and at least five other malignancies now linked by scientific studies to alcohol consumption.
“Many people out there assume that as long as they’re drinking at the limits or below the limits of current guidelines of one a day for women and two for men, that there is no risk to their health or well-being,” Dr. Murthy said in an interview.
“The data does not bear that out for cancer risk.”
Only Congress can mandate new warning labels of the sort Dr. Murthy recommended, and it’s not clear that the incoming administration would support the change.
Still, President-elect Donald J. Trump does not drink, and his choice to head the Health and Human Services Department, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., swore off alcohol and drugs decades ago, and says he regularly attends AA meetings.
Excerpt Continued From Above.
There is no question that heavy consumption is harmful. But supporters of moderate drinking — including makers of wine, beer and spirits, and some physicians and scientists — argue that a little alcohol each day may reduce cardiovascular disease, the No. 1 killer in the United States.
Newer scientific studies have criticized the methodology of earlier studies, however, and have challenged that view, which was once a consensus.
While most cancer deaths occur at drinking levels that exceed the current recommended dietary guidelines, the risk for cancers of the breast, the mouth and the throat may rise with consumption of as little as one drink a day, or even less, Dr. Murthy said on Friday.
Overall, one of every six breast cancer cases is attributable to alcohol consumption, Dr. Murthy said. More recent studies have also linked moderate alcohol consumption to certain forms of heart disease, including atrial fibrillation, a heart arrhythmia.
Two scientific reviews will be used to inform the updated recommendations about alcohol consumption in the federal dietary guidelines.
Five years ago, the scientific report that informed the writing of the 2020-2025 dietary guidelines acknowledged that alcohol is a carcinogen and generally unhealthy and suggested “tightening guidelines” by capping the recommendation for men at one standard drink, or 14 grams of alcohol a day.
When the final guidelines were drafted, however, there was no change in the advice that moderate drinking of up to two drinks a day for men was acceptable.
President-elect Donald Trump with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump's nominee to become U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (Photo via Getty Images).
Washington Post, Democrats’ new push to stop RFK Jr.: Highlight Samoa’s measles outbreak, Dan Diamond, Jan. 8, 2025 (print ed.). They say the island’s public health crisis, which followed Kennedy’s meeting with local anti-vaccine activists, reveals the consequences of questioning vaccines.
In June 2019, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. traveled to the small Pacific island nation of Samoa, where he met with activists calling for Samoans to skip measles vaccines and opt for alternatives instead. Now that visit — and the country’s subsequent measles outbreak — are receiving new political attention, as Democrats and advocates seek to block Kennedy’s confirmation as America’s top health official.
Five months after Kennedy’s visit, Samoa declared a measles emergency, with leaders warning that vaccination levels had declined precipitously. Thousands of Samoans were infected during the outbreak, and 83 people died of the vaccine-preventable disease — an episode that Democrats say could foreshadow a future American crisis, should Kennedy be elevated to a Cabinet position and sow doubts about vaccines here. Most of Samoa’s measles deaths were in young children.
“It’s a real-life example of what this individual will [do] as the nation’s leading health-care official,” said Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (D), a physician who responded to Samoa’s outbreak five years ago and said he witnessed the deaths of measles-afflicted infants. Green traveled to Capitol Hill this week in a bid to sway senators by sharing his story, part of a larger effort by advocates to scuttle Kennedy’s selection as secretary of health and human services by focusing on the Samoan crisis.
Recent Relevant Headlines
New York Times, Suspect in C.E.O.’s Killing Withdrew From a Life of Privilege and Promise
ABC News, What we know about Luigi Mangione, Ivy League grad and suspect in CEO's murder,More Global News
Washington Post, Russia’s gas supply to Europe halted after Ukraine transit deal expires, Francesca Ebel and David L. Stern, Jan. 1, 2024. Ukraine, which had allowed Russian oil and gas to cross its territory to serve Europe while fighting Moscow’s invasion since 2022, refused to renew the deal.
Despite a brutal Russian invasion that has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians and laid waste to swaths of the country since 2022, Ukraine continued to allow Russian oil and gas to cross its territory to serve its European neighbors — generating revenue for Kyiv and Moscow and illustrating how hard it is for the bitter enemies to cut ties.
New York Times, Elon Musk Doubles Down on Support for German Far-Right Party, Christopher F. Schuetze, Dec. 28, 2024. The world’s richest man, a key adviser to President-elect Trump, ridiculed critics over his backing of the extremist party AfD, as Germany prepares for elections.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a close adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump, shocked many in Germany last week by endorsing its far-right Alternative for Germany party, which is under surveillance by domestic intelligence for being extremist.
This week, Mr. Musk entangled himself even more in the country’s snap election, explaining in a newspaper opinion essay why he believes the far-right party is the “last spark of hope” for Germany.
“The traditional parties have failed in Germany,” Mr. Musk wrote in comments published online by the daily Welt on Saturday. “Their policies have led to economic stagnation, social unrest, and the erosion of national identity.”
Mr. Musk’s opinion piece comes as Germany girds itself for an intense winter election after Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition collapsed in November. On Friday President Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany officially announced the disbandment of Parliament and set Feb. 23 as the date for new elections.
With four mainstream and three extremist parties on the left and right vying for seats in Parliament and government participation, polls are favoring the conservative Christian Democratic Union. However, the AfD, with its anti-immigrant platform, is polling in second place, with roughly 20 percent.
Mr. Musk’s commentary was printed in the Sunday edition of the Welt, a conservative daily owned by the Axel Springer media group, which also owns Politico in the United States. Many of the paper’s journalists protested the printing of the commentary, according to reports. Eva Marie Kogel, who had been the paper’s head of opinion, resigned from her post after the printing, she confirmed on X.
In an apparent acknowledgment that Mr. Musk’s thoughts on the AfD could be controversial, the paper printed a response by Jan Philipp Burgard, the editor in chief-designate on the same page.
Relevant Recent Headlines
New York Times, Trump Threatens 25% Tariff on Canada and Mexico, Potentially Crippling Trade
New York Times, Taiwan Says China Has Deployed Largest Fleet of Ships in Decades
More On U.S. Foreign Policy, National Security, Tariffs
New York Times, On Glide Path to Confirmation, Rubio Warns of China Threat, Michael Crowley, Karoun Demirjian and Edward Wong, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.). Marco Rubio backed NATO but said Europe needed to do more to protect itself. His hearing seemed to all but guarantee he would be the next secretary of state.
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, right, called for an end to the war in Ukraine, said Europe must decrease its reliance on Washington and declared America’s 
competition with China the defining question of the century during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday to be secretary of state.
The friendly, five-hour hearing before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, which also touched on how Mr. Rubio would approach conflicts in the Middle East, was less than halfway over when the panel’s chairman made a major announcement: Israel and Hamas had sealed an agreement to begin a temporary cease-fire and partial hostage release in Gaza. Mr. Rubio had no specific comment on the agreement.
Mr. Rubio had earlier defended Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza, blaming Hamas for using civilians as human shields and calling the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza “one of the terrible things about war.” He later added of Israel, “You cannot coexist with armed elements at your border who seek your destruction and evisceration, as a state. You just can’t.”
But Mr. Rubio was perhaps most fluent and animated during his discussion of China, which, he warned, aimed to overtake the United States as the world’s pre-eminent power. “The Chinese believe we are a great power in inevitable decline and they are on an inevitable rise,” he said. Mr. Rubio acknowledged that China’s government saw him as a prime adversary.
Beijing has “said mean things about me” — and it has even imposed sanctions on him — but Mr. Rubio added that his role at America’s top diplomat would require “involve engaging them in a mature and prudent conversation.”
In contrast to Mr. Trump’s more gleefully disruptive nominees, Mr. Rubio struck a decidedly moderate and mainstream tone unlikely to alarm the foreign policy establishment. There was no talk of picking fights with allies, reclaiming the Panama Canal or conquering Greenland.
Mr. Rubio even called the State Department a valuable source of expertise and said its influence should be enhanced.
Politico, Trump CIA pick Ratcliffe vows to help win new emerging tech race, John Sakellariadis, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.). John Ratcliffe also said the spy agency needs focus above all on China.
John Ratcliffe will pledge to ensure the U.S. stays ahead of foreign adversaries on key emerging tech issues like AI and quantum computing, if confirmed to lead the Central Intelligence Agency.
“Our adversaries…understand that the nation who wins the race in the emerging technologies of today, will dominate the world of tomorrow,” Ratcliffe will say, according to a copy of his opening statement shared with POLITICO and later posted online. He pledged to make technology innovation a “priority” while at the agency.
The former U.S. congressperson served as the director of national intelligence in Trump’s first term, and is likely to have a smooth confirmation process this time around.
According to his opening statement, Ratcliffe will argue that the agency has “struggled to keep pace” with technological innovation, and needs to forge better ties with the private sector.
To better assess how foreign adversaries are exploiting technologies like AI, Ratcliffe will say he wants to push U.S. spies to collect intelligence in “every corner of the globe, no matter how dark or difficult.” He will add that the U.S. intelligence community should continue a relentless focus on China in particular.
China is “far and away our top national security threat,” his prepared statement reads.
WhoWhatWhy, Investigative Commentary: Hegseth’s Nomination Hearing a Troubling Sign of Things to Come, Klaus Marre, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.). If Democrats cannot do a better job of highlighting how unqualified a nominee like Pete Hegseth is, and if Republicans cannot muster the courage to reject someone like him, we might as well just do away with this “advice and consent” farce.
New York Times, 
Opinion: We Deserve Pete Hegseth, David Brooks, right, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.).First let me hit you with some realities:
Now, if you are holding hearings for a prospective secretary of defense, you would think you might want to ask him about these urgent issues. Or you might come up with other serious questions: How do drones change war-fighting? How will artificial intelligence alter the nature of combat? How do we shift from a defense policy built around counterterrorism to a policy built around nation-state warfare? If you’re a Democrat trying to sink a nomination, you would think you’d want to ask substantive questions on life-or-death issues like these in order to expose the nominee’s ignorance and unpreparedness.
But did this happen at the Pete Hegseth hearings in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee this week? If you thought those kinds of questions would dominate the hearings, you must be living under the illusion that we live in a serious country.
We do not. We live in a soap opera country. We live in a social media/cable TV country. In our culture you don’t want to focus on boring policy questions; you want to engage in the kind of endless culture war that gets voters riled up. You don’t want to focus on topics that would require study; you focus on images and easy-to-understand issues that generate instant visceral reactions. You don’t win this game by engaging in serious thought; you win by mere attitudinizing — by striking a pose. Your job is not to advance an argument that might help the country; your job is to go viral.
Pete Hegseth is of course the living, breathing embodiment of this culture. The world is on fire and what’s his obsession? Wokeness in the military. I went through high school trying to bluff my way through class after doing none of the reading, and in Hegseth, I recognize a master of the craft. During the hearings Hegseth repeatedly said he was going to defend the meritocracy. In what kind of meritocracy is being a Fox TV host preparation for being secretary of defense? Maybe in the one Caligula fancied when he contemplated making his horse a consul.
Several Republican senators were happy to play along with the woke-military game. In addition, Senator Kevin Cramer used his precious question time to praise Hegseth for having the courage to use the words “Jesus Christ.” (If we had used this logic during World War II, Father Fulton Sheen would have commanded the D-Day invasion.) I’ve also learned that mentioning climate change in a Republican gathering is like throwing a side of bacon into an Orthodox minyan — they react with great offense.Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
Hegseth is in no danger of rising to the level of mediocrity, but next to some of his Democratic questioners, he looked like Carl von Clausewitz. Democrats played their own culture war games. Especially early in the hearings their main obsession was women in combat. (Like everybody in my social class, I support women in combat, but I don’t think it’s as important an issue as failure to deter World War III.)
Senator Elizabeth Warren submitted over 30 pages of written questions to Hegseth before the hearing. They had to do with things like drinking, accusations of sexual assault, threats to L.G.B.T.Q. rights and veterans benefits. I have enormous respect for Warren, but she didn’t show much interest in topics like how to deter and fight a war — which are kind of central to the purview of this committee.
Senator Tim Kaine tried to play the moral disqualification game, dwelling on Hegseth’s various adulteries. With Democrats’ having failed to defeat Donald Trump with this strategy, I admire their capacity for persistent losing.
The hearings got better as they went along and more junior senators got to speak. Senator Mazie Hirono was excellent, asking substantive questions: If the president ordered you, would you order troops to shoot protesters in the legs? Would you follow an order to use the military for mass deportations? Senator Tammy Duckworth was outstanding, too, asking about the big responsibilities of the job: Does Hegseth know anything about the ongoing international negotiations? Does he know which countries are in the ASEAN bloc? (The answers are no and no.)
The lesson for Democrats over the next four years is clear: Don’t fly into moral outrage every day. Focus on Trumpian incompetence.
Overall, Republicans were the more serious party at these hearings. The committee chairman, Senator Roger Wicker, did note that we live in the most dangerous security environment since World War II. Senator Tim Sheehy did mention shipbuilding. Senator Ted Budd did ask about warplanes. Senator Eric Schmitt did ask about drones.
But, as you can kind of tell, I finished watching the hearings sick to my stomach. I also came away thinking that we need to come up with a better way to think about expertise. Hegseth’s core populist conviction — repeated ad nauseam — is that the grunts on the ground know what they are doing and the pencil-necked geeks in air-conditioned offices just write nonsense regulations that get in the way. The man wasted years at Princeton and Harvard when he could have learned everything he knows by watching that Colonel Jessup speech at the end of “A Few Good Men.”
We don’t want to live in a populist paradise in which expertise is suspect and ignorance a sign of virtue. Nor do we want to live in an elitist world in which technocrats try to rule the world. As the political scientist James C. Scott showed, technocrats are too abstracted from reality to even see what is going on.
We need to settle upon a place where experts are respected and inform decision-making, but civilians make the ultimate calls. In a healthy democracy people revere great learning on substantive issues; they understand the world is too complex to be captured in bite-size slogans; but they also appreciate the wisdom that comes from concrete experience and know that most hard calls have to be made in light of the deeply held values that have made America what it is.
New York Times, Democrats Say F.B.I. Did Not Interview Critical Witnesses About Hegseth, Karoun Demirjian and Sharon LaFraniere, Jan. 15, 2025 (print ed.). The bureau did not interview an ex-wife of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for defense secretary before the findings on his background check were presented to senators.Senate Democrats on Monday said that an F.B.I. background check on Pete Hegseth (shown above in a collage of photos), President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, omitted key details on major allegations against him, in part because it did not include interviews with critical witnesses.
One missed opportunity came when the bureau did not interview one of Mr. Hegseth’s ex-wives before its findings were presented to senators last week, according to people familiar with the bureau’s investigation.
The clamor comes on the eve of Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation hearing, and just days after officials from Mr. Trump's transition team briefed Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the panel’s top Republican, and Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, its top Democrat, on the F.B.I.’s background check.
“There are significant gaps and inadequacies in the report, including the failure to interview some of the key potential witnesses with personal knowledge of improprieties or abuse,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut and a member of the committee, said in an interview.
As a rank-and-file member of the panel, Mr. Blumenthal was not given a briefing on the report or provided with a copy of it, but was informed of its contents by someone who was given access to it.
“Quite a few of the women with significant allegations against him have not been interviewed by the F.B.I. investigators,” Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois and another member of the panel, said on MSNBC on Monday evening, adding that some of those women feared for their safety and that of their children.
Mr. Hegseth was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in Monterey, Calif., in 2017, in an encounter he has insisted was consensual. No charges were brought. Mr. Hegseth later paid the woman an undisclosed amount of money as part of a confidential settlement agreement.
“My understanding is that some of them would like to be contacted by the F.B.I. investigative team, or the vetters, and they have not been talked to,” Ms. Duckworth added in the MSNBC interview.
A spokeswoman for the F.B.I. declined to comment.
Mr. Trump's transition team commissioned the F.B.I. background check on Mr. Hegseth last month after initially floating the idea of hiring private contractors to look into the president-elect’s cabinet picks. As the client, presidential transition teams are traditionally able to set the parameters for background checks into cabinet picks, and potentially dictate which witnesses are interviewed and what questions are asked. The transition team’s directions to the F.B.I. for its investigation of Mr. Hegseth are unknown.
Washington Post, Defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth grilled on scandals during confirmation hearings, Staff Reports, Jan. 15, 2025 (print ed.). Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s controversial pick for defense secretary, is taking part in a high-stakes Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday that could determine whether his nomination moves forward.
Hegseth, a National Guard veteran and former Fox News host, said in his opening statement that he will bring a “warrior culture” to the Pentagon and be a “change agent.” Hegseth is being questioned about his limited management experience, views on women in combat and allegations of sexual misconduct and excessive drinking, which he denies. He told senators he has been victim of a “coordinated smear campaign.”
Pete Hegseth said he believes there will be a “recruiting renaissance” after Donald Trump takes office and focuses on removing diversity programs that Hegseth has described as “woke.”
Hegseth has criticized policies to allow women to serve in direct combat jobs, and it remains an open question whether that will have a chilling effect on female troops, who make up nearly 20 percent of the force.
The Army, which has struggled in recent years to bring in enough soldiers, met its recruiting goals last year largely because of an increase in women who joined the ranks.
It’s clear Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) alienated Democrats on the panel by questioning whether senators have any more management experience than Pete Hegseth does. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois) reminds him that the people of Illinois elected her and Hegseth needs to earn her vote for this spot.
Sen. Gary Peters (D-Michigan) said it was a miscalculation by Pete Hegseth and his team to not meet with all senators who wanted to meet with him.
“I made repeated requests to meet with you prior to this meeting,” Peters said. “I know many of my other colleagues also wanted to meet with you. I did that with the other nominees that I was happy to vote for. I thought they were highly qualified individuals and true professionals, and yet I could never get a meeting with you. Was there a reason you were afraid to have one-on-one meetings with some of my colleagues before the hearing?”
Hegseth said that his team made a “great deal of outreach to multiple offices,” but noted that “schedules get full.”
“I was ready,” Peters responded. “It would have been so much better to have that opportunity to talk beforehand. I think that’s a big mistake, and it doesn’t set us on a good course when you refuse to meet with people and have a professional conversation about the huge challenges that we face at the Department of Defense.”
Peters also noted that he has voted in a bipartisan way for defense secretaries in the past, including two previously named to the post by then-President Donald Trump.
“I think [we had] five total secretaries of defense during that four-year period,” Peters said of the first Trump administration. “So we want to keep that in mind as to what we might see in this coming administration.”18 min agoReturn to menuSabrina Rodriguez
Pete Hegseth was unwilling to pledge that he would not work in the defense industry for 10 years after serving, if confirmed, as defense secretary — a position he holds for retired generals. In a tense exchange, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) raised his past position on retired generals and asked if he would commit to it himself.
He first said he would consult with the president on the policy.
“I’m not a general, senator,” he said when Warren pressed him again, prompting laughs in the hearing room. Warren slammed him for that, saying his position, if confirmed, would put him in charge of the generals.24 min agoReturn to menuSabrina Rodriguez
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) continued Democrats’ line of questioning of Hegseth on his past statements that women should not be allowed to serve in combat, listing multiple instances of him saying that. The exchange became testy as she questioned his seeming about-face and he continued his argument that his position has “always been about standards.”
“I’ve heard of deathbed conversions but this is the first time I’ve heard of a n
New York Times, As Winds Strengthen, L.A. Braces for New Fires, Staff Reports, Jan. 15, 2025 (print ed.). High winds and dry vegetation are creating the conditions for fresh blazes in Southern California, officials said. The most destructive fires in state history have killed at least 24 people and displaced over 100,000.
A rare warning from the National Weather Service, known as a “particularly dangerous situation” red flag warning, just went into effect for Ventura and Los Angeles counties, and will continue until noon Wednesday. Wind gusts between 45 and 70 m.p.h. and very low humidity could lead to “explosive fire growth” in those areas, the service said.
Washington Post, Investigation: Minister accused of sex abuse landed one high-profile job after another, Ian Shapira, Jan. 15, 2025. Jeff Taylor went from the pulpit to the Red Cross to a college nonprofit. Now, his alleged victims are speaking out, and the FBI is investigating.
One weekend in early 1991, Jeff Taylor, the youth minister at a centuries-old church catering to Washington’s elite, invited a boy in his congregation to a religious retreat in Illinois. The 13-year-old from the Falls Church Episcopal in Northern Virginia felt flattered, he later recalled. He said he had admired Taylor, a married man with children, even if Taylor bothered him with questions about how often or whether he masturbated.
On their last night, the man said, he and Taylor stayed at someone’s home in suburban Chicago. Somehow, he said, the pair wound up sharing a bed. Then, Taylor — who years later would lead a Red Cross chapter in Georgia and a fundraising arm at the University of Cincinnati Foundation — fondled the middle-schooler with lotion in the middle of the night, the church youth group alumnus recalled.
“He kept saying, ‘You seem stressed out, you seem anxious,’” said the youth group alumnus, now a partner at a financial firm in his 40s, who is speaking for the first time with a news organization about his allegations. “I recall feeling shame. The next morning, Jeff said, ‘Did you feel that, too? This was an evil room, and we need to pray about this room.’”
The alumnus was one of three Falls Church Episcopal youth group members who an independent investigation revealed in April were allegedly sexually abused by Taylor in the 1990s or the early 2000s when they attended the church. The report found that Taylor’s behavior during his employment there constituted “sexual grooming or sexual abuse.” Eleven male students reported that Taylor asked them how frequently they masturbated; six children said he talked with them about the sizes of their penises or his own.
Washington Post, Inflation heated up in December, as prices continue to weigh on Americans, Andrew Ackerman, Jan. 15, 2025. Prices rose by 2.9 percent annually last month, up from a 2.7 percent gain in November.
Lance Rosen Substack, The Trump Press Conference Gives Us A Clear Look Into The Abyss, Lance F Rosen, Jan. 7, 2025. I would say we have a category five emergency.
Taking Greenland by force is bad enough. It would be an attack on the sovereign territory of a NATO ally. Technically the US would be in violation of Article 5 of the NATO charter, which is what has held it together since its inception. "An attack on any member nation is an attack on all, therefore will be met with full retaliation," to paraphrase. Which of course will not under sny circumstances happen. At that precise moment, NATO is dead, the treaties notwithstanding.
This is how the forty-year long Russian asset intends to end it. He knows he will never get the NATO treaty repealed by the Senate, so this is his "work around."
At that point Ukraine is gone, and Putin will be free to establish hegemony in Europe. The US would retreat into "Fortress America," operating to conquer and colonize our hemisphere, surving through using our military to seize assets and raw materials. That is what explains his planned Panama gambit.
That is the dystopian future which the sabotage by the Democratic leadership is bringing us into, if we don't take the next 100 days to put it to a stop.
I keep telling everyone, the most important task, the key flank is derailing these nominations.
None of you that I know of is taking that up, or acting with an ounce of urgency.
What else should I say? Is anyone on board with what I am saying? We are running out of time. We have to jolt the Dem leadership into emergency actions now.
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Russia, Russian War Against Ukraine
New York Times, Russia Targets West With Drones, Exploding Parcels and Sabotage, Lara Jakes, Jan. 5, 2025 (print ed.). Russia has become increasingly brazen in adopting “gray zone” attacks against Europe and the U.S., leaving officials with a dilemma: How to respond?
When mysterious drones began appearing over oil rigs and wind farms off Norway’s coast about three years ago, officials were not certain where they came from.
But “we knew what they were doing,” Stale Ulriksen, a researcher at the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy, said in a recent interview. “Some of it was espionage, where they are charting a lot of things. Some of it, I think, was positioning in case of a war or a deep crisis.”
The drones were suspected of being launched from Russian-controlled ships in the North Sea, Mr. Ulriksen said, including some ships that were near underwater energy pipelines. Norway could not do much to stop them, he added, given that they were flying over international waters.
In recent weeks, reports of drone swarms over the United States’ East Coast have brought fears of hybrid warfare to widespread attention. Only 100 out of 5,000 drone sightings there required further examination, U.S. officials said, and so far none are believed to have been foreign surveillance drones. But it is a different story for the drones spotted in late November and early December over military bases in England and Germany where American forces are stationed.
Military analysts have concluded those drones may have been on a state-sponsored surveillance mission, according to one U.S. official familiar with the incidents, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an open investigation. British and German defense officials declined to discuss details of the sightings.
Experts said the drones’ presence was indicative of a so-called hybrid or “gray zone” attack against the West, where a range of tactics — military, cyber, economic and even psychological — are used to covertly attack or destabilize an enemy.
As Russia, Iran and other hostile states become increasingly brazen in their hybrid attacks on Western countries — such as the hacking of sensitive computer systems and alleged assassination plots — defense officials face a thorny challenge. How to deter such acts without touching off a broader and potentially deadly conflict? And how to assign blame against the attacker when the strikes are designed to evade culpability?
New York Times Magazine, Ukraine Was Outgunned. Its Solution: Small, Cheap Suicide Drones, C.J. Chivers, Photographs and Video by David Guttenfelder, Jan. 5, 2025 (print ed.). Outnumbered and desperate, the nation began hacking cheap consumer drones with explosives — bringing a brutal new form of violence to 21st-century warfare.
Known as first-person-view drones, or FPVs, the weapons have altered the human experience of war and flooded the internet with footage chronicling the desperate last seconds of lives ended by miniaircraft that transmit video of the people they pursue, then smack into them and explode.
Its camera revealed a surprise: a Russian T-80 tank parked in the foliage. A $3 million military machine had been discovered by a $400 repurposed toy.
The tank was well defended. Its crew had backed the 44-ton vehicle into undergrowth, blocking access to its vulnerable exhaust grate. Slats of reactive armor, which can thwart armor-piercing charges, bedecked its sloped front end. Its rotating turret carried a metal frame and netting, a combination derisively referred to as a cope cage, designed to snag drones and prevent warheads from making direct strikes on hulls. All its hatches were closed, blocking Prorok from flying the warhead inside.
In the past, attacking an armored vehicle with such a warhead typically required a soldier to risk exposure to take a hasty shot with a rocket-propelled grenade, sending a projectile at almost 1,000 feet per second that may not hit the vehicle at all. Weaponized FPV drones have created a new way. In the field south of Belgorod, the combination of the tank’s defensive measures and the drone’s peculiar characteristics made for an exercise that was almost surreal. Time seemed to slow down. The little drone hovered patiently before the massive military machine, rising and falling, swaying on the breeze, emitting its high-pitched buzz while Prorok flew it safely from afar, deciding his attack’s best place, which he could strike with uncanny precision.
Prorok selected the turret’s base, where armor was thinner. “Yes, yes,” Buryi said. Prorok leaned forward as he pushed the flight controller and the drone plunged into the spot. The screen went blank. Watching from the surveillance drone, Andy called out. “I see an explosion!” he said.
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Global Politics, War, Famine, Human Rights
Politico, Driver Rams Christmas Market in Germany, Killing at Least 2 in Suspected Attack, Christopher F. Schuetze, Dec. 20, 2024. Video showed a car plowing into a large crowd in the city of Magdeburg. The driver, identified as a 50-year-old Saudi Arabian citizen who worked as a doctor, was arrested
A driver plowed a vehicle into a Christmas market in the central German city of Magdeburg on Friday evening, killing an adult and a small child and injuring dozens of other people in what officials indicated was a targeted attack.
The driver was arrested, the authorities said. He was identified as a 50-year-old Saudi Arabian citizen who first came to Germany in 2006 and worked as a doctor in a small town 25 miles south of Magdeburg, officials said.
Saudi Arabia condemned the attack in a statement by its Foreign Ministry that did not mention the suspect. “The Kingdom expresses its solidarity with the German people and the families of the victims,” the statement said.
More than 65 people were injured, 14 of them severely, said Michael Reif, the spokesman for Magdeburg. The authorities say they believe it was a deliberate attack. They are working to determine a motive, said Reiner Haseloff, the governor of Saxony-Anhalt state, where Magdeburg is the capital.your times accessHave a moment? Play these games.Connections
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“Every human life lost in this attack is a terrible tragedy and one human life too many,” a visibly shaken Mr. Haseloff told reporters on Friday night.200 mi.300 km.© Mapbox © OpenStreetMap
Nancy Faeser, who as Germany’s interior minister is responsible for public safety, said in a statement: “The shocking act in Magdeburg a few days before Christmas hits us in the heart. We continue to fear for the lives of the seriously injured and mourn the people who were torn from life by this terrible act.”
Before leaving his post in November, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, Thomas Haldenwang, warned that the country’s threat level was higher because of the war in Middle East.
“The danger is real and more acute than it has been in a long time,” he said at the time.
More than 1,000 temporary Christmas markets pop up every year in Germany, and they have been the target of terrorists in the past. Last month, the police in Germany arrested two teenagers suspected of exchanging plans about attacking a Christmas market, but those alleged plans appear to have nothing to do with the attack on Friday.Editors’ PicksMy Neighbor Won’t Stop Praying for Me. What Should I Do?A Woman on Our Girls’ Trip Has Grown Snarky. Can We Stop Inviting Her?Skiing’s Budget Secret: It Can Be Cheaper in Europe
In 2016, an extremist rammed a truck into a crowd in Berlin, killing 13. Since then, the police have secured many Christmas markets with temporary barriers.
It remains unclear how the driver in Magdeburg was able to circumvent the barriers that were protecting the market. The car drove some 1,200 feet before it stopped, officials said.
The authorities said the driver had rented a car before plowing it into the market on the last Friday before Christmas, when it was especially crowded with visitors. Many police officers were at the site. The area around the market was closed after the episode, a police spokeswoman said.
The attack in Germany inspired additional security measures around Christmas markets thousands of miles away, in New York City.
The New York Police Department said in a statement on Friday: “The N.Y.P.D. has been closely monitoring recent events in Germany and coordinating with federal and international partners. While we have not identified any specific/credible threats to New York City at this time, resources have been deployed to various Christmas markets and other locations throughout the city out of an abundance of caution.”
The city of Magdeburg, population 240,000, used to be part of Communist East Germany. The year’s Christmas market is in the old market square, just in front of City Hall.
Surveillance footage circulating on social media and verified by The New York Times on Friday shows a car plowing into a large crowd at the Christmas market. The car then turns right onto another crowded street. Video of the aftermath shows people helping the wounded as cries are heard.
“The reports from Magdeburg are alarming,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in social media post. “My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
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NYPD Chief Jeffrey Maddrey attends a news conference outside New York City Police Department 40th Precinct, July 17, 2023, in New York. (AP File photo by Jeenah Moon).
Associated Press, Top-ranking NYPD officer abruptly resigns amid sexual misconduct allegations, Philip Marcelou, Dec. 22, 2024. The highest-ranking uniformed officer in the New York Police Department has resigned amid allegations he demanded sex from a subordinate in exchange for opportunities to earn extra pay.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch accepted Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey ’s resignation Friday night, effective immediately, according to a department statement Saturday.
Chief of Patrol John Chell will take over as interim chief of department, and Philip Rivera will assume Chell’s duties as the head of the patrol division, the NYPD said.
Late Saturday, Tisch replaced the head of the internal affairs bureau, which investigates alleged police misconduct, saying in a statement that the unit “must always be dedicated to preserving integrity and rooting out corruption in all its forms.” She appointed Edward Thompson as interim chief after Miguel Iglesias was relieved of his command.
The NYPD declined to comment on the allegations against Maddrey other than to say it “takes all allegations of sexual misconduct seriously and will thoroughly investigate this matter.”
A lawyer for his accuser, Lt. Quathisha Epps, said the move was overdue.
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U.S. Immigration
New York Times, Trump Vowed Mass Deportations. Mexico and Central America Brace for Impact, Emiliano Rodríguez Mega, Jan. 7, 2025. Donald J. Trump has said that Mexico is allowing an “invasion” of migrants into the United States. But the current situation on the ground tells a different story: Unlawful crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border dropped sharply last year.
Crossings into the United States from Mexico dropped sharply last year. But countries south of the U.S. border are waiting nervously to see if President-elect Donald J. Trump orders mass deportations.
The possibility that millions of undocumented immigrants could be expelled — what would be the largest deportation program in American history — has sent shock waves through Latin America and sowed confusion among migrants and asylum seekers.
“We see dark times coming for the migrant community,” said Irineo Mujica, the Mexico director of People Without Borders, a transnational advocacy group. “Anyone who falls prey to the Trump administration is now going to be devoured, chewed up and spat out.”
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U.S. Jobs, Investment, Economy, Pensions
Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: United States Stock Market On Pace For Best Two Year Period This Century, Aaron Parnas, Dec. 31, 2024. The Biden Administration's economic policy is working.
The United States stock market is expected to have its best two year stretch this entire century, achieving a feat that has only happened a few times in history. According to latest numbers, the S&P 500 is set to gain over 20% this year.
This comes one year after the index rose 24%. Should these results hold, which they will for all intents and purposes, it would be the best performance for the index since 1997 and 1998.
According to statistics over the past two centuries, this type of performance by the index has only occurred three other times, in 1927 and 1928, in 1935 and 1936, and again in 1954 and 1955. This would mean that the current pace for the market is one that has been achieved only four other times in our nation's history.
In total, the S&P 500 is now up over 60% of the past two years, marking significant gains from 2022 which saw the index fall about 20%. Today's news is a testament to the Biden-Harris Administration's economic policy which has successfully ushered the United States out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is now almost certain that the economy will achieve the vaunted soft landing, ensuring that the United States stays out of a recession following extremely high inflation. It also means that the incoming Trump Administration will now be inheriting a booming, record breaking economy.
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New York Times Photo by Philip Cheung
New York Times, Why the Blazes Overwhelmed L.A.’s Well-Trained Firefighters, Thomas Fuller, Alexandra Berzon, Kellen Browning and Shawn Hubler, Jan. 12, 2025 (print ed.). Officials say there simply weren’t enough firefighters to quell the wildfires, but questions are being raised about whether modern fires require a new playbook.
The alert came in blaring, hot-pink, all-caps: Be prepared for a “LIFE THREATENING & DESTRUCTIVE WINDSTORM!!!”
The notice on Monday was one in a series of warnings issued by the National Weather Service about the powerful Santa Ana winds that were about to blow through Southern California, which hadn’t seen serious rain in months.
Officials in Los Angeles, a city that is accustomed to treacherous fire conditions, turned to a well-worn playbook. The city predeployed nine trucks in vulnerable areas and called in 90 extra firefighters. The county fire department moved 30 extra engines into the field and called up 100 off-duty firefighters. The U.S. Forest Service brought in trucks and support units, as well as bulldozers, helicopters and planes.
But by Tuesday afternoon, five hours after a fire ignited high in a canyon in the oceanside Pacific Palisades neighborhood, it was clear their preparations would not be enough. As furious wind gusts approaching 100 miles per hour tore through the city and propelled showers of embers that ignited entire neighborhoods, Anthony Marrone, the chief of the Los Angeles County Fire Department, stood at a command post on the edge of the Pacific Ocean.
New York Times, Biggest L.A. Fire Spreads Despite Calmer Winds, Yan Zhuang, Amy Graff and Jonathan Wolfe, Jan. 12, 2025 (print ed.). Dry terrain helped the giant Palisades blaze grow, prompting officials to expand mandatory evacuation orders to Brentwood, including the Getty Center.
Washington Post, Pacific Palisades fire erupts, spurring evacuations in California amid strong winds, Staff Report, Jan. 7, 2025. "‘Let’s get out of here’: Palisades residents flee fire.
An ominous fire broke out Tuesday near the Pacific Palisades — a coastal neighborhood on the west side of Los Angeles — and quickly exploded. The fire has grown to at least 2,921 acres, according to Cal Fire. Evacuation orders were issued as officials ordered residents in notoriously winding hillside neighborhoods to leave immediately.
Smoke plumes spread rapidly, moving toward structures and homes. A large swath of residences in Topanga Canyon, a woodsy, tucked-away community with one winding road in and out, are under evacuation warnings. The fire sparked amid a “life-threatening and destructive” windstorm event that is sweeping through a region that has not seen significant rain since spring. The Palisades Fire has now grown to at least 2,921 acres and is zero percent contained, according to a 6:18 p.m. update from Cal Fire. State fire officials are warning of extreme fire behavior — including short and long-range spotting — and say that wind gusts of up to 60 mph are expected to continue through Thursday. The cause is still under investigation.
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Media, High Tech, Culture, Education
New York Times, CNN Ordered to Pay at Least $5 Million for Defaming Security Contractor, Michael M. Grynbaum, Jan. 17, 2025. The jury decision came after a two-week trial where lawyers for the contractor argued that the network had falsely accused him of illegal activity.
A jury in Florida on Friday found CNN liable for defaming a private security contractor in a five-minute segment that ran on the network in November 2021.
The jury ordered the company to pay at least $5 million in damages, plus any potential punitive damages that have yet to be determined.
News organizations are facing an increasingly adverse legal and political environment. There are robust First Amendment protections for journalists, and plaintiffs in defamation cases must prove that a news outlet published false information despite knowing the information was wrong.
But public opinion has turned sharply against news organizations, just as financial constraints on the industry’s business model have made it tougher to fend off suits. ABC News surprised industry observers last month when it agreed to pay $15 million to settle a defamation claim brought by President-elect Donald J. Trump.
New York Times, MSNBC's President Rashida Jones Stepping Down, Benjamin Mullin and Michael M. Grynbaum, Jan. 14, 2025. The president of MSNBC, Rashida Jones, is stepping down from that position, the company said on Tuesday, a major change at the news network just days before President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office.
Rebecca Kutler, senior vice president for content strategy at MSNBC, will succeed Ms. Jones as interim president, effective immediately. Ms. Jones will stay on in an advisory role through March.
“Rebecca is the ideal leader to guide us through this moment, and I look forward to collaborating with her as we shape our collective future together,” Mark Lazarus, the chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group, said in a note to staffers.
Ms. Jones’s exit comes amid industrywide pressure for the cable news industry, which has seen declining ratings after the U.S. presidential election. MSNBC has been the second most-watched cable network during that period, ahead of CNN but behind longtime ratings leader Fox News.
Executives at the network are hopeful that audiences will return as Mr. Trump takes office and viewers seek to dissect his early policy moves. On Monday, the company announced that Rachel Maddow, its most popular host, would temporarily return to broadcasting her one-hour show every weeknight at 9 p.m. Eastern for Mr. Trump’s first 100 days in office.
MSNBC is among a bundle of cable channels that its parent company, Comcast, is planning to spin out later this year into a new company. CNBC, another news channel in Comcast’s cable portfolio, is also being spun out, along with entertainment networks like USA and Syfy.
Ms. Kutler is a cable news executive with experience in the streaming business. Before joining MSNBC in 2022, Ms. Kutler was a key architect of CNN+, the ambitious streaming news service that was shut down by Warner Bros. Discovery that year.
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New York Times, Support for Trump’s Policies Exceeds Support for Trump, Poll Finds, Jeremy W. Peters and Ruth Igielnik, Jan. 18, 2025. A new Times/Ipsos poll found that the public was sympathetic to President-elect Trump’s plans to deport migrants and reduce America’s presence overseas.
Many Americans who otherwise dislike President-elect Donald J. Trump share his bleak assessment of the country’s problems and support some of his most contentious prescriptions to fix them, according to a new poll from The New York Times and Ipsos.
A little more than half of the country expresses some desire to see Mr. Trump follow through with his harshest threat to deal with illegal immigration: deporting everyone living in the United States without authorization.
The poll, which surveyed 2,128 adults from Jan. 2 to 10, found that 55 percent of Americans either strongly or somewhat support such mass deportations.
New York Times, Trump Vowed a Crackdown on the Mexican Border, but It’s Already Quiet, James Wagner and Simon Romero, Photographs by César Rodríguez, Jan. 18, 2025. Ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration, migrant shelters south of the Rio Grande are far from full, a reflection of tougher measures on both sides of the border.
Migrants used to gather by the hundreds in encampments in Ciudad Juárez, on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, waiting for a chance to cross into the United States. But as President-elect Donald J. Trump prepares to take office on Monday, few people could be found this past week on the once-teeming embankments.
All that remained were extinguished campfires, discarded shoes, shirts and toothbrushes.
One Mexican city after another has reported a similar situation along the border with the United States, where the number of migrants has steadily dropped in recent months. The decline has been attributed largely to hardened restrictions introduced by the Biden administration and by Mexican and Panamanian officials meant to deter migration.
New York Times, Trump’s Deportation Plan Is Said to Start Next Week in Chicago, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Hamed Aleaziz, Jan. 18, 2025.The size of the planned immigration raids is unclear, but they would be the opening step in the president-elect’s goal of overseeing the largest deportation program in history.
The incoming Trump administration intends to carry out “post-inauguration” immigration raids in Chicago next week, according to two people familiar with the planning and correspondence reviewed by The New York Times, an opening step in President-elect Donald J. Trump’s goal to oversee the largest deportation operation in American history.
The plan, called “Operation Safeguard” by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, would start on Tuesday, the day after Mr. Trump is inaugurated, and last until the following Monday, according to the people familiar with it and the correspondence. The dates were still being finalized, however, and could change.
The size of the planned operation was unclear. ICE routinely conducts deportations in cities throughout the United States. But the agency was taking additional steps to ramp up enforcement for the operation and tied it to Mr. Trump’s inauguration in a message sent to personnel throughout the agency.
Hundreds of agents were asked to volunteer and participate in the “post-inauguration” operation targeting immigrants in the United States illegally. ICE is planning on sending roughly 150 agents to Chicago for the raids.
New York Times, An Illustrated Guide to Trump’s Conflict of Interest Risks, Karen Yourish, Eric Lipton and Lazaro Gamio, Jan. 18, 2025 (print ed.). President-elect Trump has a range of new business ventures that could expose him to even greater potential conflicts of interest than during his first term.
During his first administration, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s global business empire created an unprecedented number of conflicts of interest for a sitting president. Ethics experts worried that opportunists could try to curry favor by booking stays at Mr. Trump’s network of hotels, golf clubs and other properties.
Their predictions bore out: Foreign governments and lobbyists spent lavishly at his Washington hotel, which has since been sold, as well as at his Mar-a-Lago resort and other properties. The federal government itself also became an awkward customer by renting millions of dollars’ worth of rooms at his hotels and clubs.
Those concerns now seem almost quaint in light of some of Mr. Trump’s more recent business ventures. They include a publicly traded company, a cryptocurrency venture, new overseas real estate deals involving state-affiliated entities and numerous branding and licensing deals.
The new additions to Mr. Trump’s portfolio could provide more direct avenues for those wishing to influence a sitting president or even to try to extort him, according to some outside ethics lawyers.Some of the new international real estate deals are among the most potentially worrisome.
Several of Mr. Trump’s recent real estate projects have connections to foreign governments in the Middle East, raising concerns that Mr. Trump’s financial interests could influence foreign policy.
New York Times, U.S. Faces Record Debt Levels as Republicans Plan Tax Cuts, Alan Rappeport, Jan. 17, 2025. The Congressional Budget Office forecasts that annual deficits will top $21 trillion over the next decade.
The United States is poised to add trillions of dollars to the national debt over the next decade as the mounting costs of social safety net programs and growing interest expenses dig the nation into a deeper fiscal hole, according to a report released on Friday by the Congressional Budget Office.
The new budget forecasts predicted that the United States will record a $1.9 trillion budget deficit this fiscal year and that annual deficits over the next decade will total $21.1 trillion. That will be piled on to a national debt that currently exceeds $36 trillion.
By 2035, the debt as a share of the U.S. economy will rise to 118 percent, the largest in history. The debt is currently 100 percent of gross domestic product.
Although the figures show slightly smaller deficits than what the C.B.O. projected last June, thanks to higher salaries and stock values, the nation’s fiscal situation is poised to become far more precarious.
New York Times, Trump Transition: Kennedy Sought to Stop Covid Vaccinations 6 Months After Rollout, Christina Jewett, Jan. 17, 2025. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. petitioned the F.D.A. to revoke authorization of the shots at a time when they were in high demand and considered life-saving.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice to lead the nation’s health agencies, formally asked the Food and Drug Administration to revoke the authorization of all Covid vaccines during a deadly phase of the pandemic when thousands of Americans were still dying every week.
Mr. Kennedy filed a petition with the F.D.A. in May 2021 demanding that officials rescind authorization for the shots and refrain from approving any Covid vaccine in the future.
Just six months earlier, Mr. Trump had declared the Covid vaccines a miracle. At the time Mr. Kennedy filed the petition, half of American adults were receiving their shots. Schools were reopening and churches were filling.
Estimates had begun to show that the rapid rollout of Covid vaccines had already saved about 140,000 lives in the United States.
The petition was filed on behalf of the nonprofit that Mr. Kennedy founded and led, Children’s Health Defense. It claimed that the risks of the vaccines outweighed the benefits and that the vaccines weren’t necessary because good treatments were available, including ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, which had already been deemed ineffective against the virus.
The petition received little notice when it was filed. Mr. Kennedy was then on the fringes of the public health establishment, and the agency denied it within months. Public health experts told about the filing said it was shocking.
John Moore, a professor of immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College, called Mr. Kennedy’s request to the F.D.A. “an appalling error of judgment.” Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health, likened having Mr. Kennedy lead the federal health agencies to “putting a flat earther in charge of NASA.”
Dr. Robert Califf, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, described Mr. Kennedy’s effort to halt the use of Covid vaccines as a “massive error.”
Mr. Kennedy’s transition spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment, but has said recently that he does not want to take vaccines away.
Asked in November by an NBC reporter about his general opposition to Covid vaccines — and whether he would have stopped authorization — Mr. Kennedy said he was concerned that the vaccines did not prevent transmission of the virus.
New York Times, Justices Back Law Requiring TikTok to Be Sold or Banned, Adam Liptak, Jan. 17, 2025. Unanimous Decision Sets Up Ban as Early as Sunday. The decision came a week after the justices heard a First Amendment challenge to a law aimed at the wildly popular short-form video platform used by 170 million Americans that the government fears could be influenced by China.
The Supreme Court ruled against TikTok on Friday, rejecting the social media company’s First Amendment challenge to the law that effectively bans it in the United States starting on Sunday.
The unanimous decision may deal a death blow to the U.S. operations of the wildly popular app, which serves up short-form videos that are a leading source of information and entertainment to tens of millions of Americans, especially younger ones.
“There is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement and source of community,” the decision said. “But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary.”
President Biden signed the law last spring after it passed in Congress with wide bipartisan support. Lawmakers said the app’s ownership was a risk because the Chinese government’s oversight of private companies allowed it to retrieve sensitive information about Americans or to spread covert disinformation or propaganda.
Although TikTok’s lawyer told the justices last week that the app would “go dark” if it lost the case, it was not clear how quickly a shutdown would play out. At a minimum, app store operators like Apple and Google face significant penalties imposed by the law if they distribute and update the TikTok app.
The app stores and cloud providers have a strong incentive to comply with the ban on TikTok. Under the law, those companies would pay penalties as high as $5,000 per user who is able to gain access to the app inside the United States if the ban takes effect.
New York Times, A Timeline of TikTok’s Rise and Fall, Madison Malone Kircher and Remy Tumin, Jan. 17, 2025. What started as “the dance app” spawned countless memes, launched lucrative careers and shaped entire industries. Here’s how it got here.
In its infancy, TikTok was often described as an app for teenagers’ dance videos. In 2025, it’s a juggernaut with 170 million users in the United States and, according to the Justice Department, a national security threat that must be eliminated.
The platform’s path from a whimsical dance app to the target of a federal ban has been dotted with recipes, niche drama, micro trends, new entries into the popular lexicon and overnight megastars — as well as legal troubles, Senate hearings and, finally, a widely watched Supreme Court case.
Here’s a timeline of the app’s meteoric rise, and a reminder of the videos that dominated your algorithm, whether you wanted them to or not.
New York Times, U.S. Ban of TikTok Is Set to Deal a Major Blow to ByteDance, Its Chinese Owner, Erin Griffith, Jan. 17, 2025. While TikTok remains hugely popular in Brazil, Indonesia and other markets, its 170 million users in the United States are its most valuable.
The ban of TikTok in the United States is set to create a glaring hole in social media. For ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company in China, it also could create a glaring hole in its business.
The ban, which was signed into federal law last year and upheld by the Supreme Court on Friday, is a major blow to ByteDance, the world’s second-most valuable private technology company, worth $300 billion. At least a chunk of the company’s value is tied to its success in the United States, where TikTok has 170 million monthly users, according to analyst estimates.
TikTok has a larger audience outside the United States — it has 1.2 billion to 1.8 billion monthly users around the world, with its largest markets including Indonesia and Brazil — but the app’s American users are the most valuable, analysts said. TikTok makes money through ads, as well as by selling goods through its TikTok Shop, which pays influencers a commission to hawk beauty products, gadgets, clothes and other items. Social networks typically get their highest “revenue per user” in the United States.
“The U.S. market is the most profitable market of any market by a long shot,” said Mark Zgutowicz, an analyst at Benchmark Company. TikTok took in an estimated $10 billion in revenue in the United States last year, he said, out of a total global revenue estimated at $20 billion to $26 billion.
New York Times, Live Updates: Israeli Cabinet Takes Up Gaza Cease-Fire in Final Step to Approval, Aaron Boxerman, Adam Rasgon and Ephrat Livni, Jan. 17, 2025. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the deal, which is expected to get sign off from the full cabinet, could go into effect as early as Sunday.
New York Times, Gazans to Return Home After 15 Months of War, Vivian Yee and Bilal Shbair, Jan. 17, 2025. They daydreamed about the people they would hug as soon as the truce took hold, the graves they would visit and the homes they would rebuild.
It is almost over, the end so close they can practically feel the keys they have kept all these months sliding into the locks of their old homes, the doorknobs turning in their hands, the beds they will sink into for their first night’s peaceful rest in more than 15 months — their own beds. Just a couple more days to go.
Two nights before the first stage of a cease-fire in Gaza was announced, Layan al-Mohtaseb, 15, dreamed of being back in her bedroom in Gaza City, cleaning it as she used to before her family fled during the war.
“This time, it feels like we’re truly going home,” she said.
That may be true only for those whose homes are still standing after months of destruction. And there is always a chance the fighting might resume after the six-week initial truce if talks over a permanent one collapsed. But across Gaza, people were daydreaming of the first moments of peace, the people they would hug as soon as the truce took hold, the graves they would visit. They already knew they would be shedding tears, tears they hardly knew whether to attribute to joy or to grief.
New York Times, Pledging Independence, Bondi Spars with Democrats but Echoes Trump, Glenn Thrush, Devlin Barrett and Adam Goldman, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.). Pam Bondi cast herself as an independent prosecutor who would keep politics out of the Justice Department if confirmed as Donald Trump’s attorney general.
Pam Bondi, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for attorney general, refused to explicitly say she would defy White House pressure — or admit that Mr. Trump lost the 2020 election — and instead offered a promise that “politics will not play a part” in her work at a confirmation hearing on Wednesday that repeatedly turned heated.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee accused her time and again of failing to answer simple questions on election denialism, prosecution of the news media and her stance on an administration meddling in the department. But the committee’s members from the Republican Party, which controls the Senate, were united in their support for Ms. Bondi, appearing to give her a smooth path to confirmation.
As Bondi’s hearing nears its end, she gets a soft-spoken warning from Senator Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who fought with her earlier in the day.
“Our concern comes when that loyalty to the president conflicts with your duty,” said Schiff, insisting such a moment will arise because it happened to her predecessors. “It came to everyone, it will come to you, and what you do in that moment will define your attorney generalship.”
New York Times, On Glide Path to Confirmation, Rubio Warns of China Threat, Michael Crowley, Karoun Demirjian and Edward Wong, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.). Marco Rubio backed NATO but said Europe needed to do more to protect itself. His hearing seemed to all but guarantee he would be the next secretary of state.
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, right, called for an end to the war in Ukraine, said Europe must decrease its reliance on Washington and declared America’s competition with China the defining question of the century during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday to be secretary of state.
The friendly, five-hour hearing before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, which also touched on how Mr. Rubio would approach conflicts in the Middle East, was less than halfway over when the panel’s chairman made a major announcement: Israel and Hamas had sealed an agreement to begin a temporary cease-fire and partial hostage release in Gaza. Mr. Rubio had no specific comment on the agreement.
Mr. Rubio had earlier defended Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza, blaming Hamas for using civilians as human shields and calling the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza “one of the terrible things about war.” He later added of Israel, “You cannot coexist with armed elements at your border who seek your destruction and evisceration, as a state. You just can’t.”
But Mr. Rubio was perhaps most fluent and animated during his discussion of China, which, he warned, aimed to overtake the United States as the world’s pre-eminent power. “The Chinese believe we are a great power in inevitable decline and they are on an inevitable rise,” he said. Mr. Rubio acknowledged that China’s government saw him as a prime adversary.
Beijing has “said mean things about me” — and it has even imposed sanctions on him — but Mr. Rubio added that his role at America’s top diplomat would require “involve engaging them in a mature and prudent conversation.”
In contrast to Mr. Trump’s more gleefully disruptive nominees, Mr. Rubio struck a decidedly moderate and mainstream tone unlikely to alarm the foreign policy establishment. There was no talk of picking fights with allies, reclaiming the Panama Canal or conquering Greenland.
Mr. Rubio even called the State Department a valuable source of expertise and said its influence should be enhanced.
Politico, Trump CIA pick Ratcliffe vows to help win new emerging tech race, John Sakellariadis, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.). John Ratcliffe also said the spy agency needs focus above all on China.
John Ratcliffe will pledge to ensure the U.S. stays ahead of foreign adversaries on key emerging tech issues like AI and quantum computing, if confirmed to lead the Central Intelligence Agency.
“Our adversaries…understand that the nation who wins the race in the emerging technologies of today, will dominate the world of tomorrow,” Ratcliffe will say, according to a copy of his opening statement shared with POLITICO and later posted online. He pledged to make technology innovation a “priority” while at the agency.
The former U.S. congressperson served as the director of national intelligence in Trump’s first term, and is likely to have a smooth confirmation process this time around.
According to his opening statement, Ratcliffe will argue that the agency has “struggled to keep pace” with technological innovation, and needs to forge better ties with the private sector.
To better assess how foreign adversaries are exploiting technologies like AI, Ratcliffe will say he wants to push U.S. spies to collect intelligence in “every corner of the globe, no matter how dark or difficult.” He will add that the U.S. intelligence community should continue a relentless focus on China in particular.
China is “far and away our top national security threat,” his prepared statement reads.
WhoWhatWhy, Investigative Commentary: Hegseth’s Nomination Hearing a Troubling Sign of Things to Come, Klaus Marre, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.). If Democrats cannot do a better job of highlighting how unqualified a nominee like Pete Hegseth is, and if Republicans cannot muster the courage to reject someone like him, we might as well just do away with this “advice and consent” farce.
New York Times, Opinion: We Deserve Pete Hegseth, David Brooks, right, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.).First let me hit you with some realities:
Now, if you are holding hearings for a prospective secretary of defense, you would think you might want to ask him about these urgent issues. Or you might come up with other serious questions: How do drones change war-fighting? How will artificial intelligence alter the nature of combat? How do we shift from a defense policy built around counterterrorism to a policy built around nation-state warfare? If you’re a Democrat trying to sink a nomination, you would think you’d want to ask substantive questions on life-or-death issues like these in order to expose the nominee’s ignorance and unpreparedness.
But did this happen at the Pete Hegseth hearings in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee this week? If you thought those kinds of questions would dominate the hearings, you must be living under the illusion that we live in a serious country.
We do not. We live in a soap opera country. We live in a social media/cable TV country. In our culture you don’t want to focus on boring policy questions; you want to engage in the kind of endless culture war that gets voters riled up. You don’t want to focus on topics that would require study; you focus on images and easy-to-understand issues that generate instant visceral reactions. You don’t win this game by engaging in serious thought; you win by mere attitudinizing — by striking a pose. Your job is not to advance an argument that might help the country; your job is to go viral.
Pete Hegseth is of course the living, breathing embodiment of this culture. The world is on fire and what’s his obsession? Wokeness in the military. I went through high school trying to bluff my way through class after doing none of the reading, and in Hegseth, I recognize a master of the craft. During the hearings Hegseth repeatedly said he was going to defend the meritocracy. In what kind of meritocracy is being a Fox TV host preparation for being secretary of defense? Maybe in the one Caligula fancied when he contemplated making his horse a consul.
Several Republican senators were happy to play along with the woke-military game. In addition, Senator Kevin Cramer used his precious question time to praise Hegseth for having the courage to use the words “Jesus Christ.” (If we had used this logic during World War II, Father Fulton Sheen would have commanded the D-Day invasion.) I’ve also learned that mentioning climate change in a Republican gathering is like throwing a side of bacon into an Orthodox minyan — they react with great offense.Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
Hegseth is in no danger of rising to the level of mediocrity, but next to some of his Democratic questioners, he looked like Carl von Clausewitz. Democrats played their own culture war games. Especially early in the hearings their main obsession was women in combat. (Like everybody in my social class, I support women in combat, but I don’t think it’s as important an issue as failure to deter World War III.)
Senator Elizabeth Warren submitted over 30 pages of written questions to Hegseth before the hearing. They had to do with things like drinking, accusations of sexual assault, threats to L.G.B.T.Q. rights and veterans benefits. I have enormous respect for Warren, but she didn’t show much interest in topics like how to deter and fight a war — which are kind of central to the purview of this committee.
Senator Tim Kaine tried to play the moral disqualification game, dwelling on Hegseth’s various adulteries. With Democrats’ having failed to defeat Donald Trump with this strategy, I admire their capacity for persistent losing.
The hearings got better as they went along and more junior senators got to speak. Senator Mazie Hirono was excellent, asking substantive questions: If the president ordered you, would you order troops to shoot protesters in the legs? Would you follow an order to use the military for mass deportations? Senator Tammy Duckworth was outstanding, too, asking about the big responsibilities of the job: Does Hegseth know anything about the ongoing international negotiations? Does he know which countries are in the ASEAN bloc? (The answers are no and no.)
The lesson for Democrats over the next four years is clear: Don’t fly into moral outrage every day. Focus on Trumpian incompetence.
Overall, Republicans were the more serious party at these hearings. The committee chairman, Senator Roger Wicker, did note that we live in the most dangerous security environment since World War II. Senator Tim Sheehy did mention shipbuilding. Senator Ted Budd did ask about warplanes. Senator Eric Schmitt did ask about drones.
But, as you can kind of tell, I finished watching the hearings sick to my stomach. I also came away thinking that we need to come up with a better way to think about expertise. Hegseth’s core populist conviction — repeated ad nauseam — is that the grunts on the ground know what they are doing and the pencil-necked geeks in air-conditioned offices just write nonsense regulations that get in the way. The man wasted years at Princeton and Harvard when he could have learned everything he knows by watching that Colonel Jessup speech at the end of “A Few Good Men.”
We don’t want to live in a populist paradise in which expertise is suspect and ignorance a sign of virtue. Nor do we want to live in an elitist world in which technocrats try to rule the world. As the political scientist James C. Scott showed, technocrats are too abstracted from reality to even see what is going on.
We need to settle upon a place where experts are respected and inform decision-making, but civilians make the ultimate calls. In a healthy democracy people revere great learning on substantive issues; they understand the world is too complex to be captured in bite-size slogans; but they also appreciate the wisdom that comes from concrete experience and know that most hard calls have to be made in light of the deeply held values that have made America what it is.
New York Times, Zuckerberg Will Host a Party for Trump’s Inauguration, Theodore Schleifer and Mike Isaac, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.). Mark Zuckerberg, the Meta chief executive, is one of several tech leaders expected to play a high-profile role in celebrating the new administration next week.
New York Times, Special Counsel’s Jan. 6 Report Defends Decision to Prosecute Trump, Alan Feuer and Charlie Savage, Jan. 15, 2025 (print ed.). The report, which said the special counsel’s office stood “fully behind” the merits of the prosecution, amounted to an extraordinary rebuke of President-elect Trump.
Jack Smith, above, the special counsel who indicted President-elect Donald J. Trump on charges of illegally seeking to cling to power after losing the 2020 election, said in a final report released early Tuesday that the evidence would have been sufficient to convict Mr. Trump in a trial, had his 2024 election victory not made it impossible for the prosecution to continue.
“The department’s view that the Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a president is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government’s proof or the merits of the prosecution, which the office stands fully behind,” Mr. Smith wrote.
He continued: “Indeed, but for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.”
The Justice Department delivered the 137-page volume — representing half of Mr. Smith’s overall final report, with the volume about Mr. Trump’s other federal case, accusing him of mishandling classified documents, still confidential — to Congress just after midnight on Tuesday. The report amounted to an extraordinary rebuke of a president-elect, capping a momentous legal saga that saw the man now poised to regain the powers of the nation’s highest office charged with crimes that struck at the heart of American democracy. And although Mr. Smith resigned as special counsel late last week, his recounting of the case also served as a reminder of the vast array of evidence and detailed accounting of Mr. Trump’s actions that he had marshaled.
In his report, Mr. Smith took Mr. Trump to task not only for his efforts to reverse the results of a free and fair election, but also for consistently encouraging “violence against his perceived opponents” throughout the chaotic weeks between Election Day and Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, injuring more than 140 police officers.
Mr. Smith laid the attack on the Capitol squarely at Mr. Trump’s feet, quoting from the evidence in several criminal cases of people charged with taking part in the riot who made clear that they believed they were acting on Mr. Trump’s behalf.
In several lengthy footnotes, Mr. Smith explored the trauma experienced by Capitol Police officers who were attacked during the riot, including “shell-shock” and the inability to move. He quoted one officer who described the effort to keep rioters from getting to congressional staff members inside the Capitol; the officer said that for them, that could have meant “possible death. People are getting killed, maimed.”
New York Times, Democrats Say F.B.I. Did Not Interview Critical Witnesses About Hegseth, Karoun Demirjian and Sharon LaFraniere, Jan. 15, 2025 (print ed.). The bureau did not interview an ex-wife of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for defense secretary before the findings on his background check were presented to senators.Senate Democrats on Monday said that an F.B.I. background check on Pete Hegseth (shown above in a collage of photos), President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, omitted key details on major allegations against him, in part because it did not include interviews with critical witnesses.
One missed opportunity came when the bureau did not interview one of Mr. Hegseth’s ex-wives before its findings were presented to senators last week, according to people familiar with the bureau’s investigation.
The clamor comes on the eve of Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation hearing, and just days after officials from Mr. Trump's transition team briefed Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the panel’s top Republican, and Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, its top Democrat, on the F.B.I.’s background check.
“There are significant gaps and inadequacies in the report, including the failure to interview some of the key potential witnesses with personal knowledge of improprieties or abuse,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut and a member of the committee, said in an interview.
As a rank-and-file member of the panel, Mr. Blumenthal was not given a briefing on the report or provided with a copy of it, but was informed of its contents by someone who was given access to it.
“Quite a few of the women with significant allegations against him have not been interviewed by the F.B.I. investigators,” Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois and another member of the panel, said on MSNBC on Monday evening, adding that some of those women feared for their safety and that of their children.
Mr. Hegseth was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in Monterey, Calif., in 2017, in an encounter he has insisted was consensual. No charges were brought. Mr. Hegseth later paid the woman an undisclosed amount of money as part of a confidential settlement agreement.
“My understanding is that some of them would like to be contacted by the F.B.I. investigative team, or the vetters, and they have not been talked to,” Ms. Duckworth added in the MSNBC interview.
A spokeswoman for the F.B.I. declined to comment.
Mr. Trump's transition team commissioned the F.B.I. background check on Mr. Hegseth last month after initially floating the idea of hiring private contractors to look into the president-elect’s cabinet picks. As the client, presidential transition teams are traditionally able to set the parameters for background checks into cabinet picks, and potentially dictate which witnesses are interviewed and what questions are asked. The transition team’s directions to the F.B.I. for its investigation of Mr. Hegseth are unknown.
Washington Post, Defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth grilled on scandals during confirmation hearings, Staff Reports, Jan. 15, 2025 (print ed.). Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s controversial pick for defense secretary, is taking part in a high-stakes Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday that could determine whether his nomination moves forward.
Hegseth, a National Guard veteran and former Fox News host, said in his opening statement that he will bring a “warrior culture” to the Pentagon and be a “change agent.” Hegseth is being questioned about his limited management experience, views on women in combat and allegations of sexual misconduct and excessive drinking, which he denies. He told senators he has been victim of a “coordinated smear campaign.”
Pete Hegseth said he believes there will be a “recruiting renaissance” after Donald Trump takes office and focuses on removing diversity programs that Hegseth has described as “woke.”
Hegseth has criticized policies to allow women to serve in direct combat jobs, and it remains an open question whether that will have a chilling effect on female troops, who make up nearly 20 percent of the force.
The Army, which has struggled in recent years to bring in enough soldiers, met its recruiting goals last year largely because of an increase in women who joined the ranks.
It’s clear Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) alienated Democrats on the panel by questioning whether senators have any more management experience than Pete Hegseth does. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois) reminds him that the people of Illinois elected her and Hegseth needs to earn her vote for this spot.
Sen. Gary Peters (D-Michigan) said it was a miscalculation by Pete Hegseth and his team to not meet with all senators who wanted to meet with him.
“I made repeated requests to meet with you prior to this meeting,” Peters said. “I know many of my other colleagues also wanted to meet with you. I did that with the other nominees that I was happy to vote for. I thought they were highly qualified individuals and true professionals, and yet I could never get a meeting with you. Was there a reason you were afraid to have one-on-one meetings with some of my colleagues before the hearing?”
Hegseth said that his team made a “great deal of outreach to multiple offices,” but noted that “schedules get full.”
“I was ready,” Peters responded. “It would have been so much better to have that opportunity to talk beforehand. I think that’s a big mistake, and it doesn’t set us on a good course when you refuse to meet with people and have a professional conversation about the huge challenges that we face at the Department of Defense.”
Peters also noted that he has voted in a bipartisan way for defense secretaries in the past, including two previously named to the post by then-President Donald Trump.
“I think [we had] five total secretaries of defense during that four-year period,” Peters said of the first Trump administration. “So we want to keep that in mind as to what we might see in this coming administration.”18 min agoReturn to menuSabrina Rodriguez
Pete Hegseth was unwilling to pledge that he would not work in the defense industry for 10 years after serving, if confirmed, as defense secretary — a position he holds for retired generals. In a tense exchange, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) raised his past position on retired generals and asked if he would commit to it himself.
He first said he would consult with the president on the policy.
“I’m not a general, senator,” he said when Warren pressed him again, prompting laughs in the hearing room. Warren slammed him for that, saying his position, if confirmed, would put him in charge of the generals.24 min agoReturn to menuSabrina Rodriguez
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) continued Democrats’ line of questioning of Hegseth on his past statements that women should not be allowed to serve in combat, listing multiple instances of him saying that. The exchange became testy as she questioned his seeming about-face and he continued his argument that his position has “always been about standards.”
“I’ve heard of deathbed conversions but this is the first time I’ve heard of a nomination conversion,” Warren said.
New York Times Photo by Philip Cheung
New York Times, As Winds Strengthen, L.A. Braces for New Fires, Staff Reports, Jan. 15, 2025 (print ed.). High winds and dry vegetation are creating the conditions for fresh blazes in Southern California, officials said. The most destructive fires in state history have killed at least 24 people and displaced over 100,000.
A rare warning from the National Weather Service, known as a “particularly dangerous situation” red flag warning, just went into effect for Ventura and Los Angeles counties, and will continue until noon Wednesday. Wind gusts between 45 and 70 m.p.h. and very low humidity could lead to “explosive fire growth” in those areas, the service said.
Washington Post, Investigation: Minister accused of sex abuse landed one high-profile job after another, Ian Shapira, Jan. 15, 2025. Jeff Taylor went from the pulpit to the Red Cross to a college nonprofit. Now, his alleged victims are speaking out, and the FBI is investigating.
One weekend in early 1991, Jeff Taylor, the youth minister at a centuries-old church catering to Washington’s elite, invited a boy in his congregation to a religious retreat in Illinois. The 13-year-old from the Falls Church Episcopal in Northern Virginia felt flattered, he later recalled. He said he had admired Taylor, a married man with children, even if Taylor bothered him with questions about how often or whether he masturbated.
On their last night, the man said, he and Taylor stayed at someone’s home in suburban Chicago. Somehow, he said, the pair wound up sharing a bed. Then, Taylor — who years later would lead a Red Cross chapter in Georgia and a fundraising arm at the University of Cincinnati Foundation — fondled the middle-schooler with lotion in the middle of the night, the church youth group alumnus recalled.
“He kept saying, ‘You seem stressed out, you seem anxious,’” said the youth group alumnus, now a partner at a financial firm in his 40s, who is speaking for the first time with a news organization about his allegations. “I recall feeling shame. The next morning, Jeff said, ‘Did you feel that, too? This was an evil room, and we need to pray about this room.’”
The alumnus was one of three Falls Church Episcopal youth group members who an independent investigation revealed in April were allegedly sexually abused by Taylor in the 1990s or the early 2000s when they attended the church. The report found that Taylor’s behavior during his employment there constituted “sexual grooming or sexual abuse.” Eleven male students reported that Taylor asked them how frequently they masturbated; six children said he talked with them about the sizes of their penises or his own.
Washington Post, Inflation heated up in December, as prices continue to weigh on Americans, Andrew Ackerman, Jan. 15, 2025. Prices rose by 2.9 percent annually last month, up from a 2.7 percent gain in November.
Commentaries On American Democracy
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: January 15, 202[ Biden Farewell Address], Heather Cox Richardson, right, Jan. 16, 2025. It is somehow fitting that President Joe Biden’s farewell address to the nation, scheduled for 8:00 Eastern time tonight, was overshadowed today by the dramatic announcement that after months of negotiation backed by the United States and facilitated by Egyptian and Qatari mediators, negotiators from Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire and to exchange Israeli hostages taken on October 7, 2023, for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
This afternoon, Biden appeared, flanked by Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “Good afternoon,” he said to the press. “And it’s a very good afternoon, because at long last I can announce a ceasefire and a hostage deal has been reached between Israel and Hamas. [After] more than 15 months of conflict that began with [Hamas’s] brutal massacre of October the seventh, more than 15 months of terror for the hostages, their families, the Israeli people, more than fifteen months of suffering by the innocent people in Gaza, fighting in Gaza will stop and soon the hostages will return home to their families.”
“The elements of this deal were what I laid out in detail this past May,” Biden said. That plan “was embraced by countries around the world and endorsed overwhelmingly by the U.N. Security Council.”
It has three phases. Phase one is a six-week ceasefire in which Israeli forces will withdraw from all the populated areas of Gaza and Palestinians can return to their homes. Hamas will release the women, elderly, wounded, and American hostages it holds. Humanitarian assistance will surge into Gaza.“During the next six weeks,” Biden said, “Israel will negotiate the necessary arrangements to get to phase two, which is a permanent end of the war.”
The ceasefire will continue throughout the negotiations, even if they take longer than six weeks. Once phase two begins, the remaining living hostages will come home and all remaining Israeli forces will be withdrawn from Gaza. In phase three the final remains of hostages who have been killed will be returned to their families, and a major reconstruction plan for Gaza will begin.
Biden noted that he has worked in foreign policy for decades and that “[t]his is one of the toughest negotiations I’ve ever experienced.”
Hopium Chronicles, Political Opinion: President Biden's Farewell Address: "An Oligarchy Is Taking Shape In America," Simon Rosenberg, right, Jan. 16, 2025. In his last speech President Biden takes a big swing.
The President spoke to the nation last night, and had important things to say. Here are a few passages from the speech that are getting the most attention:
That’s why my farewell address tonight, I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern. And this is a dangerous — and that’s the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultrawealthy people, and the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked. Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.
We see the consequences all across America. And we’ve seen it before.More than a century ago, the American people stood up to the robber barons back then and busted the trusts. They didn’t punish the wealthy. They just made the wealthy play by the rules everybody else had. Workers want rights to earn their fair share. You know, they were dealt into the deal, and it helped put us on the path to building the largest middle class, the most prosperous century any nation the world has ever seen. We’ve got to do that again.AndYou know, in his farewell address, President Eisenhower spoke of the dangers of the military-industrial complex. He warned us that about, and I quote, “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power.”
Six days — six decades later, I’m equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech-industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country as well.Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power. The free press is crumbling. Editors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact-checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit. We must hold the social platforms accountable to protect our children, our families and our very democracy from the abuse of power.
Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is the most consequential technology of our time, perhaps of all time.
And in a democracy, there is another danger — that the concentration of power and wealth. It erodes a sense of unity and common purpose. It causes distrust and division. Participating in our democracy becomes exhausting and even disillusioning, and people don’t feel like they have a fair shot. We have to stay engaged in the process. I know it’s frustrating. A fair shot is what makes America America. Everyone is entitled to a fair shot, not a guarantee, just a fair shot, an even playing field. Going as far as your hard work and talent can take you.
The Hartmann Report, Historical Commentary, American Caesar: Trump’s Path to Power Mirrors Rome’s Darkest Days, Thomas Hartmann, right, How ancient Rome’s democratic collapse set the stage for America’s current crisis…
Last night, President Biden warned America that an oligarchy is forming in Washington DC and that it threatens our republic. Turns out, this is not a new story.
For 482 years (509 BCE–27 BCE), ancient Rome ran as a democratic republic. America has lasted in that state for 236 years (1789-2025).
The end of the democratic phase of the Roman republic was brought about by wealthy, elite Romans like Marcus Licinius Crassus (115–53 BCE) — the richest man in the nation at the time — who frankly hated the Roman “free bread for all” welfare system.
He and others like Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great, 106–48 BCE) wanted to end the voice of the public in political decisions (because they were demanding free bread, paid for with rich peoples’ taxes), so they used their massive wealth to promote rightwing authoritarian populism and buy off legislators who’d then be loyal to them.
This created political gridlock in the Senate, leading many Romans to lose faith in their democratic form of government. Three primary elements were used by the morbidly rich of that era to erode the power of Rome and replace it with sycophants loyal to them: polarization and elite gridlock, the erosion of democratic norms, and the concentration of power in the hands of a small elite who funded and thus controlled Rome’s senators.
It took decades, but they finally succeeded in using that lack of faith in government to replace Roman democracy with Caesarism, aka authoritarian strongman rule, kicked off by Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon River to seize the seat of government in Rome and finalized by Augustus Caesar ending any semblance of democracy.
Here in America, a handful of rightwing billionaires have spent decades fighting to end the New Deal and Great Society programs that use their tax dollars to distribute “free bread” to Americans in the form of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, food stamps, quality free primary education, and cheap or free college.
While their efforts began in earnest in the 1970s following Lewis Powell’s infamous Memo, they really kicked into high gear when the billionaires succeeded in the 1990s in installing Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House.
Newt pioneered a new form of American politics based on political warfare, delegitimization of the US government and programs of the New Deal and Great Society, manipulation of the media, populist messaging, and using obstruction as a political strategy.
His efforts were amplified by billionaire-owned media like Fox “News” and rightwing hate radio, always trash-talking New Deal and Great Society programs, calling for more tax cuts to de-fund government, and encouraging hatred of politicians and the political process.
The result was political gridlock, the end of democratic norms of collegiality and compromise, and the concentration of power in the Speaker’s office and ultimately the GOP itself. This led most Americans (over 75%) to eventually lose faith in our government; out of that came today’s increasing calls for an American version of Julius and Augustus Caesar.
One of the first was rightwing blogger and JD Vance mentor Curtis Yarvin, who began arguing over a decade ago — with his “dark enlightenment” movement — that America needed a new Caesar to free us from gridlock and stagnation.As JD Vance noted in a 2021 podcast:“
There’s this guy Curtis Yarvin who’s written about some of these things. One has to basically accept that the whole thing is going to fall in on itself. …
The task of conservatives right now is to preserve as much as can be preserved and then when the inevitable collapse comes you build back the country in a way that’s actually better.”
Others who could be characterized (or characterize themselves) as American Caesarists include Trump advisors Michael Anton and Charles Haywood, and Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts.
So, here we are, with Joe Biden’s warning.— Just like in the Roman republic, America’s morbidly rich and their business interests have funded efforts to denigrate popular government and its programs for decades, all to serve their own financial and political interests.
More On Trump Cabinet Nominees
New York Times, Trump’s Pick for Justice Dept. to Face Questions About Her Independence, Glenn Thrush and Devlin Barrett, Jan. 15, 2025. Pam Bondi will be asked if she can stand up to Donald Trump, who has made it clear that he wants the government’s top lawyer to execute his commands.
Pam Bondi, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice for attorney general (shown above right, will head into her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday with a solid reputation as a prosecutor and a critical question looming: Would shestand up to Mr. Trump?
Mr. Trump selected Ms. Bondi, the former Florida attorney general and lobbyist, to replace his first pick, Matt Gaetz, the former Republican representative of Florida who withdrew after a furor over allegations of sexual misconduct, including with an underage girl.
Most Democrats are still likely to oppose Ms. Bondi, 59, but she is a far more conventional, qualified candidate than Mr. Gaetz. That virtually ensuressupport among Senate Republicans, with the distinct possibility she will pick up a Democrat or two.
If her hearings do not produce much drama, her tenure at the department almost certainly will. An emboldened Mr. Trump, embittered by the two federal prosecutions against him, has made it clear that he wants senior Justice Department officials to execute his policy commands, investigate those who investigated him and perhaps prosecute his political enemies.
“The Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones,” she declared on Fox News in 2023, when asked whether it would be appropriate to open cases related to the department’s prosecutions under Jack Smith, the special counsel.
Richard Donoghue, the former Justice Department official who resisted Mr. Trump’s effort to install election-denying loyalists to top department posts after he lost the 2020 election, said the ideal candidate operates above partisanship. “You want, ideally, to ensure that partisan political considerations never play into the department’s decisions and positions when it comes to investigations and prosecutions,” he said.
“There is no fourth branch of government called the Justice Department — you work for the president — but people in power have to understand that they are not the president’s lawyer,” he added.
MSNBC, Opinion: Pam Bondi can't be trusted with the power of the Justice Department, Anthony Coley, Jan. 15, 2025. This time, Donald Trump is determined to get exactly what he wants at the Justice Department: a compliant attorney general and total control.
On Wednesday, the Senate will consider the president-elect's request to install Pam Bondi, right — a MAGA enthusiast and election denier — to serve as attorney general. Bondi is wholly unqualified for the role.
Granted, she might appear qualified on paper. She spent nearly two decades as a state prosecutor and was elected twice as the attorney general in Florida. She became the first woman in the role. Even some Democrats, including former Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg, whom I respect, speak highly of her.
But serving as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer requires independence and sound judgment and the ability to accept court rulings even when you disagree with them. On these counts, Bondi fails — miserably.
New York Times, Rubio Is in the Spotlight on the Second Big Day of Cabinet Hearings, Michael Crowley, Jan. 15, 2025. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who is tapped for secretary of state, has a long history of personal and policy differences with President-elect Trump.
When President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice for secretary of state, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, appears before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations today, it may be easy for him to persuade senators that he can lead American diplomacy at a moment of unusual global turmoil.
The harder task may be convincing them that he can credibly represent a president with whom he has a long history of personal and policy differences.
As a third-term senator who holds generally mainstream foreign policy views, Mr. Rubio, 53, is expected to be confirmed with relative ease later this month after Mr. Trump, once inaugurated, officially nominates him to succeed Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken.
Unlike several of Mr. Trump’s other top cabinet picks, Mr. Rubio has decent relations with his fellow Senate Democrats, no scandalous allegations about his personal behavior and relevant policy experience. He serves as vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and is a member of the committee that will question him.
New York Times, John Ratcliffe Is Expected to Lay Out a Vision for a More Aggressive C.I.A., Julian E. Barnes, Jan. 15, 2025. Donald Trump’s pick for the agency’s director seems likely to win some Democratic support for this nomination, but how much is unclear.
John Ratcliffe, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for C.I.A. director, is set to offer his vision for a more aggressive spy agency as he fields questions from senators on Wednesday about his intelligence priorities and ability to deliver unvarnished assessments.
Mr. Ratcliffe’s confirmation is all but assured, and he is likely to be voted on by the full Senate soon after Mr. Trump’s inauguration on Monday. During the first Trump administration, the Senate confirmed Mr. Ratcliffe, 49 to 44, to serve as director of national intelligence. He was the first national intelligence chief installed without support from the opposition party.
But now, senators from both parties view Mr. Ratcliffe as one of the more qualified senior officials picked by Mr. Trump, whose focus on the threat from China is widely shared by lawmakers of both parties.
Mr. Ratcliffe is expected to outline his vision of the agency that offers intelligence free of political bias. But he is also expected to talk about ways to make the C.I.A. less risk-averse and more willing to conduct covert action when ordered by the president.
President-Elect Donald J. Trump (New York Times photo by Doug Mills).
New York Times, Guest Essay: In Hegseth, Trump Finally Has What He Wants, Ben Rhodes (right, a deputy national security adviser under President Barack Obama), Jan. 15, 2025 (print ed.). 
To state the obvious: As a former weekend “Fox & Friends” anchor, Army National Guard officer and leader of two small nonprofits, Pete Hegseth is unqualified to run a nuclear-armed organization with a budget approaching a trillion dollars. That’s the point. Donald Trump doesn’t want someone to effectively manage the Pentagon; he wants to disrupt it.
His choice of Mr. Hegseth is borne out of right-wing grievances that have been building for a long time over the failures of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of these frustrations are understandable, but the remedies Mr. Trump proposes are dangerous. His disdain for international rules could eviscerate the laws of war that emerged from the devastation of two world wars. His threats of territorial expansion could intensify a period of nationalist aggression. His tirades against enemies within the United States foreshadow MAGA social engineering and domestic intervention by the Pentagon. In Mr. Hegseth, he has found a loyal vessel for this project, someone who could channel his blend of jingoism and anger to fundamentally alter the character of the military.
Almost a decade ago, Mr. Trump announced his presidential campaign by warning that the United States was in trouble. “We don’t have victories anymore,” he said. “We used to have victories but we don’t have them.” He’d emerged out of a right-wing media ecosystem filled with belligerent nationalism and promises of great victories after the Sept. 11 attacks. George W. Bush committed the United States to “the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.” 
Even as the wars started to go badly, Vice President Dick Cheney talked about an Iraqi insurgency in its “last throes.” The people most conditioned to believe these promises were consumers of right-wing media, which increased their sense of betrayal when it became clear they’d been misled.
Mr. Hegseth experienced the wars in person, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. After initially defending post-Sept. 11 policies, he joined many on the right in pivoting to blame enemies within for America’s failures abroad — a common outcome when superpowers don’t win wars. Like Mr. Trump, he focused on liberals and Islam, as well as changing demographics and social mores that had crept into the military through the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, diversity initiatives and women in combat.
New York Times, Hegseth’s Drinking, Once ‘Self-Medication,’ Could Prompt Questions at His Hearing, Sharon LaFraniere, Dylan Freedman and Kate Kelly, Jan. 15, 2025 (print ed.). President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for Defense Secretary has spoken candidly about his alcohol use in interviews over the past few years.
In August 2021, Pete Hegseth said on Will Cain’s podcast that slowly, surely, “by the grace of God,” he had been able to undo a pattern of alcohol abuse that had dogged him since he returned from military combat in Iraq in 2006.
Asked about his New Year’s resolutions on the same podcast in mid-January 2024, Mr. Hegseth brought up alcohol anew. “The less booze thing is not working out for me,” he said then.
Mr. Hegseth, the former Fox News anchor and combat veteran President-elect Donald J. Trump picked for defense secretary, is likely to be asked to revisit the issue of his alcohol use as part of his Senate confirmation hearings on Tuesday.
The New York Times and other news organizations have documented a pattern of excessive drinking by Mr. Hegseth. In the most serious episode, a woman in Monterey, Calif., accused him of raping her in 2017. Mr. Hegseth said the encounter was consensual, and it resulted in no criminal charges. His lawyer said Mr. Hegseth was inebriated at the time.
Other Top Stories
The Bulwark, Political Opinion:The Curious Case of Lindy Li, Kyle Tharp, Jan. 7, 2025. How did a “Blue MAGA” influencer and fundraiser turn on Democrats so fast?
Last March, I found myself sitting in a White House briefing with two dozen pro-Democratic digital creators, listening to high-level administration officials preview President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.
Among the handful of administration leaders who briefed the room was Anita Dunn, at the time one of Biden’s most powerful consiglieres. It was pretty conventional stuff. She spent a few minutes talking us through the president’s remarks and answering questions from starry-eyed social media influencers who planned on publishing content cheering on the speech the next day.
I was attending on behalf of my then-employer, a pro-democracy media company, and knew most of those in attendance. There were some political YouTubers, a few up-and-coming Democratic TikTok stars, and a cohort of folks from other emerging news outlets like MeidasTouch and Betches Media. But there was one attendee I didn’t recognize: a woman named Lindy Li.
Li had earned an invite to the White House that day by being a very energetic Democratic personality on cable news, and for having grown an audience of over 300,000 followers on X by shooting off hyperpartisan, pro-Democrat, red-meat content. One example of her style and approach came in a tweet she authored in 2022: “When push comes to shove, Democrats take care of you regardless of party. Republicans try to get you murdered.”
A former congressional candidate, Li had also held various fundraising roles in the past for Democratic candidates and the national party committee.
She was, if nothing else, a reliable party ally. And at the White House gathering that day, she played a similar role. She did not waste an opportunity to shower praise on Biden and the administration writ large, and proudly display her unwavering gratitude and support for the White House. She was the classic attendee who raises a hand to ask a question, but instead launches into some unrelated speech about whatever happens to be on her mind.
At one point, Li delivered a mini-lecture declaring how much she loved Joe Biden, while offering up her various credentials, including that the governor of Pennsylvania had named her to some commission. While some creators in attendance asked Dunn questions about the White House’s economic messaging, Li made sure White House officials recognized she was a team player. “Teacher’s pet. . .” one of my friends in the room texted from underneath the table.
Throughout the rest of the year, I kind of forgot about Li, having dismissed her as just another “Blue MAGA” Twitter person. For months, she continued enthusiastically to support Biden, and later Kamala Harris, both on cable news and X, where she would tweet predictable messages of support for their campaigns. By August, she said she had raised several million dollars for the Democratic ticket.
Her social media accounts became filled with adoring posts featuring herself at events with the president, vice president, and other top Democratic elected officials like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “There will never be another like her,” she said of Pelosi. She also was part of the Pennsylvania delegation to the Democratic National Convention this summer.
Then, after Election Day, Li was suddenly everywhere. But instead of maintaining her overeager support for Biden and Harris, she adopted a new persona, eagerly attacking Democrats and the campaign nonstop. In this new role as a Biden and Harris antagonist, she has been quoted or mentioned in the mainstream press hundreds of times and become a fixture on Fox News.
Appearing on Fox in mid-December, Li declared that Biden was in “no shape” to carry out his duties as commander-in-chief. “The president has not been cognitively fit to assume the duties of the Oval Office for a number of years now,” Li told Fox’s Kevin Corke.
It was a wild turnaround from her effusive praise of the man and her defense of his age and cognition just months prior. In fact, Li was a frequent and outspoken critic of journalists who covered the president’s age issue. “To those of you who said Biden was cognitively impaired . . . WE AWAIT YOUR APOLOGY,” Li tweeted in March.
When Biden ultimately dropped out of the race in July, Li told Fox that if Democrats skipped over Kamala Harris in favor of another candidate to lead the ticket, it would be “a catastrophic mistake.” She urged her followers to “unify behind Kamala Harris.”
Here too, Li has seemingly changed her tune. Days after the election, she told Fox that Biden’s endorsement of Harris was “an F-You to the party.”
THE LIST OF POST-ELECTION reversals goes on: Li now claims that she “has been a conservative all my life,” that Pelosi is “notorious” for “insider trading,” that Democrats are to blame for failing to secure the southern border, that there will be a “new era of prosperity” under Donald Trump, and that “The markets & consumer confidence have been booming under Pres. Trump[.] Americans are loving his transition.” She also called Democrats “delusional,” said the Democratic party was like “a cult.” She referred to Pete Hegseth, whom Trump tapped for secretary of defense despite allegations of sexual assault, alcohol abuse, and financial corruption, as “a pretty good guy.”
Democratic digital creators who joined Li at the White House briefing last March have dismissed her recent shift as cringeworthy opportunism. “She’s a liar and a clout chaser!” tweeted Kenneth Walden, a pro-Harris TikTok creator. “It’s very clear where this is going,” remarked journalist Aaron Rupar. Democratic strategist and YouTuber Keith Edwards tweeted “How long until she’s wearing a MAGA hat?”
“We have people who want attention, pick a side, say things to get in a room, and then when things get tough, they’re the first people to dip,” Edwards told me recently. “I don’t think she believes in anything.”
LI WAS HAPPY TO ADDRESS her critics in a brief interview with me last week. “I haven’t switched parties. I’m not a Republican. I’m not out for anything, I would never work for the government, and who would I even get a contract from?,” she said. She defended her change of heart on the president’s age issue by noting that it happened after the June 27 debate between Biden and Trump. “After the debate I stopped defending his cognitive fitness. You will notice that I never said anything about that post-debate.”
But even here, Li seems to be casually disregarding her very public past. In a tweet she authored two weeks after the debate, she attacked critics of the president’s age. That tweet has recently been deleted.
Flip-flopping is hardly a new phenomenon in American politics. Trump has perfected it. So too have his hangers-on (see: Gabbard, Tulsi). But Li’s head-spinning pivot still illustrates a broader trend we’ll see escalate in the years to come.
Our tribal political culture creates remarkable incentives for those who defect from one side to another. The act of defection is treated by the party to whom the defector has gone as an affirmation of their cause. The defector is not only lavished with praise and love from those new party members but loads of attention from allied media, who reward shamelessness with more coverage and clout. For example, Fox News producers and bookers, knowing friendly fire can help drive ratings, love to feature Democratic voices willing to turn on their own.
I asked Li specifically about Fox News, and whether she was being paid for her appearances, or whether she was in conversations to become a contributor for the network, as some of her critics have assumed.
“I’m not going to discuss any conversations that I've had with private individuals, but I have not been paid a single dime by anybody for telling the truth,” said Li. “Not even a penny.” Pressed further, she clarified that she was not currently “in discussions with any executives at Fox News.”
But her sudden celebrity, whether compensated or not, doesn’t change the fact that the media incentivizes this type of behavior.
As online political creators become more mainstream—sometimes more even than the legacy political press—more like Li will emerge. Many political creators’ entire personas and livelihoods rely on “feeding the beast” more content—and more controversy.
Relevance is more important than ideological consistency. And as the bizarre evolution of Lindy Li shows, being willing to say just about anything may be the political attribute that matters most.
“We’re in a post-shame culture now,” said Edwards.
Associated Press via ABC News, California's Newsom will join GOP governors in raising flag for Trump inauguration, Staff Report, Jan. 16, 2025. California Gov. Gavin Newsom will join Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and some GOP governors in directing U.S. flags be raised to full height on Inauguration Day
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom will join Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and some GOP governors around the country in directing U.S. flags be raised to full height on Inauguration Day.
Newsom’s spokesperson Izzy Gardon confirmed Wednesday that the governor would temporarily direct the raising of flags at the state Capitol in Sacramento for President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration. Flags at the U.S. Capitol and at statehouses around the country have been lowered to half-staff in honor of the late former President Jimmy Carter.
Newsom, who has become a foil for Trump over the years, will need federal help as his state recovers from devastating wildfires that have killed more than two dozen people.
Trump has complained about American flags being flown at half-staff during his inauguration. “Nobody wants to see this, and no American can be happy about it,” he posted on his social media platform.
Idaho Gov. Brad Little, North Dakota Gov. Kelly Armstrong, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds noted in announcements this week that U.S. flags across their states would be relowered on Jan. 21 in honor of Carter. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a similar notice on Monday.
The Hartmann Report, Political Commentary: The Grievance Machine: How Republicans Weaponize Fear to Win, Thom Hartmann, Jan. 14, 2025. Why Democrats must build their own outrage machine now: it’s time for a coordinated attack on Trump’s grievance empire…
As you’re reading these words, Trump and his Republican allies are spraying “a firehose of lies” accusing Democrats of responsibility for the fires in LA. And those lies are working; even mainstream media like The New York Times and The Washington Post are repeating them. Not to mention they’re being pushed like peanuts at a ball game into the faces of hundreds of millions by the right-leaning algorithms of social media.
If Democrats were to create a “Shadow Cabinet,” they could effectively neuter much of this BS. Details on that in a minute, but first some background.
While the phrase “The best defense is a good offense” is often attributed to Jack Dempsey, it was General and President George Washington who, reflecting on how he won the Revolutionary War, wrote to his former aide-de-camp John Trumbull: “Offensive operations, often times, are the surest, if not the only means of defense.”
Democrats need to learn the lesson: The most powerful political offensive moves succeed by capturing control of and expressing deeply-felt grievances.
There’s a simple neurological reason for this: at the foundation of Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Human Needs” is “Safety,” which is why the most effective grievances are those expressing fear for safety or the security of voters’ assets and family.
Gays are going to convert your kids, immigrants are going to kill or rape your wife, schools are going to cut off your son’s penis, Haitians in Springfield are going to eat your cat, poor people are stealing your tax dollars with welfare payments, women who get empowered will deny you sex, Jews are funding Hispanics taking your job, Joe Biden is causing your inflation, Democrats want to take away your car, Black Kamala is trying to take a job that’s rightfully a white man’s role, “woke” teachers are training white children to feel guilt for things their relatives did, the “deep state” is making your life miserable through over-regulation…
Every one of those and more were specific — and false — grievances used at various times by the Trump campaign to win the 2024 election. They work because grievance is a variation on fear of danger or outrage over loss, something that’s such a foundational set of human emotions that babies express them in their first months. Grievance is hard-wired into us, part of our most ancient survival mechanisms.
New York Times, Russia-Ukraine War: Ukraine Launches ‘Massive’ Drone Attacks Inside Russia, Officials Say, Cassandra Vinograd, Jan. 14, 2025. The barrage appeared to be one of the largest recent assaults in Ukraine’s campaign to damage Russia’s war machine on its home territory.
New York Times, Investigation: Abuse and Injury Result From Uneven Rules on Police Taser Use, Nate Rosenfield, Brian Howey and Sarah Cohen, Photographs by Rory Doyle, Jan. 14, 2025. A lack of state standards leaves Mississippi police and sheriff’s departments on their own to decide when to use stun guns, and many give officers a free hand.
Last summer, a Mississippi police officer approached Vivian Burks as she sat in her car at a local park reading the Bible.
He was cordial at first, offering to help Ms. Burks replace her expired tags with the new ones she had in her car. But the encounter changed quickly after the officer, Blaine Musgrove, said he smelled marijuana and a second Carthage police officer demanded to search the vehicle.
When Ms. Burks, a 65-year-old great-grandmother with no criminal record, tried to get back into her car, the officers grabbed her and ordered her to place her hands behind her back, body camera footage shows. When she did not immediately comply, Officer Musgrove pressed his Taser into her back and shocked her, sending her to the ground in a heap.
Over the next 30 seconds, the video shows, Officer Musgrove shocked her three more times as she twisted her hands to avoid being handcuffed and begged the officers to stop, repeatedly shouting, “I’m sick!” The officers called an ambulance and then left her moaning for help until the paramedics arrived.
“I couldn’t breathe,” Ms. Burks told reporters in an interview. “I just thought that they were going to kill me.”
In many places across the nation, the repeated shocking of Ms. Burks — who was not acting aggressively and was largely under the officers’ control — would be considered an improper and dangerous use of a Taser by the police.
Not in Mississippi.
New York Times, LA Fires Live Reports: Dangerous Winds Are Forecast as Crews Battle L.A. Wildfires, Staff Reports, Jan. 14, 2025 (print ed.). More heavy winds were expected on Monday, threatening the progress firefighters have made against the blazes that have killed at least 24 people and ravaged the area.
Dangerous winds were again expected to sweep through Los Angeles late Monday, threatening the progress firefighters have made against the devastating wildfires in the area.
Forecasters have issued a rare fire danger alert, known as a “particularly dangerous situation” red flag warning, for Monday night through Wednesday morning. That is the same level of alert that was issued last week as strong wind gusts fueled the fires that have become some of the deadliest and most destructive in California’s history.
Washington Post, Winds to strengthen as L.A. blaze heads toward major highway; at least 24 dead, Staff Reports, Jan. 13, 2025 (print ed.). At least 24 people have been killed as roaring flames continue to ravage Southern California, with strong Santa Ana winds expected to flare up through the middle of this week. But the winds are not expected to be as powerful as those that previously fueled the fires, meteorologist Rich Thompson said at a briefing Saturday evening.
Four active fires in the Los Angeles region have burned over 40,000 acres — an area bigger than San Francisco — according to Cal Fire, with flames claiming more than 12,000 structures and displacing tens of thousands. The causes of all four blazes remain under investigation.
Thousands of firefighters have made some progress in fighting the Palisades and Eaton fires, the two largest blazes. Cal Fire Battalion Chief Brent Pascua told CNN that Saturday was a “very productive day” and said the Santa Ana winds helped move the flames away from the Encino area and onto land that had already been burned. ABC 7 reported that a handful of evacuation orders in towns east of Pasadena, near the Eaton Fire, were lifted or downgraded.
Video: Aerial firefighters battle Palisades fire The latest on the active Los Angeles wildfires Among the wildfires’ victims: A great-grandmother, surfer, father and son Over 900 inmates are working to fight the Los Angeles fires.
New York Times, How Lagging Vaccination Could Lead to a Polio Resurgence, Apoorva Mandavilli, Jan. 14, 2025 (print ed.). In its original form, the virus survives in just two countries. But a type linked to an oral vaccine used in other nations has already turned up in the West.
Most American parents hardly give thought to polio beyond the instant their child is immunized against the disease. But there was a time in this country when polio paralyzed 20,000 people in a year, killing many of them.
Vaccines turned the tide against the virus. Over the past decade, there has been only one case in the United States, related to international travel.
That could change very quickly if polio vaccination rates dropped or the vaccine were to become less accessible.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic who may become the secretary of health and human services, has said the idea that vaccination has nearly eradicated polio is “a mythology.”
New York Times, Even Adults May Soon Be Vulnerable to ‘Childhood’ Diseases, Apoorva Mandavilli, Jan. 14, 2025 (print ed.). Outbreaks among the unvaccinated are a predictable consequence of falling immunization rates. But even vaccinated adults may be vulnerable to some illnesses.
There were more than more than 32,000 cases of whooping cough in 2024, the highest tally in a decade. In California alone, the disease struck 2,000 people between January and October last year.
More than 60 infants younger than 4 months were hospitalized in the state. One died.
Whooping cough, or pertussis, is just the most stark example of what happens when vaccination rates decline. But it is far from the only one.
The pandemic interrupted childhood immunizations across the country, and rates have not yet recovered. As a result, hundreds of thousands of children are increasingly vulnerable to diseases once largely relegated to history books.
Most of them predominantly affect young children, like measles, mumps and rubella. But if immunizations continue to fall over the next few years — because of rising distrust, or more restrictive federal policies — preventable infectious diseases will resurface in all age groups, experts say.
New York Times, Childhood Vaccination Rates Were Falling Even Before Kennedy’s Rise, Francesca Paris, Jan. 13, 2025 (print ed.). The declines began with the pandemic, well before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. helped make routine vaccines part of the national political conversation.
Washington Post, Steve Bannon derides Elon Musk, vowing to limit influence over Trump, Jeff Stein, Jan. 13, 2025 (print ed.). His comments reflect an intensifying battle over Musk’s West Wing sway as Trump prepares to take office.
President-elect Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon is ramping up public attacks on billionaire Elon Musk amid an intensifying debate on the right about Musk’s influence in the incoming administration.Get the latest election news and results
In an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera this past week, Bannon said Musk “should go back to South Africa,” where he was born, and be denied privileged access to the West Wing. Bannon has also criticized Musk’s support for a skilled-worker visa program that led to a bitter rift last month between far-right activists and Trump’s tech executive supporters, who see the program as a crucial lifeline for Silicon Valley.
Trump ultimately sided with Musk in that dispute, but Bannon said he is preparing a broader effort to limit the Tesla executive’s ability to shape Trump’s agenda.
Bannon told the newspaper: “Why do we have South Africans, the most racist people on earth, White South Africans … making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States?”
Bannon added he would “do anything” to keep Musk out of the White House.
The comments reflect the growing questions among some Trump allies about the precise role Musk will play in Trump’s second term. A political newcomer who until recently supported candidates of both parties, Musk went all-in on Trump in the 2024 elections with more than $277 million in donations to Republicans — and has been rewarded by emerging as one of the president-elect’s most influential advisers.
But precisely how Musk will exert his newfound political power — and how long it will last — remains unclear. That uncertainty extends to Musk’s appointment by Trump to co-lead the “Department of Government Efficiency” with tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. That body does not have formal government authorities and must work with the White House to have its recommendations implemented. Emissaries with DOGE have begun contacting U.S. agencies across the government, but it’s not clear whether they will be given security clearances granting them access to federal records.
New York Times, Trump Transition Reports: Confirmation Hearings Will Test Trump’s Grip on Senate G.O.P., Staff Reports, Jan. 14, 2025 (print ed.). President-elect Trump has urged Republicans to stay united but opposition to prospective nominees and time-consuming Senate rules could provide obstacles. Where Things Stand
Senate confirmation hearings scheduled this week for more than a dozen of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s cabinet choices will provide an early test of his hold over Senate Republicans. Mr. Trump has urged the Republicans to stay united and quickly deliver the team he has selected. Read more ›
A new national coalition of health professionals and scientists warned that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “unfounded, fringe beliefs could significantly undermine public health practices across the country and around the world” if he is confirmed as Mr. Trump’s health secretary. Read more ›
Stephen K. Bannon has called Elon Musk a “truly evil person,” comments that highlighted rifts within the U.S. right wing and between two men who have been influential advisers to Mr. Trump.
Cabinet Tracker: Can Susie Wiles Survive? Trump’s Territorial Ambitions Hints of Chaos to Come
New York Times, In an Upended Mideast, Trump Faces New Divergence With Old Allies, Ismaeel Naar, Jan. 13, 2025. While major ruptures are not expected, Gulf states are urging a tougher stance on Israel and a softer one on Iran, differing greatly from President-elect Trump’s first term.
When Donald J. Trump was last president of the United States, the wealthy monarchies of the Persian Gulf had a mostly harmonious relationship with his administration. As Mr. Trump prepares to return to the White House, the leaders of those Gulf countries have generally welcomed him back.
But this time around, the Gulf states and Mr. Trump appear to be diverging on several cornerstone issues, like Israel and Iran. Differences over energy policies could also be a source of friction.
It is unlikely that there will be major tensions or ruptures with U.S. allies in the Gulf. But Mr. Trump will be encountering a region that has seen drastic shifts since Israel launched its war on Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023, in which the Israeli authorities say about 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage.
The war in Gaza, in which at least 45,000 people have been killed, according to health officials in the enclave, has rippled across the region. In Lebanon, the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah has been battered by more than a year of fighting against Israel. And in Syria, rebels toppled the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
The Bulwark, Political Opinion: Trump Whines in Victory, Mr. Smith Leaves Washington, William Kristol, right, Jan. 14, 2025. Jack Smith retained his dignity but left in defeat.
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election was released just after 1:00 a.m. today. It made the once and future president of the United States unhappy.
At 1:41 a.m., Donald Trump posted:
Deranged Jack Smith was unable to successfully prosecute the Political Opponent of his “boss,” Crooked Joe Biden, so he ends up writing yet another “Report” based on information that the Unselect Committee of Political Hacks and Thugs ILLEGALLY DESTROYED AND DELETED, because it showed how totally innocent I was, and how completely guilty Nancy Pelosi, and others, were. Jack is a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election, which I won in a landslide. THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!
Ten minutes later Trump felt compelled to add:
To show you how desperate Deranged Jack Smith is, he released his Fake findings at 1:00 A.M. in the morning. Did he say that the Unselect Committee illegally destroyed and deleted all of the evidence.
Trump, like all insecure bullies, is a sore winner. One can’t help but take some comfort from the image of him tossing and turning, chafing under the weight of his festering grievances, feeling a need to lash out and lie the week before his return to the White House.
More concretely, it’s worth noting that Trump challenges none of the actual findings in Smith’s report, which was based on interviews with more than 250 individuals, grand jury testimony from more than 55 witnesses, and evidence from searches of numerous electronic devices.
It’s also worth noting that Trump’s lawyers were granted the opportunity to read Smith’s report prior to its release, and in their letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland objecting to its release, they also challenged none of his facts. As Smith noted in his response to the letter,
That response fails to identify any specific factual objections to the draft. Instead, Mr. Trump principally objects to public release of the Report, and in service of that objection makes a variety of false, misleading, or otherwise unfounded claims.
In fact, Smith’s report, which you can read here along with the letters mentioned above, confirms what we knew from contemporaneous reporting and from the House January 6th Committee: Donald Trump “engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results of the election in order to retain power.”Trump knew he lost the 2020 election. But he tried to pressure state officials to overturn the true and legitimate results, he tried to get his Justice Department and his vice president to join in a conspiracy of usurpation, and he incited a mob to attack the Capitol on January 6th.
There’s no reason not to believe Smith’s claim that, if the case had gone to trial, Trump would have been convicted on the counts with which he was charged: conspiring to deprive citizens of having their votes fairly counted and obstructing an official proceeding.
It’s good to have the Smith report, as it’s good to have the January 6th Committee report. They tell the truth, and the truth matters.
But of course in this instance it didn’t matter enough. Trump will be our next president. His lawyers, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, who signed the disingenuous letter to Garland, have been nominated to be the next deputy attorney general and principal associate deputy attorney general of the United States.
Meanwhile, Smith departs.His letter to the attorney general transmitting the report concludes:
With this Report, my service and the service of my staff is complete. I thank you for the trust you placed in me and my team and for affording us the independence necessary to conduct our work. Public service is a privilege, and we deeply appreciate the opportunity to serve our Nation in seeking to uphold the rule of law.
So Trump whines in victory, and Smith leaves with dignity but in defeat.
How, as Yeats put it, could he compete,
Being honor bred, with one
Who were it proved he lies
Were neither shamed in his ownNor in his neighbors’ eyes?
A haunting question. In the short run, lies have the advantage over truth. In the long run, the great advantage of the truth is that it’s true. That’s why we’re betting on truth. Join us.
The Bulwark, Political Opinion: A Nation of Paranoiacs, Andrew Egger, Jan. 14, 2025. Whom do we trust to behave ethically? Many fewer people than we used to.
That’s this week’s grim prognosis from Gallup’s “Honesty and Professional Ethics Survey,” the latest in a long string of polls finding that Americans’ trust in each other and our institutions continues to erode.
The regular survey, which asks respondents to rank the “honesty and ethical standards” of members of various professional fields, still finds relatively high trust in a few areas. Most Americans trust nurses, teachers, military officers, and doctors to behave ethically; other professions, from police to day care providers, still earn a net positive score, with more respondents ranking their ethics as high or very high than low or very low.
But what’s most striking about the survey is its overall trend line. Since the year 2000, exactly one profession—auto mechanics—has improved its position in the survey. Across pretty much all of society, trust has only diminished. The starkest drop-offs have clustered around professions with supposed intellectual, legal, or moral authority. Trust in medical doctors and judges have fallen more than 10 percent just since 2021. Clergy, police officers, grade-school teachers, and pharmacists are all down double digits since the early 2000s.
When we talk about Americans’ increasing cynicism toward our politics, we often focus on the supposed failings of individual actors or groups. Of course we don’t trust our politicians—haven’t you seen how spineless these guys are? Of course we don’t trust the media—haven’t you seen how badly they’ve fallen down on the job?
But the problem starts to look a little different when you see those specific cynicisms as part of a larger general shift away from trust. Did day care providers endure some massive recent scandal, to have lost eight points of trust in the eyes of the public since 2021? Are funeral directors getting more villainous, to have slipped five points since the turn of the century? Or are we all just pre-primed to be more paranoid about the motives of the people around us than we once were?
You could chalk this growing cynicism up to any number of factors—a 21st century defined by a sequence of society-shaking crises, the loss of a sense of shared moral code, the growing numbers of people who receive the world primarily through hostile algorithms designed to keep them scared and angry. The more faith we lose in the people around us, the more we pull back from the world, and the more isolated we become, feeding into more distrust.In our politics, it’s a vicious, self-cannibalizing style.
Donald Trump is the kind of figure that arises as social trust shrinks. He meets the desire among people to throw in with a leader who tells them society is hopelessly broken and he alone can fix it.
But his success feeds only more breakdowns in our social trust, even among those who had previously thought things were going pretty well: If we as a country can’t even manage to stop this guy, how much more broken are we than we thought? And it makes rallying a real opposition to him feel that much more impossible. When you lose faith in institutions—the media, the courts, even religion—you no longer believe you can turn to them to channel that opposition. You’re on your own.Getting back to a place of social stability first requires us to survive Trump’s triumphant return. But that won’t be enough. Something in the air is poisoning us against one another; if we can’t figure out how to fix it, what comes next could be even worse.
U.S. District Court Judges Maryellen Noreika (left) of Delaware and Mark Scarsi of California, both trial judges for separate charges brought against Hunter Biden, are shown side by side in file photos. Both judges, like the federal prosecugtor David Weiss, were Trump appointees who consistently stymied the Biden defense with prosecution rulings, virtually ignoring the rarity of criminal charges for other Americans who committed similar acts and the clear-cut campaign by Russian, Republican and Trump authorities to use a Russian asset among other techniques to create false allegations against the defendant and his father during presidential election campaigns.
New York Times, Special Counsel Report on Hunter Biden Denounces President’s Criticism of Case, Devlin Barrett, Jan. 13, 2025. The report by the special counsel, David C. Weiss, criticized President Biden for making “baseless accusations” that threatened “the integrity of the justice system as a whole.”
David C. Weiss, below left, the special counsel who spent years investigating Hunter Biden, criticized President Biden for making “baseless accusations” about his inquiry that threatened “the integrity of the justice system as a whole” in a final report made public on Monday.
“The president’s characterizations are incorrect based on the facts in this case, and on a more fundamental level, they are wrong,” Mr. Weiss wrote.
His inquiry had been a subject of fierce debate until the president issued a broad pardon that ended the case against his son, saying that the prosecution was the result of “raw politics.”
The report, at some 27 pages, acted as a pointed rejoinder to the president. Citing judicial rulings that found that the case had been fairly brought, Mr. Weiss used his final words on the long-running investigation to decry President Biden’s characterizations.
“Politicians who attack the decisions of career prosecutors as politically motivated when they disagree with the outcome of a case undermine the public’s confidence in our criminal justice system,” Mr. Weiss’s report said. “The president’s statements unfairly impugn the integrity not only of Department of Justice personnel, but all of the public servants making these difficult decisions in good faith.”
Despite its relative brevity, Mr. Weiss’s report contains many more pages of appendices, including Hunter Biden’s indictments and other significant court filings.
The release comes amid a much more contentious 11th-hour legal fight over the publication of a report by Jack Smith, the special counsel who filed two indictments against Donald J. Trump only for both to collapse in part because of Mr. Trump’s 2024 election victory.
Mr. Weiss’s time as special counsel began after he had already investigated Hunter Biden for several years on tax, finance and foreign lobbying issues. The two sides briefly struck a plea deal, but the unusual nature of the agreement — in addition to the government’s unwillingness to promise that the investigation would end with the deal — resulted in its collapse in July 2023.
The failed plea led Mr. Weiss to seek and receive an appointment as special counsel, allowing him to file indictments against the president’s son in two jurisdictions — related to lying on a gun purchase form in Delaware, and tax charges in Los Angeles.
Last year, the younger Mr. Biden was convicted of the gun charge by a jury in Wilmington, Del. He pleaded guilty in the tax case, but his father pardoned him while he was awaiting sentencing in both cases. The president not only absolved his son of the convictions, but also gave him a sweeping pardon for any potential crimes covering a period of more than 10 years.
In doing so, the president said his son’s case had been infected with politics, a claim that angered Mr. Weiss and the Justice Department, particularly because the president had for years asserted that the case had been handled independently.
Because the presidential pardon had effectively ruled out any such analysis, the report said, Mr. Weiss reached no conclusions about the possibility that Hunter Biden had committed other crimes.
Mr. Weiss also indicted and won a guilty plea from another man, Alexander Smirnov, for lying to the F.B.I. during the 2020 election period by falsely claiming knowledge of corrupt payments to the father and son. Mr. Smirnov, a longtime F.B.I. informant, had claimed that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Hunter Biden $5 million each around 2015 — an accusation that was trumpeted by congressional Republicans.
Washington Post, Biden says his foreign policy leaves Trump with ‘very strong hand’, Cleve R. Wootson Jr. and Karen DeYoung, Jan. 13, 2025. The president spoke at the State Department as a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas appeared to be drawing closer.
New York Times, The British Public Dislikes Elon Musk. He Can Still Sway Politics, Mark Landler, Jan. 14, 2025. His nfluence is the result of a very online political establishment and a right-leaning media that is hostile to Keir Starmer’s Labour government.
He is a deeply unpopular figure in Britain, according to opinion polls, and his social media channel has lost users in the country since he took it over in October 2022. Yet when Elon Musk put Britain in his cross hairs on X in recent weeks, pounding the political establishment over a decade-old child sex abuse scandal, he instantly catapulted the issue to the top of the news agenda.
Mr. Musk’s success is rooted in two obvious factors: his mammoth fortune and his alliance with the incoming president of the United States, Donald J. Trump. But it also reflects a British political and media establishment that is divided and deeply in flux, all of which has made Britain easy pickings for an outside influencer with vast resources and a single-minded mission to disrupt.
Britain’s right-leaning newspapers have picked up and amplified Mr. Musk’s call for a new national investigation of young girls who were sexually exploited in several towns in the 2000s, including in Rotherham, where an estimated 1,400 girls were exploited by “grooming gangs” composed largely of British Pakistani men.
New York Times, A Neo-Nazi Helped Incite U.K. Riots. Elon Musk Criticized His Sentencing, Megan Specia, Jan. 14, 2025. Andrew McIntyre, a British extremist who played a key role in fomenting last summer’s unrest, was sentenced last week to seven years in jail.
Hours after a deadly knife attack in the northern English town of Southport last July, Andrew McIntyre set up a Telegram channel called “Southport Wake Up.” Amid posts riddled with anti-Islamic, antisemitic and anti-immigrant abuse, he urged people to take to the streets, directing them to a mosque and calling for “war.”
Mr. McIntyre, 39, who took part in two of several riots that rattled Britain last summer, was sentenced to seven years in prison last Monday.
He pleaded guilty to encouraging violent disorder and criminal damage, and to possession of a knife. A day after his conviction, Elon Musk, the billionaire tech mogul, bemoaned Mr. McIntyre’s sentencing in a post on his social media platform X, declaring: “Over 7 years prison for social media posts … Whoever gave that sentence deserves prison themselves.”
Mr. Musk’s post, which has been viewed 34 million views times, is just one in a flurry of comments he has made about Britain in recent weeks that have included attacks on the governing Labour Party, and that have increasingly echoed far-right talking points laced with disinformation.
New York Times, After Loss, Gov. Tim Walz Faces Party’s Sinking Fortunes in Minnesota, Ernesto Londoño, Jan. 14, 2025. The party of Kamala Harris’s former running mate has lost control of the Minnesota Legislature and faces criticism as a deficit looms.
Since returning to Minnesota after a failed bid for vice president, Gov. Tim Walz has kept a relatively low profile. He consoled deflated supporters with a speech at a high school, posed for photos with a turkey at the Minnesota State Capitol to mark Thanksgiving and flew to the Bahamas for a brief respite from the cold.
This week, Mr. Walz, a Democrat, must start grappling in earnest with his party’s sinking political fortunes in his home state as lawmakers begin meeting in St. Paul for what is expected to be an unusually acrimonious state legislative session.
Minnesota Democrats controlled the governor’s mansion and the State Legislature the past two years, allowing them to pass a trove of liberal laws on abortion rights, marijuana and medical leave. But they are bracing for a new era of gridlock, having lost their slim majority in the House. Their control of the Senate is tenuous.
State budget officials last month issued a grim assessment of Minnesota’s fiscal health, warning that spending is projected to exceed revenue in coming years. The officials said a $5.1 billion deficit is possible by 2028. Under the Democrats’ leadership, the state had a $17.5 billion surplus at one point, leading critics to question how tax dollars have been spent.
New York Times, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Address Will Examine New York’s Future, and Her Own, Benjamin Oreskes, Jan. 14, 2025. Her State of the State speech is expected to respond to the dissatisfaction that became evident in November, especially regarding affordability and crime.
As Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York prepares to deliver her State of the State address on Tuesday, her priorities seem firmly focused on the voter frustrations that fueled Donald J. Trump’s election to the presidency in November.
Over the last month, Ms. Hochul has announced proposals to cut taxes for parents, make school lunch free and give millions of New Yorkers rebates of up to $500 depending on their income. These ideas have all been packaged as part of an “affordability agenda.”
And on Tuesday, Ms. Hochul is expected to announce a new series of middle-class tax cuts, and devote a portion of her speech to efforts to combat crime and mental illness.
“You tell us you need help; we hear you need help,” Ms. Hochul said earlier this month when previewing some of the proposals that will be included in her speech and her executive budget, which will come out next week. “We’re going to continue delivering real solutions that make a difference.”
Washington Post, McDonald’s sued over scholarships for Hispanic and Latino students, Taylor Telford, Jan. 14, 2025 (print ed.). McDonald’s HACER program is discriminatory because it is not open to students of all races, a federal lawsuit alleges.
Activists who oppose affirmative action are suing McDonald’s in federal court, alleging that the fast-food giant’s scholarship program for Hispanic and Latino high-schoolers is racially discriminatory.
Filed Sunday in Nashville by the American Alliance for Equal Rights, the lawsuit comes shortly after McDonald’s announced an overhaul of its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, joining a growing list of big-name firms such as Meta and Amazon that have rebranded policies and moved away from programs based on race and identity.
Citing a “shifting legal landscape,” McDonald’s said last week that it would end representation goals and supplier diversity efforts and would refer to its diversity team as its “Global Inclusion Team” going forward. The company also said it would pause surveys that assess the company’s progress on its diversity efforts, such as the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index.
New York Times, Opinion: Democrats Will Regret Helping to Pass the Laken Riley Act, Michelle Goldberg, right, Jan. 13, 2025. Democrats have a terrible habit, during moments of right-wing backlash, of voting for Republican legislation that they don’t seem to truly believe in and eventually live to regret.
The most glaring example is the 2002 resolution authorizing military force against Iraq, passed amid the explosion of jingoist groupthink that dominated American politics after the Sept. 11 attacks. Democratic presidential candidates who’d backed the resolution — John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden — would later tie themselves in knots trying to rationalize votes that were almost certainly motivated by political expediency, and which put their imprimatur on a catastrophe.
Another shameful episode was the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which barred the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages. It passed at a time when Democrats were on the defensive; Bill Clinton’s attempt to let gay people serve openly in the military had fallen apart, Newt Gingrich’s Republicans took the House in the 1994 midterms, and the Republican Bob Dole seemed poised to make gay marriage an issue in the coming election. In a weirdly apologetic signing statement, Clinton wrote that the law should not be “understood to provide an excuse for discrimination, violence or intimidation against any person on the basis of sexual orientation.” But as Clinton would later acknowledge when calling for its repeal, it did something worse, writing discrimination into law.
A bill called the Laken Riley Act, which overwhelmingly passed the House and could soon pass the Senate, is destined to be another entry in this archive of legislative shame. Given that anger over mass migration contributed to Democrats’ defeat in November, it’s perfectly understandable that some Democrats would tack right on border issues. The Laken Riley Act, however, is the wrong vehicle for proving their moderation. This sweeping bill will upend our immigration system in ways that will outlast Donald Trump’s presidency, ruining lives and handcuffing future Democratic administrations. Democrats who vote for it may dodge right-wing attacks in the next election, but once its true scope becomes clear, they’ll be answering for it for years to come.
The bill is named after a Georgia nursing student who was murdered last year by Jose Ibarra, an undocumented migrant from Venezuela who had previously been apprehended for crimes including shoplifting and child endangerment. Due in part to Ibarra’s arrest history, the case became a cause célèbre on the right. “The more they get away with and the more we let these criminals go, it just emboldens them, and they step it up,” said Mike Collins, the Georgia Republican who introduced the measure in the House.Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
If all the bill did was mandate the deportation of migrants convicted of petty theft, it would make sense for many Democrats to back it, if only because there’s so little political upside in defending the rights of undocumented shoplifters. But the bill goes much further than that. It mandates federal detention without bail for migrants who are merely arrested for any theft-related crimes, with no provision to free them if the charges are later dropped. (According to Axios, ICE is worried that to make room for those accused of theft, it would have to release others in its custody, including some considered “public safety threats.”)
The bill applies to many immigrants who are authorized to be here, including Dreamers and those with temporary protected status. And the legislation contains no exemption for minors. As Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, told me, the Laken Riley Act could mandate the indefinite detention of a juvenile child of asylum-seekers arrested for swiping a candy bar, even if he or she didn’t do it.
One of the act’s other provisions would give state officials unheard-of power over immigration policy. If the bill passes, a state attorney general could sue to block all visas to people from “recalcitrant countries” that don’t fully cooperate with the United States in accepting deportees, a list that includes China, India and Russia. This section of the Laken Riley Act may not matter much when Trump is in office; Republican attorneys general probably won’t want to challenge the president, and Democrats are unlikely to demand harsher immigration crackdowns. But if we ever have another Democratic president, it’s easy to picture the most conservative state prosecutors suing to block the issuance of visas to, say, people from China. Immigration policy would be subject to a chaotic fight in the federal courts.
Though the measure passed the House overwhelmingly last week, Democrats could still block it in the Senate, where it needs 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. Alas, that seems unlikely to happen. Last week, only nine Senate Democrats voted against proceeding to debate the bill on the Senate floor. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Ruben Gallego of Arizona are co-sponsors of it, and several other swing-state Democrats have already announced plans to vote for it. Fetterman told reporters last week that fellow Democrats had experienced a “blinding flash of common sense.”Editors’ Picks‘She Was Often the Only Bright Spot in My Otherwise Grim Days’Can I Ban Books From My Front-Yard Little Free Library?Where to Find Great New York Slices in 2025? You Might Be Surprised.
But the Democrats’ failure to muster opposition to this bill isn’t common sense, it’s cowardice. Given the lessons of the last election, it’s wise for Democrats to defy pro-immigrant interest groups when those groups make politically insupportable demands like abolishing ICE or decriminalizing illegal border crossings. That’s very different, however, from completely capitulating to Republican demagogy with little evident concern for the long-term consequences.
Someday, when public opinion on immigration shifts again, Democrats who voted for this cruel and misguided bill will have a hard time justifying it. If only they could save themselves and us the trouble.Exclusive news, data and analytics for financial market professionals
Bloomberg News via Reuters, China mulls potential sale of TikTok US to Musk, Staff Reports, Jan. 13, 2025. Chinese officials are mulling a potential option that involves the sale of TikTok's U.S. operations to billionaire Elon Musk if the company fails to fend off a potential ban, Bloomberg News reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Chinese officials prefer that TikTok remain under the control of parent Bytedance, the report said, adding that the company is contesting the ban with an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.Advertisement ·
Under one scenario, Musk's social media platform X would take control of TikTok U.S. and run the business together, the report said, adding that the Chinese officials have yet to reach any firm consensus about how to proceed and their deliberations are still preliminary.TikTok declined to comment, while Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment. X could not immediately be reached for a comment.
Washington Post, Soldier’s suicide exposes the struggle with mental health stigma in Special Forces culture, Alex Horton, Jan. 12, 2025 (print ed). The dramatic death at the Trump hotel in Las Vegas has spotlighted the Pentagon’s efforts to screen for and treat invisible injuries.
Matthew Livelsberger’s dramatic death outside the Trump hotel in Las Vegas has spotlighted the Pentagon’s efforts to screen for and treat invisible injuries.
The fiery New Year’s Day suicide of an Army Green Beret (shown above with his wife)exposed the Pentagon’s struggle to identify and treat brain injuries and mental health issues, raising alarm among some lawmakers, medical experts and former military personnel who question if enough is being done to improve care and prevent similar tragedies.
Matthew Livelsberger, 37, a career Special Forces soldier with extensive wartime service in Afghanistan, died from a self-inflicted gunshot moments before the rented Tesla Cybertruck he was driving exploded outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, authorities have said. Livelsberger had struggled with what he endured in combat and confided in an ex-girlfriend that he experienced health problems linked to repeated concussions.
Hopium Chronicles, Political Opinion: Battling Fires And Disinfo In California, Fighting The Unacceptable 4, Trump Is Already Raising Prices Here And Around The World, Simon Rosenberg, Jan. 13, 2025. Hearings on his nominees start tomorrow. I hope everyone here will call their Senators and House Members today to insist they work to block Trump’s Unacceptable 4: Gabbard, Hegseth, Kennedy and Patel. You don’t need a long script. Simply say that all 4 are unqualified and extremists. The incoming President erred in all 4 cases and we must find better nominees. At least 100,000 people are going to read this post today and I hope a large percentage makes these calls. We must make our voices heard.
Today Joe Biden will travel to the State Department and give a major address reviewing his foreign policy achievements. On Wednesday he gives a live televised farewell address to the nation at 8pm ET.
Friday’s strong jobs report reminded us of what a strong economy Trump is inheriting from President Biden, and how successful Trump and Republicans were in convincing people otherwise last year. Here are three good new articles on why this strong economy is a very big political problem for Trump - Rob Shapiro in Washington Monthly, Paul Krugman in his new Substack, and Howard Schneider in Reuters.
On Friday the International Monetary Fund warned that Trump’s banana-nuts economic agenda is already driving up long-term interest rates -- and thus prices on many things -- here and around the world. From The Financial Times:
The IMF has warned that jitters surrounding Donald Trump’s threat to impose trade tariffs were driving up longer-term borrowing costs and would add to pressures facing the global economy in 2025. Speaking to reporters in Washington on Friday, IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva said global economic policy faced “quite a lot of uncertainty” in 2025, particularly around the trade policy of the world’s largest economy. “That uncertainty is actually expressed globally through higher long-term interest rates,” Georgieva said
CNN, Reliable Sources Analysis: The Contrarian set for combat, Brian Steltzer, Jan. 13, 2025. Today, veteran opinion columnist Jennifer Rubin, right, is becoming the latest in a long list of Washington Post figures to leave the troubled institution.
Rubin tells me she is partnering with former White House ethics czar Norm Eisen and launching a startup publication called The Contrarian. Its tagline, "Not owned by anybody," is a pointed reference to billionaire Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos and other moguls who, in Rubin's view, have "bent the knee" to President-elect Donald Trump.
"Our goal is to combat, with every fiber of our being, the authoritarian threat that we face," Rubin says.
Rather than anti-Trump, the founders describe their venture as pro-democracy. They said they have already enlisted about two dozen contributors, including Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Andy Borowitz, George Conway, John Dean, Bob Kagan, Barb McQuade, Katie Phang, Asha Rangappa, Stephen Richer, and Andrew Weissmann.
Eisen, who is departing his CNN legal analyst role, will be the publisher. Rubin will be the editor-in-chief. Rubin says she resigned from the Post because it, "along with most mainstream news outlets, has failed spectacularly at a moment that we most need a robust, aggressive free press." She adds: "I fear that things are going from bad to worse at The Post."
The Contrarian is joining a growing group of publications – like The Bulwark and Zeteo – that are built on Substack. It will charge $7 a month for full access to columns, podcasts, and videos.
The founders stress that the site will cover culture and publish humor columns – with an eye toward appealing to folks who don't follow politics closely. Eisen, a former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic, says "I know from my experience in Europe that the dissident movements there have been led by those in humor, satire, and culture like my friend President Václav Havel who was a playwright."
"We will bring in a large array of voices – you need that to fight autocracy," Eisen says. "Laughing may actually end up being more important than political and legal analysis!"
Washington Post, Jack Smith, special counsel in Trump cases, resigns, Perry Stein and Jeremy Roebuck, Jan. 12, 2025 (print ed). Smith has spent the last two months winding down the two federal criminal prosecutions of Donald Trump and had indicated he would resign before inauguration.
Special counsel Jack Smith has resigned from the Justice Department after completing his work overseeing two federal prosecutions of Donald Trump, according to a government court filing.
Though Smith’s departure was expected, official word of the end of his two-year appointment was another step in the winding down of the criminal cases against the former and future president, just over a week before Inauguration Day.Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what's true, false or in-between in politics.
Smith, a veteran federal and war crimes prosecutor, became the public face of the Justice Department’s efforts to hold Trump accountable for two sets of alleged crimes: trying to block Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory; and, after leaving the White House, mishandling highly classified documents and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them.
Neither case went to trial. The election-interference indictment was delayed after a Supreme Court ruling last summer greatly expanded presidential immunity for actions taken while in office. U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon in Florida tossed the classified documents indictment two weeks later, ruling Smith had been unlawfully appointed.
Trump accused Smith and Attorney General Merrick Garland of bringing the cases for political reasons. The president-elect was planning to fire Smith and his team, The Washington Post reported in November, and Smith had made clear that he would resign before Trump took office.
News that he had done so came in a footnote to a court filing Saturday, as government lawyers urged Cannon not to extend a court order she issued Tuesday that temporarily blocked the release of Smith’s final report on his investigations.
Smith “separated” from the department Friday, the filing said — three days after he’d submitted his report to Garland. While Justice Department rules require special counsels to submit such reports, it is typically up to the attorney general whether to make them public. In this case, however, Trump and his former co-defendants in the classified documents case have returned to the courts to try to keep Smith’s report under wraps.
Washington Post, Appeals court allows release of Smith’s report on Trump’s election-reversal efforts, Jeremy Roebuck and Perry Stein, Jan. 10, 2025. A federal appellate court ruled Thursday that the Justice Department may publicly release special counsel Jack Smith’s report on Donald Trump’s efforts to undo the results of the 2020 election, although the timing of that release remains unclear.
The ruling did not distinguish between the two volumes of Smith’s report — one dealing with his election-interference probe and the other focused on Smith’s investigation into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.
But Smith and Attorney General Merrick Garland have said in court filings and in a letter to Congress that they will keep the classified documents volume under wraps while litigation related to the case continues.
The president-elect, right, and two of his former co-defendants in the documents case had urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to block the release of the entire report, with Trump saying making it public would harm his White House transition. Trump and his co-defendants did not immediately say Thursday if they would appeal. A lower court judge had previously barred the release of the report until at least three days after the 11th Circuit decision. In a filing late Thursday evening, three hours after the appellate court’s ruling, the Justice Department and Smith said they would appeal that lower court order to potentially allow for an earlier release.
Smith’s report could shed new light on alleged efforts by Trump and his allies to subvert his election loss four years ago. Many of those details were divulged in a lengthy legal brief the special counsel filed last year detailing the evidence his team had amassed. But Smith’s report could offer a clearer picture of the material as well as insights into the strategy the government would have employed had that historic set of charges against Trump gone to trial.
Smith agreed to dismiss the election interference indictment last year after Trump’s election victory, citing Justice Department regulations prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting president.
New York Times, Analysis: As a Felon, Trump Upends How Americans View the Presidency, Peter Baker, Jan. 12, 2025 (print ed.). A big economic package, mass deportations, maybe even some invasions of other countries. Oh, and one more item. “I’ll do my little thing tomorrow,” a busy President-elect Donald J. Trump mentioned the other night.
That little thing was the first criminal sentencing of an American president. That little thing was confirmation that Mr. Trump, just 10 days later, would become the first president to move into the White House with a rap sheet. That little thing is the latest shift in standards that once governed high office.
Mr. Trump does not really consider it a little thing, of course, given how strenuously he sought to avoid Friday’s sentencing for 34 felony counts in his hush money case. But to a remarkable degree, he has succeeded in making it a little thing in the body politic. What was once a pretty-much-guaranteed disqualifier for the presidency is now just one more political event seen through a partisan lens.
After all, no one seemed shocked after Friday’s sentencing in New York. While Mr. Trump was spared jail time or financial penalties, he effectively had the word “felon” tattooed on his record for all time unless a higher court overturns the conviction. But that development was already baked into the system. Voters knew last fall that Mr. Trump had been found guilty by a jury of his peers, and enough of them decided it was either illegitimate or not as important as other issues.
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: January 10, 2025 [U.S. Jobs, Fires, Politics,], Heather Cox Richardson, right, Jan. 11, 2025. Today the Department of Labor released the final jobs report of Joe Biden’s presidency. The nation added 256,000 new jobs in December, a number significantly higher than economists expected. That brings the total number of jobs created under Biden to 16.6 million and makes Biden’s the only administration in history to have created jobs every month. Under the Biden administration, the nation has also had the lowest average unemployment rate of any administration in 50 years, ending at 4.1%.
Dan Primack of Axios reported that the U.S. gained more jobs during Biden’s four years than it did under President Donald Trump, Barack Obama, or George W. Bush.
In a statement, Biden noted that when he took office, economic forecasts projected that it would take years for the country to recover fully from the effects of the coronavirus shutdown. In fact, the U.S. economy has grown faster and created more jobs than any other country with an advanced economy. Working-age women are now employed at record levels, and the gap in employment between Black Americans and their white counterparts is at the lowest level on record. The administration has brought the inflation of the early recovery back down almost to target levels, while incomes have increased about $4,000 more than prices. The administration, Biden said, has “achieved the soft landing that few thought was possible.”
CNBC economist Carl Quintanilla quoted Matt Peterson of Barron’s, who wrote: “It looks a lot like U.S. consumers are happy with the way things are...[a]nd so are the markets.... The only one who doesn’t seem to be happy with the way things are is Trump.”
Brian Platt of Bloomberg reports that Trump’s threats of tariffs against Canada already have Canadian officials drafting plans for retaliation. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau told CNN yesterday that Trump is talking about annexing Canada to divert attention from how significantly his tariff plans would raise consumer prices.
As Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo noted late last year, MAGA was never an ideological movement so much as a vehicle to pull together different constituencies in order to get Trump elected president. Since members of those constituencies have little in common, that effort centers around creating a false world that demonizes Democrats and insists they have created a dangerous world that is biased against MAGA. The only one who can stand against them, the story goes, is Trump, who is being persecuted for his defense of his supporters. That narrative has helped MAGAs to find common ground in their defense of Trump and his cronies and their support for Trump’s vows to retaliate against those he considers his enemies.
That impulse appears to be stronger than ever after Judge Juan Merchan sentenced Trump today in the New York election interference case in which a jury found Trump guilty of 34 felonies for covering up payments to an adult film actress to keep her quiet about their sexual encounter before the 2016 presidential election. Merchan said that he could not impose a punishment without encroaching on the presidency, so in an unusually light sentence, he released Trump without restrictions. As legal analyst Joyce White Vance explained, Trump knew he would not get jail time or a fine, but wanted to avoid the sentencing itself because just a month after the sentencing, the designation of convicted felon will become permanent.
Although a unanimous jury convicted him, Trump insisted the trial was “a political witch hunt…done to damage my reputation so that I’d lose the election…. The fact is I’m totally innocent.” He seemed to think that ratings should override reality, telling the judge: “I got the largest number of votes by far by any Republican in history,” he said, “and won, as you know, all seven swing states—won conclusively all seven swing states.”
Trump’s version of the case appeared to be convincing to MAGA pundits and lawmakers, who echoed his calls for retribution. Trump’s lawyer Mike Davis warned: “Right now the Democrats think they’re the hunters. And guess what? On January 20th at noon, they’re going to become the hunted.” Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Nancy Mace (R-SC), and Ronnie Jackson (R-TX) all echoed Trump. “Trump will win in the end and America wins in 10 days when we get Trump back!!” Jackson posted on X.
MAGA supporters have embraced Trump’s attacks on Democrats and on the government, most notably with their fact-free attacks on the Biden administration's handling of natural disasters—first the terrible flooding in North Carolina, when the right wing spread the lie that government officials were stealing people’s land, and now the terrible fires in Los Angeles that have been fueled in large part by the climate change that cut rainfall since last May and brought an unusually hot summer.
While local, state, and federal officials are doing their best to battle the Los Angeles fires in raging winds and dry conditions, Trump and his allies are lying to create the belief that the Democratic government is to blame for the fires. Trump lied that there is a shortage of water because Democratic governor Gavin Newsom refused to divert water to the area. Others claimed—falsely—that Democratic Mayor Karen Bass cut the budget for the Los Angeles Fire Department, when in fact a 7% increase in funding came through negotiations outside the budget.
They have blamed diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts for the blazes because the Los Angeles Fire Department is headed by Kristin Crowley, an LGBT woman who came up through the ranks in the department over twenty years. And Trump sidekick Elon Musk agreed with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones that the fires are part of a “globalist plot” to trigger “total collapse” in the United States. “Gavin Newscum should resign. This is all his fault!!!” Trump posted.
In reality, firefighters are hard at work, with crews from both Canada and Mexico working along with Californians to suppress the fires.
New York Times, Israel’s Campaign in Syrian Border Area Prompts Fears It Plans to Stay, Jan. 12, 2025 (print ed.). Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s order for Israeli troops to “take over” a buffer zone with Syria upended decades of relative calm along the de facto border.
Washington Post, Biden eulogizes Carter with an emphasis on character, Cleve R. Wootson Jr., Jan. 11, 2025 (print ed.). President Joe Biden eulogized former president Jimmy Carter on Thursday as a man who “taught me the strength of character” and refused to let personal ambition or politics erode his inherent goodness, using one of his final speeches as president to issue an indirect rebuke to the politics of today.Get the latest election news and results
“Character, I believe, is destiny. Destiny in our lives and, quite frankly, destiny in the life of our nation,” Biden said in remarks that began just before noon, using the word “character” nearly a dozen times in 10 minutes. “We have an obligation to give hate no safe harbor and to stand up to what my dad said is the greatest sin of all: the abuse of power.”
Carter had personally asked Biden to deliver his eulogy, but Biden’s words seemed aimed at least in part at the current moment and President-elect Donald Trump’s style of politics, which he has derided as focused on self-absorption and fueling division for political gain.
Biden said anyone seeking to lead a good life would be wise to model themselves on Carter, who he said was motivated by “faith, hope and love.” He hailed the former president as a man who spent his life serving everyone from his neighbors in his small hometown of Plains, Georgia, to residents of poor countries around the world.
“We’re all fallible, but it’s about asking ourselves, are we striving ourselves to do the right things? What are the values that animate our spirit? Do we operate from fear or hope, ego or generosity?” Biden said, as he sought to elaborate on the notion of character.
Washington Post, Economy adds 256,000 jobs in December, reflecting stronger growth toward the end of 2024, Lauren Kaori Gurley, Jan. 11, 2025 (print ed.). The unemployment rate fell to 4.1 percent.
The U.S. labor market added 256,000 jobs in December, a strong showing at the end of 2024, as the labor market revved up toward the end of the year.
The unemployment rate improved, inching down to 4.1 percent from 4.2 percent in November, perhaps an early indication along with other improving data of a rebound in the labor market after months of cooling.
Forecasters had predicted the report would show 155,000 new jobs added in December.
“We certainly saw a softening in overall labor market conditions” in 2024, said Sarah House, a senior economist at Wells Fargo. “But for the most part, it’s been a gradual cooling. … Businesses have reduced demand for new workers, but they’re hanging on to their existing workers.”
Unemployment levels for 2024 were also revised down, showing that the rate of joblessness never surpassed 4.2 percent this year, a low level that suggests underlying strength in the labor market even as hiring cooled.
Porn star Stormy Daniels and former President Donald J. Trump, who hid hush payments to her via The National Enquirer newspaper during the 2016 presidential campaign to hide their affair from election finance officials and the public.
Washington Post, Trump to be sentenced today in New York hush money case, Staff Reports, Jan. 10, 2025. President-elect Donald Trump is set to be sentenced Friday, as part of a case in which a New York jury convicted him on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to an adult-film actress shortly before the 2016 election.
Washington Post, DOGE is dispatching agents across U.S. government, Faiz Siddiqui, Jeff Stein and Elizabeth Dwoskin, Jan. 10, 2025. Federal officials are already dealing with surrogates from Elon Musk’s and Vivek Ramaswamy’s nongovernmental body before Donald Trump is sworn in again.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are sending representatives to agencies across the federal government, four people familiar with the matter said, to begin preliminary interviews that will shape the tech executives’ enormous ambitions to tame Washington’s sprawling bureaucracy.
In recent days, aides with the nongovernmental “Department of Government Efficiency" tied to President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team have spoken with staffers at more than a dozen federal agencies, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media. The agencies include the Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service and the departments of Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services, the people said.
At the same time, Musk and Ramaswamy have significantly stepped up hiring for their new entity, with more than 50 staffers already working out of the offices of SpaceX, Musk’s rocket-building company, in downtown Washington, two of the people said. DOGE aims to have a staff of close to 100 people in place by Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, they said.
Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.
New York Times, Trump Investigations: Justice Dept. Signals Report on Trump Documents Case May Never Be Released, Alan Feuer and Charlie Savage, Jan. 9, 2025 (print ed.). In a court filing, the department indicated that the report by the special counsel, Jack Smith, may not be made public before Donald J. Trump takes office, raising the prospect that the new administration will bury it.
Federal prosecutors tacitly signaled on Wednesday that the public may never see a portion of a report by the special counsel, Jack Smith, detailing his investigation into President-elect Donald J. Trump’s refusal to give back a trove of classified documents he took from the White House after leaving office.
Mr. Trump’s legal team has been fighting a pitched battle in recent days to keep the report out of the public eye. In court papers on Wednesday, the Justice Department said that Attorney General Merrick B. Garland did not intend to release the volume about the documents inquiry until legal proceedings have ended against two co-defendants who were charged along with Mr. Trump.
The decision raised the prospect that the report might never be made public at all. The case against Mr. Trump’s co-defendants is likely to continue into his second term starting Jan. 20, when he could pardon the men and end the case altogether. His appointees would then have the power to continue keeping Mr. Smith’s report secret.SPECIAL COUNSEL REPORTRead the Justice Department’s court filing delaying the release of Jack Smith’s report.
The government’s filing, before a federal appeals court in Atlanta, came one day after Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who oversaw — and ultimately threw out — the documents case, issued an injunction temporarily barring the department from releasing Mr. Smith’s report. Her order did not appear to distinguish between the volume about the documents case and the one compiled by Mr. Smith and his team about their separate case against Mr. Trump for his attempt to overturn his loss of the 2020 election.
The Justice Department does plan to release the portion of Mr. Smith’s report focusing on the election interference charges, the court papers said. That case was dropped after Mr. Trump won the election as prosecutors bowed to a longstanding Justice Department policy that prohibits pursuing criminal prosecutions against sitting presidents.
In their filing to the appeals court, prosecutors said that Mr. Garland would make Mr. Smith’s report about the classified documents case available to the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, except for information that is covered by a grand jury secrecy rule.
The Bulwark, Political Opinion:, Release Jack Smith’s ReportI, Bill Kristol, right, Jan. 7, 2025. The outgoing administration shouldn’t play along with the whitewashing of January 6th.
You can never really tell which of the wacky ideas that Trump spins up will end up forgotten in a few days and which will lodge like a splinter in his brain forever. During his first term, “We’re gonna buy Greenland” seemed like it belonged to the former category. Now, it seems he’s making it a top administration priority.
“I am hearing that the people of Greenland are ‘MAGA,’” Trump wrote yesterday. “My son, Don Jr, and various representatives, will be traveling there to visit some of the most magnificent areas and sights. Greenland is an incredible place, and the people will benefit tremendously if, and when, it becomes part of our Nation. We will protect it, and cherish it, from a very vicious outside World. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!”
Last night, Donald Trump’s lawyers demanded that Attorney General Merrick Garland block the release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on his two investigations, one on Trump and January 6th, the other on Trump’s handling of the classified documents he took with him to Mar-a-Lago.
The attorney general will surely refuse Trump’s demand. Justice Department regulations require special counsels to submit reports explaining their legal decisions at the end of their investigations. Just as Garland last year released Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents, he’ll make public—with appropriate redactions—Smith’s report on Trump. (For that matter, we can also expect the attorney general to release special counsel David Weiss’s final report on his investigation of the now-pardoned Hunter Biden.)
Trump’s demand that Smith’s report be suppressed is a useful reminder that he really hates truthful accounts of January 6th, even if—especially if—they are based on testimony under oath from many different individuals, including many who worked for him. Recall Trump’s fear and loathing of the House January 6th Committee.
The loathing is, I suppose, easily understandable. Politicians don’t like scrutiny. And they especially don’t like criticism. And those who’ve gone so far as to commit sordid and likely criminal acts don’t like to see their disreputable behavior exposed.
But one senses that in addition to the hatred and the loathing, there’s an element of fear. Why?
Trump won. Smith’s report won’t change that. And in any case, his entire propaganda machine is ready to attack the report as the product of a biased Biden Justice Department and a Trump-hating special prosecutor. The report will have no immediate effect on public opinion, nor on the successes or failures of the opening days of Trump’s presidency.
Still, Trump knows how crucial his rewriting of the history of January 6th was to his victory in November. If most Republicans had held to their original judgment of January 6th as a day of shame—if they had continued to believe that it was what Trump the very next day called a “heinous attack” that “defiled the seat of American democracy”—Trump would not have been the 2024 GOP nominee. If most Americans had thought January 6th not just an unfortunate event but a disqualifying disgrace, Trump wouldn’t have won the general election.
The whitewashing of January 6th was key to Trump’s political comeback.
And Trump has the sense—and I think he’s right about this—that he must make sure that January 6th stays whitewashed for the sake of his political success going forward.
The Hartmann Report, Commentary: America Chose Wealth Over Well-Being: How Billionaires Rewrote the American Dream, Thom Hartmann, right, Jan. 7, 2025. Yesterday, Congress certified the electoral vote count making a billionaire president again, starting after he’s sworn in on January 20th.
Yes, we chose a billionaire. Again. After other billionaires spent billions to convince us to make that choice.
As you’re reading these words, billionaires from America and around the world are making pilgrimages to his shabby golf motel to kiss our upcoming billionaire president’s ass and hand him envelopes with $1 million checks that represent a few hours (at most) of income for most of them or their companies.
Meanwhile, our billionaire president-in-waiting is packing his cabinet — the heads of all of the most important federal agencies — with even more billionaires. This is all being celebrated over on billionaire-owned Fox “News” and on billionaire-owned hate radio networks, as well as in the billionaire-owned Washington Post, LA Times, and the roughly half of American local newspapers owned by billionaire hedge funds.
Other countries enjoy benefits like free healthcare and college; modern mass transit; and affordable housing, food, and drugs.
They also have inexpensive internet and phone service without companies listening in and selling their information, schools that don’t even need to mention school shooters, and streets and parks filled with pedestrians and children instead of tents for the homeless.
Additionally, they benefit from renewable electricity that gets cheaper every year while cleaning their environment.
We, on the other hand, have the world‘s largest collection of billionaires.
Recent Relevant Headlines
Washington Post, Biden eulogizes Carter with an emphasis on characterWashington Post, Los Angeles wildfires already pegged as costliest blaze in U.S. history
Trump / GOP Transition News
New York Times, Zuckerberg Will Host a Party for Trump’s Inauguration, Theodore Schleifer and Mike Isaac, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.). Mark Zuckerberg, the Meta chief executive, is one of several tech leaders expected to play a high-profile role in celebrating the new administration next week.
Mark Zuckerberg, right, the Meta chief executive who has tried to keep a distance from politics, is warming to President-elect Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Zuckerberg is among several Big Tech executives who are expected to be front and center at Mr. Trump’s inauguration next week. He will be one of four hosts of a black-tie reception on Jan. 20, joining the longtime Republican donors Miriam Adelson and Todd Ricketts in hosting a party “celebrating 
the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump and Vice President JD Vance,” according to a copy of the invitation seen by The New York Times. The event was first reported by Puck.
Corporate leaders often argue that supporting an inauguration is a patriotic act that does not amount to political support for the president. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, declined to comment.
Mr. Zuckerberg rarely attaches his name to political events. He did not play a similar role at President Biden’s inauguration in 2020 or at Mr. Trump’s first inauguration, in 2016.
Relevant Recent Headlines
More U.S. Legal News
Proof, Investigative Commentary: New Q&A Series, No. 1: Answering Some Extremely Easy Questions Asked By the Worst-Informed and Most Disingenuous 
Far-Right Billionaires on Earth, Seth Abramson, left, author, attorney and former professor, Jan. 4, 2025. Bill Ackman, above, asks, “How can someone with 53 prior arrests continue to be on the NYC streets?” It’s a child’s question—or anyone with no knowledge of criminal justice—but here an expert answers it.
Seth AbramsonJan 4 QUESTION from far-right billionaire BILL ACKMAN: “How can someone with 53 prior arrests continue to be on the NYC streets?”
We know this question is asked in bad faith, because a billionaire like Ackman has lawyers and other advisers who could answer this extremely basic question for him almost immediately.
There’s no reason to broadcast the question to his 1.6 million Twitter followers other than to spread three far-right canards that every criminal justice professional knows to be false: New York City is a dangerous large city (it is actually a very, very safe large city); prosecutors are by and large progressive (by and large, prosecutors are extremely conservative by instinct, politics, and professional-advancement planning); and violent crime is now out of control (it is plummeting).
Nevertheless here’s an ANSWER from criminal defense attorney Seth Abramson:
On a criminal record, each charge a person has ever faced is a separate arrest entry—so if, on a single date of offense, a person is arrested on ten charges, that may well show as ten arrests even though all of those arrests were for a single course of conduct.
Because over 95% of criminal cases are resolved by a defendant taking responsibility for their actions and accepting a plea deal—that’s right, the overwhelming majority of those arrested aren’t like Donald Trump and seek no more than a just punishment for what they are accused of doing—police and prosecutors prepare in advance for this known eventuality by habitually wildly overcharging cases. The theory behind this is that the more charges you can pile on someone, the more likelihood (because each charge carries its own penalty, which can be assessed consecutively to all other penalties) they will enter into a plea agreement with the government and thus spare taxpayers the cost (and government agents the time) of a full-blown criminal trial.
The result of this is that even a rather minor incident will often lead to a very large number of more-or-less redundant charges and an extremely filled-up arrest record.
I’ve seen and personally represented defendants with 50+ arrests from just two dates of offense—meaning just two actions that were deemed by the arresting officers to be criminal. Bill Ackman is also aware of such a situation, given that his political hero, Donald Trump, technically was arrested on 34 felonies as part of a single course of conduct (though in Trump’s case these crimes spanned months, which is actually far worse than what we see with unpremeditated street crimes born of transient anger).
And of course arrests aren’t convictions. While arrests show up on an arrest record, many arrests result in nolle prosequi withdrawals of the charges by prosecutors for reasons ranging from a witness recantation to a plea deal that involves some charges being withdrawn, from the evidence ultimately gathered by police not sustaining the charges the arresting officers originally believed could be sustained to a prosecutor deciding (but this is rare) that the case was overcharged and that is was unfair to the defendant.
Short of charges being withdrawn voluntarily by the government, they may also be “kicked” (dismissed) by judges because (say) witnesses fail to appear in court, certain evidence was illegally seized, the government has botched the collection or testing of the evidence in a way that infringes upon the defendant’s constitutional rights, or a whole host of other reasons—including, notably, a “not guilty” verdict by a jury of the defendant’s peers after a trial.
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Hopium Chronicles, Political Commentary, January 6th - Another Day That Will Live In Infamy, Simon Rosenberg
More Political News, Commentary
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), left, basks in the presence of Elon Musk, center, and President-elect Donald Trump
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: December 21, 2024 [U.S. Government Shutdown Avoided], Heather Cox Richardson, Dec. 22, 2024. Shortly after midnight last night, the Senate passed the continuing resolution to fund the government through March 14, 2025. The previous continuing resolution ran out at midnight, but as Bloomberg’s congressional budget reporter Steven Dennis explained, “midnight is NOT a hard deadline for a government shutdown. A shutdown occurs only when [the Office of Management and Budget] issues a shutdown order, which they traditionally will NOT issue if a bill is moving toward completion.”
President Joe Biden signed the bill this morning, praising the agreement for keeping the government open, providing urgently needed disaster relief, and providing the money to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore after a container ship hit it in March 2024, causing it to collapse.
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Trump's Cases, Allies, Threats, Opponents
Lance's Substack, Political Opinion: Biden's Worst Decision, Lance F Rosen, Jan. 1, 2024. Will Bunch of the Philly Inquirer nails it. The biggest and most tragic mistake by Joe Biden was his pick of Merrick Garland for Attorney General.
Thanks to Will Bunch (published here) we now know why President Biden picked Merrick Garland and so regrets his decision. Former White House Chief Of Staff Ron Klain led the faction which pushed Garland. This is according to his commentary based upona Washington Post report detailing Biden's extreme regret over his choice.
Not mentioned by Bunch about Klain is that he's the tag team partner of corrupt corporate centrist Biden advisor Anita Dunn, left, who sabotaged his presidency and campaign by abandoning progressives and traditional Democratic constituencies in favor of appeals to "moderate MAGAs" from the white suburbs. Dunn had top down control over the campaign press shop and messaging, and did everything possible to prevent Biden from attacking Trump, or even using his 
name. He was advised to call him "the other guy," and tripped all over himself trying to distinguish between the misnamed "regular" MAGA, and "Ultra-MAGA," which he described as "semi-fascist."
The Dunn-Klain combo was the source of the awful triangulation strategy, which infected many aspects of the administration, costing the President whole chunks of his program (in conjunction with fellow Democratic corporate centrists Manchin and Sinema with whom they worked) and large drops in his approval ratings among youth, black and Muslim minorities, Latinos, and progressives of all stripes. This is the actual reason why the so-called "Blue Wall" collapsed in November, and we now have a full clown-car of escaped mental patients being given the keys to the government to go joyriding around in for four or more years.
Also not mentioned by Bunch was that Klain and Dunn were exposed as the pair who sabotaged Biden's debate prep which contributed to sinking his candidacy, the reason FLOTUS Dr. Jill Biden and son Hunter (shown above in a June 2024 photo) demanded the President fire them both immediately after the disaster when they all met at Camp David (which he wouldn't).
I suspected that the reasoning behind Garland's appointment was a futile and deluded plan to seek bipartisanship with MAGA, which included a "hands off or go slow" approach to prosecuting Trump's crimes, so as to not overly antagonize Trump's Congressional allies and base. Maybe a great idea on paper, but they were always going to be "antagonized" over everything. They incited and assisted a violent mob attack our Capitol, and the White House hoped for civilty and cooperation with Nazis who organized a coup against them? Seriously?
Bunch's background commentary on the Garland appointment seems to point in the same direction, raising similar questions, and is sounding an alarm to prevent similar failures in judgment.
Excerpt continued from above.
I'm going to state publicly what I have suspected all along but have not yet divulged until now. This is my personal speculation, but I believe that a deal was made by Biden to get Trump to leave the White House and relinquish power in 2021, provided he would not be prosecuted aggressively. This, in my mind, is the only thing which solves the mystery of why did Trump even leave, and why did he agree to a transition? And I should state for the record that while I always remained critical in a principled way, I have been a strong and vocal defender of Joe Biden since he launched his candidacy in 2017, and I am not writing this to bash him. In a way, if a deal was made I understand it and his motives.
That said, all indications were that Trump would make some desperate effort at a last stand, because he stood to lose his Presidential legal shield and go to jail if he didn't. He even tried to get Netanyahu's help in launching a war with Iran at the end to fabricate a national emergency and void the election. General Milley actually called it Trump's "Reichstag Fire" and blocked it. Despite his desperation, Trump relented, and it has always been puzzling to me as to why. If there were a deal, that would explain it. We know that everything with Trump is a transaction, devoid of any motive other than self-preservation. I am certainly open to discussion if others have thoughts on it, because it is just my opinion and nothing more.
So, on our timeline, Biden came in, pledged bipartisanship and healing in his inaugural, appointed Garland under pressure from Dunns's flunky Klain, left. 
He (Garland) was a former DOJ prosecutor and federal judge, a plodding GOP bureaucrat and proceduralist, guaranteed to not do anything which could remotely be considered "political" in order to protect the DOJ from charges of "weaponizing Justice. Therefore when it came to not antagonizing MAGA, he was right on board with Klain's and Dunn's program.
Remember also that this was the guy who prosecuted the Oklahoma City bombers McVeigh and Nichols, but the religious cult and militia networks (the neo-Nazi "Christian Identity," and the Michigan militia) which housed them and actively supported their anti-government plot were let off the hook. There was a network, not just two guys, and Garland chose to not go after all of them for sedition conspiracy, only the two mentioned for the crime of the bombing. (It should be mentioned that the same Michigan militia networks that supported them were caught plotting a "citizen's arrest" of Governor Gretchen Whitmer 26 years later, which was in fact a plot to kidnap her and her cabinet, conduct mock trials and summary executions for treason, right after they were incited by Trump to storm the Michigan Capitol in Lansing to oppose covid lockdown)
Garland, once sworn in after the usual obstruction in the Senate by McConnell, (the second go-round for him after he was Obama's failed nominee for SCOTUS) did nothing for month after month about the stolen documents or J-6. Instead of going after the planners and the ringleaders, he was preoccupied with rounding up and prosecuting the thousand or so zombies used as cannon-fodder for the riot, which was just cover for the actual coup plot of Trump's Congreseional allies boiding Biden's electors. Not Trump,Meadows, Bannon, Stone, especially not Ginni Thomas. No, it was more important to nail the “horny” QAnon guy than the people who were responsible for bring the mob which left five dead DC cops and hundreds more injured.
Then the J-6 committee did such a thorough job documenting Trump's coup attempt, that Garland was literally forced to abort the "hands off" policy and started a grand jury. And once it was finally underway, all of his foot-dragging led to his "cover your ass" move of appointing a special prosecutor, Jack Smith.
Then there were shocking revelations that Trump's stolen documents included nuclear secrets which he was showing off to guests and donors at his golf club, and Biden's national security team raised the roof to convince him to pressure Garland to go after them. Garland started another investigation he didn't want in order to force Trump to give the documents up. Trump said "fuck you," ordered his lawyers to lie to the FBI, he was allowed to stall, hide some of what he had, possibly sell some of it, so Garland was forced to get a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago and start a second grand jury (which again he never wanted) and Biden went along with him on all of it.
And to top it off, Garland incredibly insisted that Smith convene the grand jury and try the stolen documents case in Ron DeSantis' fascist hellscape of Florida, not Washington DC where the judges are more balanced than Florida's Republican hack federal appointees. No credible reason for Garland to insist Smith go to trial in Florida was ever given, aside from the fact the documents were there. He personally oversaw packing up in Washington, and had no immunity the moment Biden was sworn in. It would have been a slam dunk.
The only possible explanation is that bringing the case in Trump's home state was a sop, a buy-off to mitigate the rage and retribution factor from the Congressional MAGAts. Remember that after the Mar-aLago FBI search warrant was executed, a Trump supporter assassinated an FBI agent in Cincinnati, and there was a pattern of threats against their offices nationwide. Therefore Florida is what they went with, and almost predictibly a Trump appointed "fan-girl" known as Aileen "Loose Cannon" got jurisdiction, stalled, delayed, and after the SCOTUS immunity ruling threw out the case entirely.
This bought Trump the time he needed to let the SCOTUS step in and give him his blank check to cancel all of his cases and start making plans to deploy Seal Team Six to assassinate his political opponents. All of the cases were then pronounced DOA, including the state criminal charges in Georgia and New York.
As a consequence of Garland's malfeasance and incompetence, we now have a Führer, not a President, coming in with list in hand of his targets for bloody retribution, a person with the mental map and personality disorders of the movie character Patrick Bateman from the bloody horror novel "American Psycho." And the worst thing is that some of us wanted to believe the same thing President Biden believed, that this collection of vengeance-seeking bloodthirsty fascists who belong to a violent cult led by a psychopath could be bargained with. Or, for that matter cared even a whit about the national interest, and were really just normal good people who would come around when we got some bills passed that would mean job security and putting money in the pockets of their voters.
It is beyond me that someone with Joe's battle-tested life experiences and history of political wars in the Senate and as VP could actually have believed this. He once told Putin to his face that he had no soul. Did he really think he could horse-trade with people who were bought or sold, or had their lives threatened? Did he really believe that Trump would honor his side of any deal that was made, if one was made? I believe in redemption, but I don't cry over Hallmark movie happy endings which I know to not be real,
The intention, in my view, was never to prosecute or jail Trump, despite Jack Smith's committment to do just that. It was to use the prosecutions as leverage to contain Trump and force him to eventually drop out of the campaign. And instead he turned around and did the exact opposite. And Biden went along with the deal and Garland's do-nothingism because his "Rasputin" Anita Dunn was in his ear telling him that if Trump went on trial he would lose the "moderate MAGA" vote and therefore the whole election, and our democracy along with it.
Biden never realized how tragic his error was until Garland went after his son, then after him personally on his decade old collection of useless memorabilia in his garage, and Garland's choice for Special Prosecutor, Republican hack prosecutor Robert Hur (approved of by Gym Jordan and James Comer) wrote a long report on how there was no crime, but Biden seemed senile. All this of course to prove himself fair and non-partisan when it came time to testify in Jordan's committee to grovel for budget crumbs and defend his turf. Joe never saw it coming, like a character in a Shakespeare tragedy.
That is my reading from the outside, fwiw. Like I said it is speculation. And the tragedy regardless is that Biden's awful pragmatic decision born of a 50 year long career of centrist dealmaking with Republicans came back to haunt him because Garland offered up his son Hunter as a sacrifice to the MAGA carnivores, hoping that would "balance things out" for his Trump cases, (which again, I believe he never wanted) and prove his department was apolitical in order to keep them out of his business running the DOJ. Well...how did that all work out?
That is what I believe actually happened. At some point I think more will come out that points toward this scenario as being likely.
So, one mystery solved, which is why Biden picked Garland. Another one still remains open, which is why did Trump leave the White House in 2021, a decision he has said he regretted all along. Whatever the case, we will pay the price for President Biden's unfortunate decisions reminiscent of Shakespeare's King Lear. He only found out at the tragic end who his real friends were, and who were his enemies, because he saw what he wanted to see and placed his trust in the wrong people at the worst possible time. He wanted to believe that McConnell and Lindsey Graham were still his friends and that they would work with him. He didn't want to see how they and others were broken by Trump.
Former President and President-elect Donald Trump is shown in a photo collage with columnist E. Jean Carroll, who won civil suits against him in New York City on claims of sexual battery and defamation.
New York Times, Trump Loses Appeal of Carroll’s $5 Million Award in Sex-Abuse Case, Lola Fadulu, Dec. 31, 2024 (print ed). The president-elect had asked a court to overturn the defamation judgment against him in the case, which centered on E. Jean Carroll’s account of a sexual attack in a dressing room.President-elect Donald J. Trump on Monday failed to overturn a $5 million judgment that he sexually abused the writer E. Jean Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s and later defamed her.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued to a federal appeals panel that a lower court in Manhattan had erred by allowing two women to testify in the Carroll trial that he had also sexually assaulted them. The lawyers also argued that the court should not have allowed Ms. Carroll’s lawyers to play the recording of the “Access Hollywood” conversation in which Mr. Trump bragged in vulgar terms about grabbing women by the genitals.
The appeals court rejected Mr. Trump’s request for a new trial in the case, which produced the smaller of two defamation judgments against him. “Mr. Trump has not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings,” the opinion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said. It was unsigned but issued by a three-judge panel made up of Denny Chin and Susan Carney — appointed by President Barack Obama — as well as Myrna Perez, appointed by President Biden.
“Both E. Jean Carroll and I are gratified by today’s decision,” Roberta Kaplan, Ms. Carroll’s lawyer, said in a statement. “We thank the Second Circuit for its careful consideration of the parties’ arguments.”
Steven Cheung, Mr. Trump’s chief campaign spokesman, who is set to be his White House communications director, said Mr. Trump was re-elected with an “overwhelming mandate,” and he said the American people “demand an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and a swift dismissal of all of the witch hunts, including the Democrat-funded Carroll hoax, which will continue to be appealed.”
Mr. Trump was represented in the appeal by D. John Sauer, his pick for U.S. solicitor general.
Huff Post, Investigation: Trump’s Jan. 6 Pardon Promise Would Put Police-Assaulters Back On The Streets, S.V. Date and Arthur Delaney, Dec. 27, 2024. A 
HuffPost analysis of Jan. 6 cases finds that 83% of those given a year or more in prison committed acts of violence.
Andrew Taake pepper-sprayed police officers defending the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and hit one with a metal whip. He is serving 74 months at a federal prison in Beaumont, Texas.
Christopher Alberts carried a loaded 9 mm pistol onto Capitol grounds that day and hit police officers with a wooden pallet. He is serving an 84-month sentence at the federal prison in Milan, Michigan.
Steven Cappuccio held his cellphone in his mouth so he could beat an officer using both of his hands, including with the officer’s own baton. He is doing 85 months at the federal prison in Forrest City, Arkansas.
All three will be back on the streets if Donald Trump, the man who incited them and some 2,000 others to attack the Capitol in the first place, follows through on his oft-repeated pledge to pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.
“LET THE JANUARY 6 PRISONERS GO. THEY WERE CONVICTED, OR ARE AWAITING TRIAL, BASED ON A GIANT LIE, A RADICAL LEFT CON JOB,” Trump wrote on social media on March 7, 2023.
“It will be my great honor to pardon the peaceful January 6 protesters, or as I often call them, the hostages,” Trump said in a speech this past May. “There has never been a group of people treated so harshly or unfairly in our country’s history.”
Trump’s claims that a large number of “peaceful” protesters are being held behind bars, however, is demonstrably false.
A HuffPost analysis of sentencing data shows that in the vast majority of cases, the people serving substantial prison time are those who committed violent crimes that day. And conversely, the vast majority of those prosecuted for nonviolent offenses either never went to jail in the first place or had such short sentences that they are already out.
Of those serving a year or more in prison, a full 57% are there following a conviction in cases involving an assault on a police officer. In all, 83% serving a year or more were convicted of committing an act of violence.
All of which means that, with few exceptions, the only people Trump could release from prison with his pardons are those who attacked a police officer, possessed weapons or explosives, or were convicted of some other violent felony.
“People who will be pardoned will be the violent ones. That’s who’s left to pardon. ... Those who went to jail were the most violent that day,” said Harry Dunn, a former Capitol police officer who was among the hundreds assaulted on Jan. 6.
In all, more than 140 members of the Capitol and the Washington, D.C., police departments were wounded by Trump’s followers that day. One died hours later and four others died by suicide over the coming months. Trump, though, has never acknowledged their injuries and deaths.
Trump’s aides, presented with HuffPost’s findings, would not address them directly, and instead referred to his comments to NBC News on the topic earlier this month in which he promised to start the pardon process on “Day 1,” would look at the cases individually but was inclined to pardon everyone except those who had acted “radical” or “crazy.”
But in that interview, Trump also provided indications that he was not particularly knowledgeable about the details of the prosecutions.
Trump, for example, said that Jan. 6 insurrectionists had been incarcerated “three or four years” in a “filthy, disgusting place that shouldn’t even be allowed to be open.”
In fact, it has not yet been four years since the Capitol assault, and the majority of the defendants were not arrested until many months later. And Trump’s “filthy, disgusting” description appears to refer to the District of Columbia jail, which at any given time has only held a couple of dozen defendants who are either awaiting trial or are about to be transferred to a federal prison after their conviction.
U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, left, a Florida Republican who was President-elect Trump's's first nominee to become U.S. Attorney General in a second Trump administration, is shown with Trump in a file photo via Facebook.
New York Times, Trump Transition Updates: Ethics Panel Report Accuses Gaetz of ‘Regularly’ Paying for Sex and Using Drugs, Luke Broadwater, Maggie Haberman and Robert Draper, Dec. 24, 2024 (print ed.). Former Representative Matt Gaetz has been under investigation over allegations including sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.
A report (here) by the House Ethics Committee accused former Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, of regularly paying for sex, using illegal drugs and having sexual relations with a 17-year-old girl. The report concluded that the actions by Mr. Gaetz — President-elect Donald J. Trump’s former 
pick for attorney general — violated state sexual misconduct laws, including Florida’s statutory rape law, and violated House rules. But the committee said it did not find conclusive evidence that he violated federal sex trafficking laws. Read more ›
President Biden commuted the sentences of nearly all prisoners on federal death row, sparing the lives of 37 men just a month before Mr. Trump returns to the Oval Office with a promise to restart federal executions. Only three men, who each carried out notorious mass killings, will remain on federal death row. Mr. Biden campaigned in 2020 on ending the federal death penalty, but legislation to that effect failed to advance in Congress during his administration.
An ethics panel report concluded that Gaetz violated state laws and House rules.
The House Ethics Committee accused former Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s former pick for attorney general, of regularly paying for sex, possessing illegal drugs and having sexual relations with an underage girl, according to a draft of the panel’s report.
The report, which was released on Monday, found that from at least 2017 to 2020, Mr. Gaetz “regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him”; and, in 2017, “engaged in sexual activity with a 17-year-old girl,” the report said.
U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), center, in a 2017 Facebook photo with friends and fellow ardent Trump supporters Roger Stone and Joel Greenberg, the latter a former Florida tax collector now imprisoned on multiple federal felony charges for sex trafficking, allegedly in part with Gaetz.
Politico, Gaetz report renews debate about how he escaped federal charges, Josh Gerstein, Betsy Woodruff Swan and Kyle Cheney, Dec. 24, 2024 (print ed.). The Justice Department applies federal sex-trafficking laws narrowly.
The House Ethics Committee report about former Rep. Matt Gaetz offers some hints about why the Justice Department decided not to prosecute the former Florida congressman after a wide-ranging federal investigation into whether he committed sex trafficking.
The decision likely stemmed from concerns about the strength of the evidence and the department’s history of applying sex-trafficking laws narrowly, former prosecutors said Monday.
The modern federal sex trafficking law is limited to cases involving coercion, fraud or the interstate or international movement of minors for sex. Despite its damning evidence of wide-ranging violations of law and House rules by Gaetz, the Ethics Committee report did not find those factors.
An older statute, known as the Mann Act, sweeps more broadly, but the Justice Department as a matter of discretion limits its application to particularly egregious acts of trafficking.Jeffries on Gaetz Report: 'Sunlight is the best disinfectant'
The most egregious allegation Gaetz faces is having sex with a 17-year-old. But the Ethics Committee report does not say that he transported or arranged for transport of the alleged victim across state lines — an important point because some connection to interstate commerce is required for it to become a federal sex-trafficking crime. The report also says the then-17-year-old told investigators she did not tell Gaetz her age at the time, and that he didn’t ask.
The report does bluntly accuse Gaetz of having violated Florida’s statutory rape law. But it concluded that a state prosecution is impossible at this point because he allegedly had sex with the 17-year-old in 2017, and the state’s statute of limitations has expired.
The report also found “substantial evidence” that Gaetz committed other illegal conduct, including hiring prostitutes and using illicit drugs. Some of that conduct was connected to interstate commerce — but federal prosecutors likely felt it did not rise to the level of what is typically prosecuted under the relevant federal statutes.
The Mann Act is traditionally reserved “for situations where there’s severe forms of trafficking and exploitation of the victims,” said Margaret Gandy, a former federal prosecutor.
Because Gaetz’ alleged interstate and international conduct involved women over 18 and there was no suggestion of violence or duress, DOJ may not have thought it was an appropriate Mann Act case to charge, Gandy said.
“When it is exploitative and abusive, when there’s obviously physical force, coercion, duress, all those things, that makes it easy,” Gandy said. “There’s more of a gray area sometimes around some more transactional sex with consenting adults that warrants that additional pause and consideration.”
Another former federal prosecutor, Robert Bittman, agreed that the department rarely brings sex-trafficking charges in cases of consensual sex between adults, even if money changed hands.
“It’s a crime, it’s a statute on the books that they can prosecute — but it’s not a high-priority thing,” he said. “It’s not something that’s often prosecuted, and really would only be prosecuted if there are significant, other aggravating factors.”
Federal prosecutors have also historically hesitated to bring cases that involve quid-pro-quos for sex that involve things other than an explicit payment.
The Justice Department concluded its investigation into Gaetz last year. A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.
However, a law enforcement official said all DOJ decisions about Gaetz were made by career prosecutors. The official, who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly, added that this has been the standard practice for the Public Integrity Section, which handles sensitive investigations into political figures.
An attorney for Gaetz did not respond to a request for comment, and Gaetz directed reporters seeking comment to his social media posts.
“There is a reason they did this to me in a Christmas Eve-Eve report and not in a courtroom of any kind where I could present evidence and challenge witnesses,” Gaetz wrote on X, contending that many of the claims in the report were inaccurate. He has repeatedly denied having sex with anyone under 18 and said money he transferred to women was to compensate girlfriends or ex-girlfriends for their travel.MOST READbiden-37249.jpg
New York Times, Trump’s Suit Over Iowa Poll Is His Latest Action Against News Media, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Maggie Haberman, David Enrich and Alan Feuer, Dec. 18, 2024 (print ed.). Donald J. Trump sued The Des Moines Register for running a poll before the election that showed him trailing Vice President Kamala Harris, escalating his threats to seek retribution against the mainstream media and his political enemies.
Lance's Substack, Political Commentary and Opinion: Why Biden must issue Sweeping Preemptive pardons For Trump Retribution Targets, Lance F. Rosen, right, Dec. 15, 2024. Kash Patel Is A Lunatic.
This MSNBC article by author and writer Jay Michaelson makes a strong case for Biden to carry out sweeping pre-emptive pardons to protect those targeted for revenge prosecutions by Trump and his incoming "Himmler," Kash Patel, left.
The counterarguments by legalists, MAGA fascists and several Biden-bashing liberal media pundits are fairly well refuted, and in fact shown to be bogus in each example.
Americans by and large are letting their fears affect their judgment, and are either blocking out the Trump/Patel threat to our constitutional system and targeted individuals, or have resigned themselves to it and are retreating into a psychological bunker mentality.
The only remedy is effective political action. Throwing junk memes up against your Facebook wall is no solution and represents a net negative as far as wasted time and energy.Facebook is part of the apparatus which will be deployed to identify us and pick us off, one by one. Be clear that this is a devolving Orwellian type of platform designed to neutralize Trump's political opposition.
I should not have to make this case. You all saw what Facebook did with their algorithm to spike most of the posts about Project 2025 when that became the leading issue in the campaign. And of course it was soon determined that the corporate figure who designed that algorithm in charge of so-called “community guidelines” was a Trump guy.
And now you have Zuckerberg crawling to Mar-a-Lago to kiss Trump's bone spurs, then funding his inaugural to the tune of 1 million, with who knows what other kinds of backroom deals were struck to keep Trump off his back. Same with Bezos.
My days here are numbered. You also saw this week that my page was hijacked and I lost all but a handful of my 1400 readers. My wife posted a notice on my timeline to notify everyone that I have a new page, and how to find it. That message was removed, either by Facebook or the hijacker.
So this place is a dead end for those resisting the regime. That is where we are. I'm taking steps this weekend to backup and safeguard my Substack archive of a 1000 articles going back six years. Others who are writers and posters should consider taking similar steps to preserve their data.
Don't block on this, we are headed into dark territory.
Trump Legal Cases, Strategies, Allies
Legal Schnauzer, New York Times reports that Judge Aileen Cannon plans to make another pro-Trump ruling, but experts say she likely lacks jurisdiction to make such a move, Roger Shuler, Jan. 7, 2025. The New York Times reported this morning that U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, of Florida, intended to issue an order that would temporarily block Special Counsel Jack Smith from releasing his report on the criminal investigation of President-Elect Donald Trump.
The order would be in line with Cannon's history of making dubious rulings that favor Trump, the president who nominated her for the federal bench. By this afternoon, legal experts were stating that Cannon probably does not have authority to make such a ruling, according to a report at Raw Story (RS) under the headline "'No basis': Experts believe Aileen Cannon may not have power to block Jack Smith report." RS's Brad Reed writes:
MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin on Tuesday (1/7/25) questioned whether Judge Aileen Cannon has the authority to block the United States Department of Justice from releasing special counsel Jack Smith's report on his two criminal investigations into President-elect Donald Trump.
"It is not clear... whether she has jurisdiction because earlier this year, she threw out the Mar-a-Lago documents case explaining that, from her reasoning, Jack Smith did not have constitutional authority to bring that prosecution under the appointments clause of the Constitution," Rubin said.
"And so there is no basis here to block the report in part because it is not clear there is a case or controversy in front of her, but if there were, the argument that Trump is making -- that presidential immunity also precludes the release of the report -- is a stretch of the Supreme Court's ruling that a president cannot be prosecuted for acts having to do with his presidency while he is a sitting president."
Rubin was not the only expert to take issue with Cannon's plans. Reed reports:
Legal analyst Barbara McQuade, meanwhile, speculated that Cannon's move was simply to help Trump run out the clock until his inauguration on January 20th.
"I don't think she has any jurisdiction, but delay is the name of the game," she said. "If they can stop the clock until January 20th. then the Department of Justice will be a Trump appointee, and they will kill the whole thing. That's the goal here."
The Hartmann Report, Commentary: Weiner went to prison but Gaetz won’t? Thom Hartmann, Dec. 28, 2024. Remember when Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner, right, served 18 months in prison for texting a dick pic to an underage girl he never met or touched or paid or anything else?
Now comes Matt Gaetz and, according to a new report from the House Ethics Committee, the Republican Congressman actually paid an underage girl for sex that he then had with her in such a public part of a party house that multiple people witnessed it.
Will Gaetz similarly go to prison? Don’t count on it; Republicans are generally immune from prosecution for such crimes, particularly when their fathers are major and morbidly rich Republican movers-and-shakers and Trump is trying to pack his administration with accused rapists and predators…
Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: WHOA! DOJ Drops BOMBSHELL FILING in Trump Case, Michael Popok, Dec. 31, 2024. Dec 31, 2024 Special Counsel Jack Smith and President Biden just gave Trump a New Year’s surprise, handing off the Mar a Lago appeal to the main Miami federal prosecutor, rather than dismiss it, in hopes that the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals rules against Judge Cannon and her ruling that the Special Counsel is unconstitutional before the inauguration. reports.
New York Times, Guest Essay: What Judges Can Do for the Rule of Law Under Trump, Nancy Gertner, right,and Joel Cohen (Ms. Gertner is a retired federal judge. Mr. Cohen is a former federal prosecutor), Dec. 27, 2024 (print ed.).
President-elect Trump recently threatened to lock up political foes, like Liz Cheney, as well as members of Congress who investigated his role in the Jan. 6 attack. “For what they did,” he said, “honestly, they should go to jail.”
On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump said repeatedly that he would encourage the Justice Department and the F.B.I. to go after his enemies. His picks for attorney general (Pam Bondi) and F.B.I. director (Kash Patel) have echoed these remarks. Mr. Patel even compiled an enemies list, which includes Christopher Wray and retired Gen. Mark Milley.
This impulse could reach beyond leadership and may well trickle down in significant part to the 94 federal district courts around the nation. Each United States attorney will have been appointed by Mr. Trump and will be subject to his whim — meaning their potential firing if he does not approve of their performance.
If these confirmed public servants can’t stand up to the pressure from above to serve not an individual person but justice as a principle, who will? It will have to be the judges.
Judges simply can’t be blind to what Mr. Trump, Ms. Bondi and Mr. Patel have said. They can’t ignore their words if the Justice Department under Mr. Trump or the F.B.I. goes after those on an enemies list who have committed no crime beyond opposing the president-elect.Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
Suppose a federal district judge is asked to sign off on an eavesdropping warrant under Title III of the federal criminal law. He or she will receive one-sided (“ex parte”) submissions from prosecutors applying for search warrants (for a physical search or a wiretap), an application that the target’s attorney will not know about nor have the ability to contest.
In previous administrations, federal trial judges have had generally well-founded confidence that the Justice Department and the post-Hoover F.B.I., under presidents from either party, have not been employed to attack political enemies. Most district judges — especially those who have served as federal prosecutors, as most have — believe that the prosecutors appearing before them act with integrity, that their offices are not being manipulated to undermine those who challenged the current administration or its leader.
A judge could assume that the warrant has gone through layers of approval within the Justice Department, even reaching the assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division, an extremely high ranking official in the department. That judge could also be reasonably confident that very little, if anything, would be amiss after passing through the layers of the approval process, including senior department officials.
But with the astonishing comments from the president-elect and his appointments, it is reasonable to ask if judges can still assume that level of confidence in the review process. The previous assumption that prosecutions would be undertaken only against individuals suspected of committing crimes may be wrong.Editors’ PicksLin-Manuel Miranda on ‘Mufasa’ and the Secret to a Disney HitThe Trinidadian Christmas Staple Worth the Yearlong WaitHow ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ (and Its Writer) Went Down in History
Now, when judges are asked to review warrant applications, or any other ex parte submissions from the government, they should do so through a different lens, much more scrupulously than ever before.
Or consider a motion to dismiss an indictment based on selective prosecution. In the usual case, prosecutors are given broad discretion, so long as there is probable cause to believe a crime has been committed and the prosecution does not run afoul of constitutional protections.
A selective prosecution motion alleges that criminal charges were brought for reasons forbidden by the Constitution. The defendant must prove that he was singled out for prosecution when those similarly situated were not and that the prosecution was based on an impermissible reason, such as race, religion or political affiliation.
Since courts presume that the government undertakes a prosecution in good faith, the defendant’s burden of proof is typically quite heavy. The motion rarely succeeds — for example, Hunter Biden’s motion to dismiss his gun case on selective prosecution grounds failed.
But what if, in Mr. Trump’s second term, the object of the prosecution is on Mr. Patel’s list, or is expressly targeted in a Trump speech? Judges should obviously not assume that prosecutors in the Trump administration are always acting in bad faith. But they should consider accusations of selective prosecution differently than they have in the past.
If a defendant in a political case raises legitimate concerns about the integrity of a case in Mr. Trump’s second term, federal judges can’t bury their heads in the sand and ignore the attorney general’s clear intentions or those of the proposed F.B.I. director.
When these individuals announce that political affiliation will influence their prosecution decisions, judges should believe them — and act accordingly.
Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge, teaches law, neuroscience and sentencing at Harvard Law School and is the author of “In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate” and the forthcoming “Incomplete Sentences.” Joel Cohen, a former federal prosecutor, is a senior counsel at Petrillo Klein & Boxer and the author of “Blindfolds Off: Judges on How They Decide.”
Politico Magazine, Trumpian Revenge, Campus Revolts and the Collapse of a Presidency: 24 Stories That Explain a Chaotic Year, Staff Report, Dec. 25, 2024. It has been a year of unprecedented headlines — even for an election year.
The conviction of Donald Trump. An assassination attempt just weeks later. An abrupt end to Joe Biden’s candidacy, followed by the rise and fall of Kamala Harris. It was a historically chaotic and consequential year on the campaign trail, and beyond. America saw intense protests on campus colleges over the Israel-Hamas war, a rising gender divide among the youth and the kind of widening polarization that can even fracture families.
It might have been too many events to fully process in one year, so POLITICO Magazine has you covered. Check out these 24 stories — many of them our top reads of the year — that will help you understand what just happened and what’s to come under Trump 2.0.
New York Times, Devin Nunes, Pugnacious Trump Loyalist, to Lead Espionage Advisory Board, Charlie Savage, Dec. 15, 2024 (print ed.). As chair of the House Intelligence Committee (shown above), he attacked the Russia inquiry and Donald J. Trump’s first impeachment. Now, Mr. Nunes runs Mr. Trump’s social media company.
President-elect Donald J. Trump announced on Saturday that he would appoint Devin Nunes, a former member of Congresswho had used his role as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee to try to delegitimize the Trump-Russia investigation, to head an independent advisory board on espionage policy.
The organization — the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board — dates back to the early Cold War and consists of private citizens with top-level security clearances who are supposed to help the White House analyze spy agency effectiveness and planning. Its members do not need Senate confirmation, so presidents can pick whomever they want for it.
In a statement, Mr. Trump praised Mr. Nunes — who is currently the chief executive of the Trump Media & Technology Group, which runs the Truth Social platform — for his counterinvestigation into the Trump-Russia inquiry in 2017-18, when Mr. Nunes led the House Intelligence Committee as a Republican congressman from California.
“While continuing his leadership of Trump Media & Technology Group, Devin will draw on his experience as former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and his key role in exposing the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, to provide me with independent assessments of the effectiveness and propriety of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s activities,” Mr. Trump wrote in his announcement.
New York Times, Trump Names Richard Grenell for ‘Special Missions’ Role, Elizabeth Williamson, Dec. 15, 2024 (print ed.). A combative loyalist and the president-elect’s former ambassador to Germany, Mr. Grenell had hoped to be secretary of state.
President-elect Donald J. Trump named Richard Grenell, his former ambassador to Germany and former acting director of national intelligence, as his “envoy for special missions,” Mr. Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Saturday.
A loyalist known for unbridled social media attacks on Mr. Trump’s perceived critics and many others, Mr. Grenell led a shambolic effort to challenge the 2020 election results in Nevada after Mr. Trump’s loss, and he has lobbied assiduously for a diplomatic job in the new administration.
He got his start in government before Mr. Trump’s rise, as a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations under multiple presidents. But his online toxicity, foreign business contacts and tendency toward biting personal attacks on political opponents and the media turned off many centrist conservatives, helping propel him toward Mr. Trump, a man he denounced in 2016 as “dangerous.”
“Ric will continue to fight for Peace through Strength, and always put AMERICA FIRST,” Mr. Trump wrote in his announcement.
Mr. Grenell did not immediately reply to a texted question about his priorities for the role, which does not currently exist. Mr. Trump outlined it as: “Ric will work in some of the hottest spots around the World, including Venezuela and North Korea.”
The role is a far cry from secretary of state, the job Mr. Grenell coveted, but to which Mr. Trump plans to appoint Senator Marco Rubio, the Republican from Florida. Being named for a lower-profile White House envoy job could help Mr. Grenell avoid persistent questions about his paid work for foreign clients, including luxury hotel development projects he has pursued in the Balkans with Jared Kushner, the president-elect’s son-in-law.
During the first Trump administration, Mr. Grenell was ambassador to Germany. His abrasiveness and partisanship alarmed diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic, particularly after he told Breitbart London that he planned to “empower” German conservatives opposing “the failed policies of the left.”
In 2020, Mr. Trump named Mr. Grenell to temporarily replace the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, whom Mr. Trump had fired.
New York Times, An Epidemic of Vicious School Brawls, Fueled by Student Cellphones, Natasha Singer (Natasha Singer reported from Revere, Mass., and reviewed more than 400 student fight videos from schools in 15 states), Dec. 15, 2024. Cafeteria melees. Students kicked in the head. Injured educators. Technology is stoking cycles of violence in schools.
Ricardo Martinez, an 11th grader, was in his high school lunchroom in April when a mass brawl erupted.
He watched, horrified, as a dozen teenage boys rampaged through the cafeteria, pummeling and kicking one another, overturning tables and chairs. Other students jeered and jostled to film the fight on their phones.
“It was like a stampede of videos,” said Mr. Martinez, now 18 and a senior. “Everyone was trying to get the best angle.”
But the pandemonium at Revere High School in Revere, Mass., was just beginning.
Within minutes, students in other parts of the building began receiving text messages about the lunchroom brawl. Suddenly, teachers said, dozens of riled-up teenagers started racing down hallways and careening down stairways with their phones to get to the fight.
Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.
Washington Post, Special counsel Jack Smith moves to dismiss Trump’s D.C. prosecution, Perry Stein and Spencer S. Hsu, Nov. 26, 2024 (print ed.). The special counsel filed a motion to dismiss Donald Trump’s election-obstruction case without prejudice, which means the case could be revived in the future.
Special counsel Jack Smith asked U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan on Monday to dismiss the federal election interference charges against President-elect Donald Trump, putting an end to a lengthy investigation that never made it to trial.Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what's true, false or in-between in politics.
Smith’s motion seeks to dismiss the case without prejudice, acknowledging that Justice Department policy prohibits prosecuting a sitting president. If she does that, it leaves open the possibility that prosecutors could again bring charges once Trump leaves office after his second White House term.
But legal experts said it’s possible that once Trump is in office, he could try to do something that has never been tested before: pardon himself to foreclose the possibility of legal jeopardy in the future.
Trump faces four counts related to conspiring to obstruct the 2020 election results. Smith’s filing acknowledges that the Justice Department has longed believed a sitting president cannot stand trial, and says prosecutors conferred with Trump’s attorneys and that they did not oppose the request to dismiss the case.
Former President Donald J. Trump, in a blue suit, sits with his attorneys shortly before arraignment in New York City's state court on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records related to the 2016 presidential campaign season, reportedly involving in part hush money to women ((Associated Press photo by Seth Wong). Below, the presiding judge in the case was Juan Merchon, below left.
New York Times, Judge Denies Trump’s Bid to Throw Out Conviction Over Immunity Ruling, Ben Protess and Kate Christobek, Dec. 16, 2024. Justice Juan Merchan thwarted one of several attempts by President-elect Trump to clear his record of 34 felonies before returning to the White House.
Relevant Recent Headlines
Deadline, Donald Trump, On ‘Meet The Press,’ Again Pledges To Pardon January 6th Rioters, Says Liz Cheney And Other Committee Members “Should Go To Jail
Public Health, RFK Jr., Healthcare CEO's Murder
New York Times, U.S. Surgeon General Calls for Cancer Warnings on Alcohol, Roni Caryn Rabin, Jan. 3, 2025. Dr. Vivek Murthy’s report cites studies linking alcoholic beverages to malignancies, including breast cancer. But to label them, Congress would have to act.
Alcohol is a leading preventable cause of cancer, and alcoholic beverages should carry a warning label as packs of cigarettes do, the U.S. surgeon general, above, said on Friday.
It is the latest salvo in a fierce debate about the risks and benefits of moderate drinking as the influential U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans are about to be updated. For decades, moderate drinking was said to help prevent heart attacks and strokes.
That perception has been embedded in the dietary advice given to Americans. But growing research has linked drinking, sometimes even within the recommended limits, to various types of cancer.
Labels currently affixed to bottles and cans of alcoholic beverages warn about drinking while pregnant or before driving and operating other machinery, and about general “health risks.”
But alcohol directly contributes to 100,000 cancer cases and 20,000 related deaths each year, the surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, said.
He called for updating the labels to include a heightened risk of breast cancer, colon cancer and at least five other malignancies now linked by scientific studies to alcohol consumption.
“Many people out there assume that as long as they’re drinking at the limits or below the limits of current guidelines of one a day for women and two for men, that there is no risk to their health or well-being,” Dr. Murthy said in an interview.
“The data does not bear that out for cancer risk.”
Only Congress can mandate new warning labels of the sort Dr. Murthy recommended, and it’s not clear that the incoming administration would support the change.
Still, President-elect Donald J. Trump does not drink, and his choice to head the Health and Human Services Department, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., swore off alcohol and drugs decades ago, and says he regularly attends AA meetings.
Excerpt Continued From Above.
There is no question that heavy consumption is harmful. But supporters of moderate drinking — including makers of wine, beer and spirits, and some physicians and scientists — argue that a little alcohol each day may reduce cardiovascular disease, the No. 1 killer in the United States.
Newer scientific studies have criticized the methodology of earlier studies, however, and have challenged that view, which was once a consensus.
While most cancer deaths occur at drinking levels that exceed the current recommended dietary guidelines, the risk for cancers of the breast, the mouth and the throat may rise with consumption of as little as one drink a day, or even less, Dr. Murthy said on Friday.
Overall, one of every six breast cancer cases is attributable to alcohol consumption, Dr. Murthy said. More recent studies have also linked moderate alcohol consumption to certain forms of heart disease, including atrial fibrillation, a heart arrhythmia.
Two scientific reviews will be used to inform the updated recommendations about alcohol consumption in the federal dietary guidelines.
Five years ago, the scientific report that informed the writing of the 2020-2025 dietary guidelines acknowledged that alcohol is a carcinogen and generally unhealthy and suggested “tightening guidelines” by capping the recommendation for men at one standard drink, or 14 grams of alcohol a day.
When the final guidelines were drafted, however, there was no change in the advice that moderate drinking of up to two drinks a day for men was acceptable.
President-elect Donald Trump with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump's nominee to become U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (Photo via Getty Images).
Washington Post, Democrats’ new push to stop RFK Jr.: Highlight Samoa’s measles outbreak, Dan Diamond, Jan. 8, 2025 (print ed.). They say the island’s public health crisis, which followed Kennedy’s meeting with local anti-vaccine activists, reveals the consequences of questioning vaccines.
In June 2019, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. traveled to the small Pacific island nation of Samoa, where he met with activists calling for Samoans to skip measles vaccines and opt for alternatives instead. Now that visit — and the country’s subsequent measles outbreak — are receiving new political attention, as Democrats and advocates seek to block Kennedy’s confirmation as America’s top health official.
Five months after Kennedy’s visit, Samoa declared a measles emergency, with leaders warning that vaccination levels had declined precipitously. Thousands of Samoans were infected during the outbreak, and 83 people died of the vaccine-preventable disease — an episode that Democrats say could foreshadow a future American crisis, should Kennedy be elevated to a Cabinet position and sow doubts about vaccines here. Most of Samoa’s measles deaths were in young children.
“It’s a real-life example of what this individual will [do] as the nation’s leading health-care official,” said Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (D), a physician who responded to Samoa’s outbreak five years ago and said he witnessed the deaths of measles-afflicted infants. Green traveled to Capitol Hill this week in a bid to sway senators by sharing his story, part of a larger effort by advocates to scuttle Kennedy’s selection as secretary of health and human services by focusing on the Samoan crisis.
New York Times, Research Finds Vaccines Are Not Behind the Rise in Autism. So What Is? Emily Baumgaertner, Dec. 24, 2024 (print ed.). There is no one factor that causes autism — or explains its growing prevalence. Researchers are seeking explanations for the surge. Here are some possibilities.
The Bulwark, Political Opinion: Preferring Not to See, Andrew Egger, Dec. 19, 2024. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hasn’t exactly hidden his anti-vaccine views over the years, as hundreds of hours of video footage, numerous books, and many documentaries show. And yet, on the cusp of being considered for the top health post in the country, Senate Republicans are suggesting they’re reassured Kennedy has moderated his views based on their brief, one-on-one conversations.
“I think he’s done a good job of answering a lot of the questions about his views on vaccines,” incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told CNN after meeting with Kennedy this week. “I think he understands the values and benefit that vaccines play and have played through the years preventing disease.”
We don’t know exactly what Thune and Kennedy discussed. (Neither party opted to fill me in, although I did ask.) But come on!
Kennedy may well have denied—as he has in public for years—that he is truly “anti-vaccine.” Like many other anti-vaxxers, Kennedy prefers to be thought of as a stickler for vaccine safety.
But one would have to be deliberately obtuse or willingly naïve to think that Kennedy has suddenly seen the light about the benefits of vaccines. He has spent years arguing that the vaccines currently on the market are harming more people than they help. And he’s actively campaigning against their continued use, pending a brand-new regimen of placebo-controlled testing.
In one interview, Kennedy made the case against the measles vaccine by noting what a great time he had when he and his siblings caught the disease, which can have gruesome complications including brain swelling (you don’t say?), gastrointestinal issues and fever, sepsis, and septicemia.
“My 11 brothers and sisters, we all had measles and it was a great week” he said, describing the cure for measles as “chicken soup and vitamin A.”
He has declared that “the polio vaccine does not work” and argued that it in fact could be responsible for a wave of cancers “that killed many, many, many, many, many more people than polio ever did.”
In 2021, he told podcaster Alec Zeck that he tries to actively convince people not to get their kids vaccinated. “I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and I say to him, ‘Better not to get him vaccinated.’”
Last year, he went further while speaking to podcaster Lex Fridman: “There is no vaccine that is safe and effective.”
A few months later, in a CNN appearance, he tried to clean those comments up:
"What I meant—which was a bad use of words in this—none of the vaccines that are currently on the mandated schedule for children, the 72 vaccines for children, have ever been tested in a pre-licensing safety study. What that means is that we do not know what the risk profile is for those products."
When Kennedy argues that he just wants to “test” vaccines—or when Donald Trump says, as he did last weekend, that “there are problems” surrounding pediatric vaccination and “we’re going to find out what those problems are”—what he is saying is actually quite drastic.
The Bulwark, Political Opinion: Never Trumpers Were Right, Actually, Jonathan V. Last, right, Dec. 18, 2024. A response to Bret Stephens. Plus drone talk from the 
front lines.
Bret Stephens has a column today in which he renounces his Never Trump patrimony and castigates Trump critics for being overheated and wrong about so many things.
You should read his piece to get the full breadth of his argument. But I’ll give you a taste:
Never Trumpers also overstated our case and, in doing so, defeated our purpose. We warned that Trump would be a reckless president who might stumble into World War III. If anything, his foreign policy in his first term was, in practice, often cautious to a fault. We hyperventilated about his odd chumminess with Vladimir Putin. But the collusion allegations were a smear, and Trump’s Russia policy — whether it was his opposition to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline or his covert aid to Ukraine — was much tougher than either Barack Obama’s or (at least until Russia invaded Ukraine) President Biden’s.
New York Times, Suspect in C.E.O.’s Killing Withdrew From a Life of Privilege and Promise, Corey Kilgannon, Mike Baker, Luke Broadwater and Shawn Hubler, Dec. 10, 2024 (print ed.). Luigi Mangione, above, charged in the death of an executive in New York, was an Ivy League graduate who had recently suffered physical and psychological pain.
Luigi Mangione, the online version of him, was an Ivy League tech enthusiast who flaunted his tanned, chiseled looks in beach photos and party pictures with blue-blazered frat buddies.
He was the valedictorian of a prestigious Baltimore prep school who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Pennsylvania and served as a head counselor at a pre-college program at Stanford University.
With his credentials and connections, he could have ended up one day as an entrepreneur or the chief executive of one of his family’s thriving businesses. Instead, investigators suspect, he took a different path.
The police now believe that Mr. Mangione, 26, is the masked gunman who calmly took out a pistol equipped with a suppressor on a Midtown Manhattan street last week and assassinated Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare. He was arrested in Altoona, Pa., on Monday after an employee at a McDonald’s recognized him and called the police. Officers said they found him with fake identification, a weapon similar to the one seen in video of the killing and a manifesto decrying the health care industry.
Later on Monday, Mr. Mangione was charged in Manhattan with murder, along with additional counts of forgery and illegal weapons possession. And in the hours after his apprehension, his baffling journey from star student to murder suspect began to come into focus.
Washington Post, Person of interest in UnitedHealthcare shooting arrested in Pa., police say, Mark Berman and Shayna Jacobs, Dec. 10, 2024 (print ed.). Luigi Mangione faces gun charges and other counts. He was denied bail after his arraignment in Altoona, Pa.police commissioner, said at a news briefing.
Thompson, 50, right, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, was shot and killed Wednesday outside a Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan, a stunning act of early-morning violence in one of New York’s busiest areas.
Police said it appeared that the suspect they were seeking escaped the city shortly after the shooting. Law enforcement officials said they were scouring reams of video footage and tips, but they pleaded with the public for more help, sharing several images of a person they said was wanted in connection with the killing.
ABC News, What we know about Luigi Mangione, Ivy League grad and suspect in CEO's murder, Aaron Katersky, Mark Crudele, Josh Margolin, and Meredith Deliso, Dec. 9, 2024. Mangione, above, was located in Pennsylvania nearly a week after Brian Thompson's death.
Salon, Alleged UnitedHealthcare assassin praised Elon Musk for battle against “woke mind virus," Russell Payne, Dec, 9, 2024. Not so fast, what kind of "anti-capitalist" is praising Elon Musk and retweeting Peter Thiel?
On Monday afternoon, police announced that they had arrested a person of interest in the investigation into the killing of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson, who was shot outside his hotel in midtown Manhattan last week.
According to police, Luigi Mangione was arrested around 9:15 a.m. in Altoona, Pennsylvania with a ghost gun and suppressor that New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said was “consistent with the weapon used in the murder.”
Recent Relevant Headlines
New York Times, Suspect in C.E.O.’s Killing Withdrew From a Life of Privilege and PromiseABC News, What we know about Luigi Mangione, Ivy League grad and suspect in CEO's murder,
More On Presidential Pardons
Huff Post, Investigation: Trump’s Jan. 6 Pardon Promise Would Put Police-Assaulters Back On The Streets, S.V. Date and Arthur Delaney, Dec. 27, 2024. A HuffPost analysis of Jan. 6 cases finds that 83% of those given a year or more in prison committed acts of violence.
Andrew Taake pepper-sprayed police officers defending the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and hit one with a metal whip. He is serving 74 months at a federal prison in Beaumont, Texas.
Christopher Alberts carried a loaded 9 mm pistol onto Capitol grounds that day and hit police officers with a wooden pallet. He is serving an 84-month sentence at the federal prison in Milan, Michigan.
Steven Cappuccio held his cellphone in his mouth so he could beat an officer using both of his hands, including with the officer’s own baton. He is doing 85 months at the federal prison in Forrest City, Arkansas.
All three will be back on the streets if Donald Trump, the man who incited them and some 2,000 others to attack the Capitol in the first place, follows through on his oft-repeated pledge to pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.
“LET THE JANUARY 6 PRISONERS GO. THEY WERE CONVICTED, OR ARE AWAITING TRIAL, BASED ON A GIANT LIE, A RADICAL LEFT CON JOB,” Trump wrote on social media on March 7, 2023.
“It will be my great honor to pardon the peaceful January 6 protesters, or as I often call them, the hostages,” Trump said in a speech this past May. “There has never been a group of people treated so harshly or unfairly in our country’s history.”
Trump’s claims that a large number of “peaceful” protesters are being held behind bars, however, is demonstrably false.
A HuffPost analysis of sentencing data shows that in the vast majority of cases, the people serving substantial prison time are those who committed violent crimes that day. And conversely, the vast majority of those prosecuted for nonviolent offenses either never went to jail in the first place or had such short sentences that they are already out.
Of those serving a year or more in prison, a full 57% are there following a conviction in cases involving an assault on a police officer. In all, 83% serving a year or more were convicted of committing an act of violence.
All of which means that, with few exceptions, the only people Trump could release from prison with his pardons are those who attacked a police officer, possessed weapons or explosives, or were convicted of some other violent felony.
“People who will be pardoned will be the violent ones. That’s who’s left to pardon. ... Those who went to jail were the most violent that day,” said Harry Dunn, a former Capitol police officer who was among the hundreds assaulted on Jan. 6.
In all, more than 140 members of the Capitol and the Washington, D.C., police departments were wounded by Trump’s followers that day. One died hours later and four others died by suicide over the coming months. Trump, though, has never acknowledged their injuries and deaths.
Trump’s aides, presented with HuffPost’s findings, would not address them directly, and instead referred to his comments to NBC News on the topic earlier this month in which he promised to start the pardon process on “Day 1,” would look at the cases individually but was inclined to pardon everyone except those who had acted “radical” or “crazy.”
But in that interview, Trump also provided indications that he was not particularly knowledgeable about the details of the prosecutions.
Trump, for example, said that Jan. 6 insurrectionists had been incarcerated “three or four years” in a “filthy, disgusting place that shouldn’t even be allowed to be open.”
In fact, it has not yet been four years since the Capitol assault, and the majority of the defendants were not arrested until many months later. And Trump’s “filthy, disgusting” description appears to refer to the District of Columbia jail, which at any given time has only held a couple of dozen defendants who are either awaiting trial or are about to be transferred to a federal prison after their conviction.
Trump in that interview also repeated favorite right-wing conspiracy theories about Jan. 6 ― that “Antifa” was behind the violence and that a man named Ray Epps actually instigated the attack.
What’s more, Trump said his pardons would also extend to those who actually pleaded guilty to assaulting officers because, in his view, the justice system is “corrupt,” and the accused were coerced into taking pleas. “Because they had no choice,” he said.
Further, the “radical” and “crazy” qualifiers for those who might not get pardons conflicts with dozens of statements at his rallies over the past three years in which he has promised to pardon all the Jan. 6 defendants.
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Middle East Wars, Reactions
New York Times, In Damascus, Syrians Reclaim Freedoms Off Limits Under Bashar al-Assad, Raja Abdulrahim, Photographs by Laura Boushnak, Jan. 5, 2025. Residents of Syria’s capital are picnicking on a once-forbidden mountaintop and trading dollars and imported Nescafe. They say the city seems theirs again.
Across Damascus, as in much of the country, Syrians are reclaiming, and in some cases embracing anew, spaces and freedoms that had been off limits for years under the Assad regime. There were places ordinary Syrians were not allowed to go and things that they were not permitted to say when the Assad family was in power. The country, many said, increasingly felt as if it did not belong to them.
But with the newfound sense of freedom comes some trepidation about the future under a government formed by Islamist rebels, and whether with time it might institute new restrictions and limitations.
Many Syrians are watching each decision and announcement as a harbinger of how their new rulers may govern. Last week, Syria’s de facto new leader, Ahmed al-Shara, said it could take two to three years to draft a new Constitution and up to four years to hold elections, alarming Syrians who fear they may have traded one authoritarian leader for another.New York Times, Saudi Arabia and U.A.E. Tread Cautiously With Syria’s New Leaderssing money from the drivers who contribute to it. The plan will help generate $15 billion for crucial upgrades to the region’s mass transit system.
New York Times, As Hopes Rise for Gaza Cease-Fire, Conditions There Have Only Worsened, Aryn Baker and Abu Bakr Bashir, Dec. 28, 2024. Israel says that it tries to limit the loss of civilian life. But the dire humanitarian situation has prompted condemnation from human rights organizations.
Even as mediators try to secure a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas, Palestinians and human rights organizations say the humanitarian situation is getting more desperate.
In the 14 months since Israel launched its invasion of Gaza in response to the Hamas-led terror attack on Israel, military bombardments have turned cities into rubble-filled wastelands and 90 percent of the population of about 2.1 million has been displaced at least once. Winter is adding to the misery. A doctor at a hospital in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, said that four infants in tent encampments had died from the cold in the past week.
Israel says that its target is Hamas and that it does everything possible to limit the loss of civilian life. But the increasingly dire humanitarian situation has prompted a particularly scathing chorus of condemnation from the United Nations and international human rights organizations.
Here is a closer look at three parts of Gaza’s humanitarian crisis.
Washington Post, U.S. amplifies strikes on Yemen’s Houthis as tensions with Israel flare, Missy Ryan, Jan. 1, 2024 (print ed.). The latest round of strikes occurred as the United States and its ally Israel struggle to halt a campaign of regional assaults by the Iranian-backed militant group.
The Biden administration directed new airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen on Tuesday, as the United States and its ally Israel struggle to halt a campaign of regional assaults by the Iranian-backed militant group.Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what's true, false or in-between in politics.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, said the attacks struck targets in coastal Yemen and the capital, Sanaa, including a command node and facilities used for manufacturing and storing weapons. The operations, which also included strikes on Monday, destroyed radar positions and one-way aerial drones, Centcom said in a statement.
Video provided by Centcom showed aircraft taking off from the USS Harry S. Truman, an aircraft carrier positioned in the Red Sea.
The strikes mark the latest salvo in a year-long U.S.-led campaign aimed at halting ongoing attacks by the Houthis, a militant group that functions as the de facto government in much of Yemen, on commercial ships and military vessels in nearby waters. The Houthis’ campaign has impaired global shipping and taken a major toll on U.S. allies reliant on related revenue.
New York Times, Investigation: Israel Loosened Its Rules to Bomb Hamas Fighters, Killing Many More Civilians, Patrick Kingsley, Natan Odenheimer, Bilal Shbair, Ronen Bergman, John Ismay, Sheera Frenkel and Adam Sella (The reporters interviewed more than 100 soldiers and officials in Israel, dozens of victims of the strikes in Gaza, and experts on the rules of armed conflict), Dec. 27, 2024 (print ed.).
Fearful of another Oct. 7-style attack, Israel weakened safeguards meant to protect noncombatants. One of the deadliest attacks of the 21st century followed.
At exactly 1 p.m. on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel’s military leadership issued an order that unleashed one of the most intense bombing campaigns in contemporary warfare.
Effective immediately, the order granted mid-ranking Israeli officers the authority to strike thousands of militants and military sites that had never been a priority in previous wars in Gaza. Officers could now pursue not only the senior Hamas commanders, arms depots and rocket launchers that were the focus of earlier campaigns, but also the lowest-ranking fighters.
In each strike, the order said, officers had the authority to risk killing up to 20 civilians.
The order, which has not previously been reported, had no precedent in Israeli military history. Mid-ranking officers had never been given so much leeway to attack so many targets, many of which had lower military significance, at such a high potential civilian cost.
It meant, for example, that the military could target rank-and-file militants as they were at home surrounded by relatives and neighbors, instead of only when they were alone outside.
In previous conflicts with Hamas, many Israeli strikes were approved only after officers concluded that no civilians would be hurt. Sometimes, officers could risk killing up to five civilians and only rarely did the limit rise to 10 or above, though the actual death toll was sometimes much higher.
On Oct. 7, the military leadership changed its rules of engagement because it believed that Israel faced an existential threat, according to a senior military officer who answered questions about the order on the condition of anonymity.
New York Times, Here Are 8 Ways Israel Weakened Civilian Protections, Samuel Granados, Patrick Kingsley and Natan Odenheimer, Dec. 26, 2024. Here are some of the main takeaways from the investigation.The Israeli military said its air force had struck a vehicle overnight in Nuseirat with a “terrorist cell” from the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad inside. Reports about journalists being targeted were “fake claims,” Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said on social media.
The media office of Gaza’s Hamas-run government said five journalists from Al Quds Today, a Palestinian television channel, were killed in an Israeli strike on their broadcast vehicle. The channel has regularly featured Islamic Jihad leaders and promoted the group’s ideology.
The office said this brought the number of journalists killed in Gaza to 201 since the start of the war in October last year.
The vehicle, bearing the word “Press” in red letters, was hit near the gates of Al Awda Hospital, according to a post on social media from Quds News Network, another Palestinian news outlet. The Israeli military has previously said that it has never deliberately targeted journalists but that it considers members of “an organized armed group,” such as the military wing of Hamas, or those who participate in hostilities, as lawful targets.
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Washington Post, Russia’s gas supply to Europe halted after Ukraine transit deal expires, Francesca Ebel and David L. Stern, Jan. 1, 2024. Ukraine, which had allowed Russian oil and gas to cross its territory to serve Europe while fighting Moscow’s invasion since 2022, refused to renew the deal.
Despite a brutal Russian invasion that has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians and laid waste to swaths of the country since 2022, Ukraine continued to allow Russian oil and gas to cross its territory to serve its European neighbors — generating revenue for Kyiv and Moscow and illustrating how hard it is for the bitter enemies to cut ties.
New York Times, Elon Musk Doubles Down on Support for German Far-Right Party, Christopher F. Schuetze, Dec. 28, 2024. The world’s richest man, a key adviser to President-elect Trump, ridiculed critics over his backing of the extremist party AfD, as Germany prepares for elections.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a close adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump, shocked many in Germany last week by endorsing its far-right Alternative for Germany party, which is under surveillance by domestic intelligence for being extremist.
This week, Mr. Musk entangled himself even more in the country’s snap election, explaining in a newspaper opinion essay why he believes the far-right party is the “last spark of hope” for Germany.
“The traditional parties have failed in Germany,” Mr. Musk wrote in comments published online by the daily Welt on Saturday. “Their policies have led to economic stagnation, social unrest, and the erosion of national identity.”
Mr. Musk’s opinion piece comes as Germany girds itself for an intense winter election after Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition collapsed in November. On Friday President Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany officially announced the disbandment of Parliament and set Feb. 23 as the date for new elections.
With four mainstream and three extremist parties on the left and right vying for seats in Parliament and government participation, polls are favoring the conservative Christian Democratic Union. However, the AfD, with its anti-immigrant platform, is polling in second place, with roughly 20 percent.
Mr. Musk’s commentary was printed in the Sunday edition of the Welt, a conservative daily owned by the Axel Springer media group, which also owns Politico in the United States. Many of the paper’s journalists protested the printing of the commentary, according to reports. Eva Marie Kogel, who had been the paper’s head of opinion, resigned from her post after the printing, she confirmed on X.
In an apparent acknowledgment that Mr. Musk’s thoughts on the AfD could be controversial, the paper printed a response by Jan Philipp Burgard, the editor in chief-designate on the same page.
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Lance Rosen Substack, The Trump Press Conference Gives Us A Clear Look Into The Abyss, Lance F Rosen, Jan. 7, 2025. I would say we have a category five emergency.
Taking Greenland by force is bad enough. It would be an attack on the sovereign territory of a NATO ally. Technically the US would be in violation of Article 5 of the NATO charter, which is what has held it together since its inception. "An attack on any member nation is an attack on all, therefore will be met with full retaliation," to paraphrase. Which of course will not under sny circumstances happen. At that precise moment, NATO is dead, the treaties notwithstanding.
This is how the forty-year long Russian asset intends to end it. He knows he will never get the NATO treaty repealed by the Senate, so this is his "work around."
At that point Ukraine is gone, and Putin will be free to establish hegemony in Europe. The US would retreat into "Fortress America," operating to conquer and colonize our hemisphere, surving through using our military to seize assets and raw materials. That is what explains his planned Panama gambit.
That is the dystopian future which the sabotage by the Democratic leadership is bringing us into, if we don't take the next 100 days to put it to a stop.
I keep telling everyone, the most important task, the key flank is derailing these nominations.
None of you that I know of is taking that up, or acting with an ounce of urgency.
What else should I say? Is anyone on board with what I am saying? We are running out of time. We have to jolt the Dem leadership into emergency actions now.
New York Times, U.S. Weighs Ban on Chinese Drones, Citing National Security Concerns, Ana Swanson, Jan. 3, 2025 (print ed.). The Commerce Department requested that companies comment on the implications of the rule by March. The final decision will fall to the Trump administration.
The Biden administration said on Thursday that it was considering a new rule that could restrict or ban Chinese drones in the United States out of national security concerns.
In a notice, the Commerce Department said the involvement of foreign adversaries — notably China and Russia — in the design, development, manufacture and supply of drones could pose “undue or unacceptable risk to U.S. national security.”
The notice requested private companies to comment on the scope and implications of the rule by March 4. The decision of what restrictions to impose, if any, on Chinese and Russian drones will fall to the Trump administration.
China and Russia have shown a willingness to compromise U.S. infrastructure and security through cyberespionage, the Commerce Department said, adding that the governments could leverage their laws and political situations to “co-opt private entities for national interests.”
Beyond the use of drones by hobbyists, the devices are employed in a variety of U.S. industries. They help farmers monitor crops and spray for pests, inspect pipelines for the chemical industry, survey bridges and construction sites, and aid firefighters and other emergency responders.
But drones have evolved over the past decade to include sophisticated cameras, receivers and artificial intelligence abilities, fueling concerns that they could be turned into a useful tool for an adversarial government.
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Russia, Russian War Against Ukraine
New York Times, Russia Targets West With Drones, Exploding Parcels and Sabotage, Lara Jakes, Jan. 5, 2025 (print ed.). Russia has become increasingly brazen in adopting “gray zone” attacks against Europe and the U.S., leaving officials with a dilemma: How to respond?
When mysterious drones began appearing over oil rigs and wind farms off Norway’s coast about three years ago, officials were not certain where they came from.
But “we knew what they were doing,” Stale Ulriksen, a researcher at the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy, said in a recent interview. “Some of it was espionage, where they are charting a lot of things. Some of it, I think, was positioning in case of a war or a deep crisis.”
The drones were suspected of being launched from Russian-controlled ships in the North Sea, Mr. Ulriksen said, including some ships that were near underwater energy pipelines. Norway could not do much to stop them, he added, given that they were flying over international waters.
In recent weeks, reports of drone swarms over the United States’ East Coast have brought fears of hybrid warfare to widespread attention. Only 100 out of 5,000 drone sightings there required further examination, U.S. officials said, and so far none are believed to have been foreign surveillance drones. But it is a different story for the drones spotted in late November and early December over military bases in England and Germany where American forces are stationed.
Military analysts have concluded those drones may have been on a state-sponsored surveillance mission, according to one U.S. official familiar with the incidents, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an open investigation. British and German defense officials declined to discuss details of the sightings.
Experts said the drones’ presence was indicative of a so-called hybrid or “gray zone” attack against the West, where a range of tactics — military, cyber, economic and even psychological — are used to covertly attack or destabilize an enemy.
As Russia, Iran and other hostile states become increasingly brazen in their hybrid attacks on Western countries — such as the hacking of sensitive computer systems and alleged assassination plots — defense officials face a thorny challenge. How to deter such acts without touching off a broader and potentially deadly conflict? And how to assign blame against the attacker when the strikes are designed to evade culpability?
New York Times Magazine, Ukraine Was Outgunned. Its Solution: Small, Cheap Suicide Drones, C.J. Chivers, Photographs and Video by David Guttenfelder, Jan. 5, 2025 (print ed.). Outnumbered and desperate, the nation began hacking cheap consumer drones with explosives — bringing a brutal new form of violence to 21st-century warfare.
Known as first-person-view drones, or FPVs, the weapons have altered the human experience of war and flooded the internet with footage chronicling the desperate last seconds of lives ended by miniaircraft that transmit video of the people they pursue, then smack into them and explode.
Its camera revealed a surprise: a Russian T-80 tank parked in the foliage. A $3 million military machine had been discovered by a $400 repurposed toy.
The tank was well defended. Its crew had backed the 44-ton vehicle into undergrowth, blocking access to its vulnerable exhaust grate. Slats of reactive armor, which can thwart armor-piercing charges, bedecked its sloped front end. Its rotating turret carried a metal frame and netting, a combination derisively referred to as a cope cage, designed to snag drones and prevent warheads from making direct strikes on hulls. All its hatches were closed, blocking Prorok from flying the warhead inside.
In the past, attacking an armored vehicle with such a warhead typically required a soldier to risk exposure to take a hasty shot with a rocket-propelled grenade, sending a projectile at almost 1,000 feet per second that may not hit the vehicle at all. Weaponized FPV drones have created a new way. In the field south of Belgorod, the combination of the tank’s defensive measures and the drone’s peculiar characteristics made for an exercise that was almost surreal. Time seemed to slow down. The little drone hovered patiently before the massive military machine, rising and falling, swaying on the breeze, emitting its high-pitched buzz while Prorok flew it safely from afar, deciding his attack’s best place, which he could strike with uncanny precision.
Prorok selected the turret’s base, where armor was thinner. “Yes, yes,” Buryi said. Prorok leaned forward as he pushed the flight controller and the drone plunged into the spot. The screen went blank. Watching from the surveillance drone, Andy called out. “I see an explosion!” he said.
Alexander Dugin, a far-right writer and ideologue known as “Putin’s brain,” is seen in 2016 in his studio in Moscow (Photo by Francesca Ebel of the Associated Press).
Washington Post, U.S. imposes Russia, Iran sanctions over attempted election interference, Jeff Stein, Jan. 1, 2024 (print ed.). The Treasury Department accused a Russian entity of having “manipulated a video” about a vice-presidential candidate.
The Treasury Department announced new sanctions Tuesday on Iranian and Russian entities accused of trying to interfere with the U.S. 2024 elections, including by allegedly using artificial intelligence to disseminate false information.Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what's true, false or in-between in politics.
In its statement, Treasury said it was imposing sanctions on both a subsidiary of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and an affiliate of Russia’s military intelligence agency over their efforts to “stoke sociopolitical tensions and influence the U.S. electorate during the 2024 election.”
Treasury’s statement also said the Russian entity used AI tools to “quickly create disinformation that would be distributed across a massive network” of fake news websites and produced “baseless accusations” about a 2024 vice-presidential candidate, whom Treasury declined to identify.
Although the sanctions target relatively minor entities and are unlikely to have major economic effects, they reflect the deteriorating relationship between the United States and two of its chief geopolitical adversaries. President Joe Biden is weighing much more far-reaching sanctions against Russia’s energy sector, while President-elect Donald Trump is expected to try to significantly increase economic pressure on Tehran.
“The Governments of Iran and Russia have targeted our election processes and institutions and sought to divide the American people through targeted disinformation campaigns,” Bradley Smith, Treasury’s acting undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement. “The United States will remain vigilant against adversaries who would undermine our democracy.”
Sanctions were imposed on the Center for Geopolitical Expertise (CGE), a Moscow-based group founded by Aleksandr Dugin, whom Treasury had 
already sanctioned in 2015. Treasury accused the center of working closely with the Russian military intelligence service that “oversees sabotage, political interference operations and cyberwarfare” against the West. Dugin's daughter, Darya Dugina, shown in an image circulated on X by @AlexKokcharov, was another ultra nationalist killed in car bomb attack that some suspect was aimed at her father.
In its statement, Treasury said the intelligence service both directed and provided financial support to the center to influence the 2024 presidential election. With that support, Treasury said, the center maintained a network of “at least 100 websites” for its “disinformation operations,” through which it pushed false information.
“CGE and its personnel used generative AI tools to quickly create disinformation that would be distributed across a massive network of websites designed to imitate legitimate news outlets to create false corroboration between the stories, as well as to obfuscate their Russian origin,” the Treasury statement said.
The Russian center also “manipulated a video” to “produce baseless accusations concerning a 2024 vice-presidential candidate,” Treasury said. Treasury did not identify the video, but The Washington Post and other news organizations reported in October that, according to U.S. intelligence officials, Moscow was behind a faked video and other material smearing Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz with abuse allegations. Separately, Microsoft researchers said this fall that Russian entities had circulated false videos on social media in which an actor accused Vice President Kamala Harris of a nonexistent hit-and-run.
The sanctions also target the Cognitive Design Production Center, a subsidiary of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, over its “influence operations,” according to the Treasury Department. The Justice Department previously charged three men with an alleged hack-and-leak attack against Trump’s presidential campaign.
Washington Post, Putin says he saved Russia, but a year of challenges suggests Moscow’s position is precarious, Mary Ilyushina, Jan. 1, 2024 (print ed.). Marking 25 years in office, Vladimir Putin says he has remade Russia as a sovereign power and will prevail in Ukraine, but economic and strategic setbacks complicate the picture.
When Russia’s first democratically elected president, Boris Yeltsin, resigned on New Year’s Eve in 1999, he publicly implored Vladimir Putin, his handpicked but little-known successor, to “take care of Russia.”A quarter-century later, Putin insists he has done just that — and more.
As he wrapped up his marathon year-end news conference on Dec. 19, Putin boasted that he had thwarted efforts by the United States and its Western allies to subjugate Russia after the Soviet Union fell apart.
“I have not just taken care of it, but I believe we have stepped back from the edge of the abyss,” he declared, in response to a question about Yeltsin’s remark.
“I have done everything so that Russia can be an independent and sovereign state that is capable of making decisions in its interests,” Putin said, “rather than in the interests of the countries that were dragging it toward them, patting it on the back, only to use it for their own purposes.”
But as 2024 draws to a close, Russia is in a far more precarious place than Putin’s rhetoric and bravado suggest. His forces are making slow but steady advances in Ukraine, but estimates by some NATO countries suggest hundreds of thousands of Russian troops have been killed or wounded in the war, which has dragged on for nearly three years.
Washington Post, U.S. Treasury says it was hacked by China-backed intruder, Pranshu Verma and Ellen Nakashima, Dec. 31, 2024 (print ed.). The department told lawmakers that the breach gained access to government workstations and unclassified documents.
The U.S. Treasury Department said Monday that it was hacked by a Chinese state-sponsored actor who gained access to government workstations and unclassified documents, according to a letter reviewed by The Washington Post.Get concise answers to your questions. Try Ask The Post AI.
The department was notified Dec. 8 by a third-party software provider, BeyondTrust, that a hacker had gained access to a security key, which allowed the intruder to override certain security protocols and access some Treasury Department office workstations and unclassified documents stored on them, according to the letter notifying the Senate Banking Committee leadership of the breach.
The Treasury Department labeled the breach a “major incident,” in line with department policy that, according to the letter, categorizes nation-state intrusions as “major.” Once Treasury was alerted to the issue, it contacted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and it has taken the BeyondTrust service offline, according to a Treasury spokesperson. There is no evidence the hacker still has access to Treasury systems, the spokesperson said.
New York Times, Putin Apologizes for Kazakhstan Crash but Stops Short of Taking Responsibility, Anatoly Kurmanaev, Dec. 28, 2024.President Vladimir Putin of Russia called his Azerbaijani counterpart, the Kremlin said, to apologize for the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Saturday apologized for the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane this past week, breaking the Kremlin’s three-day silence on the accident that killed 38 people. He did not explicitly acknowledge Russia’s responsibility for the crash.
Mr. Putin “offered his apologies” for the crash in a phone call to his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, the Kremlin said in a statement. Mr. Putin initiated the phone call, according to the statement, and told Mr. Aliyev “that the tragic incident took place in Russian airspace.”
Mr. Putin said that as the plane approached its scheduled destination of Grozny, in southern Russia, Russian air defenses had begun to repulse an attack by Ukrainian drones on the Grozny airport and others nearby, according to the Kremlin.
Aviation experts and U.S. officials believe a Russian air-defense missile may have mistakenly downed the passenger jet. The Kremlin statement stopped short of attributing the crash to a Russian missile, but in its own statement acknowledging the apology, Azerbaijan’s presidential office suggested that was indeed the cause.
New York Times, Plane Crash Investigators Focus on Russian Air Defenses as Possible Cause, Ivan Nechepurenko, Dec. 27, 2024 (print ed.).Russian aviation authorities said the Azerbaijan Airlines plane had hit a flock of birds. But some experts cast doubt on that account, pointing to footage showing apparent holes in the fuselage.Listen to this article · 5:51 min Learn more
As authorities in several countries tried to determine what caused the deadly crash of a passenger airplane in Kazakhstan, investigators and experts on Thursday were focusing on the possibility that a Russian air defense system had struck the plane.
Aviation experts cast doubt on a Russian agency’s contention that the Azerbaijan Airlines jet had hit a flock of birds, saying images of the crash site show holes in the plane’s fuselage that appeared unlikely to have been caused by them.
The jet had been flying on Wednesday morning from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to Grozny, in Russia’s Chechnya republic, at a time when drone strikes were taking place around Grozny and Russian air defense systems were responding, according to residents and local news media reports.
Two Azerbaijanis briefed on a government inquiry said that Azerbaijani officials now believe that a Russian Pantsir-S defense system damaged the plane. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing. Caliber, a news outlet in Azerbaijan that is close to the government, also reported that the country’s investigators believe a Russian Pantsir system was responsible.-
New York Times, Analysis: Has Russia’s Shadow Fleet, Built to Evade Sanctions, Engaged in Sabotage? Michael Schwirtz, Dec. 28, 2024. Russia has assembled a fleet of hundreds of vessels to covertly ship its oil. The idea of using some to cause havoc may be proving irresistible to the Kremlin.
Western officials have long been concerned about Moscow’s so-called shadow fleet, an assemblage of aged tankers created to covertly carry Russian crude oil around the world. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the worry primarily concerned the use of such off-the-books ships to circumvent Western sanctions and generate revenue to fuel the Kremlin’s war machine.
But Russia’s shadow fleet may now present a more pressing danger to the West.
This week, Finnish commandos boarded an oil tanker that officials suspect had cut through vital underwater cables in the Baltic Sea, including one that carries electricity between Finland and Estonia. The ship, the Eagle S, bears all the hallmarks of vessels belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet, officials said, and had embarked from a Russian port shortly before the cables were cut.
If confirmed, it would be the first known instance of a shadow fleet vessel being used to intentionally sabotage critical infrastructure in Europe — and, officials and experts said, a clear escalation by Russia in its conflict with the West.
New York Times, Finland Says Vessel Suspected of Cutting Cable May Be Part of Russia’s ‘Shadow Fleet,’ Johanna Lemola and Lynsey Chutel, Dec. 27, 2024 (print ed.). Finland seized an oil tanker after the latest in a series of disruptions to undersea infrastructure.
The Finnish authorities seized an oil tanker on Thursday on the suspicion that it was involved in cutting vital undersea cables and said the ship might have been part of Russia’s “shadow fleet,” aimed at evading Western sanctions.
In a statement, the police in Finland said the authorities had boarded the Eagle S tanker in Finnish waters. The ship, which is registered in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific, had been sailing from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Port Said, Egypt, when it was detained.
The police said they were investigating whether the vessel was involved in the latest suspected act of sabotage on undersea infrastructure: the cutting on Wednesday of the Estlink 2 submarine cable, which carries electricity between Finland and Estonia. The Finnish authorities said Thursday that four other cables carrying data also had been damaged. The police called the latest cable cuts “aggravated vandalism.”
The Finnish authorities said the tanker might be part of Russia’s shadow fleet, which emerged as a way to circumvent Western-imposed price caps on Russian oil transported by sea. The caps were introduced several months after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Washington Post, In major shift, Zelensky appears open to negotiating an end to the war, Isabelle Khurshudyan and Ellen Francis, Dec. 24, 2024 (print ed.). A new U.S. president and battlefield realities appear to be pushing Ukraine’s leader, who had long insisted on fighting for every inch of occupied land, to the table.
As Ukrainian forces struggle to hold off Russia’s army on the battlefield and President-elect Donald Trump looks to broker a peace deal, President Volodymyr Zelensky has in recent weeks signaled a greater willingness for negotiations to end the war — a major shift for the Ukrainian leader, who had long vowed to fight for every last inch of his country’s land.Get concise answers to your questions. Try Ask The Post AI.
Zelensky’s messaging has been careful; he has not explicitly said Kyiv would agree to concessions — territorial or otherwise — even while Russia occupies more than 20 percent of Ukraine and would probably retain control of that land after any ceasefire. But after previously stating that negotiations could begin only once Moscow withdrew all its troops, Zelensky is now emphasizing the need for long-term security rather than the immediate return of territory.
Zelensky’s change in rhetoric — something Ukrainian and Western officials have noticed — can probably be attributed to a worsening situation on the front line and an incoming U.S. administration that has put future security assistance for Kyiv in doubt. Ukrainian officials throughout the first year of the war stressed the importance of reclaiming all of Ukraine’s land, including Crimea and other areas Russia has effectively ruled since 2014, as a condition for any deal.
In recent meetings with Trump and European leaders, however, Zelensky has focused more on what he has referred to as “lasting peace” for Ukraine. The top priority is securing an invite to the NATO military alliance and other security guarantees, such as the possible presence of Western peacekeepers, to prevent future Russian attacks.
Officials and analysts said Zelensky’s tone shift is probably an attempt to be more in line with Trump’s emphasis on halting the conflict. But the Ukrainian leader is also trying to ensure his country doesn’t come out empty-handed.
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Politico, Driver Rams Christmas Market in Germany, Killing at Least 2 in Suspected Attack, Christopher F. Schuetze, Dec. 20, 2024. Video showed a car plowing into a large crowd in the city of Magdeburg. The driver, identified as a 50-year-old Saudi Arabian citizen who worked as a doctor, was arrested
A driver plowed a vehicle into a Christmas market in the central German city of Magdeburg on Friday evening, killing an adult and a small child and injuring dozens of other people in what officials indicated was a targeted attack.
The driver was arrested, the authorities said. He was identified as a 50-year-old Saudi Arabian citizen who first came to Germany in 2006 and worked as a doctor in a small town 25 miles south of Magdeburg, officials said.
Saudi Arabia condemned the attack in a statement by its Foreign Ministry that did not mention the suspect. “The Kingdom expresses its solidarity with the German people and the families of the victims,” the statement said.
More than 65 people were injured, 14 of them severely, said Michael Reif, the spokesman for Magdeburg. The authorities say they believe it was a deliberate attack. They are working to determine a motive, said Reiner Haseloff, the governor of Saxony-Anhalt state, where Magdeburg is the capital.your times accessHave a moment? Play these games.Connections
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“Every human life lost in this attack is a terrible tragedy and one human life too many,” a visibly shaken Mr. Haseloff told reporters on Friday night.200 mi.300 km.© Mapbox © OpenStreetMap
Nancy Faeser, who as Germany’s interior minister is responsible for public safety, said in a statement: “The shocking act in Magdeburg a few days before Christmas hits us in the heart. We continue to fear for the lives of the seriously injured and mourn the people who were torn from life by this terrible act.”
Before leaving his post in November, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, Thomas Haldenwang, warned that the country’s threat level was higher because of the war in Middle East.
“The danger is real and more acute than it has been in a long time,” he said at the time.
More than 1,000 temporary Christmas markets pop up every year in Germany, and they have been the target of terrorists in the past. Last month, the police in Germany arrested two teenagers suspected of exchanging plans about attacking a Christmas market, but those alleged plans appear to have nothing to do with the attack on Friday.Editors’ PicksMy Neighbor Won’t Stop Praying for Me. What Should I Do?A Woman on Our Girls’ Trip Has Grown Snarky. Can We Stop Inviting Her?Skiing’s Budget Secret: It Can Be Cheaper in Europe
In 2016, an extremist rammed a truck into a crowd in Berlin, killing 13. Since then, the police have secured many Christmas markets with temporary barriers.
It remains unclear how the driver in Magdeburg was able to circumvent the barriers that were protecting the market. The car drove some 1,200 feet before it stopped, officials said.
The authorities said the driver had rented a car before plowing it into the market on the last Friday before Christmas, when it was especially crowded with visitors. Many police officers were at the site. The area around the market was closed after the episode, a police spokeswoman said.
The attack in Germany inspired additional security measures around Christmas markets thousands of miles away, in New York City.
The New York Police Department said in a statement on Friday: “The N.Y.P.D. has been closely monitoring recent events in Germany and coordinating with federal and international partners. While we have not identified any specific/credible threats to New York City at this time, resources have been deployed to various Christmas markets and other locations throughout the city out of an abundance of caution.”
The city of Magdeburg, population 240,000, used to be part of Communist East Germany. The year’s Christmas market is in the old market square, just in front of City Hall.
Surveillance footage circulating on social media and verified by The New York Times on Friday shows a car plowing into a large crowd at the Christmas market. The car then turns right onto another crowded street. Video of the aftermath shows people helping the wounded as cries are heard.
“The reports from Magdeburg are alarming,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in social media post. “My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
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NYPD Chief Jeffrey Maddrey attends a news conference outside New York City Police Department 40th Precinct, July 17, 2023, in New York. (AP File photo by Jeenah Moon).
Associated Press, Top-ranking NYPD officer abruptly resigns amid sexual misconduct allegations, Philip Marcelou, Dec. 22, 2024. The highest-ranking uniformed officer in the New York Police Department has resigned amid allegations he demanded sex from a subordinate in exchange for opportunities to earn extra pay.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch accepted Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey ’s resignation Friday night, effective immediately, according to a department statement Saturday.
Chief of Patrol John Chell will take over as interim chief of department, and Philip Rivera will assume Chell’s duties as the head of the patrol division, the NYPD said.
Late Saturday, Tisch replaced the head of the internal affairs bureau, which investigates alleged police misconduct, saying in a statement that the unit “must always be dedicated to preserving integrity and rooting out corruption in all its forms.” She appointed Edward Thompson as interim chief after Miguel Iglesias was relieved of his command.
The NYPD declined to comment on the allegations against Maddrey other than to say it “takes all allegations of sexual misconduct seriously and will thoroughly investigate this matter.”
A lawyer for his accuser, Lt. Quathisha Epps, said the move was overdue.
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U.S. Immigration
New York Times, Trump Vowed Mass Deportations. Mexico and Central America Brace for Impact, Emiliano Rodríguez Mega, Jan. 7, 2025. Donald J. Trump has said that Mexico is allowing an “invasion” of migrants into the United States. But the current situation on the ground tells a different story: Unlawful crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border dropped sharply last year.
Crossings into the United States from Mexico dropped sharply last year. But countries south of the U.S. border are waiting nervously to see if President-elect Donald J. Trump orders mass deportations.
The possibility that millions of undocumented immigrants could be expelled — what would be the largest deportation program in American history — has sent shock waves through Latin America and sowed confusion among migrants and asylum seekers.
“We see dark times coming for the migrant community,” said Irineo Mujica, the Mexico director of People Without Borders, a transnational advocacy group. “Anyone who falls prey to the Trump administration is now going to be devoured, chewed up and spat out.”
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U.S. Jobs, Investment, Economy, Pensions
Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: United States Stock Market On Pace For Best Two Year Period This Century, Aaron Parnas, Dec. 31, 2024. The Biden Administration's economic policy is working.
The United States stock market is expected to have its best two year stretch this entire century, achieving a feat that has only happened a few times in history. According to latest numbers, the S&P 500 is set to gain over 20% this year.
This comes one year after the index rose 24%. Should these results hold, which they will for all intents and purposes, it would be the best performance for the index since 1997 and 1998.
According to statistics over the past two centuries, this type of performance by the index has only occurred three other times, in 1927 and 1928, in 1935 and 1936, and again in 1954 and 1955. This would mean that the current pace for the market is one that has been achieved only four other times in our nation's history.
In total, the S&P 500 is now up over 60% of the past two years, marking significant gains from 2022 which saw the index fall about 20%. Today's news is a testament to the Biden-Harris Administration's economic policy which has successfully ushered the United States out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is now almost certain that the economy will achieve the vaunted soft landing, ensuring that the United States stays out of a recession following extremely high inflation. It also means that the incoming Trump Administration will now be inheriting a booming, record breaking economy.
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Energy, Transportation, Climate Change, Environment, Space
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New York Times, Why the Blazes Overwhelmed L.A.’s Well-Trained Firefighters, Thomas Fuller, Alexandra Berzon, Kellen Browning and Shawn Hubler, Jan. 12, 2025 (print ed.). Officials say there simply weren’t enough firefighters to quell the wildfires, but questions are being raised about whether modern fires require a new playbook.
The alert came in blaring, hot-pink, all-caps: Be prepared for a “LIFE THREATENING & DESTRUCTIVE WINDSTORM!!!”
The notice on Monday was one in a series of warnings issued by the National Weather Service about the powerful Santa Ana winds that were about to blow through Southern California, which hadn’t seen serious rain in months.
Officials in Los Angeles, a city that is accustomed to treacherous fire conditions, turned to a well-worn playbook. The city predeployed nine trucks in vulnerable areas and called in 90 extra firefighters. The county fire department moved 30 extra engines into the field and called up 100 off-duty firefighters. The U.S. Forest Service brought in trucks and support units, as well as bulldozers, helicopters and planes.
But by Tuesday afternoon, five hours after a fire ignited high in a canyon in the oceanside Pacific Palisades neighborhood, it was clear their preparations would not be enough. As furious wind gusts approaching 100 miles per hour tore through the city and propelled showers of embers that ignited entire neighborhoods, Anthony Marrone, the chief of the Los Angeles County Fire Department, stood at a command post on the edge of the Pacific Ocean.
New York Times, Biggest L.A. Fire Spreads Despite Calmer Winds, Yan Zhuang, Amy Graff and Jonathan Wolfe, Jan. 12, 2025 (print ed.). Dry terrain helped the giant Palisades blaze grow, prompting officials to expand mandatory evacuation orders to Brentwood, including the Getty Center.
Washington Post, Pacific Palisades fire erupts, spurring evacuations in California amid strong winds, Staff Report, Jan. 7, 2025. "‘Let’s get out of here’: Palisades residents flee fire.
An ominous fire broke out Tuesday near the Pacific Palisades — a coastal neighborhood on the west side of Los Angeles — and quickly exploded. The fire has grown to at least 2,921 acres, according to Cal Fire. Evacuation orders were issued as officials ordered residents in notoriously winding hillside neighborhoods to leave immediately.
Smoke plumes spread rapidly, moving toward structures and homes. A large swath of residences in Topanga Canyon, a woodsy, tucked-away community with one winding road in and out, are under evacuation warnings. The fire sparked amid a “life-threatening and destructive” windstorm event that is sweeping through a region that has not seen significant rain since spring. The Palisades Fire has now grown to at least 2,921 acres and is zero percent contained, according to a 6:18 p.m. update from Cal Fire. State fire officials are warning of extreme fire behavior — including short and long-range spotting — and say that wind gusts of up to 60 mph are expected to continue through Thursday. The cause is still under investigation.
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Media, High Tech, Culture, Education
New York Times, CNN Ordered to Pay at Least $5 Million for Defaming Security Contractor, Michael M. Grynbaum, Jan. 17, 2025. The jury decision came after a two-week trial where lawyers for the contractor argued that the network had falsely accused him of illegal activity.
A jury in Florida on Friday found CNN liable for defaming a private security contractor in a five-minute segment that ran on the network in November 2021.
The jury ordered the company to pay at least $5 million in damages, plus any potential punitive damages that have yet to be determined.
News organizations are facing an increasingly adverse legal and political environment. There are robust First Amendment protections for journalists, and plaintiffs in defamation cases must prove that a news outlet published false information despite knowing the information was wrong.
But public opinion has turned sharply against news organizations, just as financial constraints on the industry’s business model have made it tougher to fend off suits. ABC News surprised industry observers last month when it agreed to pay $15 million to settle a defamation claim brought by President-elect Donald J. Trump.
New York Times, MSNBC's President Rashida Jones Stepping Down, Benjamin Mullin and Michael M. Grynbaum, Jan. 14, 2025. The president of MSNBC, Rashida Jones, is stepping down from that position, the company said on Tuesday, a major change at the news network just days before President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office.
Rebecca Kutler, senior vice president for content strategy at MSNBC, will succeed Ms. Jones as interim president, effective immediately. Ms. Jones will stay on in an advisory role through March.
“Rebecca is the ideal leader to guide us through this moment, and I look forward to collaborating with her as we shape our collective future together,” Mark Lazarus, the chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group, said in a note to staffers.
Ms. Jones’s exit comes amid industrywide pressure for the cable news industry, which has seen declining ratings after the U.S. presidential election. MSNBC has been the second most-watched cable network during that period, ahead of CNN but behind longtime ratings leader Fox News.
Executives at the network are hopeful that audiences will return as Mr. Trump takes office and viewers seek to dissect his early policy moves. On Monday, the company announced that Rachel Maddow, its most popular host, would temporarily return to broadcasting her one-hour show every weeknight at 9 p.m. Eastern for Mr. Trump’s first 100 days in office.
MSNBC is among a bundle of cable channels that its parent company, Comcast, is planning to spin out later this year into a new company. CNBC, another news channel in Comcast’s cable portfolio, is also being spun out, along with entertainment networks like USA and Syfy.
Ms. Kutler is a cable news executive with experience in the streaming business. Before joining MSNBC in 2022, Ms. Kutler was a key architect of CNN+, the ambitious streaming news service that was shut down by Warner Bros. Discovery that year.
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Jan. 17
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President-elect Donald Trump with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump's nominee to become U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (Photo via Getty Images)
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Top Stories
New York Times, An Illustrated Guide to Trump’s Conflict of Interest Risks, Karen Yourish, Eric Lipton and Lazaro Gamio, Jan. 17, 2025. President-elect Trump has a range of new business ventures that could expose him to even greater potential conflicts of interest than during his first term.
During his first administration, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s global business empire created an unprecedented number of conflicts of interest for a sitting president. Ethics experts worried that opportunists could try to curry favor by booking stays at Mr. Trump’s network of hotels, golf clubs and other properties.
Their predictions bore out: Foreign governments and lobbyists spent lavishly at his Washington hotel, which has since been sold, as well as at his Mar-a-Lago resort and other properties. The federal government itself also became an awkward customer by renting millions of dollars’ worth of rooms at his hotels and clubs.
Those concerns now seem almost quaint in light of some of Mr. Trump’s more recent business ventures. They include a publicly traded company, a cryptocurrency venture, new overseas real estate deals involving state-affiliated entities and numerous branding and licensing deals.
The new additions to Mr. Trump’s portfolio could provide more direct avenues for those wishing to influence a sitting president or even to try to extort him, according to some outside ethics lawyers.Some of the new international real estate deals are among the most potentially worrisome.
Several of Mr. Trump’s recent real estate projects have connections to foreign governments in the Middle East, raising concerns that Mr. Trump’s financial interests could influence foreign policy.
New York Times, U.S. Faces Record Debt Levels as Republicans Plan Tax Cuts, Alan Rappeport, Jan. 17, 2025. The Congressional Budget Office forecasts that annual deficits will top $21 trillion over the next decade.
The United States is poised to add trillions of dollars to the national debt over the next decade as the mounting costs of social safety net programs and growing interest expenses dig the nation into a deeper fiscal hole, according to a report released on Friday by the Congressional Budget Office.
The new budget forecasts predicted that the United States will record a $1.9 trillion budget deficit this fiscal year and that annual deficits over the next decade will total $21.1 trillion. That will be piled on to a national debt that currently exceeds $36 trillion.
By 2035, the debt as a share of the U.S. economy will rise to 118 percent, the largest in history. The debt is currently 100 percent of gross domestic product.
Although the figures show slightly smaller deficits than what the C.B.O. projected last June, thanks to higher salaries and stock values, the nation’s fiscal situation is poised to become far more precarious.
New York Times, Trump Transition: Kennedy Sought to Stop Covid Vaccinations 6 Months After Rollout, Christina Jewett, Jan. 17, 2025. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. petitioned the F.D.A. to revoke authorization of the shots at a time when they were in high demand and considered life-saving.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice to lead the nation’s health agencies, formally asked the Food and Drug Administration to revoke the authorization of all Covid vaccines during a deadly phase of the pandemic when thousands of Americans were still dying every week.
Mr. Kennedy filed a petition with the F.D.A. in May 2021 demanding that officials rescind authorization for the shots and refrain from approving any Covid vaccine in the future.
Just six months earlier, Mr. Trump had declared the Covid vaccines a miracle. At the time Mr. Kennedy filed the petition, half of American adults were receiving their shots. Schools were reopening and churches were filling.
Estimates had begun to show that the rapid rollout of Covid vaccines had already saved about 140,000 lives in the United States.
The petition was filed on behalf of the nonprofit that Mr. Kennedy founded and led, Children’s Health Defense. It claimed that the risks of the vaccines outweighed the benefits and that the vaccines weren’t necessary because good treatments were available, including ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, which had already been deemed ineffective against the virus.
The petition received little notice when it was filed. Mr. Kennedy was then on the fringes of the public health establishment, and the agency denied it within months. Public health experts told about the filing said it was shocking.
John Moore, a professor of immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College, called Mr. Kennedy’s request to the F.D.A. “an appalling error of judgment.” Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health, likened having Mr. Kennedy lead the federal health agencies to “putting a flat earther in charge of NASA.”
Dr. Robert Califf, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, described Mr. Kennedy’s effort to halt the use of Covid vaccines as a “massive error.”
Mr. Kennedy’s transition spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment, but has said recently that he does not want to take vaccines away.
Asked in November by an NBC reporter about his general opposition to Covid vaccines — and whether he would have stopped authorization — Mr. Kennedy said he was concerned that the vaccines did not prevent transmission of the virus.
New York Times, Justices Back Law Requiring TikTok to Be Sold or Banned, Adam Liptak, Jan. 17, 2025. Unanimous Decision Sets Up Ban as Early as Sunday. The decision came a week after the justices heard a First Amendment challenge to a law aimed at the wildly popular short-form video platform used by 170 million Americans that the government fears could be influenced by China.
The Supreme Court ruled against TikTok on Friday, rejecting the social media company’s First Amendment challenge to the law that effectively bans it in the United States starting on Sunday.
The unanimous decision may deal a death blow to the U.S. operations of the wildly popular app, which serves up short-form videos that are a leading source of information and entertainment to tens of millions of Americans, especially younger ones.
“There is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement and source of community,” the decision said. “But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary.”
President Biden signed the law last spring after it passed in Congress with wide bipartisan support. Lawmakers said the app’s ownership was a risk because the Chinese government’s oversight of private companies allowed it to retrieve sensitive information about Americans or to spread covert disinformation or propaganda.
Although TikTok’s lawyer told the justices last week that the app would “go dark” if it lost the case, it was not clear how quickly a shutdown would play out. At a minimum, app store operators like Apple and Google face significant penalties imposed by the law if they distribute and update the TikTok app.
The app stores and cloud providers have a strong incentive to comply with the ban on TikTok. Under the law, those companies would pay penalties as high as $5,000 per user who is able to gain access to the app inside the United States if the ban takes effect.
New York Times, A Timeline of TikTok’s Rise and Fall, Madison Malone Kircher and Remy Tumin, Jan. 17, 2025. What started as “the dance app” spawned countless memes, launched lucrative careers and shaped entire industries. Here’s how it got here.
In its infancy, TikTok was often described as an app for teenagers’ dance videos. In 2025, it’s a juggernaut with 170 million users in the United States and, according to the Justice Department, a national security threat that must be eliminated.
The platform’s path from a whimsical dance app to the target of a federal ban has been dotted with recipes, niche drama, micro trends, new entries into the popular lexicon and overnight megastars — as well as legal troubles, Senate hearings and, finally, a widely watched Supreme Court case.
Here’s a timeline of the app’s meteoric rise, and a reminder of the videos that dominated your algorithm, whether you wanted them to or not.
New York Times, U.S. Ban of TikTok Is Set to Deal a Major Blow to ByteDance, Its Chinese Owner, Erin Griffith, Jan. 17, 2025. While TikTok remains hugely popular in Brazil, Indonesia and other markets, its 170 million users in the United States are its most valuable.
The ban of TikTok in the United States is set to create a glaring hole in social media. For ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company in China, it also could create a glaring hole in its business.
The ban, which was signed into federal law last year and upheld by the Supreme Court on Friday, is a major blow to ByteDance, the world’s second-most valuable private technology company, worth $300 billion. At least a chunk of the company’s value is tied to its success in the United States, where TikTok has 170 million monthly users, according to analyst estimates.
TikTok has a larger audience outside the United States — it has 1.2 billion to 1.8 billion monthly users around the world, with its largest markets including Indonesia and Brazil — but the app’s American users are the most valuable, analysts said. TikTok makes money through ads, as well as by selling goods through its TikTok Shop, which pays influencers a commission to hawk beauty products, gadgets, clothes and other items. Social networks typically get their highest “revenue per user” in the United States.
“The U.S. market is the most profitable market of any market by a long shot,” said Mark Zgutowicz, an analyst at Benchmark Company. TikTok took in an estimated $10 billion in revenue in the United States last year, he said, out of a total global revenue estimated at $20 billion to $26 billion.
New York Times, Live Updates: Israeli Cabinet Takes Up Gaza Cease-Fire in Final Step to Approval, Aaron Boxerman, Adam Rasgon and Ephrat Livni, Jan. 17, 2025. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the deal, which is expected to get sign off from the full cabinet, could go into effect as early as Sunday.
New York Times, Gazans to Return Home After 15 Months of War, Vivian Yee and Bilal Shbair, Jan. 17, 2025. They daydreamed about the people they would hug as soon as the truce took hold, the graves they would visit and the homes they would rebuild.
It is almost over, the end so close they can practically feel the keys they have kept all these months sliding into the locks of their old homes, the doorknobs turning in their hands, the beds they will sink into for their first night’s peaceful rest in more than 15 months — their own beds. Just a couple more days to go.
Two nights before the first stage of a cease-fire in Gaza was announced, Layan al-Mohtaseb, 15, dreamed of being back in her bedroom in Gaza City, cleaning it as she used to before her family fled during the war.
“This time, it feels like we’re truly going home,” she said.
That may be true only for those whose homes are still standing after months of destruction. And there is always a chance the fighting might resume after the six-week initial truce if talks over a permanent one collapsed. But across Gaza, people were daydreaming of the first moments of peace, the people they would hug as soon as the truce took hold, the graves they would visit. They already knew they would be shedding tears, tears they hardly knew whether to attribute to joy or to grief.
New York Times, Pledging Independence, Bondi Spars with Democrats but Echoes Trump, Glenn Thrush, Devlin Barrett and Adam Goldman, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.). Pam Bondi cast herself as an independent prosecutor who would keep politics out of the Justice Department if confirmed as Donald Trump’s attorney general.
Pam Bondi, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for attorney general, refused to explicitly say she would defy White House pressure — or admit that Mr. Trump lost the 2020 election — and instead offered a promise that “politics will not play a part” in her work at a confirmation hearing on Wednesday that repeatedly turned heated.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee accused her time and again of failing to answer simple questions on election denialism, prosecution of the news media and her stance on an administration meddling in the department. But the committee’s members from the Republican Party, which controls the Senate, were united in their support for Ms. Bondi, appearing to give her a smooth path to confirmation.
As Bondi’s hearing nears its end, she gets a soft-spoken warning from Senator Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who fought with her earlier in the day.
“Our concern comes when that loyalty to the president conflicts with your duty,” said Schiff, insisting such a moment will arise because it happened to her predecessors. “It came to everyone, it will come to you, and what you do in that moment will define your attorney generalship.”
New York Times, On Glide Path to Confirmation, Rubio Warns of China Threat, Michael Crowley, Karoun Demirjian and Edward Wong, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.). Marco Rubio backed NATO but said Europe needed to do more to protect itself. His hearing seemed to all but guarantee he would be the next secretary of state.
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, right, called for an end to the war in Ukraine, said Europe must decrease its reliance on Washington and declared America’s competition with China the defining question of the century during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday to be secretary of state.
The friendly, five-hour hearing before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, which also touched on how Mr. Rubio would approach conflicts in the Middle East, was less than halfway over when the panel’s chairman made a major announcement: Israel and Hamas had sealed an agreement to begin a temporary cease-fire and partial hostage release in Gaza. Mr. Rubio had no specific comment on the agreement.
Mr. Rubio had earlier defended Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza, blaming Hamas for using civilians as human shields and calling the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza “one of the terrible things about war.” He later added of Israel, “You cannot coexist with armed elements at your border who seek your destruction and evisceration, as a state. You just can’t.”
But Mr. Rubio was perhaps most fluent and animated during his discussion of China, which, he warned, aimed to overtake the United States as the world’s pre-eminent power. “The Chinese believe we are a great power in inevitable decline and they are on an inevitable rise,” he said. Mr. Rubio acknowledged that China’s government saw him as a prime adversary.
Beijing has “said mean things about me” — and it has even imposed sanctions on him — but Mr. Rubio added that his role at America’s top diplomat would require “involve engaging them in a mature and prudent conversation.”
In contrast to Mr. Trump’s more gleefully disruptive nominees, Mr. Rubio struck a decidedly moderate and mainstream tone unlikely to alarm the foreign policy establishment. There was no talk of picking fights with allies, reclaiming the Panama Canal or conquering Greenland.
Mr. Rubio even called the State Department a valuable source of expertise and said its influence should be enhanced.
Politico, Trump CIA pick Ratcliffe vows to help win new emerging tech race, John Sakellariadis, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.). John Ratcliffe also said the spy agency needs focus above all on China.
John Ratcliffe will pledge to ensure the U.S. stays ahead of foreign adversaries on key emerging tech issues like AI and quantum computing, if confirmed to lead the Central Intelligence Agency.
“Our adversaries…understand that the nation who wins the race in the emerging technologies of today, will dominate the world of tomorrow,” Ratcliffe will say, according to a copy of his opening statement shared with POLITICO and later posted online. He pledged to make technology innovation a “priority” while at the agency.
The former U.S. congressperson served as the director of national intelligence in Trump’s first term, and is likely to have a smooth confirmation process this time around.
According to his opening statement, Ratcliffe will argue that the agency has “struggled to keep pace” with technological innovation, and needs to forge better ties with the private sector.
To better assess how foreign adversaries are exploiting technologies like AI, Ratcliffe will say he wants to push U.S. spies to collect intelligence in “every corner of the globe, no matter how dark or difficult.” He will add that the U.S. intelligence community should continue a relentless focus on China in particular.
China is “far and away our top national security threat,” his prepared statement reads.
WhoWhatWhy, Investigative Commentary: Hegseth’s Nomination Hearing a Troubling Sign of Things to Come, Klaus Marre, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.). If Democrats cannot do a better job of highlighting how unqualified a nominee like Pete Hegseth is, and if Republicans cannot muster the courage to reject someone like him, we might as well just do away with this “advice and consent” farce.
New York Times, Opinion: We Deserve Pete Hegseth, David Brooks, right, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.).First let me hit you with some realities:
Now, if you are holding hearings for a prospective secretary of defense, you would think you might want to ask him about these urgent issues. Or you might come up with other serious questions: How do drones change war-fighting? How will artificial intelligence alter the nature of combat? How do we shift from a defense policy built around counterterrorism to a policy built around nation-state warfare? If you’re a Democrat trying to sink a nomination, you would think you’d want to ask substantive questions on life-or-death issues like these in order to expose the nominee’s ignorance and unpreparedness.
But did this happen at the Pete Hegseth hearings in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee this week? If you thought those kinds of questions would dominate the hearings, you must be living under the illusion that we live in a serious country.
We do not. We live in a soap opera country. We live in a social media/cable TV country. In our culture you don’t want to focus on boring policy questions; you want to engage in the kind of endless culture war that gets voters riled up. You don’t want to focus on topics that would require study; you focus on images and easy-to-understand issues that generate instant visceral reactions. You don’t win this game by engaging in serious thought; you win by mere attitudinizing — by striking a pose. Your job is not to advance an argument that might help the country; your job is to go viral.
Pete Hegseth is of course the living, breathing embodiment of this culture. The world is on fire and what’s his obsession? Wokeness in the military. I went through high school trying to bluff my way through class after doing none of the reading, and in Hegseth, I recognize a master of the craft. During the hearings Hegseth repeatedly said he was going to defend the meritocracy. In what kind of meritocracy is being a Fox TV host preparation for being secretary of defense? Maybe in the one Caligula fancied when he contemplated making his horse a consul.
Several Republican senators were happy to play along with the woke-military game. In addition, Senator Kevin Cramer used his precious question time to praise Hegseth for having the courage to use the words “Jesus Christ.” (If we had used this logic during World War II, Father Fulton Sheen would have commanded the D-Day invasion.) I’ve also learned that mentioning climate change in a Republican gathering is like throwing a side of bacon into an Orthodox minyan — they react with great offense.Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
Hegseth is in no danger of rising to the level of mediocrity, but next to some of his Democratic questioners, he looked like Carl von Clausewitz. Democrats played their own culture war games. Especially early in the hearings their main obsession was women in combat. (Like everybody in my social class, I support women in combat, but I don’t think it’s as important an issue as failure to deter World War III.)
Senator Elizabeth Warren submitted over 30 pages of written questions to Hegseth before the hearing. They had to do with things like drinking, accusations of sexual assault, threats to L.G.B.T.Q. rights and veterans benefits. I have enormous respect for Warren, but she didn’t show much interest in topics like how to deter and fight a war — which are kind of central to the purview of this committee.
Senator Tim Kaine tried to play the moral disqualification game, dwelling on Hegseth’s various adulteries. With Democrats’ having failed to defeat Donald Trump with this strategy, I admire their capacity for persistent losing.
The hearings got better as they went along and more junior senators got to speak. Senator Mazie Hirono was excellent, asking substantive questions: If the president ordered you, would you order troops to shoot protesters in the legs? Would you follow an order to use the military for mass deportations? Senator Tammy Duckworth was outstanding, too, asking about the big responsibilities of the job: Does Hegseth know anything about the ongoing international negotiations? Does he know which countries are in the ASEAN bloc? (The answers are no and no.)
The lesson for Democrats over the next four years is clear: Don’t fly into moral outrage every day. Focus on Trumpian incompetence.
Overall, Republicans were the more serious party at these hearings. The committee chairman, Senator Roger Wicker, did note that we live in the most dangerous security environment since World War II. Senator Tim Sheehy did mention shipbuilding. Senator Ted Budd did ask about warplanes. Senator Eric Schmitt did ask about drones.
But, as you can kind of tell, I finished watching the hearings sick to my stomach. I also came away thinking that we need to come up with a better way to think about expertise. Hegseth’s core populist conviction — repeated ad nauseam — is that the grunts on the ground know what they are doing and the pencil-necked geeks in air-conditioned offices just write nonsense regulations that get in the way. The man wasted years at Princeton and Harvard when he could have learned everything he knows by watching that Colonel Jessup speech at the end of “A Few Good Men.”
We don’t want to live in a populist paradise in which expertise is suspect and ignorance a sign of virtue. Nor do we want to live in an elitist world in which technocrats try to rule the world. As the political scientist James C. Scott showed, technocrats are too abstracted from reality to even see what is going on.
We need to settle upon a place where experts are respected and inform decision-making, but civilians make the ultimate calls. In a healthy democracy people revere great learning on substantive issues; they understand the world is too complex to be captured in bite-size slogans; but they also appreciate the wisdom that comes from concrete experience and know that most hard calls have to be made in light of the deeply held values that have made America what it is.
New York Times, Zuckerberg Will Host a Party for Trump’s Inauguration, Theodore Schleifer and Mike Isaac, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.). Mark Zuckerberg, the Meta chief executive, is one of several tech leaders expected to play a high-profile role in celebrating the new administration next week.
New York Times, Special Counsel’s Jan. 6 Report Defends Decision to Prosecute Trump, Alan Feuer and Charlie Savage, Jan. 15, 2025 (print ed.). The report, which said the special counsel’s office stood “fully behind” the merits of the prosecution, amounted to an extraordinary rebuke of President-elect Trump.
Jack Smith, above, the special counsel who indicted President-elect Donald J. Trump on charges of illegally seeking to cling to power after losing the 2020 election, said in a final report released early Tuesday that the evidence would have been sufficient to convict Mr. Trump in a trial, had his 2024 election victory not made it impossible for the prosecution to continue.
“The department’s view that the Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a president is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government’s proof or the merits of the prosecution, which the office stands fully behind,” Mr. Smith wrote.
He continued: “Indeed, but for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.”
The Justice Department delivered the 137-page volume — representing half of Mr. Smith’s overall final report, with the volume about Mr. Trump’s other federal case, accusing him of mishandling classified documents, still confidential — to Congress just after midnight on Tuesday. The report amounted to an extraordinary rebuke of a president-elect, capping a momentous legal saga that saw the man now poised to regain the powers of the nation’s highest office charged with crimes that struck at the heart of American democracy. And although Mr. Smith resigned as special counsel late last week, his recounting of the case also served as a reminder of the vast array of evidence and detailed accounting of Mr. Trump’s actions that he had marshaled.
In his report, Mr. Smith took Mr. Trump to task not only for his efforts to reverse the results of a free and fair election, but also for consistently encouraging “violence against his perceived opponents” throughout the chaotic weeks between Election Day and Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, injuring more than 140 police officers.
Mr. Smith laid the attack on the Capitol squarely at Mr. Trump’s feet, quoting from the evidence in several criminal cases of people charged with taking part in the riot who made clear that they believed they were acting on Mr. Trump’s behalf.
In several lengthy footnotes, Mr. Smith explored the trauma experienced by Capitol Police officers who were attacked during the riot, including “shell-shock” and the inability to move. He quoted one officer who described the effort to keep rioters from getting to congressional staff members inside the Capitol; the officer said that for them, that could have meant “possible death. People are getting killed, maimed.”
New York Times, Democrats Say F.B.I. Did Not Interview Critical Witnesses About Hegseth, Karoun Demirjian and Sharon LaFraniere, Jan. 15, 2025 (print ed.). The bureau did not interview an ex-wife of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for defense secretary before the findings on his background check were presented to senators.Senate Democrats on Monday said that an F.B.I. background check on Pete Hegseth (shown above in a collage of photos), President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, omitted key details on major allegations against him, in part because it did not include interviews with critical witnesses.
One missed opportunity came when the bureau did not interview one of Mr. Hegseth’s ex-wives before its findings were presented to senators last week, according to people familiar with the bureau’s investigation.
The clamor comes on the eve of Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation hearing, and just days after officials from Mr. Trump's transition team briefed Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the panel’s top Republican, and Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, its top Democrat, on the F.B.I.’s background check.
“There are significant gaps and inadequacies in the report, including the failure to interview some of the key potential witnesses with personal knowledge of improprieties or abuse,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut and a member of the committee, said in an interview.
As a rank-and-file member of the panel, Mr. Blumenthal was not given a briefing on the report or provided with a copy of it, but was informed of its contents by someone who was given access to it.
“Quite a few of the women with significant allegations against him have not been interviewed by the F.B.I. investigators,” Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois and another member of the panel, said on MSNBC on Monday evening, adding that some of those women feared for their safety and that of their children.
Mr. Hegseth was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in Monterey, Calif., in 2017, in an encounter he has insisted was consensual. No charges were brought. Mr. Hegseth later paid the woman an undisclosed amount of money as part of a confidential settlement agreement.
“My understanding is that some of them would like to be contacted by the F.B.I. investigative team, or the vetters, and they have not been talked to,” Ms. Duckworth added in the MSNBC interview.
A spokeswoman for the F.B.I. declined to comment.
Mr. Trump's transition team commissioned the F.B.I. background check on Mr. Hegseth last month after initially floating the idea of hiring private contractors to look into the president-elect’s cabinet picks. As the client, presidential transition teams are traditionally able to set the parameters for background checks into cabinet picks, and potentially dictate which witnesses are interviewed and what questions are asked. The transition team’s directions to the F.B.I. for its investigation of Mr. Hegseth are unknown.
Washington Post, Defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth grilled on scandals during confirmation hearings, Staff Reports, Jan. 15, 2025 (print ed.). Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s controversial pick for defense secretary, is taking part in a high-stakes Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday that could determine whether his nomination moves forward.
Hegseth, a National Guard veteran and former Fox News host, said in his opening statement that he will bring a “warrior culture” to the Pentagon and be a “change agent.” Hegseth is being questioned about his limited management experience, views on women in combat and allegations of sexual misconduct and excessive drinking, which he denies. He told senators he has been victim of a “coordinated smear campaign.”
Pete Hegseth said he believes there will be a “recruiting renaissance” after Donald Trump takes office and focuses on removing diversity programs that Hegseth has described as “woke.”
Hegseth has criticized policies to allow women to serve in direct combat jobs, and it remains an open question whether that will have a chilling effect on female troops, who make up nearly 20 percent of the force.
The Army, which has struggled in recent years to bring in enough soldiers, met its recruiting goals last year largely because of an increase in women who joined the ranks.
It’s clear Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) alienated Democrats on the panel by questioning whether senators have any more management experience than Pete Hegseth does. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois) reminds him that the people of Illinois elected her and Hegseth needs to earn her vote for this spot.
Sen. Gary Peters (D-Michigan) said it was a miscalculation by Pete Hegseth and his team to not meet with all senators who wanted to meet with him.
“I made repeated requests to meet with you prior to this meeting,” Peters said. “I know many of my other colleagues also wanted to meet with you. I did that with the other nominees that I was happy to vote for. I thought they were highly qualified individuals and true professionals, and yet I could never get a meeting with you. Was there a reason you were afraid to have one-on-one meetings with some of my colleagues before the hearing?”
Hegseth said that his team made a “great deal of outreach to multiple offices,” but noted that “schedules get full.”
“I was ready,” Peters responded. “It would have been so much better to have that opportunity to talk beforehand. I think that’s a big mistake, and it doesn’t set us on a good course when you refuse to meet with people and have a professional conversation about the huge challenges that we face at the Department of Defense.”
Peters also noted that he has voted in a bipartisan way for defense secretaries in the past, including two previously named to the post by then-President Donald Trump.
“I think [we had] five total secretaries of defense during that four-year period,” Peters said of the first Trump administration. “So we want to keep that in mind as to what we might see in this coming administration.”18 min agoReturn to menuSabrina Rodriguez
Pete Hegseth was unwilling to pledge that he would not work in the defense industry for 10 years after serving, if confirmed, as defense secretary — a position he holds for retired generals. In a tense exchange, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) raised his past position on retired generals and asked if he would commit to it himself.
He first said he would consult with the president on the policy.
“I’m not a general, senator,” he said when Warren pressed him again, prompting laughs in the hearing room. Warren slammed him for that, saying his position, if confirmed, would put him in charge of the generals.24 min agoReturn to menuSabrina Rodriguez
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) continued Democrats’ line of questioning of Hegseth on his past statements that women should not be allowed to serve in combat, listing multiple instances of him saying that. The exchange became testy as she questioned his seeming about-face and he continued his argument that his position has “always been about standards.”
“I’ve heard of deathbed conversions but this is the first time I’ve heard of a nomination conversion,” Warren said.
New York Times Photo by Philip Cheung
New York Times, As Winds Strengthen, L.A. Braces for New Fires, Staff Reports, Jan. 15, 2025 (print ed.). High winds and dry vegetation are creating the conditions for fresh blazes in Southern California, officials said. The most destructive fires in state history have killed at least 24 people and displaced over 100,000.
A rare warning from the National Weather Service, known as a “particularly dangerous situation” red flag warning, just went into effect for Ventura and Los Angeles counties, and will continue until noon Wednesday. Wind gusts between 45 and 70 m.p.h. and very low humidity could lead to “explosive fire growth” in those areas, the service said.
Washington Post, Investigation: Minister accused of sex abuse landed one high-profile job after another, Ian Shapira, Jan. 15, 2025. Jeff Taylor went from the pulpit to the Red Cross to a college nonprofit. Now, his alleged victims are speaking out, and the FBI is investigating.
One weekend in early 1991, Jeff Taylor, the youth minister at a centuries-old church catering to Washington’s elite, invited a boy in his congregation to a religious retreat in Illinois. The 13-year-old from the Falls Church Episcopal in Northern Virginia felt flattered, he later recalled. He said he had admired Taylor, a married man with children, even if Taylor bothered him with questions about how often or whether he masturbated.
On their last night, the man said, he and Taylor stayed at someone’s home in suburban Chicago. Somehow, he said, the pair wound up sharing a bed. Then, Taylor — who years later would lead a Red Cross chapter in Georgia and a fundraising arm at the University of Cincinnati Foundation — fondled the middle-schooler with lotion in the middle of the night, the church youth group alumnus recalled.
“He kept saying, ‘You seem stressed out, you seem anxious,’” said the youth group alumnus, now a partner at a financial firm in his 40s, who is speaking for the first time with a news organization about his allegations. “I recall feeling shame. The next morning, Jeff said, ‘Did you feel that, too? This was an evil room, and we need to pray about this room.’”
The alumnus was one of three Falls Church Episcopal youth group members who an independent investigation revealed in April were allegedly sexually abused by Taylor in the 1990s or the early 2000s when they attended the church. The report found that Taylor’s behavior during his employment there constituted “sexual grooming or sexual abuse.” Eleven male students reported that Taylor asked them how frequently they masturbated; six children said he talked with them about the sizes of their penises or his own.
Washington Post, Inflation heated up in December, as prices continue to weigh on Americans, Andrew Ackerman, Jan. 15, 2025. Prices rose by 2.9 percent annually last month, up from a 2.7 percent gain in November.
Commentaries On American Democracy
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: January 15, 202[ Biden Farewell Address], Heather Cox Richardson, right, Jan. 16, 2025. It is somehow fitting that President Joe Biden’s farewell address to the nation, scheduled for 8:00 Eastern time tonight, was overshadowed today by the dramatic announcement that after months of negotiation backed by the United States and facilitated by Egyptian and Qatari mediators, negotiators from Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire and to exchange Israeli hostages taken on October 7, 2023, for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
This afternoon, Biden appeared, flanked by Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “Good afternoon,” he said to the press. “And it’s a very good afternoon, because at long last I can announce a ceasefire and a hostage deal has been reached between Israel and Hamas. [After] more than 15 months of conflict that began with [Hamas’s] brutal massacre of October the seventh, more than 15 months of terror for the hostages, their families, the Israeli people, more than fifteen months of suffering by the innocent people in Gaza, fighting in Gaza will stop and soon the hostages will return home to their families.”
“The elements of this deal were what I laid out in detail this past May,” Biden said. That plan “was embraced by countries around the world and endorsed overwhelmingly by the U.N. Security Council.”
It has three phases. Phase one is a six-week ceasefire in which Israeli forces will withdraw from all the populated areas of Gaza and Palestinians can return to their homes. Hamas will release the women, elderly, wounded, and American hostages it holds. Humanitarian assistance will surge into Gaza.“During the next six weeks,” Biden said, “Israel will negotiate the necessary arrangements to get to phase two, which is a permanent end of the war.”
The ceasefire will continue throughout the negotiations, even if they take longer than six weeks. Once phase two begins, the remaining living hostages will come home and all remaining Israeli forces will be withdrawn from Gaza. In phase three the final remains of hostages who have been killed will be returned to their families, and a major reconstruction plan for Gaza will begin.
Biden noted that he has worked in foreign policy for decades and that “[t]his is one of the toughest negotiations I’ve ever experienced.”
Hopium Chronicles, Political Opinion: President Biden's Farewell Address: "An Oligarchy Is Taking Shape In America," Simon Rosenberg, right, Jan. 16, 2025. In his last speech President Biden takes a big swing.
The President spoke to the nation last night, and had important things to say. Here are a few passages from the speech that are getting the most attention:
That’s why my farewell address tonight, I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern. And this is a dangerous — and that’s the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultrawealthy people, and the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked. Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.
We see the consequences all across America. And we’ve seen it before.More than a century ago, the American people stood up to the robber barons back then and busted the trusts. They didn’t punish the wealthy. They just made the wealthy play by the rules everybody else had. Workers want rights to earn their fair share. You know, they were dealt into the deal, and it helped put us on the path to building the largest middle class, the most prosperous century any nation the world has ever seen. We’ve got to do that again.AndYou know, in his farewell address, President Eisenhower spoke of the dangers of the military-industrial complex. He warned us that about, and I quote, “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power.”
Six days — six decades later, I’m equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech-industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country as well.Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power. The free press is crumbling. Editors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact-checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit. We must hold the social platforms accountable to protect our children, our families and our very democracy from the abuse of power.
Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is the most consequential technology of our time, perhaps of all time.
And in a democracy, there is another danger — that the concentration of power and wealth. It erodes a sense of unity and common purpose. It causes distrust and division. Participating in our democracy becomes exhausting and even disillusioning, and people don’t feel like they have a fair shot. We have to stay engaged in the process. I know it’s frustrating. A fair shot is what makes America America. Everyone is entitled to a fair shot, not a guarantee, just a fair shot, an even playing field. Going as far as your hard work and talent can take you.
The Hartmann Report, Historical Commentary, American Caesar: Trump’s Path to Power Mirrors Rome’s Darkest Days, Thomas Hartmann, right, How ancient Rome’s democratic collapse set the stage for America’s current crisis…
Last night, President Biden warned America that an oligarchy is forming in Washington DC and that it threatens our republic. Turns out, this is not a new story.
For 482 years (509 BCE–27 BCE), ancient Rome ran as a democratic republic. America has lasted in that state for 236 years (1789-2025).
The end of the democratic phase of the Roman republic was brought about by wealthy, elite Romans like Marcus Licinius Crassus (115–53 BCE) — the richest man in the nation at the time — who frankly hated the Roman “free bread for all” welfare system.
He and others like Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great, 106–48 BCE) wanted to end the voice of the public in political decisions (because they were demanding free bread, paid for with rich peoples’ taxes), so they used their massive wealth to promote rightwing authoritarian populism and buy off legislators who’d then be loyal to them.
This created political gridlock in the Senate, leading many Romans to lose faith in their democratic form of government. Three primary elements were used by the morbidly rich of that era to erode the power of Rome and replace it with sycophants loyal to them: polarization and elite gridlock, the erosion of democratic norms, and the concentration of power in the hands of a small elite who funded and thus controlled Rome’s senators.
It took decades, but they finally succeeded in using that lack of faith in government to replace Roman democracy with Caesarism, aka authoritarian strongman rule, kicked off by Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon River to seize the seat of government in Rome and finalized by Augustus Caesar ending any semblance of democracy.
Here in America, a handful of rightwing billionaires have spent decades fighting to end the New Deal and Great Society programs that use their tax dollars to distribute “free bread” to Americans in the form of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, food stamps, quality free primary education, and cheap or free college.
While their efforts began in earnest in the 1970s following Lewis Powell’s infamous Memo, they really kicked into high gear when the billionaires succeeded in the 1990s in installing Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House.
Newt pioneered a new form of American politics based on political warfare, delegitimization of the US government and programs of the New Deal and Great Society, manipulation of the media, populist messaging, and using obstruction as a political strategy.
His efforts were amplified by billionaire-owned media like Fox “News” and rightwing hate radio, always trash-talking New Deal and Great Society programs, calling for more tax cuts to de-fund government, and encouraging hatred of politicians and the political process.
The result was political gridlock, the end of democratic norms of collegiality and compromise, and the concentration of power in the Speaker’s office and ultimately the GOP itself. This led most Americans (over 75%) to eventually lose faith in our government; out of that came today’s increasing calls for an American version of Julius and Augustus Caesar.
One of the first was rightwing blogger and JD Vance mentor Curtis Yarvin, who began arguing over a decade ago — with his “dark enlightenment” movement — that America needed a new Caesar to free us from gridlock and stagnation.As JD Vance noted in a 2021 podcast:“
There’s this guy Curtis Yarvin who’s written about some of these things. One has to basically accept that the whole thing is going to fall in on itself. …
The task of conservatives right now is to preserve as much as can be preserved and then when the inevitable collapse comes you build back the country in a way that’s actually better.”
Others who could be characterized (or characterize themselves) as American Caesarists include Trump advisors Michael Anton and Charles Haywood, and Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts.
So, here we are, with Joe Biden’s warning.— Just like in the Roman republic, America’s morbidly rich and their business interests have funded efforts to denigrate popular government and its programs for decades, all to serve their own financial and political interests.
More On Trump Cabinet Nominees
New York Times, Trump’s Pick for Justice Dept. to Face Questions About Her Independence, Glenn Thrush and Devlin Barrett, Jan. 15, 2025. Pam Bondi will be asked if she can stand up to Donald Trump, who has made it clear that he wants the government’s top lawyer to execute his commands.
Pam Bondi, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice for attorney general (shown above right, will head into her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday with a solid reputation as a prosecutor and a critical question looming: Would shestand up to Mr. Trump?
Mr. Trump selected Ms. Bondi, the former Florida attorney general and lobbyist, to replace his first pick, Matt Gaetz, the former Republican representative of Florida who withdrew after a furor over allegations of sexual misconduct, including with an underage girl.
Most Democrats are still likely to oppose Ms. Bondi, 59, but she is a far more conventional, qualified candidate than Mr. Gaetz. That virtually ensuressupport among Senate Republicans, with the distinct possibility she will pick up a Democrat or two.
If her hearings do not produce much drama, her tenure at the department almost certainly will. An emboldened Mr. Trump, embittered by the two federal prosecutions against him, has made it clear that he wants senior Justice Department officials to execute his policy commands, investigate those who investigated him and perhaps prosecute his political enemies.
“The Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones,” she declared on Fox News in 2023, when asked whether it would be appropriate to open cases related to the department’s prosecutions under Jack Smith, the special counsel.
Richard Donoghue, the former Justice Department official who resisted Mr. Trump’s effort to install election-denying loyalists to top department posts after he lost the 2020 election, said the ideal candidate operates above partisanship. “You want, ideally, to ensure that partisan political considerations never play into the department’s decisions and positions when it comes to investigations and prosecutions,” he said.
“There is no fourth branch of government called the Justice Department — you work for the president — but people in power have to understand that they are not the president’s lawyer,” he added.
MSNBC, Opinion: Pam Bondi can't be trusted with the power of the Justice Department, Anthony Coley, Jan. 15, 2025. This time, Donald Trump is determined to get exactly what he wants at the Justice Department: a compliant attorney general and total control.
On Wednesday, the Senate will consider the president-elect's request to install Pam Bondi, right — a MAGA enthusiast and election denier — to serve as attorney general. Bondi is wholly unqualified for the role.
Granted, she might appear qualified on paper. She spent nearly two decades as a state prosecutor and was elected twice as the attorney general in Florida. She became the first woman in the role. Even some Democrats, including former Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg, whom I respect, speak highly of her.
But serving as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer requires independence and sound judgment and the ability to accept court rulings even when you disagree with them. On these counts, Bondi fails — miserably.
New York Times, Rubio Is in the Spotlight on the Second Big Day of Cabinet Hearings, Michael Crowley, Jan. 15, 2025. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who is tapped for secretary of state, has a long history of personal and policy differences with President-elect Trump.
When President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice for secretary of state, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, appears before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations today, it may be easy for him to persuade senators that he can lead American diplomacy at a moment of unusual global turmoil.
The harder task may be convincing them that he can credibly represent a president with whom he has a long history of personal and policy differences.
As a third-term senator who holds generally mainstream foreign policy views, Mr. Rubio, 53, is expected to be confirmed with relative ease later this month after Mr. Trump, once inaugurated, officially nominates him to succeed Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken.
Unlike several of Mr. Trump’s other top cabinet picks, Mr. Rubio has decent relations with his fellow Senate Democrats, no scandalous allegations about his personal behavior and relevant policy experience. He serves as vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and is a member of the committee that will question him.
New York Times, John Ratcliffe Is Expected to Lay Out a Vision for a More Aggressive C.I.A., Julian E. Barnes, Jan. 15, 2025. Donald Trump’s pick for the agency’s director seems likely to win some Democratic support for this nomination, but how much is unclear.
John Ratcliffe, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for C.I.A. director, is set to offer his vision for a more aggressive spy agency as he fields questions from senators on Wednesday about his intelligence priorities and ability to deliver unvarnished assessments.
Mr. Ratcliffe’s confirmation is all but assured, and he is likely to be voted on by the full Senate soon after Mr. Trump’s inauguration on Monday. During the first Trump administration, the Senate confirmed Mr. Ratcliffe, 49 to 44, to serve as director of national intelligence. He was the first national intelligence chief installed without support from the opposition party.
But now, senators from both parties view Mr. Ratcliffe as one of the more qualified senior officials picked by Mr. Trump, whose focus on the threat from China is widely shared by lawmakers of both parties.
Mr. Ratcliffe is expected to outline his vision of the agency that offers intelligence free of political bias. But he is also expected to talk about ways to make the C.I.A. less risk-averse and more willing to conduct covert action when ordered by the president.
President-Elect Donald J. Trump (New York Times photo by Doug Mills).
New York Times, Guest Essay: In Hegseth, Trump Finally Has What He Wants, Ben Rhodes (right, a deputy national security adviser under President Barack Obama), Jan. 15, 2025 (print ed.). To state the obvious: As a former weekend “Fox & Friends” anchor, Army National Guard officer and leader of two small nonprofits, Pete Hegseth is unqualified to run a nuclear-armed organization with a budget approaching a trillion dollars. That’s the point. Donald Trump doesn’t want someone to effectively manage the Pentagon; he wants to disrupt it.
His choice of Mr. Hegseth is borne out of right-wing grievances that have been building for a long time over the failures of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of these frustrations are understandable, but the remedies Mr. Trump proposes are dangerous. His disdain for international rules could eviscerate the laws of war that emerged from the devastation of two world wars. His threats of territorial expansion could intensify a period of nationalist aggression. His tirades against enemies within the United States foreshadow MAGA social engineering and domestic intervention by the Pentagon. In Mr. Hegseth, he has found a loyal vessel for this project, someone who could channel his blend of jingoism and anger to fundamentally alter the character of the military.
Almost a decade ago, Mr. Trump announced his presidential campaign by warning that the United States was in trouble. “We don’t have victories anymore,” he said. “We used to have victories but we don’t have them.” He’d emerged out of a right-wing media ecosystem filled with belligerent nationalism and promises of great victories after the Sept. 11 attacks. George W. Bush committed the United States to “the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.” Even as the wars started to go badly, Vice President Dick Cheney talked about an Iraqi insurgency in its “last throes.” The people most conditioned to believe these promises were consumers of right-wing media, which increased their sense of betrayal when it became clear they’d been misled.
Mr. Hegseth experienced the wars in person, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. After initially defending post-Sept. 11 policies, he joined many on the right in pivoting to blame enemies within for America’s failures abroad — a common outcome when superpowers don’t win wars. Like Mr. Trump, he focused on liberals and Islam, as well as changing demographics and social mores that had crept into the military through the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, diversity initiatives and women in combat.
New York Times, Hegseth’s Drinking, Once ‘Self-Medication,’ Could Prompt Questions at His Hearing, Sharon LaFraniere, Dylan Freedman and Kate Kelly, Jan. 15, 2025 (print ed.). President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for Defense Secretary has spoken candidly about his alcohol use in interviews over the past few years.
In August 2021, Pete Hegseth said on Will Cain’s podcast that slowly, surely, “by the grace of God,” he had been able to undo a pattern of alcohol abuse that had dogged him since he returned from military combat in Iraq in 2006.
Asked about his New Year’s resolutions on the same podcast in mid-January 2024, Mr. Hegseth brought up alcohol anew. “The less booze thing is not working out for me,” he said then.
Mr. Hegseth, the former Fox News anchor and combat veteran President-elect Donald J. Trump picked for defense secretary, is likely to be asked to revisit the issue of his alcohol use as part of his Senate confirmation hearings on Tuesday.
The New York Times and other news organizations have documented a pattern of excessive drinking by Mr. Hegseth. In the most serious episode, a woman in Monterey, Calif., accused him of raping her in 2017. Mr. Hegseth said the encounter was consensual, and it resulted in no criminal charges. His lawyer said Mr. Hegseth was inebriated at the time.
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The Bulwark, Political Opinion:The Curious Case of Lindy Li, Kyle Tharp, Jan. 7, 2025. How did a “Blue MAGA” influencer and fundraiser turn on Democrats so fast?
Last March, I found myself sitting in a White House briefing with two dozen pro-Democratic digital creators, listening to high-level administration officials preview President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.
Among the handful of administration leaders who briefed the room was Anita Dunn, at the time one of Biden’s most powerful consiglieres. It was pretty conventional stuff. She spent a few minutes talking us through the president’s remarks and answering questions from starry-eyed social media influencers who planned on publishing content cheering on the speech the next day.
I was attending on behalf of my then-employer, a pro-democracy media company, and knew most of those in attendance. There were some political YouTubers, a few up-and-coming Democratic TikTok stars, and a cohort of folks from other emerging news outlets like MeidasTouch and Betches Media. But there was one attendee I didn’t recognize: a woman named Lindy Li.
Li had earned an invite to the White House that day by being a very energetic Democratic personality on cable news, and for having grown an audience of over 300,000 followers on X by shooting off hyperpartisan, pro-Democrat, red-meat content. One example of her style and approach came in a tweet she authored in 2022: “When push comes to shove, Democrats take care of you regardless of party. Republicans try to get you murdered.”
A former congressional candidate, Li had also held various fundraising roles in the past for Democratic candidates and the national party committee.
She was, if nothing else, a reliable party ally. And at the White House gathering that day, she played a similar role. She did not waste an opportunity to shower praise on Biden and the administration writ large, and proudly display her unwavering gratitude and support for the White House. She was the classic attendee who raises a hand to ask a question, but instead launches into some unrelated speech about whatever happens to be on her mind.
At one point, Li delivered a mini-lecture declaring how much she loved Joe Biden, while offering up her various credentials, including that the governor of Pennsylvania had named her to some commission. While some creators in attendance asked Dunn questions about the White House’s economic messaging, Li made sure White House officials recognized she was a team player. “Teacher’s pet. . .” one of my friends in the room texted from underneath the table.
Throughout the rest of the year, I kind of forgot about Li, having dismissed her as just another “Blue MAGA” Twitter person. For months, she continued enthusiastically to support Biden, and later Kamala Harris, both on cable news and X, where she would tweet predictable messages of support for their campaigns. By August, she said she had raised several million dollars for the Democratic ticket.
Her social media accounts became filled with adoring posts featuring herself at events with the president, vice president, and other top Democratic elected officials like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “There will never be another like her,” she said of Pelosi. She also was part of the Pennsylvania delegation to the Democratic National Convention this summer.
Then, after Election Day, Li was suddenly everywhere. But instead of maintaining her overeager support for Biden and Harris, she adopted a new persona, eagerly attacking Democrats and the campaign nonstop. In this new role as a Biden and Harris antagonist, she has been quoted or mentioned in the mainstream press hundreds of times and become a fixture on Fox News.
Appearing on Fox in mid-December, Li declared that Biden was in “no shape” to carry out his duties as commander-in-chief. “The president has not been cognitively fit to assume the duties of the Oval Office for a number of years now,” Li told Fox’s Kevin Corke.
It was a wild turnaround from her effusive praise of the man and her defense of his age and cognition just months prior. In fact, Li was a frequent and outspoken critic of journalists who covered the president’s age issue. “To those of you who said Biden was cognitively impaired . . . WE AWAIT YOUR APOLOGY,” Li tweeted in March.
When Biden ultimately dropped out of the race in July, Li told Fox that if Democrats skipped over Kamala Harris in favor of another candidate to lead the ticket, it would be “a catastrophic mistake.” She urged her followers to “unify behind Kamala Harris.”
Here too, Li has seemingly changed her tune. Days after the election, she told Fox that Biden’s endorsement of Harris was “an F-You to the party.”
THE LIST OF POST-ELECTION reversals goes on: Li now claims that she “has been a conservative all my life,” that Pelosi is “notorious” for “insider trading,” that Democrats are to blame for failing to secure the southern border, that there will be a “new era of prosperity” under Donald Trump, and that “The markets & consumer confidence have been booming under Pres. Trump[.] Americans are loving his transition.” She also called Democrats “delusional,” said the Democratic party was like “a cult.” She referred to Pete Hegseth, whom Trump tapped for secretary of defense despite allegations of sexual assault, alcohol abuse, and financial corruption, as “a pretty good guy.”
Democratic digital creators who joined Li at the White House briefing last March have dismissed her recent shift as cringeworthy opportunism. “She’s a liar and a clout chaser!” tweeted Kenneth Walden, a pro-Harris TikTok creator. “It’s very clear where this is going,” remarked journalist Aaron Rupar. Democratic strategist and YouTuber Keith Edwards tweeted “How long until she’s wearing a MAGA hat?”
“We have people who want attention, pick a side, say things to get in a room, and then when things get tough, they’re the first people to dip,” Edwards told me recently. “I don’t think she believes in anything.”
LI WAS HAPPY TO ADDRESS her critics in a brief interview with me last week. “I haven’t switched parties. I’m not a Republican. I’m not out for anything, I would never work for the government, and who would I even get a contract from?,” she said. She defended her change of heart on the president’s age issue by noting that it happened after the June 27 debate between Biden and Trump. “After the debate I stopped defending his cognitive fitness. You will notice that I never said anything about that post-debate.”
But even here, Li seems to be casually disregarding her very public past. In a tweet she authored two weeks after the debate, she attacked critics of the president’s age. That tweet has recently been deleted.
Flip-flopping is hardly a new phenomenon in American politics. Trump has perfected it. So too have his hangers-on (see: Gabbard, Tulsi). But Li’s head-spinning pivot still illustrates a broader trend we’ll see escalate in the years to come.
Our tribal political culture creates remarkable incentives for those who defect from one side to another. The act of defection is treated by the party to whom the defector has gone as an affirmation of their cause. The defector is not only lavished with praise and love from those new party members but loads of attention from allied media, who reward shamelessness with more coverage and clout. For example, Fox News producers and bookers, knowing friendly fire can help drive ratings, love to feature Democratic voices willing to turn on their own.
I asked Li specifically about Fox News, and whether she was being paid for her appearances, or whether she was in conversations to become a contributor for the network, as some of her critics have assumed.
“I’m not going to discuss any conversations that I've had with private individuals, but I have not been paid a single dime by anybody for telling the truth,” said Li. “Not even a penny.” Pressed further, she clarified that she was not currently “in discussions with any executives at Fox News.”
But her sudden celebrity, whether compensated or not, doesn’t change the fact that the media incentivizes this type of behavior.
As online political creators become more mainstream—sometimes more even than the legacy political press—more like Li will emerge. Many political creators’ entire personas and livelihoods rely on “feeding the beast” more content—and more controversy.
Relevance is more important than ideological consistency. And as the bizarre evolution of Lindy Li shows, being willing to say just about anything may be the political attribute that matters most.
“We’re in a post-shame culture now,” said Edwards.
Associated Press via ABC News, California's Newsom will join GOP governors in raising flag for Trump inauguration, Staff Report, Jan. 16, 2025. California Gov. Gavin Newsom will join Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and some GOP governors in directing U.S. flags be raised to full height on Inauguration Day
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom will join Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and some GOP governors around the country in directing U.S. flags be raised to full height on Inauguration Day.
Newsom’s spokesperson Izzy Gardon confirmed Wednesday that the governor would temporarily direct the raising of flags at the state Capitol in Sacramento for President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration. Flags at the U.S. Capitol and at statehouses around the country have been lowered to half-staff in honor of the late former President Jimmy Carter.
Newsom, who has become a foil for Trump over the years, will need federal help as his state recovers from devastating wildfires that have killed more than two dozen people.
Trump has complained about American flags being flown at half-staff during his inauguration. “Nobody wants to see this, and no American can be happy about it,” he posted on his social media platform.
Idaho Gov. Brad Little, North Dakota Gov. Kelly Armstrong, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds noted in announcements this week that U.S. flags across their states would be relowered on Jan. 21 in honor of Carter. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a similar notice on Monday.
The Hartmann Report, Political Commentary: The Grievance Machine: How Republicans Weaponize Fear to Win, Thom Hartmann, Jan. 14, 2025. Why Democrats must build their own outrage machine now: it’s time for a coordinated attack on Trump’s grievance empire…
As you’re reading these words, Trump and his Republican allies are spraying “a firehose of lies” accusing Democrats of responsibility for the fires in LA. And those lies are working; even mainstream media like The New York Times and The Washington Post are repeating them. Not to mention they’re being pushed like peanuts at a ball game into the faces of hundreds of millions by the right-leaning algorithms of social media.
If Democrats were to create a “Shadow Cabinet,” they could effectively neuter much of this BS. Details on that in a minute, but first some background.
While the phrase “The best defense is a good offense” is often attributed to Jack Dempsey, it was General and President George Washington who, reflecting on how he won the Revolutionary War, wrote to his former aide-de-camp John Trumbull: “Offensive operations, often times, are the surest, if not the only means of defense.”
Democrats need to learn the lesson: The most powerful political offensive moves succeed by capturing control of and expressing deeply-felt grievances.
There’s a simple neurological reason for this: at the foundation of Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Human Needs” is “Safety,” which is why the most effective grievances are those expressing fear for safety or the security of voters’ assets and family.
Gays are going to convert your kids, immigrants are going to kill or rape your wife, schools are going to cut off your son’s penis, Haitians in Springfield are going to eat your cat, poor people are stealing your tax dollars with welfare payments, women who get empowered will deny you sex, Jews are funding Hispanics taking your job, Joe Biden is causing your inflation, Democrats want to take away your car, Black Kamala is trying to take a job that’s rightfully a white man’s role, “woke” teachers are training white children to feel guilt for things their relatives did, the “deep state” is making your life miserable through over-regulation…
Every one of those and more were specific — and false — grievances used at various times by the Trump campaign to win the 2024 election. They work because grievance is a variation on fear of danger or outrage over loss, something that’s such a foundational set of human emotions that babies express them in their first months. Grievance is hard-wired into us, part of our most ancient survival mechanisms.
New York Times, Russia-Ukraine War: Ukraine Launches ‘Massive’ Drone Attacks Inside Russia, Officials Say, Cassandra Vinograd, Jan. 14, 2025. The barrage appeared to be one of the largest recent assaults in Ukraine’s campaign to damage Russia’s war machine on its home territory.
New York Times, Investigation: Abuse and Injury Result From Uneven Rules on Police Taser Use, Nate Rosenfield, Brian Howey and Sarah Cohen, Photographs by Rory Doyle, Jan. 14, 2025. A lack of state standards leaves Mississippi police and sheriff’s departments on their own to decide when to use stun guns, and many give officers a free hand.
Last summer, a Mississippi police officer approached Vivian Burks as she sat in her car at a local park reading the Bible.
He was cordial at first, offering to help Ms. Burks replace her expired tags with the new ones she had in her car. But the encounter changed quickly after the officer, Blaine Musgrove, said he smelled marijuana and a second Carthage police officer demanded to search the vehicle.
When Ms. Burks, a 65-year-old great-grandmother with no criminal record, tried to get back into her car, the officers grabbed her and ordered her to place her hands behind her back, body camera footage shows. When she did not immediately comply, Officer Musgrove pressed his Taser into her back and shocked her, sending her to the ground in a heap.
Over the next 30 seconds, the video shows, Officer Musgrove shocked her three more times as she twisted her hands to avoid being handcuffed and begged the officers to stop, repeatedly shouting, “I’m sick!” The officers called an ambulance and then left her moaning for help until the paramedics arrived.
“I couldn’t breathe,” Ms. Burks told reporters in an interview. “I just thought that they were going to kill me.”
In many places across the nation, the repeated shocking of Ms. Burks — who was not acting aggressively and was largely under the officers’ control — would be considered an improper and dangerous use of a Taser by the police.
Not in Mississippi.
New York Times, LA Fires Live Reports: Dangerous Winds Are Forecast as Crews Battle L.A. Wildfires, Staff Reports, Jan. 14, 2025 (print ed.). More heavy winds were expected on Monday, threatening the progress firefighters have made against the blazes that have killed at least 24 people and ravaged the area.
Dangerous winds were again expected to sweep through Los Angeles late Monday, threatening the progress firefighters have made against the devastating wildfires in the area.
Forecasters have issued a rare fire danger alert, known as a “particularly dangerous situation” red flag warning, for Monday night through Wednesday morning. That is the same level of alert that was issued last week as strong wind gusts fueled the fires that have become some of the deadliest and most destructive in California’s history.
Washington Post, Winds to strengthen as L.A. blaze heads toward major highway; at least 24 dead, Staff Reports, Jan. 13, 2025 (print ed.). At least 24 people have been killed as roaring flames continue to ravage Southern California, with strong Santa Ana winds expected to flare up through the middle of this week. But the winds are not expected to be as powerful as those that previously fueled the fires, meteorologist Rich Thompson said at a briefing Saturday evening.
Four active fires in the Los Angeles region have burned over 40,000 acres — an area bigger than San Francisco — according to Cal Fire, with flames claiming more than 12,000 structures and displacing tens of thousands. The causes of all four blazes remain under investigation.
Thousands of firefighters have made some progress in fighting the Palisades and Eaton fires, the two largest blazes. Cal Fire Battalion Chief Brent Pascua told CNN that Saturday was a “very productive day” and said the Santa Ana winds helped move the flames away from the Encino area and onto land that had already been burned. ABC 7 reported that a handful of evacuation orders in towns east of Pasadena, near the Eaton Fire, were lifted or downgraded.
Video: Aerial firefighters battle Palisades fire The latest on the active Los Angeles wildfires Among the wildfires’ victims: A great-grandmother, surfer, father and son Over 900 inmates are working to fight the Los Angeles fires.
New York Times, How Lagging Vaccination Could Lead to a Polio Resurgence, Apoorva Mandavilli, Jan. 14, 2025 (print ed.). In its original form, the virus survives in just two countries. But a type linked to an oral vaccine used in other nations has already turned up in the West.
Most American parents hardly give thought to polio beyond the instant their child is immunized against the disease. But there was a time in this country when polio paralyzed 20,000 people in a year, killing many of them.
Vaccines turned the tide against the virus. Over the past decade, there has been only one case in the United States, related to international travel.
That could change very quickly if polio vaccination rates dropped or the vaccine were to become less accessible.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic who may become the secretary of health and human services, has said the idea that vaccination has nearly eradicated polio is “a mythology.”
New York Times, Even Adults May Soon Be Vulnerable to ‘Childhood’ Diseases, Apoorva Mandavilli, Jan. 14, 2025 (print ed.). Outbreaks among the unvaccinated are a predictable consequence of falling immunization rates. But even vaccinated adults may be vulnerable to some illnesses.
There were more than more than 32,000 cases of whooping cough in 2024, the highest tally in a decade. In California alone, the disease struck 2,000 people between January and October last year.
More than 60 infants younger than 4 months were hospitalized in the state. One died.
Whooping cough, or pertussis, is just the most stark example of what happens when vaccination rates decline. But it is far from the only one.
The pandemic interrupted childhood immunizations across the country, and rates have not yet recovered. As a result, hundreds of thousands of children are increasingly vulnerable to diseases once largely relegated to history books.
Most of them predominantly affect young children, like measles, mumps and rubella. But if immunizations continue to fall over the next few years — because of rising distrust, or more restrictive federal policies — preventable infectious diseases will resurface in all age groups, experts say.
New York Times, Childhood Vaccination Rates Were Falling Even Before Kennedy’s Rise, Francesca Paris, Jan. 13, 2025 (print ed.). The declines began with the pandemic, well before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. helped make routine vaccines part of the national political conversation.
Washington Post, Steve Bannon derides Elon Musk, vowing to limit influence over Trump, Jeff Stein, Jan. 13, 2025 (print ed.). His comments reflect an intensifying battle over Musk’s West Wing sway as Trump prepares to take office.
President-elect Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon is ramping up public attacks on billionaire Elon Musk amid an intensifying debate on the right about Musk’s influence in the incoming administration.Get the latest election news and results
In an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera this past week, Bannon said Musk “should go back to South Africa,” where he was born, and be denied privileged access to the West Wing. Bannon has also criticized Musk’s support for a skilled-worker visa program that led to a bitter rift last month between far-right activists and Trump’s tech executive supporters, who see the program as a crucial lifeline for Silicon Valley.
Trump ultimately sided with Musk in that dispute, but Bannon said he is preparing a broader effort to limit the Tesla executive’s ability to shape Trump’s agenda.
Bannon told the newspaper: “Why do we have South Africans, the most racist people on earth, White South Africans … making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States?”
Bannon added he would “do anything” to keep Musk out of the White House.
The comments reflect the growing questions among some Trump allies about the precise role Musk will play in Trump’s second term. A political newcomer who until recently supported candidates of both parties, Musk went all-in on Trump in the 2024 elections with more than $277 million in donations to Republicans — and has been rewarded by emerging as one of the president-elect’s most influential advisers.
But precisely how Musk will exert his newfound political power — and how long it will last — remains unclear. That uncertainty extends to Musk’s appointment by Trump to co-lead the “Department of Government Efficiency” with tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. That body does not have formal government authorities and must work with the White House to have its recommendations implemented. Emissaries with DOGE have begun contacting U.S. agencies across the government, but it’s not clear whether they will be given security clearances granting them access to federal records.
New York Times, Trump Transition Reports: Confirmation Hearings Will Test Trump’s Grip on Senate G.O.P., Staff Reports, Jan. 14, 2025 (print ed.). President-elect Trump has urged Republicans to stay united but opposition to prospective nominees and time-consuming Senate rules could provide obstacles. Where Things Stand
Senate confirmation hearings scheduled this week for more than a dozen of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s cabinet choices will provide an early test of his hold over Senate Republicans. Mr. Trump has urged the Republicans to stay united and quickly deliver the team he has selected. Read more ›
A new national coalition of health professionals and scientists warned that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “unfounded, fringe beliefs could significantly undermine public health practices across the country and around the world” if he is confirmed as Mr. Trump’s health secretary. Read more ›
Stephen K. Bannon has called Elon Musk a “truly evil person,” comments that highlighted rifts within the U.S. right wing and between two men who have been influential advisers to Mr. Trump.
Cabinet Tracker: Can Susie Wiles Survive? Trump’s Territorial Ambitions Hints of Chaos to Come
New York Times, In an Upended Mideast, Trump Faces New Divergence With Old Allies, Ismaeel Naar, Jan. 13, 2025. While major ruptures are not expected, Gulf states are urging a tougher stance on Israel and a softer one on Iran, differing greatly from President-elect Trump’s first term.
When Donald J. Trump was last president of the United States, the wealthy monarchies of the Persian Gulf had a mostly harmonious relationship with his administration. As Mr. Trump prepares to return to the White House, the leaders of those Gulf countries have generally welcomed him back.
But this time around, the Gulf states and Mr. Trump appear to be diverging on several cornerstone issues, like Israel and Iran. Differences over energy policies could also be a source of friction.
It is unlikely that there will be major tensions or ruptures with U.S. allies in the Gulf. But Mr. Trump will be encountering a region that has seen drastic shifts since Israel launched its war on Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023, in which the Israeli authorities say about 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage.
The war in Gaza, in which at least 45,000 people have been killed, according to health officials in the enclave, has rippled across the region. In Lebanon, the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah has been battered by more than a year of fighting against Israel. And in Syria, rebels toppled the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
The Bulwark, Political Opinion: Trump Whines in Victory, Mr. Smith Leaves Washington, William Kristol, right, Jan. 14, 2025. Jack Smith retained his dignity but left in defeat.
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election was released just after 1:00 a.m. today. It made the once and future president of the United States unhappy.
At 1:41 a.m., Donald Trump posted:
Deranged Jack Smith was unable to successfully prosecute the Political Opponent of his “boss,” Crooked Joe Biden, so he ends up writing yet another “Report” based on information that the Unselect Committee of Political Hacks and Thugs ILLEGALLY DESTROYED AND DELETED, because it showed how totally innocent I was, and how completely guilty Nancy Pelosi, and others, were. Jack is a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election, which I won in a landslide. THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!
Ten minutes later Trump felt compelled to add:
To show you how desperate Deranged Jack Smith is, he released his Fake findings at 1:00 A.M. in the morning. Did he say that the Unselect Committee illegally destroyed and deleted all of the evidence.
Trump, like all insecure bullies, is a sore winner. One can’t help but take some comfort from the image of him tossing and turning, chafing under the weight of his festering grievances, feeling a need to lash out and lie the week before his return to the White House.
More concretely, it’s worth noting that Trump challenges none of the actual findings in Smith’s report, which was based on interviews with more than 250 individuals, grand jury testimony from more than 55 witnesses, and evidence from searches of numerous electronic devices.
It’s also worth noting that Trump’s lawyers were granted the opportunity to read Smith’s report prior to its release, and in their letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland objecting to its release, they also challenged none of his facts. As Smith noted in his response to the letter,
That response fails to identify any specific factual objections to the draft. Instead, Mr. Trump principally objects to public release of the Report, and in service of that objection makes a variety of false, misleading, or otherwise unfounded claims.
In fact, Smith’s report, which you can read here along with the letters mentioned above, confirms what we knew from contemporaneous reporting and from the House January 6th Committee: Donald Trump “engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results of the election in order to retain power.”Trump knew he lost the 2020 election. But he tried to pressure state officials to overturn the true and legitimate results, he tried to get his Justice Department and his vice president to join in a conspiracy of usurpation, and he incited a mob to attack the Capitol on January 6th.
There’s no reason not to believe Smith’s claim that, if the case had gone to trial, Trump would have been convicted on the counts with which he was charged: conspiring to deprive citizens of having their votes fairly counted and obstructing an official proceeding.
It’s good to have the Smith report, as it’s good to have the January 6th Committee report. They tell the truth, and the truth matters.
But of course in this instance it didn’t matter enough. Trump will be our next president. His lawyers, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, who signed the disingenuous letter to Garland, have been nominated to be the next deputy attorney general and principal associate deputy attorney general of the United States.
Meanwhile, Smith departs.His letter to the attorney general transmitting the report concludes:
With this Report, my service and the service of my staff is complete. I thank you for the trust you placed in me and my team and for affording us the independence necessary to conduct our work. Public service is a privilege, and we deeply appreciate the opportunity to serve our Nation in seeking to uphold the rule of law.
So Trump whines in victory, and Smith leaves with dignity but in defeat.
How, as Yeats put it, could he compete,
Being honor bred, with one
Who were it proved he lies
Were neither shamed in his ownNor in his neighbors’ eyes?
A haunting question. In the short run, lies have the advantage over truth. In the long run, the great advantage of the truth is that it’s true. That’s why we’re betting on truth. Join us.
The Bulwark, Political Opinion: A Nation of Paranoiacs, Andrew Egger, Jan. 14, 2025. Whom do we trust to behave ethically? Many fewer people than we used to.
That’s this week’s grim prognosis from Gallup’s “Honesty and Professional Ethics Survey,” the latest in a long string of polls finding that Americans’ trust in each other and our institutions continues to erode.
The regular survey, which asks respondents to rank the “honesty and ethical standards” of members of various professional fields, still finds relatively high trust in a few areas. Most Americans trust nurses, teachers, military officers, and doctors to behave ethically; other professions, from police to day care providers, still earn a net positive score, with more respondents ranking their ethics as high or very high than low or very low.
But what’s most striking about the survey is its overall trend line. Since the year 2000, exactly one profession—auto mechanics—has improved its position in the survey. Across pretty much all of society, trust has only diminished. The starkest drop-offs have clustered around professions with supposed intellectual, legal, or moral authority. Trust in medical doctors and judges have fallen more than 10 percent just since 2021. Clergy, police officers, grade-school teachers, and pharmacists are all down double digits since the early 2000s.
When we talk about Americans’ increasing cynicism toward our politics, we often focus on the supposed failings of individual actors or groups. Of course we don’t trust our politicians—haven’t you seen how spineless these guys are? Of course we don’t trust the media—haven’t you seen how badly they’ve fallen down on the job?
But the problem starts to look a little different when you see those specific cynicisms as part of a larger general shift away from trust. Did day care providers endure some massive recent scandal, to have lost eight points of trust in the eyes of the public since 2021? Are funeral directors getting more villainous, to have slipped five points since the turn of the century? Or are we all just pre-primed to be more paranoid about the motives of the people around us than we once were?
You could chalk this growing cynicism up to any number of factors—a 21st century defined by a sequence of society-shaking crises, the loss of a sense of shared moral code, the growing numbers of people who receive the world primarily through hostile algorithms designed to keep them scared and angry. The more faith we lose in the people around us, the more we pull back from the world, and the more isolated we become, feeding into more distrust.In our politics, it’s a vicious, self-cannibalizing style.
Donald Trump is the kind of figure that arises as social trust shrinks. He meets the desire among people to throw in with a leader who tells them society is hopelessly broken and he alone can fix it.
But his success feeds only more breakdowns in our social trust, even among those who had previously thought things were going pretty well: If we as a country can’t even manage to stop this guy, how much more broken are we than we thought? And it makes rallying a real opposition to him feel that much more impossible. When you lose faith in institutions—the media, the courts, even religion—you no longer believe you can turn to them to channel that opposition. You’re on your own.Getting back to a place of social stability first requires us to survive Trump’s triumphant return. But that won’t be enough. Something in the air is poisoning us against one another; if we can’t figure out how to fix it, what comes next could be even worse.
U.S. District Court Judges Maryellen Noreika (left) of Delaware and Mark Scarsi of California, both trial judges for separate charges brought against Hunter Biden, are shown side by side in file photos. Both judges, like the federal prosecugtor David Weiss, were Trump appointees who consistently stymied the Biden defense with prosecution rulings, virtually ignoring the rarity of criminal charges for other Americans who committed similar acts and the clear-cut campaign by Russian, Republican and Trump authorities to use a Russian asset among other techniques to create false allegations against the defendant and his father during presidential election campaigns.
New York Times, Special Counsel Report on Hunter Biden Denounces President’s Criticism of Case, Devlin Barrett, Jan. 13, 2025. The report by the special counsel, David C. Weiss, criticized President Biden for making “baseless accusations” that threatened “the integrity of the justice system as a whole.”
David C. Weiss, below left, the special counsel who spent years investigating Hunter Biden, criticized President Biden for making “baseless accusations” about his inquiry that threatened “the integrity of the justice system as a whole” in a final report made public on Monday.
“The president’s characterizations are incorrect based on the facts in this case, and on a more fundamental level, they are wrong,” Mr. Weiss wrote.
His inquiry had been a subject of fierce debate until the president issued a broad pardon that ended the case against his son, saying that the prosecution was the result of “raw politics.”
The report, at some 27 pages, acted as a pointed rejoinder to the president. Citing judicial rulings that found that the case had been fairly brought, Mr. Weiss used his final words on the long-running investigation to decry President Biden’s characterizations.
“Politicians who attack the decisions of career prosecutors as politically motivated when they disagree with the outcome of a case undermine the public’s confidence in our criminal justice system,” Mr. Weiss’s report said. “The president’s statements unfairly impugn the integrity not only of Department of Justice personnel, but all of the public servants making these difficult decisions in good faith.”
Despite its relative brevity, Mr. Weiss’s report contains many more pages of appendices, including Hunter Biden’s indictments and other significant court filings.
The release comes amid a much more contentious 11th-hour legal fight over the publication of a report by Jack Smith, the special counsel who filed two indictments against Donald J. Trump only for both to collapse in part because of Mr. Trump’s 2024 election victory.
Mr. Weiss’s time as special counsel began after he had already investigated Hunter Biden for several years on tax, finance and foreign lobbying issues. The two sides briefly struck a plea deal, but the unusual nature of the agreement — in addition to the government’s unwillingness to promise that the investigation would end with the deal — resulted in its collapse in July 2023.
The failed plea led Mr. Weiss to seek and receive an appointment as special counsel, allowing him to file indictments against the president’s son in two jurisdictions — related to lying on a gun purchase form in Delaware, and tax charges in Los Angeles.
Last year, the younger Mr. Biden was convicted of the gun charge by a jury in Wilmington, Del. He pleaded guilty in the tax case, but his father pardoned him while he was awaiting sentencing in both cases. The president not only absolved his son of the convictions, but also gave him a sweeping pardon for any potential crimes covering a period of more than 10 years.
In doing so, the president said his son’s case had been infected with politics, a claim that angered Mr. Weiss and the Justice Department, particularly because the president had for years asserted that the case had been handled independently.
Because the presidential pardon had effectively ruled out any such analysis, the report said, Mr. Weiss reached no conclusions about the possibility that Hunter Biden had committed other crimes.
Mr. Weiss also indicted and won a guilty plea from another man, Alexander Smirnov, for lying to the F.B.I. during the 2020 election period by falsely claiming knowledge of corrupt payments to the father and son. Mr. Smirnov, a longtime F.B.I. informant, had claimed that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Hunter Biden $5 million each around 2015 — an accusation that was trumpeted by congressional Republicans.
Washington Post, Biden says his foreign policy leaves Trump with ‘very strong hand’, Cleve R. Wootson Jr. and Karen DeYoung, Jan. 13, 2025. The president spoke at the State Department as a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas appeared to be drawing closer.
New York Times, The British Public Dislikes Elon Musk. He Can Still Sway Politics, Mark Landler, Jan. 14, 2025. His nfluence is the result of a very online political establishment and a right-leaning media that is hostile to Keir Starmer’s Labour government.
He is a deeply unpopular figure in Britain, according to opinion polls, and his social media channel has lost users in the country since he took it over in October 2022. Yet when Elon Musk put Britain in his cross hairs on X in recent weeks, pounding the political establishment over a decade-old child sex abuse scandal, he instantly catapulted the issue to the top of the news agenda.
Mr. Musk’s success is rooted in two obvious factors: his mammoth fortune and his alliance with the incoming president of the United States, Donald J. Trump. But it also reflects a British political and media establishment that is divided and deeply in flux, all of which has made Britain easy pickings for an outside influencer with vast resources and a single-minded mission to disrupt.
Britain’s right-leaning newspapers have picked up and amplified Mr. Musk’s call for a new national investigation of young girls who were sexually exploited in several towns in the 2000s, including in Rotherham, where an estimated 1,400 girls were exploited by “grooming gangs” composed largely of British Pakistani men.
New York Times, A Neo-Nazi Helped Incite U.K. Riots. Elon Musk Criticized His Sentencing, Megan Specia, Jan. 14, 2025. Andrew McIntyre, a British extremist who played a key role in fomenting last summer’s unrest, was sentenced last week to seven years in jail.
Hours after a deadly knife attack in the northern English town of Southport last July, Andrew McIntyre set up a Telegram channel called “Southport Wake Up.” Amid posts riddled with anti-Islamic, antisemitic and anti-immigrant abuse, he urged people to take to the streets, directing them to a mosque and calling for “war.”
Mr. McIntyre, 39, who took part in two of several riots that rattled Britain last summer, was sentenced to seven years in prison last Monday.
He pleaded guilty to encouraging violent disorder and criminal damage, and to possession of a knife. A day after his conviction, Elon Musk, the billionaire tech mogul, bemoaned Mr. McIntyre’s sentencing in a post on his social media platform X, declaring: “Over 7 years prison for social media posts … Whoever gave that sentence deserves prison themselves.”
Mr. Musk’s post, which has been viewed 34 million views times, is just one in a flurry of comments he has made about Britain in recent weeks that have included attacks on the governing Labour Party, and that have increasingly echoed far-right talking points laced with disinformation.
New York Times, After Loss, Gov. Tim Walz Faces Party’s Sinking Fortunes in Minnesota, Ernesto Londoño, Jan. 14, 2025. The party of Kamala Harris’s former running mate has lost control of the Minnesota Legislature and faces criticism as a deficit looms.
Since returning to Minnesota after a failed bid for vice president, Gov. Tim Walz has kept a relatively low profile. He consoled deflated supporters with a speech at a high school, posed for photos with a turkey at the Minnesota State Capitol to mark Thanksgiving and flew to the Bahamas for a brief respite from the cold.
This week, Mr. Walz, a Democrat, must start grappling in earnest with his party’s sinking political fortunes in his home state as lawmakers begin meeting in St. Paul for what is expected to be an unusually acrimonious state legislative session.
Minnesota Democrats controlled the governor’s mansion and the State Legislature the past two years, allowing them to pass a trove of liberal laws on abortion rights, marijuana and medical leave. But they are bracing for a new era of gridlock, having lost their slim majority in the House. Their control of the Senate is tenuous.
State budget officials last month issued a grim assessment of Minnesota’s fiscal health, warning that spending is projected to exceed revenue in coming years. The officials said a $5.1 billion deficit is possible by 2028. Under the Democrats’ leadership, the state had a $17.5 billion surplus at one point, leading critics to question how tax dollars have been spent.
New York Times, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Address Will Examine New York’s Future, and Her Own, Benjamin Oreskes, Jan. 14, 2025. Her State of the State speech is expected to respond to the dissatisfaction that became evident in November, especially regarding affordability and crime.
As Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York prepares to deliver her State of the State address on Tuesday, her priorities seem firmly focused on the voter frustrations that fueled Donald J. Trump’s election to the presidency in November.
Over the last month, Ms. Hochul has announced proposals to cut taxes for parents, make school lunch free and give millions of New Yorkers rebates of up to $500 depending on their income. These ideas have all been packaged as part of an “affordability agenda.”
And on Tuesday, Ms. Hochul is expected to announce a new series of middle-class tax cuts, and devote a portion of her speech to efforts to combat crime and mental illness.
“You tell us you need help; we hear you need help,” Ms. Hochul said earlier this month when previewing some of the proposals that will be included in her speech and her executive budget, which will come out next week. “We’re going to continue delivering real solutions that make a difference.”
Washington Post, McDonald’s sued over scholarships for Hispanic and Latino students, Taylor Telford, Jan. 14, 2025 (print ed.). McDonald’s HACER program is discriminatory because it is not open to students of all races, a federal lawsuit alleges.
Activists who oppose affirmative action are suing McDonald’s in federal court, alleging that the fast-food giant’s scholarship program for Hispanic and Latino high-schoolers is racially discriminatory.
Filed Sunday in Nashville by the American Alliance for Equal Rights, the lawsuit comes shortly after McDonald’s announced an overhaul of its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, joining a growing list of big-name firms such as Meta and Amazon that have rebranded policies and moved away from programs based on race and identity.
Citing a “shifting legal landscape,” McDonald’s said last week that it would end representation goals and supplier diversity efforts and would refer to its diversity team as its “Global Inclusion Team” going forward. The company also said it would pause surveys that assess the company’s progress on its diversity efforts, such as the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index.
New York Times, Opinion: Democrats Will Regret Helping to Pass the Laken Riley Act, Michelle Goldberg, right, Jan. 13, 2025. Democrats have a terrible habit, during moments of right-wing backlash, of voting for Republican legislation that they don’t seem to truly believe in and eventually live to regret.
The most glaring example is the 2002 resolution authorizing military force against Iraq, passed amid the explosion of jingoist groupthink that dominated American politics after the Sept. 11 attacks. Democratic presidential candidates who’d backed the resolution — John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden — would later tie themselves in knots trying to rationalize votes that were almost certainly motivated by political expediency, and which put their imprimatur on a catastrophe.
Another shameful episode was the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which barred the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages. It passed at a time when Democrats were on the defensive; Bill Clinton’s attempt to let gay people serve openly in the military had fallen apart, Newt Gingrich’s Republicans took the House in the 1994 midterms, and the Republican Bob Dole seemed poised to make gay marriage an issue in the coming election. In a weirdly apologetic signing statement, Clinton wrote that the law should not be “understood to provide an excuse for discrimination, violence or intimidation against any person on the basis of sexual orientation.” But as Clinton would later acknowledge when calling for its repeal, it did something worse, writing discrimination into law.
A bill called the Laken Riley Act, which overwhelmingly passed the House and could soon pass the Senate, is destined to be another entry in this archive of legislative shame. Given that anger over mass migration contributed to Democrats’ defeat in November, it’s perfectly understandable that some Democrats would tack right on border issues. The Laken Riley Act, however, is the wrong vehicle for proving their moderation. This sweeping bill will upend our immigration system in ways that will outlast Donald Trump’s presidency, ruining lives and handcuffing future Democratic administrations. Democrats who vote for it may dodge right-wing attacks in the next election, but once its true scope becomes clear, they’ll be answering for it for years to come.
The bill is named after a Georgia nursing student who was murdered last year by Jose Ibarra, an undocumented migrant from Venezuela who had previously been apprehended for crimes including shoplifting and child endangerment. Due in part to Ibarra’s arrest history, the case became a cause célèbre on the right. “The more they get away with and the more we let these criminals go, it just emboldens them, and they step it up,” said Mike Collins, the Georgia Republican who introduced the measure in the House.Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
If all the bill did was mandate the deportation of migrants convicted of petty theft, it would make sense for many Democrats to back it, if only because there’s so little political upside in defending the rights of undocumented shoplifters. But the bill goes much further than that. It mandates federal detention without bail for migrants who are merely arrested for any theft-related crimes, with no provision to free them if the charges are later dropped. (According to Axios, ICE is worried that to make room for those accused of theft, it would have to release others in its custody, including some considered “public safety threats.”)
The bill applies to many immigrants who are authorized to be here, including Dreamers and those with temporary protected status. And the legislation contains no exemption for minors. As Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, told me, the Laken Riley Act could mandate the indefinite detention of a juvenile child of asylum-seekers arrested for swiping a candy bar, even if he or she didn’t do it.
One of the act’s other provisions would give state officials unheard-of power over immigration policy. If the bill passes, a state attorney general could sue to block all visas to people from “recalcitrant countries” that don’t fully cooperate with the United States in accepting deportees, a list that includes China, India and Russia. This section of the Laken Riley Act may not matter much when Trump is in office; Republican attorneys general probably won’t want to challenge the president, and Democrats are unlikely to demand harsher immigration crackdowns. But if we ever have another Democratic president, it’s easy to picture the most conservative state prosecutors suing to block the issuance of visas to, say, people from China. Immigration policy would be subject to a chaotic fight in the federal courts.
Though the measure passed the House overwhelmingly last week, Democrats could still block it in the Senate, where it needs 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. Alas, that seems unlikely to happen. Last week, only nine Senate Democrats voted against proceeding to debate the bill on the Senate floor. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Ruben Gallego of Arizona are co-sponsors of it, and several other swing-state Democrats have already announced plans to vote for it. Fetterman told reporters last week that fellow Democrats had experienced a “blinding flash of common sense.”Editors’ Picks‘She Was Often the Only Bright Spot in My Otherwise Grim Days’Can I Ban Books From My Front-Yard Little Free Library?Where to Find Great New York Slices in 2025? You Might Be Surprised.
But the Democrats’ failure to muster opposition to this bill isn’t common sense, it’s cowardice. Given the lessons of the last election, it’s wise for Democrats to defy pro-immigrant interest groups when those groups make politically insupportable demands like abolishing ICE or decriminalizing illegal border crossings. That’s very different, however, from completely capitulating to Republican demagogy with little evident concern for the long-term consequences.
Someday, when public opinion on immigration shifts again, Democrats who voted for this cruel and misguided bill will have a hard time justifying it. If only they could save themselves and us the trouble.Exclusive news, data and analytics for financial market professionals
Bloomberg News via Reuters, China mulls potential sale of TikTok US to Musk, Staff Reports, Jan. 13, 2025. Chinese officials are mulling a potential option that involves the sale of TikTok's U.S. operations to billionaire Elon Musk if the company fails to fend off a potential ban, Bloomberg News reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Chinese officials prefer that TikTok remain under the control of parent Bytedance, the report said, adding that the company is contesting the ban with an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.Advertisement ·
Under one scenario, Musk's social media platform X would take control of TikTok U.S. and run the business together, the report said, adding that the Chinese officials have yet to reach any firm consensus about how to proceed and their deliberations are still preliminary.TikTok declined to comment, while Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment. X could not immediately be reached for a comment.
Washington Post, Soldier’s suicide exposes the struggle with mental health stigma in Special Forces culture, Alex Horton, Jan. 12, 2025 (print ed). The dramatic death at the Trump hotel in Las Vegas has spotlighted the Pentagon’s efforts to screen for and treat invisible injuries.
Matthew Livelsberger’s dramatic death outside the Trump hotel in Las Vegas has spotlighted the Pentagon’s efforts to screen for and treat invisible injuries.
The fiery New Year’s Day suicide of an Army Green Beret (shown above with his wife)exposed the Pentagon’s struggle to identify and treat brain injuries and mental health issues, raising alarm among some lawmakers, medical experts and former military personnel who question if enough is being done to improve care and prevent similar tragedies.
Matthew Livelsberger, 37, a career Special Forces soldier with extensive wartime service in Afghanistan, died from a self-inflicted gunshot moments before the rented Tesla Cybertruck he was driving exploded outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, authorities have said. Livelsberger had struggled with what he endured in combat and confided in an ex-girlfriend that he experienced health problems linked to repeated concussions.
Hopium Chronicles, Political Opinion: Battling Fires And Disinfo In California, Fighting The Unacceptable 4, Trump Is Already Raising Prices Here And Around The World, Simon Rosenberg, Jan. 13, 2025. Hearings on his nominees start tomorrow. I hope everyone here will call their Senators and House Members today to insist they work to block Trump’s Unacceptable 4: Gabbard, Hegseth, Kennedy and Patel. You don’t need a long script. Simply say that all 4 are unqualified and extremists. The incoming President erred in all 4 cases and we must find better nominees. At least 100,000 people are going to read this post today and I hope a large percentage makes these calls. We must make our voices heard.
Today Joe Biden will travel to the State Department and give a major address reviewing his foreign policy achievements. On Wednesday he gives a live televised farewell address to the nation at 8pm ET.
Friday’s strong jobs report reminded us of what a strong economy Trump is inheriting from President Biden, and how successful Trump and Republicans were in convincing people otherwise last year. Here are three good new articles on why this strong economy is a very big political problem for Trump - Rob Shapiro in Washington Monthly, Paul Krugman in his new Substack, and Howard Schneider in Reuters.
On Friday the International Monetary Fund warned that Trump’s banana-nuts economic agenda is already driving up long-term interest rates -- and thus prices on many things -- here and around the world. From The Financial Times:
The IMF has warned that jitters surrounding Donald Trump’s threat to impose trade tariffs were driving up longer-term borrowing costs and would add to pressures facing the global economy in 2025. Speaking to reporters in Washington on Friday, IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva said global economic policy faced “quite a lot of uncertainty” in 2025, particularly around the trade policy of the world’s largest economy. “That uncertainty is actually expressed globally through higher long-term interest rates,” Georgieva said
CNN, Reliable Sources Analysis: The Contrarian set for combat, Brian Steltzer, Jan. 13, 2025. Today, veteran opinion columnist Jennifer Rubin, right, is becoming the latest in a long list of Washington Post figures to leave the troubled institution.
Rubin tells me she is partnering with former White House ethics czar Norm Eisen and launching a startup publication called The Contrarian. Its tagline, "Not owned by anybody," is a pointed reference to billionaire Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos and other moguls who, in Rubin's view, have "bent the knee" to President-elect Donald Trump.
"Our goal is to combat, with every fiber of our being, the authoritarian threat that we face," Rubin says.
Rather than anti-Trump, the founders describe their venture as pro-democracy. They said they have already enlisted about two dozen contributors, including Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Andy Borowitz, George Conway, John Dean, Bob Kagan, Barb McQuade, Katie Phang, Asha Rangappa, Stephen Richer, and Andrew Weissmann.
Eisen, who is departing his CNN legal analyst role, will be the publisher. Rubin will be the editor-in-chief. Rubin says she resigned from the Post because it, "along with most mainstream news outlets, has failed spectacularly at a moment that we most need a robust, aggressive free press." She adds: "I fear that things are going from bad to worse at The Post."
The Contrarian is joining a growing group of publications – like The Bulwark and Zeteo – that are built on Substack. It will charge $7 a month for full access to columns, podcasts, and videos.
The founders stress that the site will cover culture and publish humor columns – with an eye toward appealing to folks who don't follow politics closely. Eisen, a former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic, says "I know from my experience in Europe that the dissident movements there have been led by those in humor, satire, and culture like my friend President Václav Havel who was a playwright."
"We will bring in a large array of voices – you need that to fight autocracy," Eisen says. "Laughing may actually end up being more important than political and legal analysis!"
Washington Post, Jack Smith, special counsel in Trump cases, resigns, Perry Stein and Jeremy Roebuck, Jan. 12, 2025 (print ed). Smith has spent the last two months winding down the two federal criminal prosecutions of Donald Trump and had indicated he would resign before inauguration.
Special counsel Jack Smith has resigned from the Justice Department after completing his work overseeing two federal prosecutions of Donald Trump, according to a government court filing.
Though Smith’s departure was expected, official word of the end of his two-year appointment was another step in the winding down of the criminal cases against the former and future president, just over a week before Inauguration Day.Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what's true, false or in-between in politics.
Smith, a veteran federal and war crimes prosecutor, became the public face of the Justice Department’s efforts to hold Trump accountable for two sets of alleged crimes: trying to block Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory; and, after leaving the White House, mishandling highly classified documents and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them.
Neither case went to trial. The election-interference indictment was delayed after a Supreme Court ruling last summer greatly expanded presidential immunity for actions taken while in office. U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon in Florida tossed the classified documents indictment two weeks later, ruling Smith had been unlawfully appointed.
Trump accused Smith and Attorney General Merrick Garland of bringing the cases for political reasons. The president-elect was planning to fire Smith and his team, The Washington Post reported in November, and Smith had made clear that he would resign before Trump took office.
News that he had done so came in a footnote to a court filing Saturday, as government lawyers urged Cannon not to extend a court order she issued Tuesday that temporarily blocked the release of Smith’s final report on his investigations.
Smith “separated” from the department Friday, the filing said — three days after he’d submitted his report to Garland. While Justice Department rules require special counsels to submit such reports, it is typically up to the attorney general whether to make them public. In this case, however, Trump and his former co-defendants in the classified documents case have returned to the courts to try to keep Smith’s report under wraps.
Washington Post, Appeals court allows release of Smith’s report on Trump’s election-reversal efforts, Jeremy Roebuck and Perry Stein, Jan. 10, 2025. A federal appellate court ruled Thursday that the Justice Department may publicly release special counsel Jack Smith’s report on Donald Trump’s efforts to undo the results of the 2020 election, although the timing of that release remains unclear.
The ruling did not distinguish between the two volumes of Smith’s report — one dealing with his election-interference probe and the other focused on Smith’s investigation into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.
But Smith and Attorney General Merrick Garland have said in court filings and in a letter to Congress that they will keep the classified documents volume under wraps while litigation related to the case continues.
The president-elect, right, and two of his former co-defendants in the documents case had urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to block the release of the entire report, with Trump saying making it public would harm his White House transition. Trump and his co-defendants did not immediately say Thursday if they would appeal. A lower court judge had previously barred the release of the report until at least three days after the 11th Circuit decision. In a filing late Thursday evening, three hours after the appellate court’s ruling, the Justice Department and Smith said they would appeal that lower court order to potentially allow for an earlier release.
Smith’s report could shed new light on alleged efforts by Trump and his allies to subvert his election loss four years ago. Many of those details were divulged in a lengthy legal brief the special counsel filed last year detailing the evidence his team had amassed. But Smith’s report could offer a clearer picture of the material as well as insights into the strategy the government would have employed had that historic set of charges against Trump gone to trial.
Smith agreed to dismiss the election interference indictment last year after Trump’s election victory, citing Justice Department regulations prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting president.
New York Times, Analysis: As a Felon, Trump Upends How Americans View the Presidency, Peter Baker, Jan. 12, 2025 (print ed.). A big economic package, mass deportations, maybe even some invasions of other countries. Oh, and one more item. “I’ll do my little thing tomorrow,” a busy President-elect Donald J. Trump mentioned the other night.
That little thing was the first criminal sentencing of an American president. That little thing was confirmation that Mr. Trump, just 10 days later, would become the first president to move into the White House with a rap sheet. That little thing is the latest shift in standards that once governed high office.
Mr. Trump does not really consider it a little thing, of course, given how strenuously he sought to avoid Friday’s sentencing for 34 felony counts in his hush money case. But to a remarkable degree, he has succeeded in making it a little thing in the body politic. What was once a pretty-much-guaranteed disqualifier for the presidency is now just one more political event seen through a partisan lens.
After all, no one seemed shocked after Friday’s sentencing in New York. While Mr. Trump was spared jail time or financial penalties, he effectively had the word “felon” tattooed on his record for all time unless a higher court overturns the conviction. But that development was already baked into the system. Voters knew last fall that Mr. Trump had been found guilty by a jury of his peers, and enough of them decided it was either illegitimate or not as important as other issues.
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: January 10, 2025 [U.S. Jobs, Fires, Politics,], Heather Cox Richardson, right, Jan. 11, 2025. Today the Department of Labor released the final jobs report of Joe Biden’s presidency. The nation added 256,000 new jobs in December, a number significantly higher than economists expected. That brings the total number of jobs created under Biden to 16.6 million and makes Biden’s the only administration in history to have created jobs every month. Under the Biden administration, the nation has also had the lowest average unemployment rate of any administration in 50 years, ending at 4.1%.
Dan Primack of Axios reported that the U.S. gained more jobs during Biden’s four years than it did under President Donald Trump, Barack Obama, or George W. Bush.
In a statement, Biden noted that when he took office, economic forecasts projected that it would take years for the country to recover fully from the effects of the coronavirus shutdown. In fact, the U.S. economy has grown faster and created more jobs than any other country with an advanced economy. Working-age women are now employed at record levels, and the gap in employment between Black Americans and their white counterparts is at the lowest level on record. The administration has brought the inflation of the early recovery back down almost to target levels, while incomes have increased about $4,000 more than prices. The administration, Biden said, has “achieved the soft landing that few thought was possible.”
CNBC economist Carl Quintanilla quoted Matt Peterson of Barron’s, who wrote: “It looks a lot like U.S. consumers are happy with the way things are...[a]nd so are the markets.... The only one who doesn’t seem to be happy with the way things are is Trump.”
Brian Platt of Bloomberg reports that Trump’s threats of tariffs against Canada already have Canadian officials drafting plans for retaliation. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau told CNN yesterday that Trump is talking about annexing Canada to divert attention from how significantly his tariff plans would raise consumer prices.
As Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo noted late last year, MAGA was never an ideological movement so much as a vehicle to pull together different constituencies in order to get Trump elected president. Since members of those constituencies have little in common, that effort centers around creating a false world that demonizes Democrats and insists they have created a dangerous world that is biased against MAGA. The only one who can stand against them, the story goes, is Trump, who is being persecuted for his defense of his supporters. That narrative has helped MAGAs to find common ground in their defense of Trump and his cronies and their support for Trump’s vows to retaliate against those he considers his enemies.
That impulse appears to be stronger than ever after Judge Juan Merchan sentenced Trump today in the New York election interference case in which a jury found Trump guilty of 34 felonies for covering up payments to an adult film actress to keep her quiet about their sexual encounter before the 2016 presidential election. Merchan said that he could not impose a punishment without encroaching on the presidency, so in an unusually light sentence, he released Trump without restrictions. As legal analyst Joyce White Vance explained, Trump knew he would not get jail time or a fine, but wanted to avoid the sentencing itself because just a month after the sentencing, the designation of convicted felon will become permanent.
Although a unanimous jury convicted him, Trump insisted the trial was “a political witch hunt…done to damage my reputation so that I’d lose the election…. The fact is I’m totally innocent.” He seemed to think that ratings should override reality, telling the judge: “I got the largest number of votes by far by any Republican in history,” he said, “and won, as you know, all seven swing states—won conclusively all seven swing states.”
Trump’s version of the case appeared to be convincing to MAGA pundits and lawmakers, who echoed his calls for retribution. Trump’s lawyer Mike Davis warned: “Right now the Democrats think they’re the hunters. And guess what? On January 20th at noon, they’re going to become the hunted.” Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Nancy Mace (R-SC), and Ronnie Jackson (R-TX) all echoed Trump. “Trump will win in the end and America wins in 10 days when we get Trump back!!” Jackson posted on X.
MAGA supporters have embraced Trump’s attacks on Democrats and on the government, most notably with their fact-free attacks on the Biden administration's handling of natural disasters—first the terrible flooding in North Carolina, when the right wing spread the lie that government officials were stealing people’s land, and now the terrible fires in Los Angeles that have been fueled in large part by the climate change that cut rainfall since last May and brought an unusually hot summer.
While local, state, and federal officials are doing their best to battle the Los Angeles fires in raging winds and dry conditions, Trump and his allies are lying to create the belief that the Democratic government is to blame for the fires. Trump lied that there is a shortage of water because Democratic governor Gavin Newsom refused to divert water to the area. Others claimed—falsely—that Democratic Mayor Karen Bass cut the budget for the Los Angeles Fire Department, when in fact a 7% increase in funding came through negotiations outside the budget.
They have blamed diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts for the blazes because the Los Angeles Fire Department is headed by Kristin Crowley, an LGBT woman who came up through the ranks in the department over twenty years. And Trump sidekick Elon Musk agreed with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones that the fires are part of a “globalist plot” to trigger “total collapse” in the United States. “Gavin Newscum should resign. This is all his fault!!!” Trump posted.
In reality, firefighters are hard at work, with crews from both Canada and Mexico working along with Californians to suppress the fires.
New York Times, Israel’s Campaign in Syrian Border Area Prompts Fears It Plans to Stay, Jan. 12, 2025 (print ed.). Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s order for Israeli troops to “take over” a buffer zone with Syria upended decades of relative calm along the de facto border.
Washington Post, Biden eulogizes Carter with an emphasis on character, Cleve R. Wootson Jr., Jan. 11, 2025 (print ed.). President Joe Biden eulogized former president Jimmy Carter on Thursday as a man who “taught me the strength of character” and refused to let personal ambition or politics erode his inherent goodness, using one of his final speeches as president to issue an indirect rebuke to the politics of today.Get the latest election news and results
“Character, I believe, is destiny. Destiny in our lives and, quite frankly, destiny in the life of our nation,” Biden said in remarks that began just before noon, using the word “character” nearly a dozen times in 10 minutes. “We have an obligation to give hate no safe harbor and to stand up to what my dad said is the greatest sin of all: the abuse of power.”
Carter had personally asked Biden to deliver his eulogy, but Biden’s words seemed aimed at least in part at the current moment and President-elect Donald Trump’s style of politics, which he has derided as focused on self-absorption and fueling division for political gain.
Biden said anyone seeking to lead a good life would be wise to model themselves on Carter, who he said was motivated by “faith, hope and love.” He hailed the former president as a man who spent his life serving everyone from his neighbors in his small hometown of Plains, Georgia, to residents of poor countries around the world.
“We’re all fallible, but it’s about asking ourselves, are we striving ourselves to do the right things? What are the values that animate our spirit? Do we operate from fear or hope, ego or generosity?” Biden said, as he sought to elaborate on the notion of character.
Washington Post, Economy adds 256,000 jobs in December, reflecting stronger growth toward the end of 2024, Lauren Kaori Gurley, Jan. 11, 2025 (print ed.). The unemployment rate fell to 4.1 percent.
The U.S. labor market added 256,000 jobs in December, a strong showing at the end of 2024, as the labor market revved up toward the end of the year.
The unemployment rate improved, inching down to 4.1 percent from 4.2 percent in November, perhaps an early indication along with other improving data of a rebound in the labor market after months of cooling.
Forecasters had predicted the report would show 155,000 new jobs added in December.
“We certainly saw a softening in overall labor market conditions” in 2024, said Sarah House, a senior economist at Wells Fargo. “But for the most part, it’s been a gradual cooling. … Businesses have reduced demand for new workers, but they’re hanging on to their existing workers.”
Unemployment levels for 2024 were also revised down, showing that the rate of joblessness never surpassed 4.2 percent this year, a low level that suggests underlying strength in the labor market even as hiring cooled.
Porn star Stormy Daniels and former President Donald J. Trump, who hid hush payments to her via The National Enquirer newspaper during the 2016 presidential campaign to hide their affair from election finance officials and the public.
Washington Post, Trump to be sentenced today in New York hush money case, Staff Reports, Jan. 10, 2025. President-elect Donald Trump is set to be sentenced Friday, as part of a case in which a New York jury convicted him on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to an adult-film actress shortly before the 2016 election.
Washington Post, DOGE is dispatching agents across U.S. government, Faiz Siddiqui, Jeff Stein and Elizabeth Dwoskin, Jan. 10, 2025. Federal officials are already dealing with surrogates from Elon Musk’s and Vivek Ramaswamy’s nongovernmental body before Donald Trump is sworn in again.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are sending representatives to agencies across the federal government, four people familiar with the matter said, to begin preliminary interviews that will shape the tech executives’ enormous ambitions to tame Washington’s sprawling bureaucracy.
In recent days, aides with the nongovernmental “Department of Government Efficiency" tied to President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team have spoken with staffers at more than a dozen federal agencies, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media. The agencies include the Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service and the departments of Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services, the people said.
At the same time, Musk and Ramaswamy have significantly stepped up hiring for their new entity, with more than 50 staffers already working out of the offices of SpaceX, Musk’s rocket-building company, in downtown Washington, two of the people said. DOGE aims to have a staff of close to 100 people in place by Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, they said.
Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.
New York Times, Trump Investigations: Justice Dept. Signals Report on Trump Documents Case May Never Be Released, Alan Feuer and Charlie Savage, Jan. 9, 2025 (print ed.). In a court filing, the department indicated that the report by the special counsel, Jack Smith, may not be made public before Donald J. Trump takes office, raising the prospect that the new administration will bury it.
Federal prosecutors tacitly signaled on Wednesday that the public may never see a portion of a report by the special counsel, Jack Smith, detailing his investigation into President-elect Donald J. Trump’s refusal to give back a trove of classified documents he took from the White House after leaving office.
Mr. Trump’s legal team has been fighting a pitched battle in recent days to keep the report out of the public eye. In court papers on Wednesday, the Justice Department said that Attorney General Merrick B. Garland did not intend to release the volume about the documents inquiry until legal proceedings have ended against two co-defendants who were charged along with Mr. Trump.
The decision raised the prospect that the report might never be made public at all. The case against Mr. Trump’s co-defendants is likely to continue into his second term starting Jan. 20, when he could pardon the men and end the case altogether. His appointees would then have the power to continue keeping Mr. Smith’s report secret.SPECIAL COUNSEL REPORTRead the Justice Department’s court filing delaying the release of Jack Smith’s report.
The government’s filing, before a federal appeals court in Atlanta, came one day after Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who oversaw — and ultimately threw out — the documents case, issued an injunction temporarily barring the department from releasing Mr. Smith’s report. Her order did not appear to distinguish between the volume about the documents case and the one compiled by Mr. Smith and his team about their separate case against Mr. Trump for his attempt to overturn his loss of the 2020 election.
The Justice Department does plan to release the portion of Mr. Smith’s report focusing on the election interference charges, the court papers said. That case was dropped after Mr. Trump won the election as prosecutors bowed to a longstanding Justice Department policy that prohibits pursuing criminal prosecutions against sitting presidents.
In their filing to the appeals court, prosecutors said that Mr. Garland would make Mr. Smith’s report about the classified documents case available to the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, except for information that is covered by a grand jury secrecy rule.
The Bulwark, Political Opinion:, Release Jack Smith’s ReportI, Bill Kristol, right, Jan. 7, 2025. The outgoing administration shouldn’t play along with the whitewashing of January 6th.
You can never really tell which of the wacky ideas that Trump spins up will end up forgotten in a few days and which will lodge like a splinter in his brain forever. During his first term, “We’re gonna buy Greenland” seemed like it belonged to the former category. Now, it seems he’s making it a top administration priority.
“I am hearing that the people of Greenland are ‘MAGA,’” Trump wrote yesterday. “My son, Don Jr, and various representatives, will be traveling there to visit some of the most magnificent areas and sights. Greenland is an incredible place, and the people will benefit tremendously if, and when, it becomes part of our Nation. We will protect it, and cherish it, from a very vicious outside World. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!”
Last night, Donald Trump’s lawyers demanded that Attorney General Merrick Garland block the release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on his two investigations, one on Trump and January 6th, the other on Trump’s handling of the classified documents he took with him to Mar-a-Lago.
The attorney general will surely refuse Trump’s demand. Justice Department regulations require special counsels to submit reports explaining their legal decisions at the end of their investigations. Just as Garland last year released Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents, he’ll make public—with appropriate redactions—Smith’s report on Trump. (For that matter, we can also expect the attorney general to release special counsel David Weiss’s final report on his investigation of the now-pardoned Hunter Biden.)
Trump’s demand that Smith’s report be suppressed is a useful reminder that he really hates truthful accounts of January 6th, even if—especially if—they are based on testimony under oath from many different individuals, including many who worked for him. Recall Trump’s fear and loathing of the House January 6th Committee.
The loathing is, I suppose, easily understandable. Politicians don’t like scrutiny. And they especially don’t like criticism. And those who’ve gone so far as to commit sordid and likely criminal acts don’t like to see their disreputable behavior exposed.
But one senses that in addition to the hatred and the loathing, there’s an element of fear. Why?
Trump won. Smith’s report won’t change that. And in any case, his entire propaganda machine is ready to attack the report as the product of a biased Biden Justice Department and a Trump-hating special prosecutor. The report will have no immediate effect on public opinion, nor on the successes or failures of the opening days of Trump’s presidency.
Still, Trump knows how crucial his rewriting of the history of January 6th was to his victory in November. If most Republicans had held to their original judgment of January 6th as a day of shame—if they had continued to believe that it was what Trump the very next day called a “heinous attack” that “defiled the seat of American democracy”—Trump would not have been the 2024 GOP nominee. If most Americans had thought January 6th not just an unfortunate event but a disqualifying disgrace, Trump wouldn’t have won the general election.
The whitewashing of January 6th was key to Trump’s political comeback.
And Trump has the sense—and I think he’s right about this—that he must make sure that January 6th stays whitewashed for the sake of his political success going forward.
The Hartmann Report, Commentary: America Chose Wealth Over Well-Being: How Billionaires Rewrote the American Dream, Thom Hartmann, right, Jan. 7, 2025. Yesterday, Congress certified the electoral vote count making a billionaire president again, starting after he’s sworn in on January 20th.
Yes, we chose a billionaire. Again. After other billionaires spent billions to convince us to make that choice.
As you’re reading these words, billionaires from America and around the world are making pilgrimages to his shabby golf motel to kiss our upcoming billionaire president’s ass and hand him envelopes with $1 million checks that represent a few hours (at most) of income for most of them or their companies.
Meanwhile, our billionaire president-in-waiting is packing his cabinet — the heads of all of the most important federal agencies — with even more billionaires. This is all being celebrated over on billionaire-owned Fox “News” and on billionaire-owned hate radio networks, as well as in the billionaire-owned Washington Post, LA Times, and the roughly half of American local newspapers owned by billionaire hedge funds.
Other countries enjoy benefits like free healthcare and college; modern mass transit; and affordable housing, food, and drugs.
They also have inexpensive internet and phone service without companies listening in and selling their information, schools that don’t even need to mention school shooters, and streets and parks filled with pedestrians and children instead of tents for the homeless.
Additionally, they benefit from renewable electricity that gets cheaper every year while cleaning their environment.
We, on the other hand, have the world‘s largest collection of billionaires.
Recent Relevant Headlines
Washington Post, Biden eulogizes Carter with an emphasis on characterWashington Post, Los Angeles wildfires already pegged as costliest blaze in U.S. history
Trump / GOP Transition News
New York Times, Zuckerberg Will Host a Party for Trump’s Inauguration, Theodore Schleifer and Mike Isaac, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.). Mark Zuckerberg, the Meta chief executive, is one of several tech leaders expected to play a high-profile role in celebrating the new administration next week.
Mark Zuckerberg, right, the Meta chief executive who has tried to keep a distance from politics, is warming to President-elect Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Zuckerberg is among several Big Tech executives who are expected to be front and center at Mr. Trump’s inauguration next week. He will be one of four hosts of a black-tie reception on Jan. 20, joining the longtime Republican donors Miriam Adelson and Todd Ricketts in hosting a party “celebrating the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump and Vice President JD Vance,” according to a copy of the invitation seen by The New York Times. The event was first reported by Puck.
Corporate leaders often argue that supporting an inauguration is a patriotic act that does not amount to political support for the president. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, declined to comment.
Mr. Zuckerberg rarely attaches his name to political events. He did not play a similar role at President Biden’s inauguration in 2020 or at Mr. Trump’s first inauguration, in 2016.
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Proof, Investigative Commentary: New Q&A Series, No. 1: Answering Some Extremely Easy Questions Asked By the Worst-Informed and Most Disingenuous Far-Right Billionaires on Earth, Seth Abramson, left, author, attorney and former professor, Jan. 4, 2025. Bill Ackman, above, asks, “How can someone with 53 prior arrests continue to be on the NYC streets?” It’s a child’s question—or anyone with no knowledge of criminal justice—but here an expert answers it.
Seth AbramsonJan 4 QUESTION from far-right billionaire BILL ACKMAN: “How can someone with 53 prior arrests continue to be on the NYC streets?”
We know this question is asked in bad faith, because a billionaire like Ackman has lawyers and other advisers who could answer this extremely basic question for him almost immediately.
There’s no reason to broadcast the question to his 1.6 million Twitter followers other than to spread three far-right canards that every criminal justice professional knows to be false: New York City is a dangerous large city (it is actually a very, very safe large city); prosecutors are by and large progressive (by and large, prosecutors are extremely conservative by instinct, politics, and professional-advancement planning); and violent crime is now out of control (it is plummeting).
Nevertheless here’s an ANSWER from criminal defense attorney Seth Abramson:
On a criminal record, each charge a person has ever faced is a separate arrest entry—so if, on a single date of offense, a person is arrested on ten charges, that may well show as ten arrests even though all of those arrests were for a single course of conduct.
Because over 95% of criminal cases are resolved by a defendant taking responsibility for their actions and accepting a plea deal—that’s right, the overwhelming majority of those arrested aren’t like Donald Trump and seek no more than a just punishment for what they are accused of doing—police and prosecutors prepare in advance for this known eventuality by habitually wildly overcharging cases. The theory behind this is that the more charges you can pile on someone, the more likelihood (because each charge carries its own penalty, which can be assessed consecutively to all other penalties) they will enter into a plea agreement with the government and thus spare taxpayers the cost (and government agents the time) of a full-blown criminal trial.
The result of this is that even a rather minor incident will often lead to a very large number of more-or-less redundant charges and an extremely filled-up arrest record.
I’ve seen and personally represented defendants with 50+ arrests from just two dates of offense—meaning just two actions that were deemed by the arresting officers to be criminal. Bill Ackman is also aware of such a situation, given that his political hero, Donald Trump, technically was arrested on 34 felonies as part of a single course of conduct (though in Trump’s case these crimes spanned months, which is actually far worse than what we see with unpremeditated street crimes born of transient anger).
And of course arrests aren’t convictions. While arrests show up on an arrest record, many arrests result in nolle prosequi withdrawals of the charges by prosecutors for reasons ranging from a witness recantation to a plea deal that involves some charges being withdrawn, from the evidence ultimately gathered by police not sustaining the charges the arresting officers originally believed could be sustained to a prosecutor deciding (but this is rare) that the case was overcharged and that is was unfair to the defendant.
Short of charges being withdrawn voluntarily by the government, they may also be “kicked” (dismissed) by judges because (say) witnesses fail to appear in court, certain evidence was illegally seized, the government has botched the collection or testing of the evidence in a way that infringes upon the defendant’s constitutional rights, or a whole host of other reasons—including, notably, a “not guilty” verdict by a jury of the defendant’s peers after a trial.
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Hopium Chronicles, Political Commentary, January 6th - Another Day That Will Live In Infamy, Simon Rosenberg
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U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), left, basks in the presence of Elon Musk, center, and President-elect Donald Trump
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: December 21, 2024 [U.S. Government Shutdown Avoided], Heather Cox Richardson, Dec. 22, 2024. Shortly after midnight last night, the Senate passed the continuing resolution to fund the government through March 14, 2025. The previous continuing resolution ran out at midnight, but as Bloomberg’s congressional budget reporter Steven Dennis explained, “midnight is NOT a hard deadline for a government shutdown. A shutdown occurs only when [the Office of Management and Budget] issues a shutdown order, which they traditionally will NOT issue if a bill is moving toward completion.”
President Joe Biden signed the bill this morning, praising the agreement for keeping the government open, providing urgently needed disaster relief, and providing the money to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore after a container ship hit it in March 2024, causing it to collapse.
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Trump's Cases, Allies, Threats, Opponents
Lance's Substack, Political Opinion: Biden's Worst Decision, Lance F Rosen, Jan. 1, 2024. Will Bunch of the Philly Inquirer nails it. The biggest and most tragic mistake by Joe Biden was his pick of Merrick Garland for Attorney General.
Thanks to Will Bunch (published here) we now know why President Biden picked Merrick Garland and so regrets his decision. Former White House Chief Of Staff Ron Klain led the faction which pushed Garland. This is according to his commentary based upona Washington Post report detailing Biden's extreme regret over his choice.
Not mentioned by Bunch about Klain is that he's the tag team partner of corrupt corporate centrist Biden advisor Anita Dunn, left, who sabotaged his presidency and campaign by abandoning progressives and traditional Democratic constituencies in favor of appeals to "moderate MAGAs" from the white suburbs. Dunn had top down control over the campaign press shop and messaging, and did everything possible to prevent Biden from attacking Trump, or even using his name. He was advised to call him "the other guy," and tripped all over himself trying to distinguish between the misnamed "regular" MAGA, and "Ultra-MAGA," which he described as "semi-fascist."
The Dunn-Klain combo was the source of the awful triangulation strategy, which infected many aspects of the administration, costing the President whole chunks of his program (in conjunction with fellow Democratic corporate centrists Manchin and Sinema with whom they worked) and large drops in his approval ratings among youth, black and Muslim minorities, Latinos, and progressives of all stripes. This is the actual reason why the so-called "Blue Wall" collapsed in November, and we now have a full clown-car of escaped mental patients being given the keys to the government to go joyriding around in for four or more years.
Also not mentioned by Bunch was that Klain and Dunn were exposed as the pair who sabotaged Biden's debate prep which contributed to sinking his candidacy, the reason FLOTUS Dr. Jill Biden and son Hunter (shown above in a June 2024 photo) demanded the President fire them both immediately after the disaster when they all met at Camp David (which he wouldn't).
I suspected that the reasoning behind Garland's appointment was a futile and deluded plan to seek bipartisanship with MAGA, which included a "hands off or go slow" approach to prosecuting Trump's crimes, so as to not overly antagonize Trump's Congressional allies and base. Maybe a great idea on paper, but they were always going to be "antagonized" over everything. They incited and assisted a violent mob attack our Capitol, and the White House hoped for civilty and cooperation with Nazis who organized a coup against them? Seriously?
Bunch's background commentary on the Garland appointment seems to point in the same direction, raising similar questions, and is sounding an alarm to prevent similar failures in judgment.
Excerpt continued from above.
I'm going to state publicly what I have suspected all along but have not yet divulged until now. This is my personal speculation, but I believe that a deal was made by Biden to get Trump to leave the White House and relinquish power in 2021, provided he would not be prosecuted aggressively. This, in my mind, is the only thing which solves the mystery of why did Trump even leave, and why did he agree to a transition? And I should state for the record that while I always remained critical in a principled way, I have been a strong and vocal defender of Joe Biden since he launched his candidacy in 2017, and I am not writing this to bash him. In a way, if a deal was made I understand it and his motives.
That said, all indications were that Trump would make some desperate effort at a last stand, because he stood to lose his Presidential legal shield and go to jail if he didn't. He even tried to get Netanyahu's help in launching a war with Iran at the end to fabricate a national emergency and void the election. General Milley actually called it Trump's "Reichstag Fire" and blocked it. Despite his desperation, Trump relented, and it has always been puzzling to me as to why. If there were a deal, that would explain it. We know that everything with Trump is a transaction, devoid of any motive other than self-preservation. I am certainly open to discussion if others have thoughts on it, because it is just my opinion and nothing more.
So, on our timeline, Biden came in, pledged bipartisanship and healing in his inaugural, appointed Garland under pressure from Dunns's flunky Klain, left. He (Garland) was a former DOJ prosecutor and federal judge, a plodding GOP bureaucrat and proceduralist, guaranteed to not do anything which could remotely be considered "political" in order to protect the DOJ from charges of "weaponizing Justice. Therefore when it came to not antagonizing MAGA, he was right on board with Klain's and Dunn's program.
Remember also that this was the guy who prosecuted the Oklahoma City bombers McVeigh and Nichols, but the religious cult and militia networks (the neo-Nazi "Christian Identity," and the Michigan militia) which housed them and actively supported their anti-government plot were let off the hook. There was a network, not just two guys, and Garland chose to not go after all of them for sedition conspiracy, only the two mentioned for the crime of the bombing. (It should be mentioned that the same Michigan militia networks that supported them were caught plotting a "citizen's arrest" of Governor Gretchen Whitmer 26 years later, which was in fact a plot to kidnap her and her cabinet, conduct mock trials and summary executions for treason, right after they were incited by Trump to storm the Michigan Capitol in Lansing to oppose covid lockdown)
Garland, once sworn in after the usual obstruction in the Senate by McConnell, (the second go-round for him after he was Obama's failed nominee for SCOTUS) did nothing for month after month about the stolen documents or J-6. Instead of going after the planners and the ringleaders, he was preoccupied with rounding up and prosecuting the thousand or so zombies used as cannon-fodder for the riot, which was just cover for the actual coup plot of Trump's Congreseional allies boiding Biden's electors. Not Trump,Meadows, Bannon, Stone, especially not Ginni Thomas. No, it was more important to nail the “horny” QAnon guy than the people who were responsible for bring the mob which left five dead DC cops and hundreds more injured.
Then the J-6 committee did such a thorough job documenting Trump's coup attempt, that Garland was literally forced to abort the "hands off" policy and started a grand jury. And once it was finally underway, all of his foot-dragging led to his "cover your ass" move of appointing a special prosecutor, Jack Smith.
Then there were shocking revelations that Trump's stolen documents included nuclear secrets which he was showing off to guests and donors at his golf club, and Biden's national security team raised the roof to convince him to pressure Garland to go after them. Garland started another investigation he didn't want in order to force Trump to give the documents up. Trump said "fuck you," ordered his lawyers to lie to the FBI, he was allowed to stall, hide some of what he had, possibly sell some of it, so Garland was forced to get a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago and start a second grand jury (which again he never wanted) and Biden went along with him on all of it.
And to top it off, Garland incredibly insisted that Smith convene the grand jury and try the stolen documents case in Ron DeSantis' fascist hellscape of Florida, not Washington DC where the judges are more balanced than Florida's Republican hack federal appointees. No credible reason for Garland to insist Smith go to trial in Florida was ever given, aside from the fact the documents were there. He personally oversaw packing up in Washington, and had no immunity the moment Biden was sworn in. It would have been a slam dunk.
The only possible explanation is that bringing the case in Trump's home state was a sop, a buy-off to mitigate the rage and retribution factor from the Congressional MAGAts. Remember that after the Mar-aLago FBI search warrant was executed, a Trump supporter assassinated an FBI agent in Cincinnati, and there was a pattern of threats against their offices nationwide. Therefore Florida is what they went with, and almost predictibly a Trump appointed "fan-girl" known as Aileen "Loose Cannon" got jurisdiction, stalled, delayed, and after the SCOTUS immunity ruling threw out the case entirely.
This bought Trump the time he needed to let the SCOTUS step in and give him his blank check to cancel all of his cases and start making plans to deploy Seal Team Six to assassinate his political opponents. All of the cases were then pronounced DOA, including the state criminal charges in Georgia and New York.
As a consequence of Garland's malfeasance and incompetence, we now have a Führer, not a President, coming in with list in hand of his targets for bloody retribution, a person with the mental map and personality disorders of the movie character Patrick Bateman from the bloody horror novel "American Psycho." And the worst thing is that some of us wanted to believe the same thing President Biden believed, that this collection of vengeance-seeking bloodthirsty fascists who belong to a violent cult led by a psychopath could be bargained with. Or, for that matter cared even a whit about the national interest, and were really just normal good people who would come around when we got some bills passed that would mean job security and putting money in the pockets of their voters.
It is beyond me that someone with Joe's battle-tested life experiences and history of political wars in the Senate and as VP could actually have believed this. He once told Putin to his face that he had no soul. Did he really think he could horse-trade with people who were bought or sold, or had their lives threatened? Did he really believe that Trump would honor his side of any deal that was made, if one was made? I believe in redemption, but I don't cry over Hallmark movie happy endings which I know to not be real,
The intention, in my view, was never to prosecute or jail Trump, despite Jack Smith's committment to do just that. It was to use the prosecutions as leverage to contain Trump and force him to eventually drop out of the campaign. And instead he turned around and did the exact opposite. And Biden went along with the deal and Garland's do-nothingism because his "Rasputin" Anita Dunn was in his ear telling him that if Trump went on trial he would lose the "moderate MAGA" vote and therefore the whole election, and our democracy along with it.
Biden never realized how tragic his error was until Garland went after his son, then after him personally on his decade old collection of useless memorabilia in his garage, and Garland's choice for Special Prosecutor, Republican hack prosecutor Robert Hur (approved of by Gym Jordan and James Comer) wrote a long report on how there was no crime, but Biden seemed senile. All this of course to prove himself fair and non-partisan when it came time to testify in Jordan's committee to grovel for budget crumbs and defend his turf. Joe never saw it coming, like a character in a Shakespeare tragedy.
That is my reading from the outside, fwiw. Like I said it is speculation. And the tragedy regardless is that Biden's awful pragmatic decision born of a 50 year long career of centrist dealmaking with Republicans came back to haunt him because Garland offered up his son Hunter as a sacrifice to the MAGA carnivores, hoping that would "balance things out" for his Trump cases, (which again, I believe he never wanted) and prove his department was apolitical in order to keep them out of his business running the DOJ. Well...how did that all work out?
That is what I believe actually happened. At some point I think more will come out that points toward this scenario as being likely.
So, one mystery solved, which is why Biden picked Garland. Another one still remains open, which is why did Trump leave the White House in 2021, a decision he has said he regretted all along. Whatever the case, we will pay the price for President Biden's unfortunate decisions reminiscent of Shakespeare's King Lear. He only found out at the tragic end who his real friends were, and who were his enemies, because he saw what he wanted to see and placed his trust in the wrong people at the worst possible time. He wanted to believe that McConnell and Lindsey Graham were still his friends and that they would work with him. He didn't want to see how they and others were broken by Trump.
Former President and President-elect Donald Trump is shown in a photo collage with columnist E. Jean Carroll, who won civil suits against him in New York City on claims of sexual battery and defamation.
New York Times, Trump Loses Appeal of Carroll’s $5 Million Award in Sex-Abuse Case, Lola Fadulu, Dec. 31, 2024 (print ed). The president-elect had asked a court to overturn the defamation judgment against him in the case, which centered on E. Jean Carroll’s account of a sexual attack in a dressing room.President-elect Donald J. Trump on Monday failed to overturn a $5 million judgment that he sexually abused the writer E. Jean Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s and later defamed her.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued to a federal appeals panel that a lower court in Manhattan had erred by allowing two women to testify in the Carroll trial that he had also sexually assaulted them. The lawyers also argued that the court should not have allowed Ms. Carroll’s lawyers to play the recording of the “Access Hollywood” conversation in which Mr. Trump bragged in vulgar terms about grabbing women by the genitals.
The appeals court rejected Mr. Trump’s request for a new trial in the case, which produced the smaller of two defamation judgments against him. “Mr. Trump has not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings,” the opinion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said. It was unsigned but issued by a three-judge panel made up of Denny Chin and Susan Carney — appointed by President Barack Obama — as well as Myrna Perez, appointed by President Biden.
“Both E. Jean Carroll and I are gratified by today’s decision,” Roberta Kaplan, Ms. Carroll’s lawyer, said in a statement. “We thank the Second Circuit for its careful consideration of the parties’ arguments.”
Steven Cheung, Mr. Trump’s chief campaign spokesman, who is set to be his White House communications director, said Mr. Trump was re-elected with an “overwhelming mandate,” and he said the American people “demand an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and a swift dismissal of all of the witch hunts, including the Democrat-funded Carroll hoax, which will continue to be appealed.”
Mr. Trump was represented in the appeal by D. John Sauer, his pick for U.S. solicitor general.
Huff Post, Investigation: Trump’s Jan. 6 Pardon Promise Would Put Police-Assaulters Back On The Streets, S.V. Date and Arthur Delaney, Dec. 27, 2024. A HuffPost analysis of Jan. 6 cases finds that 83% of those given a year or more in prison committed acts of violence.
Andrew Taake pepper-sprayed police officers defending the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and hit one with a metal whip. He is serving 74 months at a federal prison in Beaumont, Texas.
Christopher Alberts carried a loaded 9 mm pistol onto Capitol grounds that day and hit police officers with a wooden pallet. He is serving an 84-month sentence at the federal prison in Milan, Michigan.
Steven Cappuccio held his cellphone in his mouth so he could beat an officer using both of his hands, including with the officer’s own baton. He is doing 85 months at the federal prison in Forrest City, Arkansas.
All three will be back on the streets if Donald Trump, the man who incited them and some 2,000 others to attack the Capitol in the first place, follows through on his oft-repeated pledge to pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.
“LET THE JANUARY 6 PRISONERS GO. THEY WERE CONVICTED, OR ARE AWAITING TRIAL, BASED ON A GIANT LIE, A RADICAL LEFT CON JOB,” Trump wrote on social media on March 7, 2023.
“It will be my great honor to pardon the peaceful January 6 protesters, or as I often call them, the hostages,” Trump said in a speech this past May. “There has never been a group of people treated so harshly or unfairly in our country’s history.”
Trump’s claims that a large number of “peaceful” protesters are being held behind bars, however, is demonstrably false.
A HuffPost analysis of sentencing data shows that in the vast majority of cases, the people serving substantial prison time are those who committed violent crimes that day. And conversely, the vast majority of those prosecuted for nonviolent offenses either never went to jail in the first place or had such short sentences that they are already out.
Of those serving a year or more in prison, a full 57% are there following a conviction in cases involving an assault on a police officer. In all, 83% serving a year or more were convicted of committing an act of violence.
All of which means that, with few exceptions, the only people Trump could release from prison with his pardons are those who attacked a police officer, possessed weapons or explosives, or were convicted of some other violent felony.
“People who will be pardoned will be the violent ones. That’s who’s left to pardon. ... Those who went to jail were the most violent that day,” said Harry Dunn, a former Capitol police officer who was among the hundreds assaulted on Jan. 6.
In all, more than 140 members of the Capitol and the Washington, D.C., police departments were wounded by Trump’s followers that day. One died hours later and four others died by suicide over the coming months. Trump, though, has never acknowledged their injuries and deaths.
Trump’s aides, presented with HuffPost’s findings, would not address them directly, and instead referred to his comments to NBC News on the topic earlier this month in which he promised to start the pardon process on “Day 1,” would look at the cases individually but was inclined to pardon everyone except those who had acted “radical” or “crazy.”
But in that interview, Trump also provided indications that he was not particularly knowledgeable about the details of the prosecutions.
Trump, for example, said that Jan. 6 insurrectionists had been incarcerated “three or four years” in a “filthy, disgusting place that shouldn’t even be allowed to be open.”
In fact, it has not yet been four years since the Capitol assault, and the majority of the defendants were not arrested until many months later. And Trump’s “filthy, disgusting” description appears to refer to the District of Columbia jail, which at any given time has only held a couple of dozen defendants who are either awaiting trial or are about to be transferred to a federal prison after their conviction.
U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, left, a Florida Republican who was President-elect Trump's's first nominee to become U.S. Attorney General in a second Trump administration, is shown with Trump in a file photo via Facebook.
New York Times, Trump Transition Updates: Ethics Panel Report Accuses Gaetz of ‘Regularly’ Paying for Sex and Using Drugs, Luke Broadwater, Maggie Haberman and Robert Draper, Dec. 24, 2024 (print ed.). Former Representative Matt Gaetz has been under investigation over allegations including sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.
A report (here) by the House Ethics Committee accused former Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, of regularly paying for sex, using illegal drugs and having sexual relations with a 17-year-old girl. The report concluded that the actions by Mr. Gaetz — President-elect Donald J. Trump’s former pick for attorney general — violated state sexual misconduct laws, including Florida’s statutory rape law, and violated House rules. But the committee said it did not find conclusive evidence that he violated federal sex trafficking laws. Read more ›
President Biden commuted the sentences of nearly all prisoners on federal death row, sparing the lives of 37 men just a month before Mr. Trump returns to the Oval Office with a promise to restart federal executions. Only three men, who each carried out notorious mass killings, will remain on federal death row. Mr. Biden campaigned in 2020 on ending the federal death penalty, but legislation to that effect failed to advance in Congress during his administration.
An ethics panel report concluded that Gaetz violated state laws and House rules.
The House Ethics Committee accused former Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s former pick for attorney general, of regularly paying for sex, possessing illegal drugs and having sexual relations with an underage girl, according to a draft of the panel’s report.
The report, which was released on Monday, found that from at least 2017 to 2020, Mr. Gaetz “regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him”; and, in 2017, “engaged in sexual activity with a 17-year-old girl,” the report said.
U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), center, in a 2017 Facebook photo with friends and fellow ardent Trump supporters Roger Stone and Joel Greenberg, the latter a former Florida tax collector now imprisoned on multiple federal felony charges for sex trafficking, allegedly in part with Gaetz.
Politico, Gaetz report renews debate about how he escaped federal charges, Josh Gerstein, Betsy Woodruff Swan and Kyle Cheney, Dec. 24, 2024 (print ed.). The Justice Department applies federal sex-trafficking laws narrowly.
The House Ethics Committee report about former Rep. Matt Gaetz offers some hints about why the Justice Department decided not to prosecute the former Florida congressman after a wide-ranging federal investigation into whether he committed sex trafficking.
The decision likely stemmed from concerns about the strength of the evidence and the department’s history of applying sex-trafficking laws narrowly, former prosecutors said Monday.
The modern federal sex trafficking law is limited to cases involving coercion, fraud or the interstate or international movement of minors for sex. Despite its damning evidence of wide-ranging violations of law and House rules by Gaetz, the Ethics Committee report did not find those factors.
An older statute, known as the Mann Act, sweeps more broadly, but the Justice Department as a matter of discretion limits its application to particularly egregious acts of trafficking.Jeffries on Gaetz Report: 'Sunlight is the best disinfectant'
The most egregious allegation Gaetz faces is having sex with a 17-year-old. But the Ethics Committee report does not say that he transported or arranged for transport of the alleged victim across state lines — an important point because some connection to interstate commerce is required for it to become a federal sex-trafficking crime. The report also says the then-17-year-old told investigators she did not tell Gaetz her age at the time, and that he didn’t ask.
The report does bluntly accuse Gaetz of having violated Florida’s statutory rape law. But it concluded that a state prosecution is impossible at this point because he allegedly had sex with the 17-year-old in 2017, and the state’s statute of limitations has expired.
The report also found “substantial evidence” that Gaetz committed other illegal conduct, including hiring prostitutes and using illicit drugs. Some of that conduct was connected to interstate commerce — but federal prosecutors likely felt it did not rise to the level of what is typically prosecuted under the relevant federal statutes.
The Mann Act is traditionally reserved “for situations where there’s severe forms of trafficking and exploitation of the victims,” said Margaret Gandy, a former federal prosecutor.
Because Gaetz’ alleged interstate and international conduct involved women over 18 and there was no suggestion of violence or duress, DOJ may not have thought it was an appropriate Mann Act case to charge, Gandy said.
“When it is exploitative and abusive, when there’s obviously physical force, coercion, duress, all those things, that makes it easy,” Gandy said. “There’s more of a gray area sometimes around some more transactional sex with consenting adults that warrants that additional pause and consideration.”
Another former federal prosecutor, Robert Bittman, agreed that the department rarely brings sex-trafficking charges in cases of consensual sex between adults, even if money changed hands.
“It’s a crime, it’s a statute on the books that they can prosecute — but it’s not a high-priority thing,” he said. “It’s not something that’s often prosecuted, and really would only be prosecuted if there are significant, other aggravating factors.”
Federal prosecutors have also historically hesitated to bring cases that involve quid-pro-quos for sex that involve things other than an explicit payment.
The Justice Department concluded its investigation into Gaetz last year. A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.
However, a law enforcement official said all DOJ decisions about Gaetz were made by career prosecutors. The official, who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly, added that this has been the standard practice for the Public Integrity Section, which handles sensitive investigations into political figures.
An attorney for Gaetz did not respond to a request for comment, and Gaetz directed reporters seeking comment to his social media posts.
“There is a reason they did this to me in a Christmas Eve-Eve report and not in a courtroom of any kind where I could present evidence and challenge witnesses,” Gaetz wrote on X, contending that many of the claims in the report were inaccurate. He has repeatedly denied having sex with anyone under 18 and said money he transferred to women was to compensate girlfriends or ex-girlfriends for their travel.MOST READbiden-37249.jpg
New York Times, Trump’s Suit Over Iowa Poll Is His Latest Action Against News Media, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Maggie Haberman, David Enrich and Alan Feuer, Dec. 18, 2024 (print ed.). Donald J. Trump sued The Des Moines Register for running a poll before the election that showed him trailing Vice President Kamala Harris, escalating his threats to seek retribution against the mainstream media and his political enemies.
Lance's Substack, Political Commentary and Opinion: Why Biden must issue Sweeping Preemptive pardons For Trump Retribution Targets, Lance F. Rosen, right, Dec. 15, 2024. Kash Patel Is A Lunatic.
This MSNBC article by author and writer Jay Michaelson makes a strong case for Biden to carry out sweeping pre-emptive pardons to protect those targeted for revenge prosecutions by Trump and his incoming "Himmler," Kash Patel, left.
The counterarguments by legalists, MAGA fascists and several Biden-bashing liberal media pundits are fairly well refuted, and in fact shown to be bogus in each example.
Americans by and large are letting their fears affect their judgment, and are either blocking out the Trump/Patel threat to our constitutional system and targeted individuals, or have resigned themselves to it and are retreating into a psychological bunker mentality.
The only remedy is effective political action. Throwing junk memes up against your Facebook wall is no solution and represents a net negative as far as wasted time and energy.Facebook is part of the apparatus which will be deployed to identify us and pick us off, one by one. Be clear that this is a devolving Orwellian type of platform designed to neutralize Trump's political opposition.
I should not have to make this case. You all saw what Facebook did with their algorithm to spike most of the posts about Project 2025 when that became the leading issue in the campaign. And of course it was soon determined that the corporate figure who designed that algorithm in charge of so-called “community guidelines” was a Trump guy.
And now you have Zuckerberg crawling to Mar-a-Lago to kiss Trump's bone spurs, then funding his inaugural to the tune of 1 million, with who knows what other kinds of backroom deals were struck to keep Trump off his back. Same with Bezos.
My days here are numbered. You also saw this week that my page was hijacked and I lost all but a handful of my 1400 readers. My wife posted a notice on my timeline to notify everyone that I have a new page, and how to find it. That message was removed, either by Facebook or the hijacker.
So this place is a dead end for those resisting the regime. That is where we are. I'm taking steps this weekend to backup and safeguard my Substack archive of a 1000 articles going back six years. Others who are writers and posters should consider taking similar steps to preserve their data.
Don't block on this, we are headed into dark territory.
Trump Legal Cases, Strategies, Allies
Legal Schnauzer, New York Times reports that Judge Aileen Cannon plans to make another pro-Trump ruling, but experts say she likely lacks jurisdiction to make such a move, Roger Shuler, Jan. 7, 2025. The New York Times reported this morning that U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, of Florida, intended to issue an order that would temporarily block Special Counsel Jack Smith from releasing his report on the criminal investigation of President-Elect Donald Trump.
The order would be in line with Cannon's history of making dubious rulings that favor Trump, the president who nominated her for the federal bench. By this afternoon, legal experts were stating that Cannon probably does not have authority to make such a ruling, according to a report at Raw Story (RS) under the headline "'No basis': Experts believe Aileen Cannon may not have power to block Jack Smith report." RS's Brad Reed writes:
MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin on Tuesday (1/7/25) questioned whether Judge Aileen Cannon has the authority to block the United States Department of Justice from releasing special counsel Jack Smith's report on his two criminal investigations into President-elect Donald Trump.
"It is not clear... whether she has jurisdiction because earlier this year, she threw out the Mar-a-Lago documents case explaining that, from her reasoning, Jack Smith did not have constitutional authority to bring that prosecution under the appointments clause of the Constitution," Rubin said.
"And so there is no basis here to block the report in part because it is not clear there is a case or controversy in front of her, but if there were, the argument that Trump is making -- that presidential immunity also precludes the release of the report -- is a stretch of the Supreme Court's ruling that a president cannot be prosecuted for acts having to do with his presidency while he is a sitting president."
Rubin was not the only expert to take issue with Cannon's plans. Reed reports:
Legal analyst Barbara McQuade, meanwhile, speculated that Cannon's move was simply to help Trump run out the clock until his inauguration on January 20th.
"I don't think she has any jurisdiction, but delay is the name of the game," she said. "If they can stop the clock until January 20th. then the Department of Justice will be a Trump appointee, and they will kill the whole thing. That's the goal here."
The Hartmann Report, Commentary: Weiner went to prison but Gaetz won’t? Thom Hartmann, Dec. 28, 2024. Remember when Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner, right, served 18 months in prison for texting a dick pic to an underage girl he never met or touched or paid or anything else?
Now comes Matt Gaetz and, according to a new report from the House Ethics Committee, the Republican Congressman actually paid an underage girl for sex that he then had with her in such a public part of a party house that multiple people witnessed it.
Will Gaetz similarly go to prison? Don’t count on it; Republicans are generally immune from prosecution for such crimes, particularly when their fathers are major and morbidly rich Republican movers-and-shakers and Trump is trying to pack his administration with accused rapists and predators…
Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: WHOA! DOJ Drops BOMBSHELL FILING in Trump Case, Michael Popok, Dec. 31, 2024. Dec 31, 2024 Special Counsel Jack Smith and President Biden just gave Trump a New Year’s surprise, handing off the Mar a Lago appeal to the main Miami federal prosecutor, rather than dismiss it, in hopes that the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals rules against Judge Cannon and her ruling that the Special Counsel is unconstitutional before the inauguration. reports.
New York Times, Guest Essay: What Judges Can Do for the Rule of Law Under Trump, Nancy Gertner, right,and Joel Cohen (Ms. Gertner is a retired federal judge. Mr. Cohen is a former federal prosecutor), Dec. 27, 2024 (print ed.).
President-elect Trump recently threatened to lock up political foes, like Liz Cheney, as well as members of Congress who investigated his role in the Jan. 6 attack. “For what they did,” he said, “honestly, they should go to jail.”
On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump said repeatedly that he would encourage the Justice Department and the F.B.I. to go after his enemies. His picks for attorney general (Pam Bondi) and F.B.I. director (Kash Patel) have echoed these remarks. Mr. Patel even compiled an enemies list, which includes Christopher Wray and retired Gen. Mark Milley.
This impulse could reach beyond leadership and may well trickle down in significant part to the 94 federal district courts around the nation. Each United States attorney will have been appointed by Mr. Trump and will be subject to his whim — meaning their potential firing if he does not approve of their performance.
If these confirmed public servants can’t stand up to the pressure from above to serve not an individual person but justice as a principle, who will? It will have to be the judges.
Judges simply can’t be blind to what Mr. Trump, Ms. Bondi and Mr. Patel have said. They can’t ignore their words if the Justice Department under Mr. Trump or the F.B.I. goes after those on an enemies list who have committed no crime beyond opposing the president-elect.Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
Suppose a federal district judge is asked to sign off on an eavesdropping warrant under Title III of the federal criminal law. He or she will receive one-sided (“ex parte”) submissions from prosecutors applying for search warrants (for a physical search or a wiretap), an application that the target’s attorney will not know about nor have the ability to contest.
In previous administrations, federal trial judges have had generally well-founded confidence that the Justice Department and the post-Hoover F.B.I., under presidents from either party, have not been employed to attack political enemies. Most district judges — especially those who have served as federal prosecutors, as most have — believe that the prosecutors appearing before them act with integrity, that their offices are not being manipulated to undermine those who challenged the current administration or its leader.
A judge could assume that the warrant has gone through layers of approval within the Justice Department, even reaching the assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division, an extremely high ranking official in the department. That judge could also be reasonably confident that very little, if anything, would be amiss after passing through the layers of the approval process, including senior department officials.
But with the astonishing comments from the president-elect and his appointments, it is reasonable to ask if judges can still assume that level of confidence in the review process. The previous assumption that prosecutions would be undertaken only against individuals suspected of committing crimes may be wrong.Editors’ PicksLin-Manuel Miranda on ‘Mufasa’ and the Secret to a Disney HitThe Trinidadian Christmas Staple Worth the Yearlong WaitHow ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ (and Its Writer) Went Down in History
Now, when judges are asked to review warrant applications, or any other ex parte submissions from the government, they should do so through a different lens, much more scrupulously than ever before.
Or consider a motion to dismiss an indictment based on selective prosecution. In the usual case, prosecutors are given broad discretion, so long as there is probable cause to believe a crime has been committed and the prosecution does not run afoul of constitutional protections.
A selective prosecution motion alleges that criminal charges were brought for reasons forbidden by the Constitution. The defendant must prove that he was singled out for prosecution when those similarly situated were not and that the prosecution was based on an impermissible reason, such as race, religion or political affiliation.
Since courts presume that the government undertakes a prosecution in good faith, the defendant’s burden of proof is typically quite heavy. The motion rarely succeeds — for example, Hunter Biden’s motion to dismiss his gun case on selective prosecution grounds failed.
But what if, in Mr. Trump’s second term, the object of the prosecution is on Mr. Patel’s list, or is expressly targeted in a Trump speech? Judges should obviously not assume that prosecutors in the Trump administration are always acting in bad faith. But they should consider accusations of selective prosecution differently than they have in the past.
If a defendant in a political case raises legitimate concerns about the integrity of a case in Mr. Trump’s second term, federal judges can’t bury their heads in the sand and ignore the attorney general’s clear intentions or those of the proposed F.B.I. director.
When these individuals announce that political affiliation will influence their prosecution decisions, judges should believe them — and act accordingly.
Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge, teaches law, neuroscience and sentencing at Harvard Law School and is the author of “In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate” and the forthcoming “Incomplete Sentences.” Joel Cohen, a former federal prosecutor, is a senior counsel at Petrillo Klein & Boxer and the author of “Blindfolds Off: Judges on How They Decide.”
Politico Magazine, Trumpian Revenge, Campus Revolts and the Collapse of a Presidency: 24 Stories That Explain a Chaotic Year, Staff Report, Dec. 25, 2024. It has been a year of unprecedented headlines — even for an election year.
The conviction of Donald Trump. An assassination attempt just weeks later. An abrupt end to Joe Biden’s candidacy, followed by the rise and fall of Kamala Harris. It was a historically chaotic and consequential year on the campaign trail, and beyond. America saw intense protests on campus colleges over the Israel-Hamas war, a rising gender divide among the youth and the kind of widening polarization that can even fracture families.
It might have been too many events to fully process in one year, so POLITICO Magazine has you covered. Check out these 24 stories — many of them our top reads of the year — that will help you understand what just happened and what’s to come under Trump 2.0.
New York Times, Devin Nunes, Pugnacious Trump Loyalist, to Lead Espionage Advisory Board, Charlie Savage, Dec. 15, 2024 (print ed.). As chair of the House Intelligence Committee (shown above), he attacked the Russia inquiry and Donald J. Trump’s first impeachment. Now, Mr. Nunes runs Mr. Trump’s social media company.
President-elect Donald J. Trump announced on Saturday that he would appoint Devin Nunes, a former member of Congresswho had used his role as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee to try to delegitimize the Trump-Russia investigation, to head an independent advisory board on espionage policy.
The organization — the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board — dates back to the early Cold War and consists of private citizens with top-level security clearances who are supposed to help the White House analyze spy agency effectiveness and planning. Its members do not need Senate confirmation, so presidents can pick whomever they want for it.
In a statement, Mr. Trump praised Mr. Nunes — who is currently the chief executive of the Trump Media & Technology Group, which runs the Truth Social platform — for his counterinvestigation into the Trump-Russia inquiry in 2017-18, when Mr. Nunes led the House Intelligence Committee as a Republican congressman from California.
“While continuing his leadership of Trump Media & Technology Group, Devin will draw on his experience as former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and his key role in exposing the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, to provide me with independent assessments of the effectiveness and propriety of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s activities,” Mr. Trump wrote in his announcement.
New York Times, Trump Names Richard Grenell for ‘Special Missions’ Role, Elizabeth Williamson, Dec. 15, 2024 (print ed.). A combative loyalist and the president-elect’s former ambassador to Germany, Mr. Grenell had hoped to be secretary of state.
President-elect Donald J. Trump named Richard Grenell, his former ambassador to Germany and former acting director of national intelligence, as his “envoy for special missions,” Mr. Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Saturday.
A loyalist known for unbridled social media attacks on Mr. Trump’s perceived critics and many others, Mr. Grenell led a shambolic effort to challenge the 2020 election results in Nevada after Mr. Trump’s loss, and he has lobbied assiduously for a diplomatic job in the new administration.
He got his start in government before Mr. Trump’s rise, as a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations under multiple presidents. But his online toxicity, foreign business contacts and tendency toward biting personal attacks on political opponents and the media turned off many centrist conservatives, helping propel him toward Mr. Trump, a man he denounced in 2016 as “dangerous.”
“Ric will continue to fight for Peace through Strength, and always put AMERICA FIRST,” Mr. Trump wrote in his announcement.
Mr. Grenell did not immediately reply to a texted question about his priorities for the role, which does not currently exist. Mr. Trump outlined it as: “Ric will work in some of the hottest spots around the World, including Venezuela and North Korea.”
The role is a far cry from secretary of state, the job Mr. Grenell coveted, but to which Mr. Trump plans to appoint Senator Marco Rubio, the Republican from Florida. Being named for a lower-profile White House envoy job could help Mr. Grenell avoid persistent questions about his paid work for foreign clients, including luxury hotel development projects he has pursued in the Balkans with Jared Kushner, the president-elect’s son-in-law.
During the first Trump administration, Mr. Grenell was ambassador to Germany. His abrasiveness and partisanship alarmed diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic, particularly after he told Breitbart London that he planned to “empower” German conservatives opposing “the failed policies of the left.”
In 2020, Mr. Trump named Mr. Grenell to temporarily replace the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, whom Mr. Trump had fired.
New York Times, An Epidemic of Vicious School Brawls, Fueled by Student Cellphones, Natasha Singer (Natasha Singer reported from Revere, Mass., and reviewed more than 400 student fight videos from schools in 15 states), Dec. 15, 2024. Cafeteria melees. Students kicked in the head. Injured educators. Technology is stoking cycles of violence in schools.
Ricardo Martinez, an 11th grader, was in his high school lunchroom in April when a mass brawl erupted.
He watched, horrified, as a dozen teenage boys rampaged through the cafeteria, pummeling and kicking one another, overturning tables and chairs. Other students jeered and jostled to film the fight on their phones.
“It was like a stampede of videos,” said Mr. Martinez, now 18 and a senior. “Everyone was trying to get the best angle.”
But the pandemonium at Revere High School in Revere, Mass., was just beginning.
Within minutes, students in other parts of the building began receiving text messages about the lunchroom brawl. Suddenly, teachers said, dozens of riled-up teenagers started racing down hallways and careening down stairways with their phones to get to the fight.
Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.
Washington Post, Special counsel Jack Smith moves to dismiss Trump’s D.C. prosecution, Perry Stein and Spencer S. Hsu, Nov. 26, 2024 (print ed.). The special counsel filed a motion to dismiss Donald Trump’s election-obstruction case without prejudice, which means the case could be revived in the future.
Special counsel Jack Smith asked U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan on Monday to dismiss the federal election interference charges against President-elect Donald Trump, putting an end to a lengthy investigation that never made it to trial.Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what's true, false or in-between in politics.
Smith’s motion seeks to dismiss the case without prejudice, acknowledging that Justice Department policy prohibits prosecuting a sitting president. If she does that, it leaves open the possibility that prosecutors could again bring charges once Trump leaves office after his second White House term.
But legal experts said it’s possible that once Trump is in office, he could try to do something that has never been tested before: pardon himself to foreclose the possibility of legal jeopardy in the future.
Trump faces four counts related to conspiring to obstruct the 2020 election results. Smith’s filing acknowledges that the Justice Department has longed believed a sitting president cannot stand trial, and says prosecutors conferred with Trump’s attorneys and that they did not oppose the request to dismiss the case.
Former President Donald J. Trump, in a blue suit, sits with his attorneys shortly before arraignment in New York City's state court on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records related to the 2016 presidential campaign season, reportedly involving in part hush money to women ((Associated Press photo by Seth Wong). Below, the presiding judge in the case was Juan Merchon, below left.
New York Times, Judge Denies Trump’s Bid to Throw Out Conviction Over Immunity Ruling, Ben Protess and Kate Christobek, Dec. 16, 2024. Justice Juan Merchan thwarted one of several attempts by President-elect Trump to clear his record of 34 felonies before returning to the White House.
Relevant Recent Headlines
Deadline, Donald Trump, On ‘Meet The Press,’ Again Pledges To Pardon January 6th Rioters, Says Liz Cheney And Other Committee Members “Should Go To Jail
Public Health, RFK Jr., Healthcare CEO's Murder
New York Times, U.S. Surgeon General Calls for Cancer Warnings on Alcohol, Roni Caryn Rabin, Jan. 3, 2025. Dr. Vivek Murthy’s report cites studies linking alcoholic beverages to malignancies, including breast cancer. But to label them, Congress would have to act.
Alcohol is a leading preventable cause of cancer, and alcoholic beverages should carry a warning label as packs of cigarettes do, the U.S. surgeon general, above, said on Friday.
It is the latest salvo in a fierce debate about the risks and benefits of moderate drinking as the influential U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans are about to be updated. For decades, moderate drinking was said to help prevent heart attacks and strokes.
That perception has been embedded in the dietary advice given to Americans. But growing research has linked drinking, sometimes even within the recommended limits, to various types of cancer.
Labels currently affixed to bottles and cans of alcoholic beverages warn about drinking while pregnant or before driving and operating other machinery, and about general “health risks.”
But alcohol directly contributes to 100,000 cancer cases and 20,000 related deaths each year, the surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, said.
He called for updating the labels to include a heightened risk of breast cancer, colon cancer and at least five other malignancies now linked by scientific studies to alcohol consumption.
“Many people out there assume that as long as they’re drinking at the limits or below the limits of current guidelines of one a day for women and two for men, that there is no risk to their health or well-being,” Dr. Murthy said in an interview.
“The data does not bear that out for cancer risk.”
Only Congress can mandate new warning labels of the sort Dr. Murthy recommended, and it’s not clear that the incoming administration would support the change.
Still, President-elect Donald J. Trump does not drink, and his choice to head the Health and Human Services Department, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., swore off alcohol and drugs decades ago, and says he regularly attends AA meetings.
Excerpt Continued From Above.
There is no question that heavy consumption is harmful. But supporters of moderate drinking — including makers of wine, beer and spirits, and some physicians and scientists — argue that a little alcohol each day may reduce cardiovascular disease, the No. 1 killer in the United States.
Newer scientific studies have criticized the methodology of earlier studies, however, and have challenged that view, which was once a consensus.
While most cancer deaths occur at drinking levels that exceed the current recommended dietary guidelines, the risk for cancers of the breast, the mouth and the throat may rise with consumption of as little as one drink a day, or even less, Dr. Murthy said on Friday.
Overall, one of every six breast cancer cases is attributable to alcohol consumption, Dr. Murthy said. More recent studies have also linked moderate alcohol consumption to certain forms of heart disease, including atrial fibrillation, a heart arrhythmia.
Two scientific reviews will be used to inform the updated recommendations about alcohol consumption in the federal dietary guidelines.
Five years ago, the scientific report that informed the writing of the 2020-2025 dietary guidelines acknowledged that alcohol is a carcinogen and generally unhealthy and suggested “tightening guidelines” by capping the recommendation for men at one standard drink, or 14 grams of alcohol a day.
When the final guidelines were drafted, however, there was no change in the advice that moderate drinking of up to two drinks a day for men was acceptable.
President-elect Donald Trump with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump's nominee to become U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (Photo via Getty Images).
Washington Post, Democrats’ new push to stop RFK Jr.: Highlight Samoa’s measles outbreak, Dan Diamond, Jan. 8, 2025 (print ed.). They say the island’s public health crisis, which followed Kennedy’s meeting with local anti-vaccine activists, reveals the consequences of questioning vaccines.
In June 2019, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. traveled to the small Pacific island nation of Samoa, where he met with activists calling for Samoans to skip measles vaccines and opt for alternatives instead. Now that visit — and the country’s subsequent measles outbreak — are receiving new political attention, as Democrats and advocates seek to block Kennedy’s confirmation as America’s top health official.
Five months after Kennedy’s visit, Samoa declared a measles emergency, with leaders warning that vaccination levels had declined precipitously. Thousands of Samoans were infected during the outbreak, and 83 people died of the vaccine-preventable disease — an episode that Democrats say could foreshadow a future American crisis, should Kennedy be elevated to a Cabinet position and sow doubts about vaccines here. Most of Samoa’s measles deaths were in young children.
“It’s a real-life example of what this individual will [do] as the nation’s leading health-care official,” said Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (D), a physician who responded to Samoa’s outbreak five years ago and said he witnessed the deaths of measles-afflicted infants. Green traveled to Capitol Hill this week in a bid to sway senators by sharing his story, part of a larger effort by advocates to scuttle Kennedy’s selection as secretary of health and human services by focusing on the Samoan crisis.
New York Times, Research Finds Vaccines Are Not Behind the Rise in Autism. So What Is? Emily Baumgaertner, Dec. 24, 2024 (print ed.). There is no one factor that causes autism — or explains its growing prevalence. Researchers are seeking explanations for the surge. Here are some possibilities.
The Bulwark, Political Opinion: Preferring Not to See, Andrew Egger, Dec. 19, 2024. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hasn’t exactly hidden his anti-vaccine views over the years, as hundreds of hours of video footage, numerous books, and many documentaries show. And yet, on the cusp of being considered for the top health post in the country, Senate Republicans are suggesting they’re reassured Kennedy has moderated his views based on their brief, one-on-one conversations.
“I think he’s done a good job of answering a lot of the questions about his views on vaccines,” incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told CNN after meeting with Kennedy this week. “I think he understands the values and benefit that vaccines play and have played through the years preventing disease.”
We don’t know exactly what Thune and Kennedy discussed. (Neither party opted to fill me in, although I did ask.) But come on!
Kennedy may well have denied—as he has in public for years—that he is truly “anti-vaccine.” Like many other anti-vaxxers, Kennedy prefers to be thought of as a stickler for vaccine safety.
But one would have to be deliberately obtuse or willingly naïve to think that Kennedy has suddenly seen the light about the benefits of vaccines. He has spent years arguing that the vaccines currently on the market are harming more people than they help. And he’s actively campaigning against their continued use, pending a brand-new regimen of placebo-controlled testing.
In one interview, Kennedy made the case against the measles vaccine by noting what a great time he had when he and his siblings caught the disease, which can have gruesome complications including brain swelling (you don’t say?), gastrointestinal issues and fever, sepsis, and septicemia.
“My 11 brothers and sisters, we all had measles and it was a great week” he said, describing the cure for measles as “chicken soup and vitamin A.”
He has declared that “the polio vaccine does not work” and argued that it in fact could be responsible for a wave of cancers “that killed many, many, many, many, many more people than polio ever did.”
In 2021, he told podcaster Alec Zeck that he tries to actively convince people not to get their kids vaccinated. “I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and I say to him, ‘Better not to get him vaccinated.’”
Last year, he went further while speaking to podcaster Lex Fridman: “There is no vaccine that is safe and effective.”
A few months later, in a CNN appearance, he tried to clean those comments up:
"What I meant—which was a bad use of words in this—none of the vaccines that are currently on the mandated schedule for children, the 72 vaccines for children, have ever been tested in a pre-licensing safety study. What that means is that we do not know what the risk profile is for those products."
When Kennedy argues that he just wants to “test” vaccines—or when Donald Trump says, as he did last weekend, that “there are problems” surrounding pediatric vaccination and “we’re going to find out what those problems are”—what he is saying is actually quite drastic.
The Bulwark, Political Opinion: Never Trumpers Were Right, Actually, Jonathan V. Last, right, Dec. 18, 2024. A response to Bret Stephens. Plus drone talk from the front lines.
Bret Stephens has a column today in which he renounces his Never Trump patrimony and castigates Trump critics for being overheated and wrong about so many things.
You should read his piece to get the full breadth of his argument. But I’ll give you a taste:
Never Trumpers also overstated our case and, in doing so, defeated our purpose. We warned that Trump would be a reckless president who might stumble into World War III. If anything, his foreign policy in his first term was, in practice, often cautious to a fault. We hyperventilated about his odd chumminess with Vladimir Putin. But the collusion allegations were a smear, and Trump’s Russia policy — whether it was his opposition to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline or his covert aid to Ukraine — was much tougher than either Barack Obama’s or (at least until Russia invaded Ukraine) President Biden’s.
New York Times, Suspect in C.E.O.’s Killing Withdrew From a Life of Privilege and Promise, Corey Kilgannon, Mike Baker, Luke Broadwater and Shawn Hubler, Dec. 10, 2024 (print ed.). Luigi Mangione, above, charged in the death of an executive in New York, was an Ivy League graduate who had recently suffered physical and psychological pain.
Luigi Mangione, the online version of him, was an Ivy League tech enthusiast who flaunted his tanned, chiseled looks in beach photos and party pictures with blue-blazered frat buddies.
He was the valedictorian of a prestigious Baltimore prep school who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Pennsylvania and served as a head counselor at a pre-college program at Stanford University.
With his credentials and connections, he could have ended up one day as an entrepreneur or the chief executive of one of his family’s thriving businesses. Instead, investigators suspect, he took a different path.
The police now believe that Mr. Mangione, 26, is the masked gunman who calmly took out a pistol equipped with a suppressor on a Midtown Manhattan street last week and assassinated Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare. He was arrested in Altoona, Pa., on Monday after an employee at a McDonald’s recognized him and called the police. Officers said they found him with fake identification, a weapon similar to the one seen in video of the killing and a manifesto decrying the health care industry.
Later on Monday, Mr. Mangione was charged in Manhattan with murder, along with additional counts of forgery and illegal weapons possession. And in the hours after his apprehension, his baffling journey from star student to murder suspect began to come into focus.
Washington Post, Person of interest in UnitedHealthcare shooting arrested in Pa., police say, Mark Berman and Shayna Jacobs, Dec. 10, 2024 (print ed.). Luigi Mangione faces gun charges and other counts. He was denied bail after his arraignment in Altoona, Pa.police commissioner, said at a news briefing.
Thompson, 50, right, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, was shot and killed Wednesday outside a Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan, a stunning act of early-morning violence in one of New York’s busiest areas.
Police said it appeared that the suspect they were seeking escaped the city shortly after the shooting. Law enforcement officials said they were scouring reams of video footage and tips, but they pleaded with the public for more help, sharing several images of a person they said was wanted in connection with the killing.
ABC News, What we know about Luigi Mangione, Ivy League grad and suspect in CEO's murder, Aaron Katersky, Mark Crudele, Josh Margolin, and Meredith Deliso, Dec. 9, 2024. Mangione, above, was located in Pennsylvania nearly a week after Brian Thompson's death.
Salon, Alleged UnitedHealthcare assassin praised Elon Musk for battle against “woke mind virus," Russell Payne, Dec, 9, 2024. Not so fast, what kind of "anti-capitalist" is praising Elon Musk and retweeting Peter Thiel?
On Monday afternoon, police announced that they had arrested a person of interest in the investigation into the killing of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson, who was shot outside his hotel in midtown Manhattan last week.
According to police, Luigi Mangione was arrested around 9:15 a.m. in Altoona, Pennsylvania with a ghost gun and suppressor that New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said was “consistent with the weapon used in the murder.”
Recent Relevant Headlines
New York Times, Suspect in C.E.O.’s Killing Withdrew From a Life of Privilege and PromiseABC News, What we know about Luigi Mangione, Ivy League grad and suspect in CEO's murder,
More On Presidential Pardons
Huff Post, Investigation: Trump’s Jan. 6 Pardon Promise Would Put Police-Assaulters Back On The Streets, S.V. Date and Arthur Delaney, Dec. 27, 2024. A HuffPost analysis of Jan. 6 cases finds that 83% of those given a year or more in prison committed acts of violence.
Andrew Taake pepper-sprayed police officers defending the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and hit one with a metal whip. He is serving 74 months at a federal prison in Beaumont, Texas.
Christopher Alberts carried a loaded 9 mm pistol onto Capitol grounds that day and hit police officers with a wooden pallet. He is serving an 84-month sentence at the federal prison in Milan, Michigan.
Steven Cappuccio held his cellphone in his mouth so he could beat an officer using both of his hands, including with the officer’s own baton. He is doing 85 months at the federal prison in Forrest City, Arkansas.
All three will be back on the streets if Donald Trump, the man who incited them and some 2,000 others to attack the Capitol in the first place, follows through on his oft-repeated pledge to pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.
“LET THE JANUARY 6 PRISONERS GO. THEY WERE CONVICTED, OR ARE AWAITING TRIAL, BASED ON A GIANT LIE, A RADICAL LEFT CON JOB,” Trump wrote on social media on March 7, 2023.
“It will be my great honor to pardon the peaceful January 6 protesters, or as I often call them, the hostages,” Trump said in a speech this past May. “There has never been a group of people treated so harshly or unfairly in our country’s history.”
Trump’s claims that a large number of “peaceful” protesters are being held behind bars, however, is demonstrably false.
A HuffPost analysis of sentencing data shows that in the vast majority of cases, the people serving substantial prison time are those who committed violent crimes that day. And conversely, the vast majority of those prosecuted for nonviolent offenses either never went to jail in the first place or had such short sentences that they are already out.
Of those serving a year or more in prison, a full 57% are there following a conviction in cases involving an assault on a police officer. In all, 83% serving a year or more were convicted of committing an act of violence.
All of which means that, with few exceptions, the only people Trump could release from prison with his pardons are those who attacked a police officer, possessed weapons or explosives, or were convicted of some other violent felony.
“People who will be pardoned will be the violent ones. That’s who’s left to pardon. ... Those who went to jail were the most violent that day,” said Harry Dunn, a former Capitol police officer who was among the hundreds assaulted on Jan. 6.
In all, more than 140 members of the Capitol and the Washington, D.C., police departments were wounded by Trump’s followers that day. One died hours later and four others died by suicide over the coming months. Trump, though, has never acknowledged their injuries and deaths.
Trump’s aides, presented with HuffPost’s findings, would not address them directly, and instead referred to his comments to NBC News on the topic earlier this month in which he promised to start the pardon process on “Day 1,” would look at the cases individually but was inclined to pardon everyone except those who had acted “radical” or “crazy.”
But in that interview, Trump also provided indications that he was not particularly knowledgeable about the details of the prosecutions.
Trump, for example, said that Jan. 6 insurrectionists had been incarcerated “three or four years” in a “filthy, disgusting place that shouldn’t even be allowed to be open.”
In fact, it has not yet been four years since the Capitol assault, and the majority of the defendants were not arrested until many months later. And Trump’s “filthy, disgusting” description appears to refer to the District of Columbia jail, which at any given time has only held a couple of dozen defendants who are either awaiting trial or are about to be transferred to a federal prison after their conviction.
Trump in that interview also repeated favorite right-wing conspiracy theories about Jan. 6 ― that “Antifa” was behind the violence and that a man named Ray Epps actually instigated the attack.
What’s more, Trump said his pardons would also extend to those who actually pleaded guilty to assaulting officers because, in his view, the justice system is “corrupt,” and the accused were coerced into taking pleas. “Because they had no choice,” he said.
Further, the “radical” and “crazy” qualifiers for those who might not get pardons conflicts with dozens of statements at his rallies over the past three years in which he has promised to pardon all the Jan. 6 defendants.
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Emptywheel, Analysis: Judge Mark Scarsi’s Umbrage: Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler)
Middle East Wars, Reactions
New York Times, In Damascus, Syrians Reclaim Freedoms Off Limits Under Bashar al-Assad, Raja Abdulrahim, Photographs by Laura Boushnak, Jan. 5, 2025. Residents of Syria’s capital are picnicking on a once-forbidden mountaintop and trading dollars and imported Nescafe. They say the city seems theirs again.
Across Damascus, as in much of the country, Syrians are reclaiming, and in some cases embracing anew, spaces and freedoms that had been off limits for years under the Assad regime. There were places ordinary Syrians were not allowed to go and things that they were not permitted to say when the Assad family was in power. The country, many said, increasingly felt as if it did not belong to them.
But with the newfound sense of freedom comes some trepidation about the future under a government formed by Islamist rebels, and whether with time it might institute new restrictions and limitations.
Many Syrians are watching each decision and announcement as a harbinger of how their new rulers may govern. Last week, Syria’s de facto new leader, Ahmed al-Shara, said it could take two to three years to draft a new Constitution and up to four years to hold elections, alarming Syrians who fear they may have traded one authoritarian leader for another.New York Times, Saudi Arabia and U.A.E. Tread Cautiously With Syria’s New Leaderssing money from the drivers who contribute to it. The plan will help generate $15 billion for crucial upgrades to the region’s mass transit system.
New York Times, As Hopes Rise for Gaza Cease-Fire, Conditions There Have Only Worsened, Aryn Baker and Abu Bakr Bashir, Dec. 28, 2024. Israel says that it tries to limit the loss of civilian life. But the dire humanitarian situation has prompted condemnation from human rights organizations.
Even as mediators try to secure a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas, Palestinians and human rights organizations say the humanitarian situation is getting more desperate.
In the 14 months since Israel launched its invasion of Gaza in response to the Hamas-led terror attack on Israel, military bombardments have turned cities into rubble-filled wastelands and 90 percent of the population of about 2.1 million has been displaced at least once. Winter is adding to the misery. A doctor at a hospital in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, said that four infants in tent encampments had died from the cold in the past week.
Israel says that its target is Hamas and that it does everything possible to limit the loss of civilian life. But the increasingly dire humanitarian situation has prompted a particularly scathing chorus of condemnation from the United Nations and international human rights organizations.
Here is a closer look at three parts of Gaza’s humanitarian crisis.
Washington Post, U.S. amplifies strikes on Yemen’s Houthis as tensions with Israel flare, Missy Ryan, Jan. 1, 2024 (print ed.). The latest round of strikes occurred as the United States and its ally Israel struggle to halt a campaign of regional assaults by the Iranian-backed militant group.
The Biden administration directed new airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen on Tuesday, as the United States and its ally Israel struggle to halt a campaign of regional assaults by the Iranian-backed militant group.Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what's true, false or in-between in politics.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, said the attacks struck targets in coastal Yemen and the capital, Sanaa, including a command node and facilities used for manufacturing and storing weapons. The operations, which also included strikes on Monday, destroyed radar positions and one-way aerial drones, Centcom said in a statement.
Video provided by Centcom showed aircraft taking off from the USS Harry S. Truman, an aircraft carrier positioned in the Red Sea.
The strikes mark the latest salvo in a year-long U.S.-led campaign aimed at halting ongoing attacks by the Houthis, a militant group that functions as the de facto government in much of Yemen, on commercial ships and military vessels in nearby waters. The Houthis’ campaign has impaired global shipping and taken a major toll on U.S. allies reliant on related revenue.
New York Times, Investigation: Israel Loosened Its Rules to Bomb Hamas Fighters, Killing Many More Civilians, Patrick Kingsley, Natan Odenheimer, Bilal Shbair, Ronen Bergman, John Ismay, Sheera Frenkel and Adam Sella (The reporters interviewed more than 100 soldiers and officials in Israel, dozens of victims of the strikes in Gaza, and experts on the rules of armed conflict), Dec. 27, 2024 (print ed.).
Fearful of another Oct. 7-style attack, Israel weakened safeguards meant to protect noncombatants. One of the deadliest attacks of the 21st century followed.
At exactly 1 p.m. on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel’s military leadership issued an order that unleashed one of the most intense bombing campaigns in contemporary warfare.
Effective immediately, the order granted mid-ranking Israeli officers the authority to strike thousands of militants and military sites that had never been a priority in previous wars in Gaza. Officers could now pursue not only the senior Hamas commanders, arms depots and rocket launchers that were the focus of earlier campaigns, but also the lowest-ranking fighters.
In each strike, the order said, officers had the authority to risk killing up to 20 civilians.
The order, which has not previously been reported, had no precedent in Israeli military history. Mid-ranking officers had never been given so much leeway to attack so many targets, many of which had lower military significance, at such a high potential civilian cost.
It meant, for example, that the military could target rank-and-file militants as they were at home surrounded by relatives and neighbors, instead of only when they were alone outside.
In previous conflicts with Hamas, many Israeli strikes were approved only after officers concluded that no civilians would be hurt. Sometimes, officers could risk killing up to five civilians and only rarely did the limit rise to 10 or above, though the actual death toll was sometimes much higher.
On Oct. 7, the military leadership changed its rules of engagement because it believed that Israel faced an existential threat, according to a senior military officer who answered questions about the order on the condition of anonymity.
New York Times, Here Are 8 Ways Israel Weakened Civilian Protections, Samuel Granados, Patrick Kingsley and Natan Odenheimer, Dec. 26, 2024. Here are some of the main takeaways from the investigation.The Israeli military said its air force had struck a vehicle overnight in Nuseirat with a “terrorist cell” from the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad inside. Reports about journalists being targeted were “fake claims,” Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said on social media.
The media office of Gaza’s Hamas-run government said five journalists from Al Quds Today, a Palestinian television channel, were killed in an Israeli strike on their broadcast vehicle. The channel has regularly featured Islamic Jihad leaders and promoted the group’s ideology.
The office said this brought the number of journalists killed in Gaza to 201 since the start of the war in October last year.
The vehicle, bearing the word “Press” in red letters, was hit near the gates of Al Awda Hospital, according to a post on social media from Quds News Network, another Palestinian news outlet. The Israeli military has previously said that it has never deliberately targeted journalists but that it considers members of “an organized armed group,” such as the military wing of Hamas, or those who participate in hostilities, as lawful targets.
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Washington Post, Israeli government approves plan to expand settlements on occupied Golan
More Global News
Washington Post, Russia’s gas supply to Europe halted after Ukraine transit deal expires, Francesca Ebel and David L. Stern, Jan. 1, 2024. Ukraine, which had allowed Russian oil and gas to cross its territory to serve Europe while fighting Moscow’s invasion since 2022, refused to renew the deal.
Despite a brutal Russian invasion that has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians and laid waste to swaths of the country since 2022, Ukraine continued to allow Russian oil and gas to cross its territory to serve its European neighbors — generating revenue for Kyiv and Moscow and illustrating how hard it is for the bitter enemies to cut ties.
New York Times, Elon Musk Doubles Down on Support for German Far-Right Party, Christopher F. Schuetze, Dec. 28, 2024. The world’s richest man, a key adviser to President-elect Trump, ridiculed critics over his backing of the extremist party AfD, as Germany prepares for elections.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a close adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump, shocked many in Germany last week by endorsing its far-right Alternative for Germany party, which is under surveillance by domestic intelligence for being extremist.
This week, Mr. Musk entangled himself even more in the country’s snap election, explaining in a newspaper opinion essay why he believes the far-right party is the “last spark of hope” for Germany.
“The traditional parties have failed in Germany,” Mr. Musk wrote in comments published online by the daily Welt on Saturday. “Their policies have led to economic stagnation, social unrest, and the erosion of national identity.”
Mr. Musk’s opinion piece comes as Germany girds itself for an intense winter election after Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition collapsed in November. On Friday President Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany officially announced the disbandment of Parliament and set Feb. 23 as the date for new elections.
With four mainstream and three extremist parties on the left and right vying for seats in Parliament and government participation, polls are favoring the conservative Christian Democratic Union. However, the AfD, with its anti-immigrant platform, is polling in second place, with roughly 20 percent.
Mr. Musk’s commentary was printed in the Sunday edition of the Welt, a conservative daily owned by the Axel Springer media group, which also owns Politico in the United States. Many of the paper’s journalists protested the printing of the commentary, according to reports. Eva Marie Kogel, who had been the paper’s head of opinion, resigned from her post after the printing, she confirmed on X.
In an apparent acknowledgment that Mr. Musk’s thoughts on the AfD could be controversial, the paper printed a response by Jan Philipp Burgard, the editor in chief-designate on the same page.
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New York Times, Trump Threatens 25% Tariff on Canada and Mexico, Potentially Crippling TradeNew York Times, Taiwan Says China Has Deployed Largest Fleet of Ships in Decades
More On U.S. Foreign Policy, National Security, Tariffs
Lance Rosen Substack, The Trump Press Conference Gives Us A Clear Look Into The Abyss, Lance F Rosen, Jan. 7, 2025. I would say we have a category five emergency.
Taking Greenland by force is bad enough. It would be an attack on the sovereign territory of a NATO ally. Technically the US would be in violation of Article 5 of the NATO charter, which is what has held it together since its inception. "An attack on any member nation is an attack on all, therefore will be met with full retaliation," to paraphrase. Which of course will not under sny circumstances happen. At that precise moment, NATO is dead, the treaties notwithstanding.
This is how the forty-year long Russian asset intends to end it. He knows he will never get the NATO treaty repealed by the Senate, so this is his "work around."
At that point Ukraine is gone, and Putin will be free to establish hegemony in Europe. The US would retreat into "Fortress America," operating to conquer and colonize our hemisphere, surving through using our military to seize assets and raw materials. That is what explains his planned Panama gambit.
That is the dystopian future which the sabotage by the Democratic leadership is bringing us into, if we don't take the next 100 days to put it to a stop.
I keep telling everyone, the most important task, the key flank is derailing these nominations.
None of you that I know of is taking that up, or acting with an ounce of urgency.
What else should I say? Is anyone on board with what I am saying? We are running out of time. We have to jolt the Dem leadership into emergency actions now.
New York Times, U.S. Weighs Ban on Chinese Drones, Citing National Security Concerns, Ana Swanson, Jan. 3, 2025 (print ed.). The Commerce Department requested that companies comment on the implications of the rule by March. The final decision will fall to the Trump administration.
The Biden administration said on Thursday that it was considering a new rule that could restrict or ban Chinese drones in the United States out of national security concerns.
In a notice, the Commerce Department said the involvement of foreign adversaries — notably China and Russia — in the design, development, manufacture and supply of drones could pose “undue or unacceptable risk to U.S. national security.”
The notice requested private companies to comment on the scope and implications of the rule by March 4. The decision of what restrictions to impose, if any, on Chinese and Russian drones will fall to the Trump administration.
China and Russia have shown a willingness to compromise U.S. infrastructure and security through cyberespionage, the Commerce Department said, adding that the governments could leverage their laws and political situations to “co-opt private entities for national interests.”
Beyond the use of drones by hobbyists, the devices are employed in a variety of U.S. industries. They help farmers monitor crops and spray for pests, inspect pipelines for the chemical industry, survey bridges and construction sites, and aid firefighters and other emergency responders.
But drones have evolved over the past decade to include sophisticated cameras, receivers and artificial intelligence abilities, fueling concerns that they could be turned into a useful tool for an adversarial government.
Relevant Recent Headlines
New York Times, Trump Threatens 25% Tariff on Canada and Mexico, Potentially Crippling TradeThe Bulwark, Political Opinion: Trade Wars Are Good, And Easy to Win, Andrew Egger
Russia, Russian War Against Ukraine
New York Times, Russia Targets West With Drones, Exploding Parcels and Sabotage, Lara Jakes, Jan. 5, 2025 (print ed.). Russia has become increasingly brazen in adopting “gray zone” attacks against Europe and the U.S., leaving officials with a dilemma: How to respond?
When mysterious drones began appearing over oil rigs and wind farms off Norway’s coast about three years ago, officials were not certain where they came from.
But “we knew what they were doing,” Stale Ulriksen, a researcher at the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy, said in a recent interview. “Some of it was espionage, where they are charting a lot of things. Some of it, I think, was positioning in case of a war or a deep crisis.”
The drones were suspected of being launched from Russian-controlled ships in the North Sea, Mr. Ulriksen said, including some ships that were near underwater energy pipelines. Norway could not do much to stop them, he added, given that they were flying over international waters.
In recent weeks, reports of drone swarms over the United States’ East Coast have brought fears of hybrid warfare to widespread attention. Only 100 out of 5,000 drone sightings there required further examination, U.S. officials said, and so far none are believed to have been foreign surveillance drones. But it is a different story for the drones spotted in late November and early December over military bases in England and Germany where American forces are stationed.
Military analysts have concluded those drones may have been on a state-sponsored surveillance mission, according to one U.S. official familiar with the incidents, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an open investigation. British and German defense officials declined to discuss details of the sightings.
Experts said the drones’ presence was indicative of a so-called hybrid or “gray zone” attack against the West, where a range of tactics — military, cyber, economic and even psychological — are used to covertly attack or destabilize an enemy.
As Russia, Iran and other hostile states become increasingly brazen in their hybrid attacks on Western countries — such as the hacking of sensitive computer systems and alleged assassination plots — defense officials face a thorny challenge. How to deter such acts without touching off a broader and potentially deadly conflict? And how to assign blame against the attacker when the strikes are designed to evade culpability?
New York Times Magazine, Ukraine Was Outgunned. Its Solution: Small, Cheap Suicide Drones, C.J. Chivers, Photographs and Video by David Guttenfelder, Jan. 5, 2025 (print ed.). Outnumbered and desperate, the nation began hacking cheap consumer drones with explosives — bringing a brutal new form of violence to 21st-century warfare.
Known as first-person-view drones, or FPVs, the weapons have altered the human experience of war and flooded the internet with footage chronicling the desperate last seconds of lives ended by miniaircraft that transmit video of the people they pursue, then smack into them and explode.
Its camera revealed a surprise: a Russian T-80 tank parked in the foliage. A $3 million military machine had been discovered by a $400 repurposed toy.
The tank was well defended. Its crew had backed the 44-ton vehicle into undergrowth, blocking access to its vulnerable exhaust grate. Slats of reactive armor, which can thwart armor-piercing charges, bedecked its sloped front end. Its rotating turret carried a metal frame and netting, a combination derisively referred to as a cope cage, designed to snag drones and prevent warheads from making direct strikes on hulls. All its hatches were closed, blocking Prorok from flying the warhead inside.
In the past, attacking an armored vehicle with such a warhead typically required a soldier to risk exposure to take a hasty shot with a rocket-propelled grenade, sending a projectile at almost 1,000 feet per second that may not hit the vehicle at all. Weaponized FPV drones have created a new way. In the field south of Belgorod, the combination of the tank’s defensive measures and the drone’s peculiar characteristics made for an exercise that was almost surreal. Time seemed to slow down. The little drone hovered patiently before the massive military machine, rising and falling, swaying on the breeze, emitting its high-pitched buzz while Prorok flew it safely from afar, deciding his attack’s best place, which he could strike with uncanny precision.
Prorok selected the turret’s base, where armor was thinner. “Yes, yes,” Buryi said. Prorok leaned forward as he pushed the flight controller and the drone plunged into the spot. The screen went blank. Watching from the surveillance drone, Andy called out. “I see an explosion!” he said.
Alexander Dugin, a far-right writer and ideologue known as “Putin’s brain,” is seen in 2016 in his studio in Moscow (Photo by Francesca Ebel of the Associated Press).
Washington Post, U.S. imposes Russia, Iran sanctions over attempted election interference, Jeff Stein, Jan. 1, 2024 (print ed.). The Treasury Department accused a Russian entity of having “manipulated a video” about a vice-presidential candidate.
The Treasury Department announced new sanctions Tuesday on Iranian and Russian entities accused of trying to interfere with the U.S. 2024 elections, including by allegedly using artificial intelligence to disseminate false information.Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what's true, false or in-between in politics.
In its statement, Treasury said it was imposing sanctions on both a subsidiary of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and an affiliate of Russia’s military intelligence agency over their efforts to “stoke sociopolitical tensions and influence the U.S. electorate during the 2024 election.”
Treasury’s statement also said the Russian entity used AI tools to “quickly create disinformation that would be distributed across a massive network” of fake news websites and produced “baseless accusations” about a 2024 vice-presidential candidate, whom Treasury declined to identify.
Although the sanctions target relatively minor entities and are unlikely to have major economic effects, they reflect the deteriorating relationship between the United States and two of its chief geopolitical adversaries. President Joe Biden is weighing much more far-reaching sanctions against Russia’s energy sector, while President-elect Donald Trump is expected to try to significantly increase economic pressure on Tehran.
“The Governments of Iran and Russia have targeted our election processes and institutions and sought to divide the American people through targeted disinformation campaigns,” Bradley Smith, Treasury’s acting undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement. “The United States will remain vigilant against adversaries who would undermine our democracy.”
Sanctions were imposed on the Center for Geopolitical Expertise (CGE), a Moscow-based group founded by Aleksandr Dugin, whom Treasury had already sanctioned in 2015. Treasury accused the center of working closely with the Russian military intelligence service that “oversees sabotage, political interference operations and cyberwarfare” against the West. Dugin's daughter, Darya Dugina, shown in an image circulated on X by @AlexKokcharov, was another ultra nationalist killed in car bomb attack that some suspect was aimed at her father.
In its statement, Treasury said the intelligence service both directed and provided financial support to the center to influence the 2024 presidential election. With that support, Treasury said, the center maintained a network of “at least 100 websites” for its “disinformation operations,” through which it pushed false information.
“CGE and its personnel used generative AI tools to quickly create disinformation that would be distributed across a massive network of websites designed to imitate legitimate news outlets to create false corroboration between the stories, as well as to obfuscate their Russian origin,” the Treasury statement said.
The Russian center also “manipulated a video” to “produce baseless accusations concerning a 2024 vice-presidential candidate,” Treasury said. Treasury did not identify the video, but The Washington Post and other news organizations reported in October that, according to U.S. intelligence officials, Moscow was behind a faked video and other material smearing Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz with abuse allegations. Separately, Microsoft researchers said this fall that Russian entities had circulated false videos on social media in which an actor accused Vice President Kamala Harris of a nonexistent hit-and-run.
The sanctions also target the Cognitive Design Production Center, a subsidiary of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, over its “influence operations,” according to the Treasury Department. The Justice Department previously charged three men with an alleged hack-and-leak attack against Trump’s presidential campaign.
Washington Post, Putin says he saved Russia, but a year of challenges suggests Moscow’s position is precarious, Mary Ilyushina, Jan. 1, 2024 (print ed.). Marking 25 years in office, Vladimir Putin says he has remade Russia as a sovereign power and will prevail in Ukraine, but economic and strategic setbacks complicate the picture.
When Russia’s first democratically elected president, Boris Yeltsin, resigned on New Year’s Eve in 1999, he publicly implored Vladimir Putin, his handpicked but little-known successor, to “take care of Russia.”A quarter-century later, Putin insists he has done just that — and more.
As he wrapped up his marathon year-end news conference on Dec. 19, Putin boasted that he had thwarted efforts by the United States and its Western allies to subjugate Russia after the Soviet Union fell apart.
“I have not just taken care of it, but I believe we have stepped back from the edge of the abyss,” he declared, in response to a question about Yeltsin’s remark.
“I have done everything so that Russia can be an independent and sovereign state that is capable of making decisions in its interests,” Putin said, “rather than in the interests of the countries that were dragging it toward them, patting it on the back, only to use it for their own purposes.”
But as 2024 draws to a close, Russia is in a far more precarious place than Putin’s rhetoric and bravado suggest. His forces are making slow but steady advances in Ukraine, but estimates by some NATO countries suggest hundreds of thousands of Russian troops have been killed or wounded in the war, which has dragged on for nearly three years.
Washington Post, U.S. Treasury says it was hacked by China-backed intruder, Pranshu Verma and Ellen Nakashima, Dec. 31, 2024 (print ed.). The department told lawmakers that the breach gained access to government workstations and unclassified documents.
The U.S. Treasury Department said Monday that it was hacked by a Chinese state-sponsored actor who gained access to government workstations and unclassified documents, according to a letter reviewed by The Washington Post.Get concise answers to your questions. Try Ask The Post AI.
The department was notified Dec. 8 by a third-party software provider, BeyondTrust, that a hacker had gained access to a security key, which allowed the intruder to override certain security protocols and access some Treasury Department office workstations and unclassified documents stored on them, according to the letter notifying the Senate Banking Committee leadership of the breach.
The Treasury Department labeled the breach a “major incident,” in line with department policy that, according to the letter, categorizes nation-state intrusions as “major.” Once Treasury was alerted to the issue, it contacted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and it has taken the BeyondTrust service offline, according to a Treasury spokesperson. There is no evidence the hacker still has access to Treasury systems, the spokesperson said.
New York Times, Putin Apologizes for Kazakhstan Crash but Stops Short of Taking Responsibility, Anatoly Kurmanaev, Dec. 28, 2024.President Vladimir Putin of Russia called his Azerbaijani counterpart, the Kremlin said, to apologize for the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Saturday apologized for the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane this past week, breaking the Kremlin’s three-day silence on the accident that killed 38 people. He did not explicitly acknowledge Russia’s responsibility for the crash.
Mr. Putin “offered his apologies” for the crash in a phone call to his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, the Kremlin said in a statement. Mr. Putin initiated the phone call, according to the statement, and told Mr. Aliyev “that the tragic incident took place in Russian airspace.”
Mr. Putin said that as the plane approached its scheduled destination of Grozny, in southern Russia, Russian air defenses had begun to repulse an attack by Ukrainian drones on the Grozny airport and others nearby, according to the Kremlin.
Aviation experts and U.S. officials believe a Russian air-defense missile may have mistakenly downed the passenger jet. The Kremlin statement stopped short of attributing the crash to a Russian missile, but in its own statement acknowledging the apology, Azerbaijan’s presidential office suggested that was indeed the cause.
New York Times, Plane Crash Investigators Focus on Russian Air Defenses as Possible Cause, Ivan Nechepurenko, Dec. 27, 2024 (print ed.).Russian aviation authorities said the Azerbaijan Airlines plane had hit a flock of birds. But some experts cast doubt on that account, pointing to footage showing apparent holes in the fuselage.Listen to this article · 5:51 min Learn more
As authorities in several countries tried to determine what caused the deadly crash of a passenger airplane in Kazakhstan, investigators and experts on Thursday were focusing on the possibility that a Russian air defense system had struck the plane.
Aviation experts cast doubt on a Russian agency’s contention that the Azerbaijan Airlines jet had hit a flock of birds, saying images of the crash site show holes in the plane’s fuselage that appeared unlikely to have been caused by them.
The jet had been flying on Wednesday morning from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to Grozny, in Russia’s Chechnya republic, at a time when drone strikes were taking place around Grozny and Russian air defense systems were responding, according to residents and local news media reports.
Two Azerbaijanis briefed on a government inquiry said that Azerbaijani officials now believe that a Russian Pantsir-S defense system damaged the plane. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing. Caliber, a news outlet in Azerbaijan that is close to the government, also reported that the country’s investigators believe a Russian Pantsir system was responsible.-
New York Times, Analysis: Has Russia’s Shadow Fleet, Built to Evade Sanctions, Engaged in Sabotage? Michael Schwirtz, Dec. 28, 2024. Russia has assembled a fleet of hundreds of vessels to covertly ship its oil. The idea of using some to cause havoc may be proving irresistible to the Kremlin.
Western officials have long been concerned about Moscow’s so-called shadow fleet, an assemblage of aged tankers created to covertly carry Russian crude oil around the world. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the worry primarily concerned the use of such off-the-books ships to circumvent Western sanctions and generate revenue to fuel the Kremlin’s war machine.
But Russia’s shadow fleet may now present a more pressing danger to the West.
This week, Finnish commandos boarded an oil tanker that officials suspect had cut through vital underwater cables in the Baltic Sea, including one that carries electricity between Finland and Estonia. The ship, the Eagle S, bears all the hallmarks of vessels belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet, officials said, and had embarked from a Russian port shortly before the cables were cut.
If confirmed, it would be the first known instance of a shadow fleet vessel being used to intentionally sabotage critical infrastructure in Europe — and, officials and experts said, a clear escalation by Russia in its conflict with the West.
New York Times, Finland Says Vessel Suspected of Cutting Cable May Be Part of Russia’s ‘Shadow Fleet,’ Johanna Lemola and Lynsey Chutel, Dec. 27, 2024 (print ed.). Finland seized an oil tanker after the latest in a series of disruptions to undersea infrastructure.
The Finnish authorities seized an oil tanker on Thursday on the suspicion that it was involved in cutting vital undersea cables and said the ship might have been part of Russia’s “shadow fleet,” aimed at evading Western sanctions.
In a statement, the police in Finland said the authorities had boarded the Eagle S tanker in Finnish waters. The ship, which is registered in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific, had been sailing from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Port Said, Egypt, when it was detained.The police said they were investigating whether the vessel was involved in the latest suspected act of sabotage on undersea infrastructure: the cutting on Wednesday of the Estlink 2 submarine cable, which carries electricity between Finland and Estonia. The Finnish authorities said Thursday that four other cables carrying data also had been damaged. The police called the latest cable cuts “aggravated vandalism.”
The Finnish authorities said the tanker might be part of Russia’s shadow fleet, which emerged as a way to circumvent Western-imposed price caps on Russian oil transported by sea. The caps were introduced several months after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Washington Post, In major shift, Zelensky appears open to negotiating an end to the war, Isabelle Khurshudyan and Ellen Francis, Dec. 24, 2024 (print ed.). A new U.S. president and battlefield realities appear to be pushing Ukraine’s leader, who had long insisted on fighting for every inch of occupied land, to the table.
As Ukrainian forces struggle to hold off Russia’s army on the battlefield and President-elect Donald Trump looks to broker a peace deal, President Volodymyr Zelensky has in recent weeks signaled a greater willingness for negotiations to end the war — a major shift for the Ukrainian leader, who had long vowed to fight for every last inch of his country’s land.Get concise answers to your questions. Try Ask The Post AI.
Zelensky’s messaging has been careful; he has not explicitly said Kyiv would agree to concessions — territorial or otherwise — even while Russia occupies more than 20 percent of Ukraine and would probably retain control of that land after any ceasefire. But after previously stating that negotiations could begin only once Moscow withdrew all its troops, Zelensky is now emphasizing the need for long-term security rather than the immediate return of territory.
Zelensky’s change in rhetoric — something Ukrainian and Western officials have noticed — can probably be attributed to a worsening situation on the front line and an incoming U.S. administration that has put future security assistance for Kyiv in doubt. Ukrainian officials throughout the first year of the war stressed the importance of reclaiming all of Ukraine’s land, including Crimea and other areas Russia has effectively ruled since 2014, as a condition for any deal.
In recent meetings with Trump and European leaders, however, Zelensky has focused more on what he has referred to as “lasting peace” for Ukraine. The top priority is securing an invite to the NATO military alliance and other security guarantees, such as the possible presence of Western peacekeepers, to prevent future Russian attacks.
Officials and analysts said Zelensky’s tone shift is probably an attempt to be more in line with Trump’s emphasis on halting the conflict. But the Ukrainian leader is also trying to ensure his country doesn’t come out empty-handed.
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Global Politics, War, Famine, Human Rights
Politico, Driver Rams Christmas Market in Germany, Killing at Least 2 in Suspected Attack, Christopher F. Schuetze, Dec. 20, 2024. Video showed a car plowing into a large crowd in the city of Magdeburg. The driver, identified as a 50-year-old Saudi Arabian citizen who worked as a doctor, was arrested
A driver plowed a vehicle into a Christmas market in the central German city of Magdeburg on Friday evening, killing an adult and a small child and injuring dozens of other people in what officials indicated was a targeted attack.
The driver was arrested, the authorities said. He was identified as a 50-year-old Saudi Arabian citizen who first came to Germany in 2006 and worked as a doctor in a small town 25 miles south of Magdeburg, officials said.
Saudi Arabia condemned the attack in a statement by its Foreign Ministry that did not mention the suspect. “The Kingdom expresses its solidarity with the German people and the families of the victims,” the statement said.
More than 65 people were injured, 14 of them severely, said Michael Reif, the spokesman for Magdeburg. The authorities say they believe it was a deliberate attack. They are working to determine a motive, said Reiner Haseloff, the governor of Saxony-Anhalt state, where Magdeburg is the capital.your times accessHave a moment? Play these games.Connections
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“Every human life lost in this attack is a terrible tragedy and one human life too many,” a visibly shaken Mr. Haseloff told reporters on Friday night.200 mi.300 km.© Mapbox © OpenStreetMap
Nancy Faeser, who as Germany’s interior minister is responsible for public safety, said in a statement: “The shocking act in Magdeburg a few days before Christmas hits us in the heart. We continue to fear for the lives of the seriously injured and mourn the people who were torn from life by this terrible act.”
Before leaving his post in November, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, Thomas Haldenwang, warned that the country’s threat level was higher because of the war in Middle East.
“The danger is real and more acute than it has been in a long time,” he said at the time.
More than 1,000 temporary Christmas markets pop up every year in Germany, and they have been the target of terrorists in the past. Last month, the police in Germany arrested two teenagers suspected of exchanging plans about attacking a Christmas market, but those alleged plans appear to have nothing to do with the attack on Friday.Editors’ PicksMy Neighbor Won’t Stop Praying for Me. What Should I Do?A Woman on Our Girls’ Trip Has Grown Snarky. Can We Stop Inviting Her?Skiing’s Budget Secret: It Can Be Cheaper in Europe
In 2016, an extremist rammed a truck into a crowd in Berlin, killing 13. Since then, the police have secured many Christmas markets with temporary barriers.
It remains unclear how the driver in Magdeburg was able to circumvent the barriers that were protecting the market. The car drove some 1,200 feet before it stopped, officials said.
The authorities said the driver had rented a car before plowing it into the market on the last Friday before Christmas, when it was especially crowded with visitors. Many police officers were at the site. The area around the market was closed after the episode, a police spokeswoman said.
The attack in Germany inspired additional security measures around Christmas markets thousands of miles away, in New York City.
The New York Police Department said in a statement on Friday: “The N.Y.P.D. has been closely monitoring recent events in Germany and coordinating with federal and international partners. While we have not identified any specific/credible threats to New York City at this time, resources have been deployed to various Christmas markets and other locations throughout the city out of an abundance of caution.”
The city of Magdeburg, population 240,000, used to be part of Communist East Germany. The year’s Christmas market is in the old market square, just in front of City Hall.
Surveillance footage circulating on social media and verified by The New York Times on Friday shows a car plowing into a large crowd at the Christmas market. The car then turns right onto another crowded street. Video of the aftermath shows people helping the wounded as cries are heard.
“The reports from Magdeburg are alarming,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in social media post. “My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
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NYPD Chief Jeffrey Maddrey attends a news conference outside New York City Police Department 40th Precinct, July 17, 2023, in New York. (AP File photo by Jeenah Moon).
Associated Press, Top-ranking NYPD officer abruptly resigns amid sexual misconduct allegations, Philip Marcelou, Dec. 22, 2024. The highest-ranking uniformed officer in the New York Police Department has resigned amid allegations he demanded sex from a subordinate in exchange for opportunities to earn extra pay.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch accepted Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey ’s resignation Friday night, effective immediately, according to a department statement Saturday.
Chief of Patrol John Chell will take over as interim chief of department, and Philip Rivera will assume Chell’s duties as the head of the patrol division, the NYPD said.
Late Saturday, Tisch replaced the head of the internal affairs bureau, which investigates alleged police misconduct, saying in a statement that the unit “must always be dedicated to preserving integrity and rooting out corruption in all its forms.” She appointed Edward Thompson as interim chief after Miguel Iglesias was relieved of his command.
The NYPD declined to comment on the allegations against Maddrey other than to say it “takes all allegations of sexual misconduct seriously and will thoroughly investigate this matter.”
A lawyer for his accuser, Lt. Quathisha Epps, said the move was overdue.
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U.S. Immigration
New York Times, Trump Vowed Mass Deportations. Mexico and Central America Brace for Impact, Emiliano Rodríguez Mega, Jan. 7, 2025. Donald J. Trump has said that Mexico is allowing an “invasion” of migrants into the United States. But the current situation on the ground tells a different story: Unlawful crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border dropped sharply last year.
Crossings into the United States from Mexico dropped sharply last year. But countries south of the U.S. border are waiting nervously to see if President-elect Donald J. Trump orders mass deportations.
The possibility that millions of undocumented immigrants could be expelled — what would be the largest deportation program in American history — has sent shock waves through Latin America and sowed confusion among migrants and asylum seekers.
“We see dark times coming for the migrant community,” said Irineo Mujica, the Mexico director of People Without Borders, a transnational advocacy group. “Anyone who falls prey to the Trump administration is now going to be devoured, chewed up and spat out.”
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U.S. Jobs, Investment, Economy, Pensions
Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: United States Stock Market On Pace For Best Two Year Period This Century, Aaron Parnas, Dec. 31, 2024. The Biden Administration's economic policy is working.
The United States stock market is expected to have its best two year stretch this entire century, achieving a feat that has only happened a few times in history. According to latest numbers, the S&P 500 is set to gain over 20% this year.
This comes one year after the index rose 24%. Should these results hold, which they will for all intents and purposes, it would be the best performance for the index since 1997 and 1998.
According to statistics over the past two centuries, this type of performance by the index has only occurred three other times, in 1927 and 1928, in 1935 and 1936, and again in 1954 and 1955. This would mean that the current pace for the market is one that has been achieved only four other times in our nation's history.
In total, the S&P 500 is now up over 60% of the past two years, marking significant gains from 2022 which saw the index fall about 20%. Today's news is a testament to the Biden-Harris Administration's economic policy which has successfully ushered the United States out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is now almost certain that the economy will achieve the vaunted soft landing, ensuring that the United States stays out of a recession following extremely high inflation. It also means that the incoming Trump Administration will now be inheriting a booming, record breaking economy.
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New York Times, Why the Blazes Overwhelmed L.A.’s Well-Trained Firefighters, Thomas Fuller, Alexandra Berzon, Kellen Browning and Shawn Hubler, Jan. 12, 2025 (print ed.). Officials say there simply weren’t enough firefighters to quell the wildfires, but questions are being raised about whether modern fires require a new playbook.
The alert came in blaring, hot-pink, all-caps: Be prepared for a “LIFE THREATENING & DESTRUCTIVE WINDSTORM!!!”
The notice on Monday was one in a series of warnings issued by the National Weather Service about the powerful Santa Ana winds that were about to blow through Southern California, which hadn’t seen serious rain in months.
Officials in Los Angeles, a city that is accustomed to treacherous fire conditions, turned to a well-worn playbook. The city predeployed nine trucks in vulnerable areas and called in 90 extra firefighters. The county fire department moved 30 extra engines into the field and called up 100 off-duty firefighters. The U.S. Forest Service brought in trucks and support units, as well as bulldozers, helicopters and planes.
But by Tuesday afternoon, five hours after a fire ignited high in a canyon in the oceanside Pacific Palisades neighborhood, it was clear their preparations would not be enough. As furious wind gusts approaching 100 miles per hour tore through the city and propelled showers of embers that ignited entire neighborhoods, Anthony Marrone, the chief of the Los Angeles County Fire Department, stood at a command post on the edge of the Pacific Ocean.
New York Times, Biggest L.A. Fire Spreads Despite Calmer Winds, Yan Zhuang, Amy Graff and Jonathan Wolfe, Jan. 12, 2025 (print ed.). Dry terrain helped the giant Palisades blaze grow, prompting officials to expand mandatory evacuation orders to Brentwood, including the Getty Center.
Washington Post, Pacific Palisades fire erupts, spurring evacuations in California amid strong winds, Staff Report, Jan. 7, 2025. "‘Let’s get out of here’: Palisades residents flee fire.
An ominous fire broke out Tuesday near the Pacific Palisades — a coastal neighborhood on the west side of Los Angeles — and quickly exploded. The fire has grown to at least 2,921 acres, according to Cal Fire. Evacuation orders were issued as officials ordered residents in notoriously winding hillside neighborhoods to leave immediately.
Smoke plumes spread rapidly, moving toward structures and homes. A large swath of residences in Topanga Canyon, a woodsy, tucked-away community with one winding road in and out, are under evacuation warnings. The fire sparked amid a “life-threatening and destructive” windstorm event that is sweeping through a region that has not seen significant rain since spring. The Palisades Fire has now grown to at least 2,921 acres and is zero percent contained, according to a 6:18 p.m. update from Cal Fire. State fire officials are warning of extreme fire behavior — including short and long-range spotting — and say that wind gusts of up to 60 mph are expected to continue through Thursday. The cause is still under investigation.
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Media, High Tech, Culture, Education
New York Times, CNN Ordered to Pay at Least $5 Million for Defaming Security Contractor, Michael M. Grynbaum, Jan. 17, 2025. The jury decision came after a two-week trial where lawyers for the contractor argued that the network had falsely accused him of illegal activity.
A jury in Florida on Friday found CNN liable for defaming a private security contractor in a five-minute segment that ran on the network in November 2021.
The jury ordered the company to pay at least $5 million in damages, plus any potential punitive damages that have yet to be determined.
News organizations are facing an increasingly adverse legal and political environment. There are robust First Amendment protections for journalists, and plaintiffs in defamation cases must prove that a news outlet published false information despite knowing the information was wrong.
But public opinion has turned sharply against news organizations, just as financial constraints on the industry’s business model have made it tougher to fend off suits. ABC News surprised industry observers last month when it agreed to pay $15 million to settle a defamation claim brought by President-elect Donald J. Trump.
New York Times, MSNBC's President Rashida Jones Stepping Down, Benjamin Mullin and Michael M. Grynbaum, Jan. 14, 2025. The president of MSNBC, Rashida Jones, is stepping down from that position, the company said on Tuesday, a major change at the news network just days before President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office.
Rebecca Kutler, senior vice president for content strategy at MSNBC, will succeed Ms. Jones as interim president, effective immediately. Ms. Jones will stay on in an advisory role through March.
“Rebecca is the ideal leader to guide us through this moment, and I look forward to collaborating with her as we shape our collective future together,” Mark Lazarus, the chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group, said in a note to staffers.
Ms. Jones’s exit comes amid industrywide pressure for the cable news industry, which has seen declining ratings after the U.S. presidential election. MSNBC has been the second most-watched cable network during that period, ahead of CNN but behind longtime ratings leader Fox News.
Executives at the network are hopeful that audiences will return as Mr. Trump takes office and viewers seek to dissect his early policy moves. On Monday, the company announced that Rachel Maddow, its most popular host, would temporarily return to broadcasting her one-hour show every weeknight at 9 p.m. Eastern for Mr. Trump’s first 100 days in office.
MSNBC is among a bundle of cable channels that its parent company, Comcast, is planning to spin out later this year into a new company. CNBC, another news channel in Comcast’s cable portfolio, is also being spun out, along with entertainment networks like USA and Syfy.
Ms. Kutler is a cable news executive with experience in the streaming business. Before joining MSNBC in 2022, Ms. Kutler was a key architect of CNN+, the ambitious streaming news service that was shut down by Warner Bros. Discovery that year.
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Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: January 15, 202[ Biden Farewell Address], Heather Cox Richardson, right, Jan. 16, 2025. It is somehow fitting that President Joe Biden’s farewell address to the nation, scheduled for 8:00 Eastern time tonight, was overshadowed today by the dramatic announcement that after months of negotiation backed by the United States and facilitated by Egyptian and Qatari mediators, negotiators from Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire and to exchange Israeli hostages taken on October 7, 2023, for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
This afternoon, Biden appeared, flanked by Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “Good afternoon,” he said to the press. “And it’s a very good afternoon, because at long last I can announce a ceasefire and a hostage deal has been reached between Israel and Hamas. [After] more than 15 months of conflict that began with [Hamas’s] brutal massacre of October the seventh, more than 15 months of terror for the hostages, their families, the Israeli people, more than fifteen months of suffering by the innocent people in Gaza, fighting in Gaza will stop and soon the hostages will return home to their families.”
“The elements of this deal were what I laid out in detail this past May,” Biden said. That plan “was embraced by countries around the world and endorsed overwhelmingly by the U.N. Security Council.”
It has three phases. Phase one is a six-week ceasefire in which Israeli forces will withdraw from all the populated areas of Gaza and Palestinians can return to their homes. Hamas will release the women, elderly, wounded, and American hostages it holds. Humanitarian assistance will surge into Gaza.“During the next six weeks,” Biden said, “Israel will negotiate the necessary arrangements to get to phase two, which is a permanent end of the war.”
The ceasefire will continue throughout the negotiations, even if they take longer than six weeks. Once phase two begins, the remaining living hostages will come home and all remaining Israeli forces will be withdrawn from Gaza. In phase three the final remains of hostages who have been killed will be returned to their families, and a major reconstruction plan for Gaza will begin.
Biden noted that he has worked in foreign policy for decades and that “[t]his is one of the toughest negotiations I’ve ever experienced.”
Hopium Chronicles, Political Opinion: President Biden's Farewell Address: "An Oligarchy Is Taking Shape In America," Simon Rosenberg, right, Jan. 16, 2025. In his last speech President Biden takes a big swing.
The President spoke to the nation last night, and had important things to say. Here are a few passages from the speech that are getting the most attention:
That’s why my farewell address tonight, I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern. And this is a dangerous — and that’s the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultrawealthy people, and the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked. Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.
We see the consequences all across America. And we’ve seen it before.More than a century ago, the American people stood up to the robber barons back then and busted the trusts. They didn’t punish the wealthy. They just made the wealthy play by the rules everybody else had. Workers want rights to earn their fair share. You know, they were dealt into the deal, and it helped put us on the path to building the largest middle class, the most prosperous century any nation the world has ever seen. We’ve got to do that again.AndYou know, in his farewell address, President Eisenhower spoke of the dangers of the military-industrial complex. He warned us that about, and I quote, “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power.”
Six days — six decades later, I’m equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech-industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country as well.Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power. The free press is crumbling. Editors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact-checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit. We must hold the social platforms accountable to protect our children, our families and our very democracy from the abuse of power.
Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is the most consequential technology of our time, perhaps of all time.
And in a democracy, there is another danger — that the concentration of power and wealth. It erodes a sense of unity and common purpose. It causes distrust and division. Participating in our democracy becomes exhausting and even disillusioning, and people don’t feel like they have a fair shot. We have to stay engaged in the process. I know it’s frustrating. A fair shot is what makes America America. Everyone is entitled to a fair shot, not a guarantee, just a fair shot, an even playing field. Going as far as your hard work and talent can take you.
New York Times, Negotiators Agree to Gaza Cease-Fire and Hostage Deal, Adam Rasgon, Patrick Kingsley, Aaron Boxerman, Ronen Bergman, Peter Baker and Isabel Kershner, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.). Agreement Would Come Into Effect Sunday, Key Mediator Says.
The prime minister of Qatar, a key mediator, said the agreement would come into effect on Sunday, and President Biden said it would last for 42 days. The Israeli cabinet still has to ratify the deal and some details remained unresolved.
Negotiators from Israel and Hamas have agreed to a 42-day cease-fire and hostage release in Gaza, President Biden and other officials announced on Wednesday, raising hopes that there could soon be an end to more than a year of war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and destroyed much of the enclave.
The cease-fire was set to take effect on Sunday, Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani of Qatar, a mediating country, told reporters on Wednesday evening. He added, though, that both sides were still working on concluding some of the logistical matters.
The agreement needs to be formally ratified by the Israeli cabinet and the government, two senior Israeli officials said. The office of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said in a statement that a number of details in the agreement remained unresolved, but that it was hoped that they would be worked out on Wednesday night.
Mr. Al Thani said the first phase of the cease-fire deal would see Israeli forces withdraw to the east, away from populated areas. Some 33 hostages would be released over the course of the 42 days, he said. He did not say how many Palestinian prisoners would be released.
About 100 hostages are thought to still be in Gaza, although the Israeli authorities believe around 35 of them are dead.
Mr. Biden said that in addition to the hostage releases, Palestinians will be able to return to their homes and will have access to a surge of humanitarian supplies.
“Too many innocent people have died; too many communities have been destroyed,” he said in a speech at the White House. “In this deal, the people of Gaza can finally recover and rebuild.”
Hamas confirmed the cease-fire deal in a statement on Telegram, calling it an “achievement for our people” and hailing Gazans’ “legendary resilience” in the face of the war.
President-elect Donald J. Trump also announced that a hostage deal had been reached, writing on social media that “THEY WILL BE RELEASED SHORTLY.” Mr. Trump had threatened severe consequences unless Israel and Hamas reached an agreement before his Jan. 20 inauguration, which some officials credited with helping to advance the negotiations.
The nearly uninterrupted fighting in Gaza has left Hamas severely battered, with many of its military commanders killed, including its longtime leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by Israeli forces last fall.
New York Times, Israeli Cabinet Vote on Gaza Cease-Fire Not Expected Until at Least Friday, Adam Rasgon and Aaron Boxerman, Jan. 16, 2025. The cabinet must ratify the deal, which would include the release of hostages. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was confident it would start on Sunday.
The Israeli government is not expected to vote on the cease-fire deal with Hamas until at least Friday, Israeli officials said, after last-minute disputes with Hamas and rifts over the agreement emerged inside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition.
Still, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said he was confident that the deal would go into effect, as was expected, on Sunday. It was unclear when the Israeli cabinet would meet, but it was expected to approve the deal in the coming days, according to two officials who were granted anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the talks.
After President Biden and other mediators announced on Wednesday that Israeli and Hamas negotiators in Qatar had reached a cease-fire deal to stop the fighting and free hostages held in Gaza, the hitch on Thursday underscored the volatility of the truce and prompted fears of further delays.
The Biden administration said that its team was continuing to work with Israeli officials and mediators to settle the remaining details.
In a dramatic show of the anger over American support for Israel’s war in Gaza, a farewell news conference by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken was interrupted by two pro-Palestinian journalists who accused him of enabling “genocide.”
One shouted, “Criminal! Why aren’t you in The Hague?” as security officers carried him from the State Department briefing room.
Another reporter was ejected from room at the start of a rare appearance there by Mr. Blinken, who had come to summarize his four-year tenure and take final questions from reporters.The man picked up from his seat and carried away by several security officers was Sam Husseini, who identifies himself online as “an independent journalist and writer who has been piercing through the establishment’s falsifications for 25 years” and is known for his confrontational questions at department briefings.
The other reporter was Max Blumenthal, a prominent left-wing journalist and fierce critic of Israeli policies, who asked Mr. Blinken, “How does it feel to have your legacy be genocide?”
Then, referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, he added, “You waved the white flag before Netanyahu!”
New York Times, Pledging Independence, Bondi Spars with Democrats but Echoes Trump, Glenn ThrushDevlin Barrett and Adam Goldman, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.). Pam Bondi cast herself as an independent prosecutor who would keep politics out of the Justice Department if confirmed as Donald Trump’s attorney general.
Pam Bondi, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for attorney general, refused to explicitly say she would defy White House pressure — or admit that Mr. Trump lost the 2020 election — and instead offered a promise that “politics will not play a part” in her work at a confirmation hearing on Wednesday that repeatedly turned heated.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee accused her time and again of failing to answer simple questions on election denialism, prosecution of the news media and her stance on an administration meddling in the department. But the committee’s members from the Republican Party, which controls the Senate, were united in their support for Ms. Bondi, appearing to give her a smooth path to confirmation.
As Bondi’s hearing nears its end, she gets a soft-spoken warning from Senator Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who fought with her earlier in the day.
“Our concern comes when that loyalty to the president conflicts with your duty,” said Schiff, insisting such a moment will arise because it happened to her predecessors. “It came to everyone, it will come to you, and what you do in that moment will define your attorney generalship.”
New York Times, On Glide Path to Confirmation, Rubio Warns of China Threat, Michael Crowley, Karoun Demirjian and Edward Wong, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.). Marco Rubio backed NATO but said Europe needed to do more to protect itself. His hearing seemed to all but guarantee he would be the next secretary of state.
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, right, called for an end to the war in Ukraine, said Europe must decrease its reliance on Washington and declared America’s competition with China the defining question of the century during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday to be secretary of state.
The friendly, five-hour hearing before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, which also touched on how Mr. Rubio would approach conflicts in the Middle East, was less than halfway over when the panel’s chairman made a major announcement: Israel and Hamas had sealed an agreement to begin a temporary cease-fire and partial hostage release in Gaza. Mr. Rubio had no specific comment on the agreement.
Mr. Rubio had earlier defended Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza, blaming Hamas for using civilians as human shields and calling the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza “one of the terrible things about war.” He later added of Israel, “You cannot coexist with armed elements at your border who seek your destruction and evisceration, as a state. You just can’t.”
But Mr. Rubio was perhaps most fluent and animated during his discussion of China, which, he warned, aimed to overtake the United States as the world’s pre-eminent power. “The Chinese believe we are a great power in inevitable decline and they are on an inevitable rise,” he said. Mr. Rubio acknowledged that China’s government saw him as a prime adversary.
Beijing has “said mean things about me” — and it has even imposed sanctions on him — but Mr. Rubio added that his role at America’s top diplomat would require “involve engaging them in a mature and prudent conversation.”
In contrast to Mr. Trump’s more gleefully disruptive nominees, Mr. Rubio struck a decidedly moderate and mainstream tone unlikely to alarm the foreign policy establishment. There was no talk of picking fights with allies, reclaiming the Panama Canal or conquering Greenland.
Mr. Rubio even called the State Department a valuable source of expertise and said its influence should be enhanced.
Politico, Trump CIA pick Ratcliffe vows to help win new emerging tech race, John Sakellariadis, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.). John Ratcliffe also said the spy agency needs focus above all on China.
John Ratcliffe will pledge to ensure the U.S. stays ahead of foreign adversaries on key emerging tech issues like AI and quantum computing, if confirmed to lead the Central Intelligence Agency.
“Our adversaries…understand that the nation who wins the race in the emerging technologies of today, will dominate the world of tomorrow,” Ratcliffe will say, according to a copy of his opening statement shared with POLITICO and later posted online. He pledged to make technology innovation a “priority” while at the agency.
The former U.S. congressperson served as the director of national intelligence in Trump’s first term, and is likely to have a smooth confirmation process this time around.
According to his opening statement, Ratcliffe will argue that the agency has “struggled to keep pace” with technological innovation, and needs to forge better ties with the private sector.
To better assess how foreign adversaries are exploiting technologies like AI, Ratcliffe will say he wants to push U.S. spies to collect intelligence in “every corner of the globe, no matter how dark or difficult.” He will add that the U.S. intelligence community should continue a relentless focus on China in particular.
China is “far and away our top national security threat,” his prepared statement reads.
WhoWhatWhy, Investigative Commentary: Hegseth’s Nomination Hearing a Troubling Sign of Things to Come, Klaus Marre, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.). If Democrats cannot do a better job of highlighting how unqualified a nominee like Pete Hegseth is, and if Republicans cannot muster the courage to reject someone like him, we might as well just do away with this “advice and consent” farce.
New York Times, Opinion: We Deserve Pete Hegseth, David Brooks, right, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.).First let me hit you with some realities:
Now, if you are holding hearings for a prospective secretary of defense, you would think you might want to ask him about these urgent issues. Or you might come up with other serious questions: How do drones change war-fighting? How will artificial intelligence alter the nature of combat? How do we shift from a defense policy built around counterterrorism to a policy built around nation-state warfare? If you’re a Democrat trying to sink a nomination, you would think you’d want to ask substantive questions on life-or-death issues like these in order to expose the nominee’s ignorance and unpreparedness.
But did this happen at the Pete Hegseth hearings in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee this week? If you thought those kinds of questions would dominate the hearings, you must be living under the illusion that we live in a serious country.
We do not. We live in a soap opera country. We live in a social media/cable TV country. In our culture you don’t want to focus on boring policy questions; you want to engage in the kind of endless culture war that gets voters riled up. You don’t want to focus on topics that would require study; you focus on images and easy-to-understand issues that generate instant visceral reactions. You don’t win this game by engaging in serious thought; you win by mere attitudinizing — by striking a pose. Your job is not to advance an argument that might help the country; your job is to go viral.
Pete Hegseth is of course the living, breathing embodiment of this culture. The world is on fire and what’s his obsession? Wokeness in the military. I went through high school trying to bluff my way through class after doing none of the reading, and in Hegseth, I recognize a master of the craft. During the hearings Hegseth repeatedly said he was going to defend the meritocracy. In what kind of meritocracy is being a Fox TV host preparation for being secretary of defense? Maybe in the one Caligula fancied when he contemplated making his horse a consul.
Several Republican senators were happy to play along with the woke-military game. In addition, Senator Kevin Cramer used his precious question time to praise Hegseth for having the courage to use the words “Jesus Christ.” (If we had used this logic during World War II, Father Fulton Sheen would have commanded the D-Day invasion.) I’ve also learned that mentioning climate change in a Republican gathering is like throwing a side of bacon into an Orthodox minyan — they react with great offense.Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
Hegseth is in no danger of rising to the level of mediocrity, but next to some of his Democratic questioners, he looked like Carl von Clausewitz. Democrats played their own culture war games. Especially early in the hearings their main obsession was women in combat. (Like everybody in my social class, I support women in combat, but I don’t think it’s as important an issue as failure to deter World War III.)
Senator Elizabeth Warren submitted over 30 pages of written questions to Hegseth before the hearing. They had to do with things like drinking, accusations of sexual assault, threats to L.G.B.T.Q. rights and veterans benefits. I have enormous respect for Warren, but she didn’t show much interest in topics like how to deter and fight a war — which are kind of central to the purview of this committee.
Senator Tim Kaine tried to play the moral disqualification game, dwelling on Hegseth’s various adulteries. With Democrats’ having failed to defeat Donald Trump with this strategy, I admire their capacity for persistent losing.
The hearings got better as they went along and more junior senators got to speak. Senator Mazie Hirono was excellent, asking substantive questions: If the president ordered you, would you order troops to shoot protesters in the legs? Would you follow an order to use the military for mass deportations? Senator Tammy Duckworth was outstanding, too, asking about the big responsibilities of the job: Does Hegseth know anything about the ongoing international negotiations? Does he know which countries are in the ASEAN bloc? (The answers are no and no.)
The lesson for Democrats over the next four years is clear: Don’t fly into moral outrage every day. Focus on Trumpian incompetence.
Overall, Republicans were the more serious party at these hearings. The committee chairman, Senator Roger Wicker, did note that we live in the most dangerous security environment since World War II. Senator Tim Sheehy did mention shipbuilding. Senator Ted Budd did ask about warplanes. Senator Eric Schmitt did ask about drones.
But, as you can kind of tell, I finished watching the hearings sick to my stomach. I also came away thinking that we need to come up with a better way to think about expertise. Hegseth’s core populist conviction — repeated ad nauseam — is that the grunts on the ground know what they are doing and the pencil-necked geeks in air-conditioned offices just write nonsense regulations that get in the way. The man wasted years at Princeton and Harvard when he could have learned everything he knows by watching that Colonel Jessup speech at the end of “A Few Good Men.”
We don’t want to live in a populist paradise in which expertise is suspect and ignorance a sign of virtue. Nor do we want to live in an elitist world in which technocrats try to rule the world. As the political scientist James C. Scott showed, technocrats are too abstracted from reality to even see what is going on.
We need to settle upon a place where experts are respected and inform decision-making, but civilians make the ultimate calls. In a healthy democracy people revere great learning on substantive issues; they understand the world is too complex to be captured in bite-size slogans; but they also appreciate the wisdom that comes from concrete experience and know that most hard calls have to be made in light of the deeply held values that have made America what it is.
New York Times, Zuckerberg Will Host a Party for Trump’s Inauguration, Theodore Schleifer and Mike Isaac, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.). Mark Zuckerberg, the Meta chief executive, is one of several tech leaders expected to play a high-profile role in celebrating the new administration next week.
New York Times, Special Counsel’s Jan. 6 Report Defends Decision to Prosecute Trump, Alan Feuer and Charlie Savage, Jan. 15, 2025 (print ed.). The report, which said the special counsel’s office stood “fully behind” the merits of the prosecution, amounted to an extraordinary rebuke of President-elect Trump.
Jack Smith, above, the special counsel who indicted President-elect Donald J. Trump on charges of illegally seeking to cling to power after losing the 2020 election, said in a final report released early Tuesday that the evidence would have been sufficient to convict Mr. Trump in a trial, had his 2024 election victory not made it impossible for the prosecution to continue.
“The department’s view that the Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a president is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government’s proof or the merits of the prosecution, which the office stands fully behind,” Mr. Smith wrote.
He continued: “Indeed, but for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.”
The Justice Department delivered the 137-page volume — representing half of Mr. Smith’s overall final report, with the volume about Mr. Trump’s other federal case, accusing him of mishandling classified documents, still confidential — to Congress just after midnight on Tuesday. The report amounted to an extraordinary rebuke of a president-elect, capping a momentous legal saga that saw the man now poised to regain the powers of the nation’s highest office charged with crimes that struck at the heart of American democracy. And although Mr. Smith resigned as special counsel late last week, his recounting of the case also served as a reminder of the vast array of evidence and detailed accounting of Mr. Trump’s actions that he had marshaled.
In his report, Mr. Smith took Mr. Trump to task not only for his efforts to reverse the results of a free and fair election, but also for consistently encouraging “violence against his perceived opponents” throughout the chaotic weeks between Election Day and Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, injuring more than 140 police officers.
Mr. Smith laid the attack on the Capitol squarely at Mr. Trump’s feet, quoting from the evidence in several criminal cases of people charged with taking part in the riot who made clear that they believed they were acting on Mr. Trump’s behalf.
In several lengthy footnotes, Mr. Smith explored the trauma experienced by Capitol Police officers who were attacked during the riot, including “shell-shock” and the inability to move. He quoted one officer who described the effort to keep rioters from getting to congressional staff members inside the Capitol; the officer said that for them, that could have meant “possible death. People are getting killed, maimed.”
New York Times, Democrats Say F.B.I. Did Not Interview Critical Witnesses About Hegseth, Karoun Demirjian and Sharon LaFraniere, Jan. 15, 2025 (print ed.). The bureau did not interview an ex-wife of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for defense secretary before the findings on his background check were presented to senators.Senate Democrats on Monday said that an F.B.I. background check on Pete Hegseth (shown above in a collage of photos), President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, omitted key details on major allegations against him, in part because it did not include interviews with critical witnesses.
One missed opportunity came when the bureau did not interview one of Mr. Hegseth’s ex-wives before its findings were presented to senators last week, according to people familiar with the bureau’s investigation.
The clamor comes on the eve of Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation hearing, and just days after officials from Mr. Trump's transition team briefed Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the panel’s top Republican, and Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, its top Democrat, on the F.B.I.’s background check.
“There are significant gaps and inadequacies in the report, including the failure to interview some of the key potential witnesses with personal knowledge of improprieties or abuse,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut and a member of the committee, said in an interview.
As a rank-and-file member of the panel, Mr. Blumenthal was not given a briefing on the report or provided with a copy of it, but was informed of its contents by someone who was given access to it.
“Quite a few of the women with significant allegations against him have not been interviewed by the F.B.I. investigators,” Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois and another member of the panel, said on MSNBC on Monday evening, adding that some of those women feared for their safety and that of their children.
Mr. Hegseth was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in Monterey, Calif., in 2017, in an encounter he has insisted was consensual. No charges were brought. Mr. Hegseth later paid the woman an undisclosed amount of money as part of a confidential settlement agreement.
“My understanding is that some of them would like to be contacted by the F.B.I. investigative team, or the vetters, and they have not been talked to,” Ms. Duckworth added in the MSNBC interview.
A spokeswoman for the F.B.I. declined to comment.
Mr. Trump's transition team commissioned the F.B.I. background check on Mr. Hegseth last month after initially floating the idea of hiring private contractors to look into the president-elect’s cabinet picks. As the client, presidential transition teams are traditionally able to set the parameters for background checks into cabinet picks, and potentially dictate which witnesses are interviewed and what questions are asked. The transition team’s directions to the F.B.I. for its investigation of Mr. Hegseth are unknown.
Washington Post, Defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth grilled on scandals during confirmation hearings, Staff Reports, Jan. 15, 2025 (print ed.). Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s controversial pick for defense secretary, is taking part in a high-stakes Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday that could determine whether his nomination moves forward.
Hegseth, a National Guard veteran and former Fox News host, said in his opening statement that he will bring a “warrior culture” to the Pentagon and be a “change agent.” Hegseth is being questioned about his limited management experience, views on women in combat and allegations of sexual misconduct and excessive drinking, which he denies. He told senators he has been victim of a “coordinated smear campaign.”
Pete Hegseth said he believes there will be a “recruiting renaissance” after Donald Trump takes office and focuses on removing diversity programs that Hegseth has described as “woke.”
Hegseth has criticized policies to allow women to serve in direct combat jobs, and it remains an open question whether that will have a chilling effect on female troops, who make up nearly 20 percent of the force.
The Army, which has struggled in recent years to bring in enough soldiers, met its recruiting goals last year largely because of an increase in women who joined the ranks.
It’s clear Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) alienated Democrats on the panel by questioning whether senators have any more management experience than Pete Hegseth does. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois) reminds him that the people of Illinois elected her and Hegseth needs to earn her vote for this spot.
Sen. Gary Peters (D-Michigan) said it was a miscalculation by Pete Hegseth and his team to not meet with all senators who wanted to meet with him.
“I made repeated requests to meet with you prior to this meeting,” Peters said. “I know many of my other colleagues also wanted to meet with you. I did that with the other nominees that I was happy to vote for. I thought they were highly qualified individuals and true professionals, and yet I could never get a meeting with you. Was there a reason you were afraid to have one-on-one meetings with some of my colleagues before the hearing?”
Hegseth said that his team made a “great deal of outreach to multiple offices,” but noted that “schedules get full.”
“I was ready,” Peters responded. “It would have been so much better to have that opportunity to talk beforehand. I think that’s a big mistake, and it doesn’t set us on a good course when you refuse to meet with people and have a professional conversation about the huge challenges that we face at the Department of Defense.”
Peters also noted that he has voted in a bipartisan way for defense secretaries in the past, including two previously named to the post by then-President Donald Trump.
“I think [we had] five total secretaries of defense during that four-year period,” Peters said of the first Trump administration. “So we want to keep that in mind as to what we might see in this coming administration.”18 min agoReturn to menuSabrina Rodriguez
Pete Hegseth was unwilling to pledge that he would not work in the defense industry for 10 years after serving, if confirmed, as defense secretary — a position he holds for retired generals. In a tense exchange, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) raised his past position on retired generals and asked if he would commit to it himself.
He first said he would consult with the president on the policy.
“I’m not a general, senator,” he said when Warren pressed him again, prompting laughs in the hearing room. Warren slammed him for that, saying his position, if confirmed, would put him in charge of the generals.24 min agoReturn to menuSabrina Rodriguez
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) continued Democrats’ line of questioning of Hegseth on his past statements that women should not be allowed to serve in combat, listing multiple instances of him saying that. The exchange became testy as she questioned his seeming about-face and he continued his argument that his position has “always been about standards.”
“I’ve heard of deathbed conversions but this is the first time I’ve heard of a nomination conversion,” Warren said.
New York Times Photo by Philip Cheung
New York Times, As Winds Strengthen, L.A. Braces for New Fires, Staff Reports, Jan. 15, 2025 (print ed.). High winds and dry vegetation are creating the conditions for fresh blazes in Southern California, officials said. The most destructive fires in state history have killed at least 24 people and displaced over 100,000.
A rare warning from the National Weather Service, known as a “particularly dangerous situation” red flag warning, just went into effect for Ventura and Los Angeles counties, and will continue until noon Wednesday. Wind gusts between 45 and 70 m.p.h. and very low humidity could lead to “explosive fire growth” in those areas, the service said.
Washington Post, Investigation: Minister accused of sex abuse landed one high-profile job after another, Ian Shapira, Jan. 15, 2025. Jeff Taylor went from the pulpit to the Red Cross to a college nonprofit. Now, his alleged victims are speaking out, and the FBI is investigating.
One weekend in early 1991, Jeff Taylor, the youth minister at a centuries-old church catering to Washington’s elite, invited a boy in his congregation to a religious retreat in Illinois. The 13-year-old from the Falls Church Episcopal in Northern Virginia felt flattered, he later recalled. He said he had admired Taylor, a married man with children, even if Taylor bothered him with questions about how often or whether he masturbated.
On their last night, the man said, he and Taylor stayed at someone’s home in suburban Chicago. Somehow, he said, the pair wound up sharing a bed. Then, Taylor — who years later would lead a Red Cross chapter in Georgia and a fundraising arm at the University of Cincinnati Foundation — fondled the middle-schooler with lotion in the middle of the night, the church youth group alumnus recalled.
“He kept saying, ‘You seem stressed out, you seem anxious,’” said the youth group alumnus, now a partner at a financial firm in his 40s, who is speaking for the first time with a news organization about his allegations. “I recall feeling shame. The next morning, Jeff said, ‘Did you feel that, too? This was an evil room, and we need to pray about this room.’”
The alumnus was one of three Falls Church Episcopal youth group members who an independent investigation revealed in April were allegedly sexually abused by Taylor in the 1990s or the early 2000s when they attended the church. The report found that Taylor’s behavior during his employment there constituted “sexual grooming or sexual abuse.” Eleven male students reported that Taylor asked them how frequently they masturbated; six children said he talked with them about the sizes of their penises or his own.
Washington Post, Inflation heated up in December, as prices continue to weigh on Americans, Andrew Ackerman, Jan. 15, 2025. Prices rose by 2.9 percent annually last month, up from a 2.7 percent gain in November.
Commentaries On American Democracy
The Hartmann Report, Historical Commentary, American Caesar: Trump’s Path to Power Mirrors Rome’s Darkest Days, Thomas Hartmann, right, How ancient Rome’s democratic collapse set the stage for America’s current crisis…
Last night, President Biden warned America that an oligarchy is forming in Washington DC and that it threatens our republic. Turns out, this is not a new story.
For 482 years (509 BCE–27 BCE), ancient Rome ran as a democratic republic. America has lasted in that state for 236 years (1789-2025).
The end of the democratic phase of the Roman republic was brought about by wealthy, elite Romans like Marcus Licinius Crassus (115–53 BCE) — the richest man in the nation at the time — who frankly hated the Roman “free bread for all” welfare system.
He and others like Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great, 106–48 BCE) wanted to end the voice of the public in political decisions (because they were demanding free bread, paid for with rich peoples’ taxes), so they used their massive wealth to promote rightwing authoritarian populism and buy off legislators who’d then be loyal to them.
This created political gridlock in the Senate, leading many Romans to lose faith in their democratic form of government. Three primary elements were used by the morbidly rich of that era to erode the power of Rome and replace it with sycophants loyal to them: polarization and elite gridlock, the erosion of democratic norms, and the concentration of power in the hands of a small elite who funded and thus controlled Rome’s senators.
It took decades, but they finally succeeded in using that lack of faith in government to replace Roman democracy with Caesarism, aka authoritarian strongman rule, kicked off by Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon River to seize the seat of government in Rome and finalized by Augustus Caesar ending any semblance of democracy.
Here in America, a handful of rightwing billionaires have spent decades fighting to end the New Deal and Great Society programs that use their tax dollars to distribute “free bread” to Americans in the form of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, food stamps, quality free primary education, and cheap or free college.
While their efforts began in earnest in the 1970s following Lewis Powell’s infamous Memo, they really kicked into high gear when the billionaires succeeded in the 1990s in installing Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House.
Newt pioneered a new form of American politics based on political warfare, delegitimization of the US government and programs of the New Deal and Great Society, manipulation of the media, populist messaging, and using obstruction as a political strategy.
His efforts were amplified by billionaire-owned media like Fox “News” and rightwing hate radio, always trash-talking New Deal and Great Society programs, calling for more tax cuts to de-fund government, and encouraging hatred of politicians and the political process.
The result was political gridlock, the end of democratic norms of collegiality and compromise, and the concentration of power in the Speaker’s office and ultimately the GOP itself. This led most Americans (over 75%) to eventually lose faith in our government; out of that came today’s increasing calls for an American version of Julius and Augustus Caesar.
One of the first was rightwing blogger and JD Vance mentor Curtis Yarvin, who began arguing over a decade ago — with his “dark enlightenment” movement — that America needed a new Caesar to free us from gridlock and stagnation.As JD Vance noted in a 2021 podcast:“
There’s this guy Curtis Yarvin who’s written about some of these things. One has to basically accept that the whole thing is going to fall in on itself. …
The task of conservatives right now is to preserve as much as can be preserved and then when the inevitable collapse comes you build back the country in a way that’s actually better.”
Others who could be characterized (or characterize themselves) as American Caesarists include Trump advisors Michael Anton and Charles Haywood, and Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts.
So, here we are, with Joe Biden’s warning.— Just like in the Roman republic, America’s morbidly rich and their business interests have funded efforts to denigrate popular government and its programs for decades, all to serve their own financial and political interests.
More On Trump Cabinet Nominees
New York Times, Trump’s Pick for Justice Dept. to Face Questions About Her Independence, Glenn Thrush and Devlin Barrett, Jan. 15, 2025. Pam Bondi will be asked if she can stand up to Donald Trump, who has made it clear that he wants the government’s top lawyer to execute his commands.
Pam Bondi, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice for attorney general (shown above right, will head into her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday with a solid reputation as a prosecutor and a critical question looming: Would shestand up to Mr. Trump?
Mr. Trump selected Ms. Bondi, the former Florida attorney general and lobbyist, to replace his first pick, Matt Gaetz, the former Republican representative of Florida who withdrew after a furor over allegations of sexual misconduct, including with an underage girl.
Most Democrats are still likely to oppose Ms. Bondi, 59, but she is a far more conventional, qualified candidate than Mr. Gaetz. That virtually ensuressupport among Senate Republicans, with the distinct possibility she will pick up a Democrat or two.
If her hearings do not produce much drama, her tenure at the department almost certainly will. An emboldened Mr. Trump, embittered by the two federal prosecutions against him, has made it clear that he wants senior Justice Department officials to execute his policy commands, investigate those who investigated him and perhaps prosecute his political enemies.
“The Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones,” she declared on Fox News in 2023, when asked whether it would be appropriate to open cases related to the department’s prosecutions under Jack Smith, the special counsel.
Richard Donoghue, the former Justice Department official who resisted Mr. Trump’s effort to install election-denying loyalists to top department posts after he lost the 2020 election, said the ideal candidate operates above partisanship. “You want, ideally, to ensure that partisan political considerations never play into the department’s decisions and positions when it comes to investigations and prosecutions,” he said.
“There is no fourth branch of government called the Justice Department — you work for the president — but people in power have to understand that they are not the president’s lawyer,” he added.
MSNBC, Opinion: Pam Bondi can't be trusted with the power of the Justice Department, Anthony Coley, Jan. 15, 2025. This time, Donald Trump is determined to get exactly what he wants at the Justice Department: a compliant attorney general and total control.
On Wednesday, the Senate will consider the president-elect's request to install Pam Bondi, right — a MAGA enthusiast and election denier — to serve as attorney general. Bondi is wholly unqualified for the role.
Granted, she might appear qualified on paper. She spent nearly two decades as a state prosecutor and was elected twice as the attorney general in Florida. She became the first woman in the role. Even some Democrats, including former Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg, whom I respect, speak highly of her.
But serving as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer requires independence and sound judgment and the ability to accept court rulings even when you disagree with them. On these counts, Bondi fails — miserably.
New York Times, Rubio Is in the Spotlight on the Second Big Day of Cabinet Hearings, Michael Crowley, Jan. 15, 2025. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who is tapped for secretary of state, has a long history of personal and policy differences with President-elect Trump.
When President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice for secretary of state, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, appears before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations today, it may be easy for him to persuade senators that he can lead American diplomacy at a moment of unusual global turmoil.
The harder task may be convincing them that he can credibly represent a president with whom he has a long history of personal and policy differences.
As a third-term senator who holds generally mainstream foreign policy views, Mr. Rubio, 53, is expected to be confirmed with relative ease later this month after Mr. Trump, once inaugurated, officially nominates him to succeed Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken.
Unlike several of Mr. Trump’s other top cabinet picks, Mr. Rubio has decent relations with his fellow Senate Democrats, no scandalous allegations about his personal behavior and relevant policy experience. He serves as vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and is a member of the committee that will question him.
New York Times, John Ratcliffe Is Expected to Lay Out a Vision for a More Aggressive C.I.A., Julian E. Barnes, Jan. 15, 2025. Donald Trump’s pick for the agency’s director seems likely to win some Democratic support for this nomination, but how much is unclear.
John Ratcliffe, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for C.I.A. director, is set to offer his vision for a more aggressive spy agency as he fields questions from senators on Wednesday about his intelligence priorities and ability to deliver unvarnished assessments.
Mr. Ratcliffe’s confirmation is all but assured, and he is likely to be voted on by the full Senate soon after Mr. Trump’s inauguration on Monday. During the first Trump administration, the Senate confirmed Mr. Ratcliffe, 49 to 44, to serve as director of national intelligence. He was the first national intelligence chief installed without support from the opposition party.
But now, senators from both parties view Mr. Ratcliffe as one of the more qualified senior officials picked by Mr. Trump, whose focus on the threat from China is widely shared by lawmakers of both parties.
Mr. Ratcliffe is expected to outline his vision of the agency that offers intelligence free of political bias. But he is also expected to talk about ways to make the C.I.A. less risk-averse and more willing to conduct covert action when ordered by the president.
President-Elect Donald J. Trump (New York Times photo by Doug Mills).
New York Times, Guest Essay: In Hegseth, Trump Finally Has What He Wants, Ben Rhodes (right, a deputy national security adviser under President Barack Obama), Jan. 15, 2025 (print ed.). To state the obvious: As a former weekend “Fox & Friends” anchor, Army National Guard officer and leader of two small nonprofits, Pete Hegseth is unqualified to run a nuclear-armed organization with a budget approaching a trillion dollars. That’s the point. Donald Trump doesn’t want someone to effectively manage the Pentagon; he wants to disrupt it.
His choice of Mr. Hegseth is borne out of right-wing grievances that have been building for a long time over the failures of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of these frustrations are understandable, but the remedies Mr. Trump proposes are dangerous. His disdain for international rules could eviscerate the laws of war that emerged from the devastation of two world wars. His threats of territorial expansion could intensify a period of nationalist aggression. His tirades against enemies within the United States foreshadow MAGA social engineering and domestic intervention by the Pentagon. In Mr. Hegseth, he has found a loyal vessel for this project, someone who could channel his blend of jingoism and anger to fundamentally alter the character of the military.
Almost a decade ago, Mr. Trump announced his presidential campaign by warning that the United States was in trouble. “We don’t have victories anymore,” he said. “We used to have victories but we don’t have them.” He’d emerged out of a right-wing media ecosystem filled with belligerent nationalism and promises of great victories after the Sept. 11 attacks. George W. Bush committed the United States to “the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.” Even as the wars started to go badly, Vice President Dick Cheney talked about an Iraqi insurgency in its “last throes.” The people most conditioned to believe these promises were consumers of right-wing media, which increased their sense of betrayal when it became clear they’d been misled.
Mr. Hegseth experienced the wars in person, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. After initially defending post-Sept. 11 policies, he joined many on the right in pivoting to blame enemies within for America’s failures abroad — a common outcome when superpowers don’t win wars. Like Mr. Trump, he focused on liberals and Islam, as well as changing demographics and social mores that had crept into the military through the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, diversity initiatives and women in combat.
New York Times, Hegseth’s Drinking, Once ‘Self-Medication,’ Could Prompt Questions at His Hearing, Sharon LaFraniere, Dylan Freedman and Kate Kelly, Jan. 15, 2025 (print ed.). President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for Defense Secretary has spoken candidly about his alcohol use in interviews over the past few years.
In August 2021, Pete Hegseth said on Will Cain’s podcast that slowly, surely, “by the grace of God,” he had been able to undo a pattern of alcohol abuse that had dogged him since he returned from military combat in Iraq in 2006.
Asked about his New Year’s resolutions on the same podcast in mid-January 2024, Mr. Hegseth brought up alcohol anew. “The less booze thing is not working out for me,” he said then.
Mr. Hegseth, the former Fox News anchor and combat veteran President-elect Donald J. Trump picked for defense secretary, is likely to be asked to revisit the issue of his alcohol use as part of his Senate confirmation hearings on Tuesday.
The New York Times and other news organizations have documented a pattern of excessive drinking by Mr. Hegseth. In the most serious episode, a woman in Monterey, Calif., accused him of raping her in 2017. Mr. Hegseth said the encounter was consensual, and it resulted in no criminal charges. His lawyer said Mr. Hegseth was inebriated at the time.
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The Bulwark, Political Opinion:The Curious Case of Lindy Li, Kyle Tharp, Jan. 7, 2025. How did a “Blue MAGA” influencer and fundraiser turn on Democrats so fast?
Last March, I found myself sitting in a White House briefing with two dozen pro-Democratic digital creators, listening to high-level administration officials preview President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.
Among the handful of administration leaders who briefed the room was Anita Dunn, at the time one of Biden’s most powerful consiglieres. It was pretty conventional stuff. She spent a few minutes talking us through the president’s remarks and answering questions from starry-eyed social media influencers who planned on publishing content cheering on the speech the next day.
I was attending on behalf of my then-employer, a pro-democracy media company, and knew most of those in attendance. There were some political YouTubers, a few up-and-coming Democratic TikTok stars, and a cohort of folks from other emerging news outlets like MeidasTouch and Betches Media. But there was one attendee I didn’t recognize: a woman named Lindy Li.
Li had earned an invite to the White House that day by being a very energetic Democratic personality on cable news, and for having grown an audience of over 300,000 followers on X by shooting off hyperpartisan, pro-Democrat, red-meat content. One example of her style and approach came in a tweet she authored in 2022: “When push comes to shove, Democrats take care of you regardless of party. Republicans try to get you murdered.”
A former congressional candidate, Li had also held various fundraising roles in the past for Democratic candidates and the national party committee.
She was, if nothing else, a reliable party ally. And at the White House gathering that day, she played a similar role. She did not waste an opportunity to shower praise on Biden and the administration writ large, and proudly display her unwavering gratitude and support for the White House. She was the classic attendee who raises a hand to ask a question, but instead launches into some unrelated speech about whatever happens to be on her mind.
At one point, Li delivered a mini-lecture declaring how much she loved Joe Biden, while offering up her various credentials, including that the governor of Pennsylvania had named her to some commission. While some creators in attendance asked Dunn questions about the White House’s economic messaging, Li made sure White House officials recognized she was a team player. “Teacher’s pet. . .” one of my friends in the room texted from underneath the table.
Throughout the rest of the year, I kind of forgot about Li, having dismissed her as just another “Blue MAGA” Twitter person. For months, she continued enthusiastically to support Biden, and later Kamala Harris, both on cable news and X, where she would tweet predictable messages of support for their campaigns. By August, she said she had raised several million dollars for the Democratic ticket.
Her social media accounts became filled with adoring posts featuring herself at events with the president, vice president, and other top Democratic elected officials like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “There will never be another like her,” she said of Pelosi. She also was part of the Pennsylvania delegation to the Democratic National Convention this summer.
Then, after Election Day, Li was suddenly everywhere. But instead of maintaining her overeager support for Biden and Harris, she adopted a new persona, eagerly attacking Democrats and the campaign nonstop. In this new role as a Biden and Harris antagonist, she has been quoted or mentioned in the mainstream press hundreds of times and become a fixture on Fox News.
Appearing on Fox in mid-December, Li declared that Biden was in “no shape” to carry out his duties as commander-in-chief. “The president has not been cognitively fit to assume the duties of the Oval Office for a number of years now,” Li told Fox’s Kevin Corke.
It was a wild turnaround from her effusive praise of the man and her defense of his age and cognition just months prior. In fact, Li was a frequent and outspoken critic of journalists who covered the president’s age issue. “To those of you who said Biden was cognitively impaired . . . WE AWAIT YOUR APOLOGY,” Li tweeted in March.
When Biden ultimately dropped out of the race in July, Li told Fox that if Democrats skipped over Kamala Harris in favor of another candidate to lead the ticket, it would be “a catastrophic mistake.” She urged her followers to “unify behind Kamala Harris.”
Here too, Li has seemingly changed her tune. Days after the election, she told Fox that Biden’s endorsement of Harris was “an F-You to the party.”
THE LIST OF POST-ELECTION reversals goes on: Li now claims that she “has been a conservative all my life,” that Pelosi is “notorious” for “insider trading,” that Democrats are to blame for failing to secure the southern border, that there will be a “new era of prosperity” under Donald Trump, and that “The markets & consumer confidence have been booming under Pres. Trump[.] Americans are loving his transition.” She also called Democrats “delusional,” said the Democratic party was like “a cult.” She referred to Pete Hegseth, whom Trump tapped for secretary of defense despite allegations of sexual assault, alcohol abuse, and financial corruption, as “a pretty good guy.”
Democratic digital creators who joined Li at the White House briefing last March have dismissed her recent shift as cringeworthy opportunism. “She’s a liar and a clout chaser!” tweeted Kenneth Walden, a pro-Harris TikTok creator. “It’s very clear where this is going,” remarked journalist Aaron Rupar. Democratic strategist and YouTuber Keith Edwards tweeted “How long until she’s wearing a MAGA hat?”
“We have people who want attention, pick a side, say things to get in a room, and then when things get tough, they’re the first people to dip,” Edwards told me recently. “I don’t think she believes in anything.”
LI WAS HAPPY TO ADDRESS her critics in a brief interview with me last week. “I haven’t switched parties. I’m not a Republican. I’m not out for anything, I would never work for the government, and who would I even get a contract from?,” she said. She defended her change of heart on the president’s age issue by noting that it happened after the June 27 debate between Biden and Trump. “After the debate I stopped defending his cognitive fitness. You will notice that I never said anything about that post-debate.”
But even here, Li seems to be casually disregarding her very public past. In a tweet she authored two weeks after the debate, she attacked critics of the president’s age. That tweet has recently been deleted.
Flip-flopping is hardly a new phenomenon in American politics. Trump has perfected it. So too have his hangers-on (see: Gabbard, Tulsi). But Li’s head-spinning pivot still illustrates a broader trend we’ll see escalate in the years to come.
Our tribal political culture creates remarkable incentives for those who defect from one side to another. The act of defection is treated by the party to whom the defector has gone as an affirmation of their cause. The defector is not only lavished with praise and love from those new party members but loads of attention from allied media, who reward shamelessness with more coverage and clout. For example, Fox News producers and bookers, knowing friendly fire can help drive ratings, love to feature Democratic voices willing to turn on their own.
I asked Li specifically about Fox News, and whether she was being paid for her appearances, or whether she was in conversations to become a contributor for the network, as some of her critics have assumed.
“I’m not going to discuss any conversations that I've had with private individuals, but I have not been paid a single dime by anybody for telling the truth,” said Li. “Not even a penny.” Pressed further, she clarified that she was not currently “in discussions with any executives at Fox News.”
But her sudden celebrity, whether compensated or not, doesn’t change the fact that the media incentivizes this type of behavior.
As online political creators become more mainstream—sometimes more even than the legacy political press—more like Li will emerge. Many political creators’ entire personas and livelihoods rely on “feeding the beast” more content—and more controversy.
Relevance is more important than ideological consistency. And as the bizarre evolution of Lindy Li shows, being willing to say just about anything may be the political attribute that matters most.
“We’re in a post-shame culture now,” said Edwards.
Associated Press via ABC News, California's Newsom will join GOP governors in raising flag for Trump inauguration, Staff Report, Jan. 16, 2025. California Gov. Gavin Newsom will join Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and some GOP governors in directing U.S. flags be raised to full height on Inauguration Day
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom will join Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and some GOP governors around the country in directing U.S. flags be raised to full height on Inauguration Day.
Newsom’s spokesperson Izzy Gardon confirmed Wednesday that the governor would temporarily direct the raising of flags at the state Capitol in Sacramento for President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration. Flags at the U.S. Capitol and at statehouses around the country have been lowered to half-staff in honor of the late former President Jimmy Carter.
Newsom, who has become a foil for Trump over the years, will need federal help as his state recovers from devastating wildfires that have killed more than two dozen people.
Trump has complained about American flags being flown at half-staff during his inauguration. “Nobody wants to see this, and no American can be happy about it,” he posted on his social media platform.
Idaho Gov. Brad Little, North Dakota Gov. Kelly Armstrong, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds noted in announcements this week that U.S. flags across their states would be relowered on Jan. 21 in honor of Carter. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a similar notice on Monday.
The Hartmann Report, Political Commentary: The Grievance Machine: How Republicans Weaponize Fear to Win, Thom Hartmann, Jan. 14, 2025. Why Democrats must build their own outrage machine now: it’s time for a coordinated attack on Trump’s grievance empire…
As you’re reading these words, Trump and his Republican allies are spraying “a firehose of lies” accusing Democrats of responsibility for the fires in LA. And those lies are working; even mainstream media like The New York Times and The Washington Post are repeating them. Not to mention they’re being pushed like peanuts at a ball game into the faces of hundreds of millions by the right-leaning algorithms of social media.
If Democrats were to create a “Shadow Cabinet,” they could effectively neuter much of this BS. Details on that in a minute, but first some background.
While the phrase “The best defense is a good offense” is often attributed to Jack Dempsey, it was General and President George Washington who, reflecting on how he won the Revolutionary War, wrote to his former aide-de-camp John Trumbull: “Offensive operations, often times, are the surest, if not the only means of defense.”
Democrats need to learn the lesson: The most powerful political offensive moves succeed by capturing control of and expressing deeply-felt grievances.
There’s a simple neurological reason for this: at the foundation of Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Human Needs” is “Safety,” which is why the most effective grievances are those expressing fear for safety or the security of voters’ assets and family.
Gays are going to convert your kids, immigrants are going to kill or rape your wife, schools are going to cut off your son’s penis, Haitians in Springfield are going to eat your cat, poor people are stealing your tax dollars with welfare payments, women who get empowered will deny you sex, Jews are funding Hispanics taking your job, Joe Biden is causing your inflation, Democrats want to take away your car, Black Kamala is trying to take a job that’s rightfully a white man’s role, “woke” teachers are training white children to feel guilt for things their relatives did, the “deep state” is making your life miserable through over-regulation…
Every one of those and more were specific — and false — grievances used at various times by the Trump campaign to win the 2024 election. They work because grievance is a variation on fear of danger or outrage over loss, something that’s such a foundational set of human emotions that babies express them in their first months. Grievance is hard-wired into us, part of our most ancient survival mechanisms.
New York Times, Russia-Ukraine War: Ukraine Launches ‘Massive’ Drone Attacks Inside Russia, Officials Say, Cassandra Vinograd, Jan. 14, 2025. The barrage appeared to be one of the largest recent assaults in Ukraine’s campaign to damage Russia’s war machine on its home territory.
New York Times, Investigation: Abuse and Injury Result From Uneven Rules on Police Taser Use, Nate Rosenfield, Brian Howey and Sarah Cohen, Photographs by Rory Doyle, Jan. 14, 2025. A lack of state standards leaves Mississippi police and sheriff’s departments on their own to decide when to use stun guns, and many give officers a free hand.
Last summer, a Mississippi police officer approached Vivian Burks as she sat in her car at a local park reading the Bible.
He was cordial at first, offering to help Ms. Burks replace her expired tags with the new ones she had in her car. But the encounter changed quickly after the officer, Blaine Musgrove, said he smelled marijuana and a second Carthage police officer demanded to search the vehicle.
When Ms. Burks, a 65-year-old great-grandmother with no criminal record, tried to get back into her car, the officers grabbed her and ordered her to place her hands behind her back, body camera footage shows. When she did not immediately comply, Officer Musgrove pressed his Taser into her back and shocked her, sending her to the ground in a heap.
Over the next 30 seconds, the video shows, Officer Musgrove shocked her three more times as she twisted her hands to avoid being handcuffed and begged the officers to stop, repeatedly shouting, “I’m sick!” The officers called an ambulance and then left her moaning for help until the paramedics arrived.
“I couldn’t breathe,” Ms. Burks told reporters in an interview. “I just thought that they were going to kill me.”
In many places across the nation, the repeated shocking of Ms. Burks — who was not acting aggressively and was largely under the officers’ control — would be considered an improper and dangerous use of a Taser by the police.
Not in Mississippi.
New York Times, LA Fires Live Reports: Dangerous Winds Are Forecast as Crews Battle L.A. Wildfires, Staff Reports, Jan. 14, 2025 (print ed.). More heavy winds were expected on Monday, threatening the progress firefighters have made against the blazes that have killed at least 24 people and ravaged the area.
Dangerous winds were again expected to sweep through Los Angeles late Monday, threatening the progress firefighters have made against the devastating wildfires in the area.
Forecasters have issued a rare fire danger alert, known as a “particularly dangerous situation” red flag warning, for Monday night through Wednesday morning. That is the same level of alert that was issued last week as strong wind gusts fueled the fires that have become some of the deadliest and most destructive in California’s history.
Washington Post, Winds to strengthen as L.A. blaze heads toward major highway; at least 24 dead, Staff Reports, Jan. 13, 2025 (print ed.). At least 24 people have been killed as roaring flames continue to ravage Southern California, with strong Santa Ana winds expected to flare up through the middle of this week. But the winds are not expected to be as powerful as those that previously fueled the fires, meteorologist Rich Thompson said at a briefing Saturday evening.
Four active fires in the Los Angeles region have burned over 40,000 acres — an area bigger than San Francisco — according to Cal Fire, with flames claiming more than 12,000 structures and displacing tens of thousands. The causes of all four blazes remain under investigation.
Thousands of firefighters have made some progress in fighting the Palisades and Eaton fires, the two largest blazes. Cal Fire Battalion Chief Brent Pascua told CNN that Saturday was a “very productive day” and said the Santa Ana winds helped move the flames away from the Encino area and onto land that had already been burned. ABC 7 reported that a handful of evacuation orders in towns east of Pasadena, near the Eaton Fire, were lifted or downgraded.
Video: Aerial firefighters battle Palisades fire The latest on the active Los Angeles wildfires Among the wildfires’ victims: A great-grandmother, surfer, father and son Over 900 inmates are working to fight the Los Angeles fires.
New York Times, How Lagging Vaccination Could Lead to a Polio Resurgence, Apoorva Mandavilli, Jan. 14, 2025 (print ed.). In its original form, the virus survives in just two countries. But a type linked to an oral vaccine used in other nations has already turned up in the West.
Most American parents hardly give thought to polio beyond the instant their child is immunized against the disease. But there was a time in this country when polio paralyzed 20,000 people in a year, killing many of them.
Vaccines turned the tide against the virus. Over the past decade, there has been only one case in the United States, related to international travel.
That could change very quickly if polio vaccination rates dropped or the vaccine were to become less accessible.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic who may become the secretary of health and human services, has said the idea that vaccination has nearly eradicated polio is “a mythology.”
New York Times, Even Adults May Soon Be Vulnerable to ‘Childhood’ Diseases, Apoorva Mandavilli, Jan. 14, 2025 (print ed.). Outbreaks among the unvaccinated are a predictable consequence of falling immunization rates. But even vaccinated adults may be vulnerable to some illnesses.
There were more than more than 32,000 cases of whooping cough in 2024, the highest tally in a decade. In California alone, the disease struck 2,000 people between January and October last year.
More than 60 infants younger than 4 months were hospitalized in the state. One died.
Whooping cough, or pertussis, is just the most stark example of what happens when vaccination rates decline. But it is far from the only one.
The pandemic interrupted childhood immunizations across the country, and rates have not yet recovered. As a result, hundreds of thousands of children are increasingly vulnerable to diseases once largely relegated to history books.
Most of them predominantly affect young children, like measles, mumps and rubella. But if immunizations continue to fall over the next few years — because of rising distrust, or more restrictive federal policies — preventable infectious diseases will resurface in all age groups, experts say.
New York Times, Childhood Vaccination Rates Were Falling Even Before Kennedy’s Rise, Francesca Paris, Jan. 13, 2025 (print ed.). The declines began with the pandemic, well before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. helped make routine vaccines part of the national political conversation.
Washington Post, Steve Bannon derides Elon Musk, vowing to limit influence over Trump, Jeff Stein, Jan. 13, 2025 (print ed.). His comments reflect an intensifying battle over Musk’s West Wing sway as Trump prepares to take office.
President-elect Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon is ramping up public attacks on billionaire Elon Musk amid an intensifying debate on the right about Musk’s influence in the incoming administration.Get the latest election news and results
In an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera this past week, Bannon said Musk “should go back to South Africa,” where he was born, and be denied privileged access to the West Wing. Bannon has also criticized Musk’s support for a skilled-worker visa program that led to a bitter rift last month between far-right activists and Trump’s tech executive supporters, who see the program as a crucial lifeline for Silicon Valley.
Trump ultimately sided with Musk in that dispute, but Bannon said he is preparing a broader effort to limit the Tesla executive’s ability to shape Trump’s agenda.
Bannon told the newspaper: “Why do we have South Africans, the most racist people on earth, White South Africans … making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States?”
Bannon added he would “do anything” to keep Musk out of the White House.
The comments reflect the growing questions among some Trump allies about the precise role Musk will play in Trump’s second term. A political newcomer who until recently supported candidates of both parties, Musk went all-in on Trump in the 2024 elections with more than $277 million in donations to Republicans — and has been rewarded by emerging as one of the president-elect’s most influential advisers.
But precisely how Musk will exert his newfound political power — and how long it will last — remains unclear. That uncertainty extends to Musk’s appointment by Trump to co-lead the “Department of Government Efficiency” with tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. That body does not have formal government authorities and must work with the White House to have its recommendations implemented. Emissaries with DOGE have begun contacting U.S. agencies across the government, but it’s not clear whether they will be given security clearances granting them access to federal records.
New York Times, Trump Transition Reports: Confirmation Hearings Will Test Trump’s Grip on Senate G.O.P., Staff Reports, Jan. 14, 2025 (print ed.). President-elect Trump has urged Republicans to stay united but opposition to prospective nominees and time-consuming Senate rules could provide obstacles. Where Things Stand
Senate confirmation hearings scheduled this week for more than a dozen of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s cabinet choices will provide an early test of his hold over Senate Republicans. Mr. Trump has urged the Republicans to stay united and quickly deliver the team he has selected. Read more ›
A new national coalition of health professionals and scientists warned that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “unfounded, fringe beliefs could significantly undermine public health practices across the country and around the world” if he is confirmed as Mr. Trump’s health secretary. Read more ›
Stephen K. Bannon has called Elon Musk a “truly evil person,” comments that highlighted rifts within the U.S. right wing and between two men who have been influential advisers to Mr. Trump.
Cabinet Tracker: Can Susie Wiles Survive? Trump’s Territorial Ambitions Hints of Chaos to Come
New York Times, In an Upended Mideast, Trump Faces New Divergence With Old Allies, Ismaeel Naar, Jan. 13, 2025. While major ruptures are not expected, Gulf states are urging a tougher stance on Israel and a softer one on Iran, differing greatly from President-elect Trump’s first term.
When Donald J. Trump was last president of the United States, the wealthy monarchies of the Persian Gulf had a mostly harmonious relationship with his administration. As Mr. Trump prepares to return to the White House, the leaders of those Gulf countries have generally welcomed him back.
But this time around, the Gulf states and Mr. Trump appear to be diverging on several cornerstone issues, like Israel and Iran. Differences over energy policies could also be a source of friction.
It is unlikely that there will be major tensions or ruptures with U.S. allies in the Gulf. But Mr. Trump will be encountering a region that has seen drastic shifts since Israel launched its war on Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023, in which the Israeli authorities say about 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage.
The war in Gaza, in which at least 45,000 people have been killed, according to health officials in the enclave, has rippled across the region. In Lebanon, the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah has been battered by more than a year of fighting against Israel. And in Syria, rebels toppled the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
The Bulwark, Political Opinion: Trump Whines in Victory, Mr. Smith Leaves Washington, William Kristol, right, Jan. 14, 2025. Jack Smith retained his dignity but left in defeat.
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election was released just after 1:00 a.m. today. It made the once and future president of the United States unhappy.
At 1:41 a.m., Donald Trump posted:
Deranged Jack Smith was unable to successfully prosecute the Political Opponent of his “boss,” Crooked Joe Biden, so he ends up writing yet another “Report” based on information that the Unselect Committee of Political Hacks and Thugs ILLEGALLY DESTROYED AND DELETED, because it showed how totally innocent I was, and how completely guilty Nancy Pelosi, and others, were. Jack is a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election, which I won in a landslide. THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!
Ten minutes later Trump felt compelled to add:
To show you how desperate Deranged Jack Smith is, he released his Fake findings at 1:00 A.M. in the morning. Did he say that the Unselect Committee illegally destroyed and deleted all of the evidence.
Trump, like all insecure bullies, is a sore winner. One can’t help but take some comfort from the image of him tossing and turning, chafing under the weight of his festering grievances, feeling a need to lash out and lie the week before his return to the White House.
More concretely, it’s worth noting that Trump challenges none of the actual findings in Smith’s report, which was based on interviews with more than 250 individuals, grand jury testimony from more than 55 witnesses, and evidence from searches of numerous electronic devices.
It’s also worth noting that Trump’s lawyers were granted the opportunity to read Smith’s report prior to its release, and in their letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland objecting to its release, they also challenged none of his facts. As Smith noted in his response to the letter,
That response fails to identify any specific factual objections to the draft. Instead, Mr. Trump principally objects to public release of the Report, and in service of that objection makes a variety of false, misleading, or otherwise unfounded claims.
In fact, Smith’s report, which you can read here along with the letters mentioned above, confirms what we knew from contemporaneous reporting and from the House January 6th Committee: Donald Trump “engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results of the election in order to retain power.”Trump knew he lost the 2020 election. But he tried to pressure state officials to overturn the true and legitimate results, he tried to get his Justice Department and his vice president to join in a conspiracy of usurpation, and he incited a mob to attack the Capitol on January 6th.
There’s no reason not to believe Smith’s claim that, if the case had gone to trial, Trump would have been convicted on the counts with which he was charged: conspiring to deprive citizens of having their votes fairly counted and obstructing an official proceeding.
It’s good to have the Smith report, as it’s good to have the January 6th Committee report. They tell the truth, and the truth matters.
But of course in this instance it didn’t matter enough. Trump will be our next president. His lawyers, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, who signed the disingenuous letter to Garland, have been nominated to be the next deputy attorney general and principal associate deputy attorney general of the United States.
Meanwhile, Smith departs.His letter to the attorney general transmitting the report concludes:
With this Report, my service and the service of my staff is complete. I thank you for the trust you placed in me and my team and for affording us the independence necessary to conduct our work. Public service is a privilege, and we deeply appreciate the opportunity to serve our Nation in seeking to uphold the rule of law.
So Trump whines in victory, and Smith leaves with dignity but in defeat.
How, as Yeats put it, could he compete,
Being honor bred, with one
Who were it proved he lies
Were neither shamed in his ownNor in his neighbors’ eyes?
A haunting question. In the short run, lies have the advantage over truth. In the long run, the great advantage of the truth is that it’s true. That’s why we’re betting on truth. Join us.
The Bulwark, Political Opinion: A Nation of Paranoiacs, Andrew Egger, Jan. 14, 2025. Whom do we trust to behave ethically? Many fewer people than we used to.
That’s this week’s grim prognosis from Gallup’s “Honesty and Professional Ethics Survey,” the latest in a long string of polls finding that Americans’ trust in each other and our institutions continues to erode.
The regular survey, which asks respondents to rank the “honesty and ethical standards” of members of various professional fields, still finds relatively high trust in a few areas. Most Americans trust nurses, teachers, military officers, and doctors to behave ethically; other professions, from police to day care providers, still earn a net positive score, with more respondents ranking their ethics as high or very high than low or very low.
But what’s most striking about the survey is its overall trend line. Since the year 2000, exactly one profession—auto mechanics—has improved its position in the survey. Across pretty much all of society, trust has only diminished. The starkest drop-offs have clustered around professions with supposed intellectual, legal, or moral authority. Trust in medical doctors and judges have fallen more than 10 percent just since 2021. Clergy, police officers, grade-school teachers, and pharmacists are all down double digits since the early 2000s.
When we talk about Americans’ increasing cynicism toward our politics, we often focus on the supposed failings of individual actors or groups. Of course we don’t trust our politicians—haven’t you seen how spineless these guys are? Of course we don’t trust the media—haven’t you seen how badly they’ve fallen down on the job?
But the problem starts to look a little different when you see those specific cynicisms as part of a larger general shift away from trust. Did day care providers endure some massive recent scandal, to have lost eight points of trust in the eyes of the public since 2021? Are funeral directors getting more villainous, to have slipped five points since the turn of the century? Or are we all just pre-primed to be more paranoid about the motives of the people around us than we once were?
You could chalk this growing cynicism up to any number of factors—a 21st century defined by a sequence of society-shaking crises, the loss of a sense of shared moral code, the growing numbers of people who receive the world primarily through hostile algorithms designed to keep them scared and angry. The more faith we lose in the people around us, the more we pull back from the world, and the more isolated we become, feeding into more distrust.In our politics, it’s a vicious, self-cannibalizing style.
Donald Trump is the kind of figure that arises as social trust shrinks. He meets the desire among people to throw in with a leader who tells them society is hopelessly broken and he alone can fix it.
But his success feeds only more breakdowns in our social trust, even among those who had previously thought things were going pretty well: If we as a country can’t even manage to stop this guy, how much more broken are we than we thought? And it makes rallying a real opposition to him feel that much more impossible. When you lose faith in institutions—the media, the courts, even religion—you no longer believe you can turn to them to channel that opposition. You’re on your own.Getting back to a place of social stability first requires us to survive Trump’s triumphant return. But that won’t be enough. Something in the air is poisoning us against one another; if we can’t figure out how to fix it, what comes next could be even worse.
U.S. District Court Judges Maryellen Noreika (left) of Delaware and Mark Scarsi of California, both trial judges for separate charges brought against Hunter Biden, are shown side by side in file photos. Both judges, like the federal prosecugtor David Weiss, were Trump appointees who consistently stymied the Biden defense with prosecution rulings, virtually ignoring the rarity of criminal charges for other Americans who committed similar acts and the clear-cut campaign by Russian, Republican and Trump authorities to use a Russian asset among other techniques to create false allegations against the defendant and his father during presidential election campaigns.
New York Times, Special Counsel Report on Hunter Biden Denounces President’s Criticism of Case, Devlin Barrett, Jan. 13, 2025. The report by the special counsel, David C. Weiss, criticized President Biden for making “baseless accusations” that threatened “the integrity of the justice system as a whole.”
David C. Weiss, below left, the special counsel who spent years investigating Hunter Biden, criticized President Biden for making “baseless accusations” about his inquiry that threatened “the integrity of the justice system as a whole” in a final report made public on Monday.
“The president’s characterizations are incorrect based on the facts in this case, and on a more fundamental level, they are wrong,” Mr. Weiss wrote.
His inquiry had been a subject of fierce debate until the president issued a broad pardon that ended the case against his son, saying that the prosecution was the result of “raw politics.”
The report, at some 27 pages, acted as a pointed rejoinder to the president. Citing judicial rulings that found that the case had been fairly brought, Mr. Weiss used his final words on the long-running investigation to decry President Biden’s characterizations.
“Politicians who attack the decisions of career prosecutors as politically motivated when they disagree with the outcome of a case undermine the public’s confidence in our criminal justice system,” Mr. Weiss’s report said. “The president’s statements unfairly impugn the integrity not only of Department of Justice personnel, but all of the public servants making these difficult decisions in good faith.”
Despite its relative brevity, Mr. Weiss’s report contains many more pages of appendices, including Hunter Biden’s indictments and other significant court filings.
The release comes amid a much more contentious 11th-hour legal fight over the publication of a report by Jack Smith, the special counsel who filed two indictments against Donald J. Trump only for both to collapse in part because of Mr. Trump’s 2024 election victory.
Mr. Weiss’s time as special counsel began after he had already investigated Hunter Biden for several years on tax, finance and foreign lobbying issues. The two sides briefly struck a plea deal, but the unusual nature of the agreement — in addition to the government’s unwillingness to promise that the investigation would end with the deal — resulted in its collapse in July 2023.
The failed plea led Mr. Weiss to seek and receive an appointment as special counsel, allowing him to file indictments against the president’s son in two jurisdictions — related to lying on a gun purchase form in Delaware, and tax charges in Los Angeles.
Last year, the younger Mr. Biden was convicted of the gun charge by a jury in Wilmington, Del. He pleaded guilty in the tax case, but his father pardoned him while he was awaiting sentencing in both cases. The president not only absolved his son of the convictions, but also gave him a sweeping pardon for any potential crimes covering a period of more than 10 years.
In doing so, the president said his son’s case had been infected with politics, a claim that angered Mr. Weiss and the Justice Department, particularly because the president had for years asserted that the case had been handled independently.
Because the presidential pardon had effectively ruled out any such analysis, the report said, Mr. Weiss reached no conclusions about the possibility that Hunter Biden had committed other crimes.
Mr. Weiss also indicted and won a guilty plea from another man, Alexander Smirnov, for lying to the F.B.I. during the 2020 election period by falsely claiming knowledge of corrupt payments to the father and son. Mr. Smirnov, a longtime F.B.I. informant, had claimed that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Hunter Biden $5 million each around 2015 — an accusation that was trumpeted by congressional Republicans.
Washington Post, Biden says his foreign policy leaves Trump with ‘very strong hand’, Cleve R. Wootson Jr. and Karen DeYoung, Jan. 13, 2025. The president spoke at the State Department as a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas appeared to be drawing closer.
New York Times, The British Public Dislikes Elon Musk. He Can Still Sway Politics, Mark Landler, Jan. 14, 2025. His nfluence is the result of a very online political establishment and a right-leaning media that is hostile to Keir Starmer’s Labour government.
He is a deeply unpopular figure in Britain, according to opinion polls, and his social media channel has lost users in the country since he took it over in October 2022. Yet when Elon Musk put Britain in his cross hairs on X in recent weeks, pounding the political establishment over a decade-old child sex abuse scandal, he instantly catapulted the issue to the top of the news agenda.
Mr. Musk’s success is rooted in two obvious factors: his mammoth fortune and his alliance with the incoming president of the United States, Donald J. Trump. But it also reflects a British political and media establishment that is divided and deeply in flux, all of which has made Britain easy pickings for an outside influencer with vast resources and a single-minded mission to disrupt.
Britain’s right-leaning newspapers have picked up and amplified Mr. Musk’s call for a new national investigation of young girls who were sexually exploited in several towns in the 2000s, including in Rotherham, where an estimated 1,400 girls were exploited by “grooming gangs” composed largely of British Pakistani men.
New York Times, A Neo-Nazi Helped Incite U.K. Riots. Elon Musk Criticized His Sentencing, Megan Specia, Jan. 14, 2025. Andrew McIntyre, a British extremist who played a key role in fomenting last summer’s unrest, was sentenced last week to seven years in jail.
Hours after a deadly knife attack in the northern English town of Southport last July, Andrew McIntyre set up a Telegram channel called “Southport Wake Up.” Amid posts riddled with anti-Islamic, antisemitic and anti-immigrant abuse, he urged people to take to the streets, directing them to a mosque and calling for “war.”
Mr. McIntyre, 39, who took part in two of several riots that rattled Britain last summer, was sentenced to seven years in prison last Monday.
He pleaded guilty to encouraging violent disorder and criminal damage, and to possession of a knife. A day after his conviction, Elon Musk, the billionaire tech mogul, bemoaned Mr. McIntyre’s sentencing in a post on his social media platform X, declaring: “Over 7 years prison for social media posts … Whoever gave that sentence deserves prison themselves.”
Mr. Musk’s post, which has been viewed 34 million views times, is just one in a flurry of comments he has made about Britain in recent weeks that have included attacks on the governing Labour Party, and that have increasingly echoed far-right talking points laced with disinformation.
New York Times, After Loss, Gov. Tim Walz Faces Party’s Sinking Fortunes in Minnesota, Ernesto Londoño, Jan. 14, 2025. The party of Kamala Harris’s former running mate has lost control of the Minnesota Legislature and faces criticism as a deficit looms.
Since returning to Minnesota after a failed bid for vice president, Gov. Tim Walz has kept a relatively low profile. He consoled deflated supporters with a speech at a high school, posed for photos with a turkey at the Minnesota State Capitol to mark Thanksgiving and flew to the Bahamas for a brief respite from the cold.
This week, Mr. Walz, a Democrat, must start grappling in earnest with his party’s sinking political fortunes in his home state as lawmakers begin meeting in St. Paul for what is expected to be an unusually acrimonious state legislative session.
Minnesota Democrats controlled the governor’s mansion and the State Legislature the past two years, allowing them to pass a trove of liberal laws on abortion rights, marijuana and medical leave. But they are bracing for a new era of gridlock, having lost their slim majority in the House. Their control of the Senate is tenuous.
State budget officials last month issued a grim assessment of Minnesota’s fiscal health, warning that spending is projected to exceed revenue in coming years. The officials said a $5.1 billion deficit is possible by 2028. Under the Democrats’ leadership, the state had a $17.5 billion surplus at one point, leading critics to question how tax dollars have been spent.
New York Times, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Address Will Examine New York’s Future, and Her Own, Benjamin Oreskes, Jan. 14, 2025. Her State of the State speech is expected to respond to the dissatisfaction that became evident in November, especially regarding affordability and crime.
As Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York prepares to deliver her State of the State address on Tuesday, her priorities seem firmly focused on the voter frustrations that fueled Donald J. Trump’s election to the presidency in November.
Over the last month, Ms. Hochul has announced proposals to cut taxes for parents, make school lunch free and give millions of New Yorkers rebates of up to $500 depending on their income. These ideas have all been packaged as part of an “affordability agenda.”
And on Tuesday, Ms. Hochul is expected to announce a new series of middle-class tax cuts, and devote a portion of her speech to efforts to combat crime and mental illness.
“You tell us you need help; we hear you need help,” Ms. Hochul said earlier this month when previewing some of the proposals that will be included in her speech and her executive budget, which will come out next week. “We’re going to continue delivering real solutions that make a difference.”
Washington Post, McDonald’s sued over scholarships for Hispanic and Latino students, Taylor Telford, Jan. 14, 2025 (print ed.). McDonald’s HACER program is discriminatory because it is not open to students of all races, a federal lawsuit alleges.
Activists who oppose affirmative action are suing McDonald’s in federal court, alleging that the fast-food giant’s scholarship program for Hispanic and Latino high-schoolers is racially discriminatory.
Filed Sunday in Nashville by the American Alliance for Equal Rights, the lawsuit comes shortly after McDonald’s announced an overhaul of its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, joining a growing list of big-name firms such as Meta and Amazon that have rebranded policies and moved away from programs based on race and identity.
Citing a “shifting legal landscape,” McDonald’s said last week that it would end representation goals and supplier diversity efforts and would refer to its diversity team as its “Global Inclusion Team” going forward. The company also said it would pause surveys that assess the company’s progress on its diversity efforts, such as the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index.
New York Times, Opinion: Democrats Will Regret Helping to Pass the Laken Riley Act, Michelle Goldberg, right, Jan. 13, 2025. Democrats have a terrible habit, during moments of right-wing backlash, of voting for Republican legislation that they don’t seem to truly believe in and eventually live to regret.
The most glaring example is the 2002 resolution authorizing military force against Iraq, passed amid the explosion of jingoist groupthink that dominated American politics after the Sept. 11 attacks. Democratic presidential candidates who’d backed the resolution — John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden — would later tie themselves in knots trying to rationalize votes that were almost certainly motivated by political expediency, and which put their imprimatur on a catastrophe.
Another shameful episode was the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which barred the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages. It passed at a time when Democrats were on the defensive; Bill Clinton’s attempt to let gay people serve openly in the military had fallen apart, Newt Gingrich’s Republicans took the House in the 1994 midterms, and the Republican Bob Dole seemed poised to make gay marriage an issue in the coming election. In a weirdly apologetic signing statement, Clinton wrote that the law should not be “understood to provide an excuse for discrimination, violence or intimidation against any person on the basis of sexual orientation.” But as Clinton would later acknowledge when calling for its repeal, it did something worse, writing discrimination into law.
A bill called the Laken Riley Act, which overwhelmingly passed the House and could soon pass the Senate, is destined to be another entry in this archive of legislative shame. Given that anger over mass migration contributed to Democrats’ defeat in November, it’s perfectly understandable that some Democrats would tack right on border issues. The Laken Riley Act, however, is the wrong vehicle for proving their moderation. This sweeping bill will upend our immigration system in ways that will outlast Donald Trump’s presidency, ruining lives and handcuffing future Democratic administrations. Democrats who vote for it may dodge right-wing attacks in the next election, but once its true scope becomes clear, they’ll be answering for it for years to come.
The bill is named after a Georgia nursing student who was murdered last year by Jose Ibarra, an undocumented migrant from Venezuela who had previously been apprehended for crimes including shoplifting and child endangerment. Due in part to Ibarra’s arrest history, the case became a cause célèbre on the right. “The more they get away with and the more we let these criminals go, it just emboldens them, and they step it up,” said Mike Collins, the Georgia Republican who introduced the measure in the House.Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
If all the bill did was mandate the deportation of migrants convicted of petty theft, it would make sense for many Democrats to back it, if only because there’s so little political upside in defending the rights of undocumented shoplifters. But the bill goes much further than that. It mandates federal detention without bail for migrants who are merely arrested for any theft-related crimes, with no provision to free them if the charges are later dropped. (According to Axios, ICE is worried that to make room for those accused of theft, it would have to release others in its custody, including some considered “public safety threats.”)
The bill applies to many immigrants who are authorized to be here, including Dreamers and those with temporary protected status. And the legislation contains no exemption for minors. As Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, told me, the Laken Riley Act could mandate the indefinite detention of a juvenile child of asylum-seekers arrested for swiping a candy bar, even if he or she didn’t do it.
One of the act’s other provisions would give state officials unheard-of power over immigration policy. If the bill passes, a state attorney general could sue to block all visas to people from “recalcitrant countries” that don’t fully cooperate with the United States in accepting deportees, a list that includes China, India and Russia. This section of the Laken Riley Act may not matter much when Trump is in office; Republican attorneys general probably won’t want to challenge the president, and Democrats are unlikely to demand harsher immigration crackdowns. But if we ever have another Democratic president, it’s easy to picture the most conservative state prosecutors suing to block the issuance of visas to, say, people from China. Immigration policy would be subject to a chaotic fight in the federal courts.
Though the measure passed the House overwhelmingly last week, Democrats could still block it in the Senate, where it needs 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. Alas, that seems unlikely to happen. Last week, only nine Senate Democrats voted against proceeding to debate the bill on the Senate floor. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Ruben Gallego of Arizona are co-sponsors of it, and several other swing-state Democrats have already announced plans to vote for it. Fetterman told reporters last week that fellow Democrats had experienced a “blinding flash of common sense.”Editors’ Picks‘She Was Often the Only Bright Spot in My Otherwise Grim Days’Can I Ban Books From My Front-Yard Little Free Library?Where to Find Great New York Slices in 2025? You Might Be Surprised.
But the Democrats’ failure to muster opposition to this bill isn’t common sense, it’s cowardice. Given the lessons of the last election, it’s wise for Democrats to defy pro-immigrant interest groups when those groups make politically insupportable demands like abolishing ICE or decriminalizing illegal border crossings. That’s very different, however, from completely capitulating to Republican demagogy with little evident concern for the long-term consequences.
Someday, when public opinion on immigration shifts again, Democrats who voted for this cruel and misguided bill will have a hard time justifying it. If only they could save themselves and us the trouble.Exclusive news, data and analytics for financial market professionals
Bloomberg News via Reuters, China mulls potential sale of TikTok US to Musk, Staff Reports, Jan. 13, 2025. Chinese officials are mulling a potential option that involves the sale of TikTok's U.S. operations to billionaire Elon Musk if the company fails to fend off a potential ban, Bloomberg News reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Chinese officials prefer that TikTok remain under the control of parent Bytedance, the report said, adding that the company is contesting the ban with an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.Advertisement ·
Under one scenario, Musk's social media platform X would take control of TikTok U.S. and run the business together, the report said, adding that the Chinese officials have yet to reach any firm consensus about how to proceed and their deliberations are still preliminary.TikTok declined to comment, while Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment. X could not immediately be reached for a comment.
Washington Post, Soldier’s suicide exposes the struggle with mental health stigma in Special Forces culture, Alex Horton, Jan. 12, 2025 (print ed). The dramatic death at the Trump hotel in Las Vegas has spotlighted the Pentagon’s efforts to screen for and treat invisible injuries.
Matthew Livelsberger’s dramatic death outside the Trump hotel in Las Vegas has spotlighted the Pentagon’s efforts to screen for and treat invisible injuries.
The fiery New Year’s Day suicide of an Army Green Beret (shown above with his wife)exposed the Pentagon’s struggle to identify and treat brain injuries and mental health issues, raising alarm among some lawmakers, medical experts and former military personnel who question if enough is being done to improve care and prevent similar tragedies.
Matthew Livelsberger, 37, a career Special Forces soldier with extensive wartime service in Afghanistan, died from a self-inflicted gunshot moments before the rented Tesla Cybertruck he was driving exploded outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, authorities have said. Livelsberger had struggled with what he endured in combat and confided in an ex-girlfriend that he experienced health problems linked to repeated concussions.
Hopium Chronicles, Political Opinion: Battling Fires And Disinfo In California, Fighting The Unacceptable 4, Trump Is Already Raising Prices Here And Around The World, Simon Rosenberg, Jan. 13, 2025. Hearings on his nominees start tomorrow. I hope everyone here will call their Senators and House Members today to insist they work to block Trump’s Unacceptable 4: Gabbard, Hegseth, Kennedy and Patel. You don’t need a long script. Simply say that all 4 are unqualified and extremists. The incoming President erred in all 4 cases and we must find better nominees. At least 100,000 people are going to read this post today and I hope a large percentage makes these calls. We must make our voices heard.
Today Joe Biden will travel to the State Department and give a major address reviewing his foreign policy achievements. On Wednesday he gives a live televised farewell address to the nation at 8pm ET.
Friday’s strong jobs report reminded us of what a strong economy Trump is inheriting from President Biden, and how successful Trump and Republicans were in convincing people otherwise last year. Here are three good new articles on why this strong economy is a very big political problem for Trump - Rob Shapiro in Washington Monthly, Paul Krugman in his new Substack, and Howard Schneider in Reuters.
On Friday the International Monetary Fund warned that Trump’s banana-nuts economic agenda is already driving up long-term interest rates -- and thus prices on many things -- here and around the world. From The Financial Times:
The IMF has warned that jitters surrounding Donald Trump’s threat to impose trade tariffs were driving up longer-term borrowing costs and would add to pressures facing the global economy in 2025. Speaking to reporters in Washington on Friday, IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva said global economic policy faced “quite a lot of uncertainty” in 2025, particularly around the trade policy of the world’s largest economy. “That uncertainty is actually expressed globally through higher long-term interest rates,” Georgieva said
CNN, Reliable Sources Analysis: The Contrarian set for combat, Brian Steltzer, Jan. 13, 2025. Today, veteran opinion columnist Jennifer Rubin, right, is becoming the latest in a long list of Washington Post figures to leave the troubled institution.
Rubin tells me she is partnering with former White House ethics czar Norm Eisen and launching a startup publication called The Contrarian. Its tagline, "Not owned by anybody," is a pointed reference to billionaire Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos and other moguls who, in Rubin's view, have "bent the knee" to President-elect Donald Trump.
"Our goal is to combat, with every fiber of our being, the authoritarian threat that we face," Rubin says.
Rather than anti-Trump, the founders describe their venture as pro-democracy. They said they have already enlisted about two dozen contributors, including Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Andy Borowitz, George Conway, John Dean, Bob Kagan, Barb McQuade, Katie Phang, Asha Rangappa, Stephen Richer, and Andrew Weissmann.
Eisen, who is departing his CNN legal analyst role, will be the publisher. Rubin will be the editor-in-chief. Rubin says she resigned from the Post because it, "along with most mainstream news outlets, has failed spectacularly at a moment that we most need a robust, aggressive free press." She adds: "I fear that things are going from bad to worse at The Post."
The Contrarian is joining a growing group of publications – like The Bulwark and Zeteo – that are built on Substack. It will charge $7 a month for full access to columns, podcasts, and videos.
The founders stress that the site will cover culture and publish humor columns – with an eye toward appealing to folks who don't follow politics closely. Eisen, a former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic, says "I know from my experience in Europe that the dissident movements there have been led by those in humor, satire, and culture like my friend President Václav Havel who was a playwright."
"We will bring in a large array of voices – you need that to fight autocracy," Eisen says. "Laughing may actually end up being more important than political and legal analysis!"
Washington Post, Jack Smith, special counsel in Trump cases, resigns, Perry Stein and Jeremy Roebuck, Jan. 12, 2025 (print ed). Smith has spent the last two months winding down the two federal criminal prosecutions of Donald Trump and had indicated he would resign before inauguration.
Special counsel Jack Smith has resigned from the Justice Department after completing his work overseeing two federal prosecutions of Donald Trump, according to a government court filing.
Though Smith’s departure was expected, official word of the end of his two-year appointment was another step in the winding down of the criminal cases against the former and future president, just over a week before Inauguration Day.Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what's true, false or in-between in politics.
Smith, a veteran federal and war crimes prosecutor, became the public face of the Justice Department’s efforts to hold Trump accountable for two sets of alleged crimes: trying to block Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory; and, after leaving the White House, mishandling highly classified documents and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them.
Neither case went to trial. The election-interference indictment was delayed after a Supreme Court ruling last summer greatly expanded presidential immunity for actions taken while in office. U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon in Florida tossed the classified documents indictment two weeks later, ruling Smith had been unlawfully appointed.
Trump accused Smith and Attorney General Merrick Garland of bringing the cases for political reasons. The president-elect was planning to fire Smith and his team, The Washington Post reported in November, and Smith had made clear that he would resign before Trump took office.
News that he had done so came in a footnote to a court filing Saturday, as government lawyers urged Cannon not to extend a court order she issued Tuesday that temporarily blocked the release of Smith’s final report on his investigations.
Smith “separated” from the department Friday, the filing said — three days after he’d submitted his report to Garland. While Justice Department rules require special counsels to submit such reports, it is typically up to the attorney general whether to make them public. In this case, however, Trump and his former co-defendants in the classified documents case have returned to the courts to try to keep Smith’s report under wraps.
Washington Post, Appeals court allows release of Smith’s report on Trump’s election-reversal efforts, Jeremy Roebuck and Perry Stein, Jan. 10, 2025. A federal appellate court ruled Thursday that the Justice Department may publicly release special counsel Jack Smith’s report on Donald Trump’s efforts to undo the results of the 2020 election, although the timing of that release remains unclear.
The ruling did not distinguish between the two volumes of Smith’s report — one dealing with his election-interference probe and the other focused on Smith’s investigation into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.
But Smith and Attorney General Merrick Garland have said in court filings and in a letter to Congress that they will keep the classified documents volume under wraps while litigation related to the case continues.
The president-elect, right, and two of his former co-defendants in the documents case had urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to block the release of the entire report, with Trump saying making it public would harm his White House transition. Trump and his co-defendants did not immediately say Thursday if they would appeal. A lower court judge had previously barred the release of the report until at least three days after the 11th Circuit decision. In a filing late Thursday evening, three hours after the appellate court’s ruling, the Justice Department and Smith said they would appeal that lower court order to potentially allow for an earlier release.
Smith’s report could shed new light on alleged efforts by Trump and his allies to subvert his election loss four years ago. Many of those details were divulged in a lengthy legal brief the special counsel filed last year detailing the evidence his team had amassed. But Smith’s report could offer a clearer picture of the material as well as insights into the strategy the government would have employed had that historic set of charges against Trump gone to trial.
Smith agreed to dismiss the election interference indictment last year after Trump’s election victory, citing Justice Department regulations prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting president.
New York Times, Analysis: As a Felon, Trump Upends How Americans View the Presidency, Peter Baker, Jan. 12, 2025 (print ed.). A big economic package, mass deportations, maybe even some invasions of other countries. Oh, and one more item. “I’ll do my little thing tomorrow,” a busy President-elect Donald J. Trump mentioned the other night.
That little thing was the first criminal sentencing of an American president. That little thing was confirmation that Mr. Trump, just 10 days later, would become the first president to move into the White House with a rap sheet. That little thing is the latest shift in standards that once governed high office.
Mr. Trump does not really consider it a little thing, of course, given how strenuously he sought to avoid Friday’s sentencing for 34 felony counts in his hush money case. But to a remarkable degree, he has succeeded in making it a little thing in the body politic. What was once a pretty-much-guaranteed disqualifier for the presidency is now just one more political event seen through a partisan lens.
After all, no one seemed shocked after Friday’s sentencing in New York. While Mr. Trump was spared jail time or financial penalties, he effectively had the word “felon” tattooed on his record for all time unless a higher court overturns the conviction. But that development was already baked into the system. Voters knew last fall that Mr. Trump had been found guilty by a jury of his peers, and enough of them decided it was either illegitimate or not as important as other issues.
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: January 10, 2025 [U.S. Jobs, Fires, Politics,], Heather Cox Richardson, right, Jan. 11, 2025. Today the Department of Labor released the final jobs report of Joe Biden’s presidency. The nation added 256,000 new jobs in December, a number significantly higher than economists expected. That brings the total number of jobs created under Biden to 16.6 million and makes Biden’s the only administration in history to have created jobs every month. Under the Biden administration, the nation has also had the lowest average unemployment rate of any administration in 50 years, ending at 4.1%.
Dan Primack of Axios reported that the U.S. gained more jobs during Biden’s four years than it did under President Donald Trump, Barack Obama, or George W. Bush.
In a statement, Biden noted that when he took office, economic forecasts projected that it would take years for the country to recover fully from the effects of the coronavirus shutdown. In fact, the U.S. economy has grown faster and created more jobs than any other country with an advanced economy. Working-age women are now employed at record levels, and the gap in employment between Black Americans and their white counterparts is at the lowest level on record. The administration has brought the inflation of the early recovery back down almost to target levels, while incomes have increased about $4,000 more than prices. The administration, Biden said, has “achieved the soft landing that few thought was possible.”
CNBC economist Carl Quintanilla quoted Matt Peterson of Barron’s, who wrote: “It looks a lot like U.S. consumers are happy with the way things are...[a]nd so are the markets.... The only one who doesn’t seem to be happy with the way things are is Trump.”
Brian Platt of Bloomberg reports that Trump’s threats of tariffs against Canada already have Canadian officials drafting plans for retaliation. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau told CNN yesterday that Trump is talking about annexing Canada to divert attention from how significantly his tariff plans would raise consumer prices.
As Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo noted late last year, MAGA was never an ideological movement so much as a vehicle to pull together different constituencies in order to get Trump elected president. Since members of those constituencies have little in common, that effort centers around creating a false world that demonizes Democrats and insists they have created a dangerous world that is biased against MAGA. The only one who can stand against them, the story goes, is Trump, who is being persecuted for his defense of his supporters. That narrative has helped MAGAs to find common ground in their defense of Trump and his cronies and their support for Trump’s vows to retaliate against those he considers his enemies.
That impulse appears to be stronger than ever after Judge Juan Merchan sentenced Trump today in the New York election interference case in which a jury found Trump guilty of 34 felonies for covering up payments to an adult film actress to keep her quiet about their sexual encounter before the 2016 presidential election. Merchan said that he could not impose a punishment without encroaching on the presidency, so in an unusually light sentence, he released Trump without restrictions. As legal analyst Joyce White Vance explained, Trump knew he would not get jail time or a fine, but wanted to avoid the sentencing itself because just a month after the sentencing, the designation of convicted felon will become permanent.
Although a unanimous jury convicted him, Trump insisted the trial was “a political witch hunt…done to damage my reputation so that I’d lose the election…. The fact is I’m totally innocent.” He seemed to think that ratings should override reality, telling the judge: “I got the largest number of votes by far by any Republican in history,” he said, “and won, as you know, all seven swing states—won conclusively all seven swing states.”
Trump’s version of the case appeared to be convincing to MAGA pundits and lawmakers, who echoed his calls for retribution. Trump’s lawyer Mike Davis warned: “Right now the Democrats think they’re the hunters. And guess what? On January 20th at noon, they’re going to become the hunted.” Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Nancy Mace (R-SC), and Ronnie Jackson (R-TX) all echoed Trump. “Trump will win in the end and America wins in 10 days when we get Trump back!!” Jackson posted on X.
MAGA supporters have embraced Trump’s attacks on Democrats and on the government, most notably with their fact-free attacks on the Biden administration's handling of natural disasters—first the terrible flooding in North Carolina, when the right wing spread the lie that government officials were stealing people’s land, and now the terrible fires in Los Angeles that have been fueled in large part by the climate change that cut rainfall since last May and brought an unusually hot summer.
While local, state, and federal officials are doing their best to battle the Los Angeles fires in raging winds and dry conditions, Trump and his allies are lying to create the belief that the Democratic government is to blame for the fires. Trump lied that there is a shortage of water because Democratic governor Gavin Newsom refused to divert water to the area. Others claimed—falsely—that Democratic Mayor Karen Bass cut the budget for the Los Angeles Fire Department, when in fact a 7% increase in funding came through negotiations outside the budget.
They have blamed diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts for the blazes because the Los Angeles Fire Department is headed by Kristin Crowley, an LGBT woman who came up through the ranks in the department over twenty years. And Trump sidekick Elon Musk agreed with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones that the fires are part of a “globalist plot” to trigger “total collapse” in the United States. “Gavin Newscum should resign. This is all his fault!!!” Trump posted.
In reality, firefighters are hard at work, with crews from both Canada and Mexico working along with Californians to suppress the fires.
New York Times, Israel’s Campaign in Syrian Border Area Prompts Fears It Plans to Stay, Jan. 12, 2025 (print ed.). Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s order for Israeli troops to “take over” a buffer zone with Syria upended decades of relative calm along the de facto border.
Washington Post, Biden eulogizes Carter with an emphasis on character, Cleve R. Wootson Jr., Jan. 11, 2025 (print ed.). President Joe Biden eulogized former president Jimmy Carter on Thursday as a man who “taught me the strength of character” and refused to let personal ambition or politics erode his inherent goodness, using one of his final speeches as president to issue an indirect rebuke to the politics of today.Get the latest election news and results
“Character, I believe, is destiny. Destiny in our lives and, quite frankly, destiny in the life of our nation,” Biden said in remarks that began just before noon, using the word “character” nearly a dozen times in 10 minutes. “We have an obligation to give hate no safe harbor and to stand up to what my dad said is the greatest sin of all: the abuse of power.”
Carter had personally asked Biden to deliver his eulogy, but Biden’s words seemed aimed at least in part at the current moment and President-elect Donald Trump’s style of politics, which he has derided as focused on self-absorption and fueling division for political gain.
Biden said anyone seeking to lead a good life would be wise to model themselves on Carter, who he said was motivated by “faith, hope and love.” He hailed the former president as a man who spent his life serving everyone from his neighbors in his small hometown of Plains, Georgia, to residents of poor countries around the world.
“We’re all fallible, but it’s about asking ourselves, are we striving ourselves to do the right things? What are the values that animate our spirit? Do we operate from fear or hope, ego or generosity?” Biden said, as he sought to elaborate on the notion of character.
Washington Post, Economy adds 256,000 jobs in December, reflecting stronger growth toward the end of 2024, Lauren Kaori Gurley, Jan. 11, 2025 (print ed.). The unemployment rate fell to 4.1 percent.
The U.S. labor market added 256,000 jobs in December, a strong showing at the end of 2024, as the labor market revved up toward the end of the year.
The unemployment rate improved, inching down to 4.1 percent from 4.2 percent in November, perhaps an early indication along with other improving data of a rebound in the labor market after months of cooling.
Forecasters had predicted the report would show 155,000 new jobs added in December.
“We certainly saw a softening in overall labor market conditions” in 2024, said Sarah House, a senior economist at Wells Fargo. “But for the most part, it’s been a gradual cooling. … Businesses have reduced demand for new workers, but they’re hanging on to their existing workers.”
Unemployment levels for 2024 were also revised down, showing that the rate of joblessness never surpassed 4.2 percent this year, a low level that suggests underlying strength in the labor market even as hiring cooled.
Porn star Stormy Daniels and former President Donald J. Trump, who hid hush payments to her via The National Enquirer newspaper during the 2016 presidential campaign to hide their affair from election finance officials and the public.
Washington Post, Trump to be sentenced today in New York hush money case, Staff Reports, Jan. 10, 2025. President-elect Donald Trump is set to be sentenced Friday, as part of a case in which a New York jury convicted him on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to an adult-film actress shortly before the 2016 election.
Washington Post, DOGE is dispatching agents across U.S. government, Faiz Siddiqui, Jeff Stein and Elizabeth Dwoskin, Jan. 10, 2025. Federal officials are already dealing with surrogates from Elon Musk’s and Vivek Ramaswamy’s nongovernmental body before Donald Trump is sworn in again.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are sending representatives to agencies across the federal government, four people familiar with the matter said, to begin preliminary interviews that will shape the tech executives’ enormous ambitions to tame Washington’s sprawling bureaucracy.
In recent days, aides with the nongovernmental “Department of Government Efficiency" tied to President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team have spoken with staffers at more than a dozen federal agencies, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media. The agencies include the Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service and the departments of Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services, the people said.
At the same time, Musk and Ramaswamy have significantly stepped up hiring for their new entity, with more than 50 staffers already working out of the offices of SpaceX, Musk’s rocket-building company, in downtown Washington, two of the people said. DOGE aims to have a staff of close to 100 people in place by Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, they said.
Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.
New York Times, Trump Investigations: Justice Dept. Signals Report on Trump Documents Case May Never Be Released, Alan Feuer and Charlie Savage, Jan. 9, 2025 (print ed.). In a court filing, the department indicated that the report by the special counsel, Jack Smith, may not be made public before Donald J. Trump takes office, raising the prospect that the new administration will bury it.
Federal prosecutors tacitly signaled on Wednesday that the public may never see a portion of a report by the special counsel, Jack Smith, detailing his investigation into President-elect Donald J. Trump’s refusal to give back a trove of classified documents he took from the White House after leaving office.
Mr. Trump’s legal team has been fighting a pitched battle in recent days to keep the report out of the public eye. In court papers on Wednesday, the Justice Department said that Attorney General Merrick B. Garland did not intend to release the volume about the documents inquiry until legal proceedings have ended against two co-defendants who were charged along with Mr. Trump.
The decision raised the prospect that the report might never be made public at all. The case against Mr. Trump’s co-defendants is likely to continue into his second term starting Jan. 20, when he could pardon the men and end the case altogether. His appointees would then have the power to continue keeping Mr. Smith’s report secret.SPECIAL COUNSEL REPORTRead the Justice Department’s court filing delaying the release of Jack Smith’s report.
The government’s filing, before a federal appeals court in Atlanta, came one day after Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who oversaw — and ultimately threw out — the documents case, issued an injunction temporarily barring the department from releasing Mr. Smith’s report. Her order did not appear to distinguish between the volume about the documents case and the one compiled by Mr. Smith and his team about their separate case against Mr. Trump for his attempt to overturn his loss of the 2020 election.
The Justice Department does plan to release the portion of Mr. Smith’s report focusing on the election interference charges, the court papers said. That case was dropped after Mr. Trump won the election as prosecutors bowed to a longstanding Justice Department policy that prohibits pursuing criminal prosecutions against sitting presidents.
In their filing to the appeals court, prosecutors said that Mr. Garland would make Mr. Smith’s report about the classified documents case available to the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, except for information that is covered by a grand jury secrecy rule.
The Bulwark, Political Opinion:, Release Jack Smith’s ReportI, Bill Kristol, right, Jan. 7, 2025. The outgoing administration shouldn’t play along with the whitewashing of January 6th.
You can never really tell which of the wacky ideas that Trump spins up will end up forgotten in a few days and which will lodge like a splinter in his brain forever. During his first term, “We’re gonna buy Greenland” seemed like it belonged to the former category. Now, it seems he’s making it a top administration priority.
“I am hearing that the people of Greenland are ‘MAGA,’” Trump wrote yesterday. “My son, Don Jr, and various representatives, will be traveling there to visit some of the most magnificent areas and sights. Greenland is an incredible place, and the people will benefit tremendously if, and when, it becomes part of our Nation. We will protect it, and cherish it, from a very vicious outside World. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!”
Last night, Donald Trump’s lawyers demanded that Attorney General Merrick Garland block the release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on his two investigations, one on Trump and January 6th, the other on Trump’s handling of the classified documents he took with him to Mar-a-Lago.
The attorney general will surely refuse Trump’s demand. Justice Department regulations require special counsels to submit reports explaining their legal decisions at the end of their investigations. Just as Garland last year released Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents, he’ll make public—with appropriate redactions—Smith’s report on Trump. (For that matter, we can also expect the attorney general to release special counsel David Weiss’s final report on his investigation of the now-pardoned Hunter Biden.)
Trump’s demand that Smith’s report be suppressed is a useful reminder that he really hates truthful accounts of January 6th, even if—especially if—they are based on testimony under oath from many different individuals, including many who worked for him. Recall Trump’s fear and loathing of the House January 6th Committee.
The loathing is, I suppose, easily understandable. Politicians don’t like scrutiny. And they especially don’t like criticism. And those who’ve gone so far as to commit sordid and likely criminal acts don’t like to see their disreputable behavior exposed.
But one senses that in addition to the hatred and the loathing, there’s an element of fear. Why?
Trump won. Smith’s report won’t change that. And in any case, his entire propaganda machine is ready to attack the report as the product of a biased Biden Justice Department and a Trump-hating special prosecutor. The report will have no immediate effect on public opinion, nor on the successes or failures of the opening days of Trump’s presidency.
Still, Trump knows how crucial his rewriting of the history of January 6th was to his victory in November. If most Republicans had held to their original judgment of January 6th as a day of shame—if they had continued to believe that it was what Trump the very next day called a “heinous attack” that “defiled the seat of American democracy”—Trump would not have been the 2024 GOP nominee. If most Americans had thought January 6th not just an unfortunate event but a disqualifying disgrace, Trump wouldn’t have won the general election.
The whitewashing of January 6th was key to Trump’s political comeback.
And Trump has the sense—and I think he’s right about this—that he must make sure that January 6th stays whitewashed for the sake of his political success going forward.
The Hartmann Report, Commentary: America Chose Wealth Over Well-Being: How Billionaires Rewrote the American Dream, Thom Hartmann, right, Jan. 7, 2025. Yesterday, Congress certified the electoral vote count making a billionaire president again, starting after he’s sworn in on January 20th.
Yes, we chose a billionaire. Again. After other billionaires spent billions to convince us to make that choice.
As you’re reading these words, billionaires from America and around the world are making pilgrimages to his shabby golf motel to kiss our upcoming billionaire president’s ass and hand him envelopes with $1 million checks that represent a few hours (at most) of income for most of them or their companies.
Meanwhile, our billionaire president-in-waiting is packing his cabinet — the heads of all of the most important federal agencies — with even more billionaires. This is all being celebrated over on billionaire-owned Fox “News” and on billionaire-owned hate radio networks, as well as in the billionaire-owned Washington Post, LA Times, and the roughly half of American local newspapers owned by billionaire hedge funds.
Other countries enjoy benefits like free healthcare and college; modern mass transit; and affordable housing, food, and drugs.
They also have inexpensive internet and phone service without companies listening in and selling their information, schools that don’t even need to mention school shooters, and streets and parks filled with pedestrians and children instead of tents for the homeless.
Additionally, they benefit from renewable electricity that gets cheaper every year while cleaning their environment.
We, on the other hand, have the world‘s largest collection of billionaires.
Recent Relevant Headlines
Washington Post, Biden eulogizes Carter with an emphasis on characterWashington Post, Los Angeles wildfires already pegged as costliest blaze in U.S. history
Trump / GOP Transition News
New York Times, Zuckerberg Will Host a Party for Trump’s Inauguration, Theodore Schleifer and Mike Isaac, Jan. 16, 2025 (print ed.). Mark Zuckerberg, the Meta chief executive, is one of several tech leaders expected to play a high-profile role in celebrating the new administration next week.
Mark Zuckerberg, right, the Meta chief executive who has tried to keep a distance from politics, is warming to President-elect Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Zuckerberg is among several Big Tech executives who are expected to be front and center at Mr. Trump’s inauguration next week. He will be one of four hosts of a black-tie reception on Jan. 20, joining the longtime Republican donors Miriam Adelson and Todd Ricketts in hosting a party “celebrating the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump and Vice President JD Vance,” according to a copy of the invitation seen by The New York Times. The event was first reported by Puck.
Corporate leaders often argue that supporting an inauguration is a patriotic act that does not amount to political support for the president. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, declined to comment.
Mr. Zuckerberg rarely attaches his name to political events. He did not play a similar role at President Biden’s inauguration in 2020 or at Mr. Trump’s first inauguration, in 2016.
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More U.S. Legal News
Proof, Investigative Commentary: New Q&A Series, No. 1: Answering Some Extremely Easy Questions Asked By the Worst-Informed and Most Disingenuous Far-Right Billionaires on Earth, Seth Abramson, left, author, attorney and former professor, Jan. 4, 2025. Bill Ackman, above, asks, “How can someone with 53 prior arrests continue to be on the NYC streets?” It’s a child’s question—or anyone with no knowledge of criminal justice—but here an expert answers it.
Seth AbramsonJan 4 QUESTION from far-right billionaire BILL ACKMAN: “How can someone with 53 prior arrests continue to be on the NYC streets?”
We know this question is asked in bad faith, because a billionaire like Ackman has lawyers and other advisers who could answer this extremely basic question for him almost immediately.
There’s no reason to broadcast the question to his 1.6 million Twitter followers other than to spread three far-right canards that every criminal justice professional knows to be false: New York City is a dangerous large city (it is actually a very, very safe large city); prosecutors are by and large progressive (by and large, prosecutors are extremely conservative by instinct, politics, and professional-advancement planning); and violent crime is now out of control (it is plummeting).
Nevertheless here’s an ANSWER from criminal defense attorney Seth Abramson:
On a criminal record, each charge a person has ever faced is a separate arrest entry—so if, on a single date of offense, a person is arrested on ten charges, that may well show as ten arrests even though all of those arrests were for a single course of conduct.
Because over 95% of criminal cases are resolved by a defendant taking responsibility for their actions and accepting a plea deal—that’s right, the overwhelming majority of those arrested aren’t like Donald Trump and seek no more than a just punishment for what they are accused of doing—police and prosecutors prepare in advance for this known eventuality by habitually wildly overcharging cases. The theory behind this is that the more charges you can pile on someone, the more likelihood (because each charge carries its own penalty, which can be assessed consecutively to all other penalties) they will enter into a plea agreement with the government and thus spare taxpayers the cost (and government agents the time) of a full-blown criminal trial.
The result of this is that even a rather minor incident will often lead to a very large number of more-or-less redundant charges and an extremely filled-up arrest record.
I’ve seen and personally represented defendants with 50+ arrests from just two dates of offense—meaning just two actions that were deemed by the arresting officers to be criminal. Bill Ackman is also aware of such a situation, given that his political hero, Donald Trump, technically was arrested on 34 felonies as part of a single course of conduct (though in Trump’s case these crimes spanned months, which is actually far worse than what we see with unpremeditated street crimes born of transient anger).
And of course arrests aren’t convictions. While arrests show up on an arrest record, many arrests result in nolle prosequi withdrawals of the charges by prosecutors for reasons ranging from a witness recantation to a plea deal that involves some charges being withdrawn, from the evidence ultimately gathered by police not sustaining the charges the arresting officers originally believed could be sustained to a prosecutor deciding (but this is rare) that the case was overcharged and that is was unfair to the defendant.
Short of charges being withdrawn voluntarily by the government, they may also be “kicked” (dismissed) by judges because (say) witnesses fail to appear in court, certain evidence was illegally seized, the government has botched the collection or testing of the evidence in a way that infringes upon the defendant’s constitutional rights, or a whole host of other reasons—including, notably, a “not guilty” verdict by a jury of the defendant’s peers after a trial.
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Hopium Chronicles, Political Commentary, January 6th - Another Day That Will Live In Infamy, Simon Rosenberg
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U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), left, basks in the presence of Elon Musk, center, and President-elect Donald Trump
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: December 21, 2024 [U.S. Government Shutdown Avoided], Heather Cox Richardson, Dec. 22, 2024. Shortly after midnight last night, the Senate passed the continuing resolution to fund the government through March 14, 2025. The previous continuing resolution ran out at midnight, but as Bloomberg’s congressional budget reporter Steven Dennis explained, “midnight is NOT a hard deadline for a government shutdown. A shutdown occurs only when [the Office of Management and Budget] issues a shutdown order, which they traditionally will NOT issue if a bill is moving toward completion.”
President Joe Biden signed the bill this morning, praising the agreement for keeping the government open, providing urgently needed disaster relief, and providing the money to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore after a container ship hit it in March 2024, causing it to collapse.
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Trump's Cases, Allies, Threats, Opponents
Lance's Substack, Political Opinion: Biden's Worst Decision, Lance F Rosen, Jan. 1, 2024. Will Bunch of the Philly Inquirer nails it. The biggest and most tragic mistake by Joe Biden was his pick of Merrick Garland for Attorney General.
Thanks to Will Bunch (published here) we now know why President Biden picked Merrick Garland and so regrets his decision. Former White House Chief Of Staff Ron Klain led the faction which pushed Garland. This is according to his commentary based upona Washington Post report detailing Biden's extreme regret over his choice.
Not mentioned by Bunch about Klain is that he's the tag team partner of corrupt corporate centrist Biden advisor Anita Dunn, left, who sabotaged his presidency and campaign by abandoning progressives and traditional Democratic constituencies in favor of appeals to "moderate MAGAs" from the white suburbs. Dunn had top down control over the campaign press shop and messaging, and did everything possible to prevent Biden from attacking Trump, or even using his name. He was advised to call him "the other guy," and tripped all over himself trying to distinguish between the misnamed "regular" MAGA, and "Ultra-MAGA," which he described as "semi-fascist."
The Dunn-Klain combo was the source of the awful triangulation strategy, which infected many aspects of the administration, costing the President whole chunks of his program (in conjunction with fellow Democratic corporate centrists Manchin and Sinema with whom they worked) and large drops in his approval ratings among youth, black and Muslim minorities, Latinos, and progressives of all stripes. This is the actual reason why the so-called "Blue Wall" collapsed in November, and we now have a full clown-car of escaped mental patients being given the keys to the government to go joyriding around in for four or more years.
Also not mentioned by Bunch was that Klain and Dunn were exposed as the pair who sabotaged Biden's debate prep which contributed to sinking his candidacy, the reason FLOTUS Dr. Jill Biden and son Hunter (shown above in a June 2024 photo) demanded the President fire them both immediately after the disaster when they all met at Camp David (which he wouldn't).
I suspected that the reasoning behind Garland's appointment was a futile and deluded plan to seek bipartisanship with MAGA, which included a "hands off or go slow" approach to prosecuting Trump's crimes, so as to not overly antagonize Trump's Congressional allies and base. Maybe a great idea on paper, but they were always going to be "antagonized" over everything. They incited and assisted a violent mob attack our Capitol, and the White House hoped for civilty and cooperation with Nazis who organized a coup against them? Seriously?
Bunch's background commentary on the Garland appointment seems to point in the same direction, raising similar questions, and is sounding an alarm to prevent similar failures in judgment.
Excerpt continued from above.
I'm going to state publicly what I have suspected all along but have not yet divulged until now. This is my personal speculation, but I believe that a deal was made by Biden to get Trump to leave the White House and relinquish power in 2021, provided he would not be prosecuted aggressively. This, in my mind, is the only thing which solves the mystery of why did Trump even leave, and why did he agree to a transition? And I should state for the record that while I always remained critical in a principled way, I have been a strong and vocal defender of Joe Biden since he launched his candidacy in 2017, and I am not writing this to bash him. In a way, if a deal was made I understand it and his motives.
That said, all indications were that Trump would make some desperate effort at a last stand, because he stood to lose his Presidential legal shield and go to jail if he didn't. He even tried to get Netanyahu's help in launching a war with Iran at the end to fabricate a national emergency and void the election. General Milley actually called it Trump's "Reichstag Fire" and blocked it. Despite his desperation, Trump relented, and it has always been puzzling to me as to why. If there were a deal, that would explain it. We know that everything with Trump is a transaction, devoid of any motive other than self-preservation. I am certainly open to discussion if others have thoughts on it, because it is just my opinion and nothing more.
So, on our timeline, Biden came in, pledged bipartisanship and healing in his inaugural, appointed Garland under pressure from Dunns's flunky Klain, left. He (Garland) was a former DOJ prosecutor and federal judge, a plodding GOP bureaucrat and proceduralist, guaranteed to not do anything which could remotely be considered "political" in order to protect the DOJ from charges of "weaponizing Justice. Therefore when it came to not antagonizing MAGA, he was right on board with Klain's and Dunn's program.
Remember also that this was the guy who prosecuted the Oklahoma City bombers McVeigh and Nichols, but the religious cult and militia networks (the neo-Nazi "Christian Identity," and the Michigan militia) which housed them and actively supported their anti-government plot were let off the hook. There was a network, not just two guys, and Garland chose to not go after all of them for sedition conspiracy, only the two mentioned for the crime of the bombing. (It should be mentioned that the same Michigan militia networks that supported them were caught plotting a "citizen's arrest" of Governor Gretchen Whitmer 26 years later, which was in fact a plot to kidnap her and her cabinet, conduct mock trials and summary executions for treason, right after they were incited by Trump to storm the Michigan Capitol in Lansing to oppose covid lockdown)
Garland, once sworn in after the usual obstruction in the Senate by McConnell, (the second go-round for him after he was Obama's failed nominee for SCOTUS) did nothing for month after month about the stolen documents or J-6. Instead of going after the planners and the ringleaders, he was preoccupied with rounding up and prosecuting the thousand or so zombies used as cannon-fodder for the riot, which was just cover for the actual coup plot of Trump's Congreseional allies boiding Biden's electors. Not Trump,Meadows, Bannon, Stone, especially not Ginni Thomas. No, it was more important to nail the “horny” QAnon guy than the people who were responsible for bring the mob which left five dead DC cops and hundreds more injured.
Then the J-6 committee did such a thorough job documenting Trump's coup attempt, that Garland was literally forced to abort the "hands off" policy and started a grand jury. And once it was finally underway, all of his foot-dragging led to his "cover your ass" move of appointing a special prosecutor, Jack Smith.
Then there were shocking revelations that Trump's stolen documents included nuclear secrets which he was showing off to guests and donors at his golf club, and Biden's national security team raised the roof to convince him to pressure Garland to go after them. Garland started another investigation he didn't want in order to force Trump to give the documents up. Trump said "fuck you," ordered his lawyers to lie to the FBI, he was allowed to stall, hide some of what he had, possibly sell some of it, so Garland was forced to get a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago and start a second grand jury (which again he never wanted) and Biden went along with him on all of it.
And to top it off, Garland incredibly insisted that Smith convene the grand jury and try the stolen documents case in Ron DeSantis' fascist hellscape of Florida, not Washington DC where the judges are more balanced than Florida's Republican hack federal appointees. No credible reason for Garland to insist Smith go to trial in Florida was ever given, aside from the fact the documents were there. He personally oversaw packing up in Washington, and had no immunity the moment Biden was sworn in. It would have been a slam dunk.
The only possible explanation is that bringing the case in Trump's home state was a sop, a buy-off to mitigate the rage and retribution factor from the Congressional MAGAts. Remember that after the Mar-aLago FBI search warrant was executed, a Trump supporter assassinated an FBI agent in Cincinnati, and there was a pattern of threats against their offices nationwide. Therefore Florida is what they went with, and almost predictibly a Trump appointed "fan-girl" known as Aileen "Loose Cannon" got jurisdiction, stalled, delayed, and after the SCOTUS immunity ruling threw out the case entirely.
This bought Trump the time he needed to let the SCOTUS step in and give him his blank check to cancel all of his cases and start making plans to deploy Seal Team Six to assassinate his political opponents. All of the cases were then pronounced DOA, including the state criminal charges in Georgia and New York.
As a consequence of Garland's malfeasance and incompetence, we now have a Führer, not a President, coming in with list in hand of his targets for bloody retribution, a person with the mental map and personality disorders of the movie character Patrick Bateman from the bloody horror novel "American Psycho." And the worst thing is that some of us wanted to believe the same thing President Biden believed, that this collection of vengeance-seeking bloodthirsty fascists who belong to a violent cult led by a psychopath could be bargained with. Or, for that matter cared even a whit about the national interest, and were really just normal good people who would come around when we got some bills passed that would mean job security and putting money in the pockets of their voters.
It is beyond me that someone with Joe's battle-tested life experiences and history of political wars in the Senate and as VP could actually have believed this. He once told Putin to his face that he had no soul. Did he really think he could horse-trade with people who were bought or sold, or had their lives threatened? Did he really believe that Trump would honor his side of any deal that was made, if one was made? I believe in redemption, but I don't cry over Hallmark movie happy endings which I know to not be real,
The intention, in my view, was never to prosecute or jail Trump, despite Jack Smith's committment to do just that. It was to use the prosecutions as leverage to contain Trump and force him to eventually drop out of the campaign. And instead he turned around and did the exact opposite. And Biden went along with the deal and Garland's do-nothingism because his "Rasputin" Anita Dunn was in his ear telling him that if Trump went on trial he would lose the "moderate MAGA" vote and therefore the whole election, and our democracy along with it.
Biden never realized how tragic his error was until Garland went after his son, then after him personally on his decade old collection of useless memorabilia in his garage, and Garland's choice for Special Prosecutor, Republican hack prosecutor Robert Hur (approved of by Gym Jordan and James Comer) wrote a long report on how there was no crime, but Biden seemed senile. All this of course to prove himself fair and non-partisan when it came time to testify in Jordan's committee to grovel for budget crumbs and defend his turf. Joe never saw it coming, like a character in a Shakespeare tragedy.
That is my reading from the outside, fwiw. Like I said it is speculation. And the tragedy regardless is that Biden's awful pragmatic decision born of a 50 year long career of centrist dealmaking with Republicans came back to haunt him because Garland offered up his son Hunter as a sacrifice to the MAGA carnivores, hoping that would "balance things out" for his Trump cases, (which again, I believe he never wanted) and prove his department was apolitical in order to keep them out of his business running the DOJ. Well...how did that all work out?
That is what I believe actually happened. At some point I think more will come out that points toward this scenario as being likely.
So, one mystery solved, which is why Biden picked Garland. Another one still remains open, which is why did Trump leave the White House in 2021, a decision he has said he regretted all along. Whatever the case, we will pay the price for President Biden's unfortunate decisions reminiscent of Shakespeare's King Lear. He only found out at the tragic end who his real friends were, and who were his enemies, because he saw what he wanted to see and placed his trust in the wrong people at the worst possible time. He wanted to believe that McConnell and Lindsey Graham were still his friends and that they would work with him. He didn't want to see how they and others were broken by Trump.
Former President and President-elect Donald Trump is shown in a photo collage with columnist E. Jean Carroll, who won civil suits against him in New York City on claims of sexual battery and defamation.
New York Times, Trump Loses Appeal of Carroll’s $5 Million Award in Sex-Abuse Case, Lola Fadulu, Dec. 31, 2024 (print ed). The president-elect had asked a court to overturn the defamation judgment against him in the case, which centered on E. Jean Carroll’s account of a sexual attack in a dressing room.President-elect Donald J. Trump on Monday failed to overturn a $5 million judgment that he sexually abused the writer E. Jean Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s and later defamed her.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued to a federal appeals panel that a lower court in Manhattan had erred by allowing two women to testify in the Carroll trial that he had also sexually assaulted them. The lawyers also argued that the court should not have allowed Ms. Carroll’s lawyers to play the recording of the “Access Hollywood” conversation in which Mr. Trump bragged in vulgar terms about grabbing women by the genitals.
The appeals court rejected Mr. Trump’s request for a new trial in the case, which produced the smaller of two defamation judgments against him. “Mr. Trump has not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings,” the opinion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said. It was unsigned but issued by a three-judge panel made up of Denny Chin and Susan Carney — appointed by President Barack Obama — as well as Myrna Perez, appointed by President Biden.
“Both E. Jean Carroll and I are gratified by today’s decision,” Roberta Kaplan, Ms. Carroll’s lawyer, said in a statement. “We thank the Second Circuit for its careful consideration of the parties’ arguments.”
Steven Cheung, Mr. Trump’s chief campaign spokesman, who is set to be his White House communications director, said Mr. Trump was re-elected with an “overwhelming mandate,” and he said the American people “demand an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and a swift dismissal of all of the witch hunts, including the Democrat-funded Carroll hoax, which will continue to be appealed.”
Mr. Trump was represented in the appeal by D. John Sauer, his pick for U.S. solicitor general.
Huff Post, Investigation: Trump’s Jan. 6 Pardon Promise Would Put Police-Assaulters Back On The Streets, S.V. Date and Arthur Delaney, Dec. 27, 2024. A HuffPost analysis of Jan. 6 cases finds that 83% of those given a year or more in prison committed acts of violence.
Andrew Taake pepper-sprayed police officers defending the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and hit one with a metal whip. He is serving 74 months at a federal prison in Beaumont, Texas.
Christopher Alberts carried a loaded 9 mm pistol onto Capitol grounds that day and hit police officers with a wooden pallet. He is serving an 84-month sentence at the federal prison in Milan, Michigan.
Steven Cappuccio held his cellphone in his mouth so he could beat an officer using both of his hands, including with the officer’s own baton. He is doing 85 months at the federal prison in Forrest City, Arkansas.
All three will be back on the streets if Donald Trump, the man who incited them and some 2,000 others to attack the Capitol in the first place, follows through on his oft-repeated pledge to pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.
“LET THE JANUARY 6 PRISONERS GO. THEY WERE CONVICTED, OR ARE AWAITING TRIAL, BASED ON A GIANT LIE, A RADICAL LEFT CON JOB,” Trump wrote on social media on March 7, 2023.
“It will be my great honor to pardon the peaceful January 6 protesters, or as I often call them, the hostages,” Trump said in a speech this past May. “There has never been a group of people treated so harshly or unfairly in our country’s history.”
Trump’s claims that a large number of “peaceful” protesters are being held behind bars, however, is demonstrably false.
A HuffPost analysis of sentencing data shows that in the vast majority of cases, the people serving substantial prison time are those who committed violent crimes that day. And conversely, the vast majority of those prosecuted for nonviolent offenses either never went to jail in the first place or had such short sentences that they are already out.
Of those serving a year or more in prison, a full 57% are there following a conviction in cases involving an assault on a police officer. In all, 83% serving a year or more were convicted of committing an act of violence.
All of which means that, with few exceptions, the only people Trump could release from prison with his pardons are those who attacked a police officer, possessed weapons or explosives, or were convicted of some other violent felony.
“People who will be pardoned will be the violent ones. That’s who’s left to pardon. ... Those who went to jail were the most violent that day,” said Harry Dunn, a former Capitol police officer who was among the hundreds assaulted on Jan. 6.
In all, more than 140 members of the Capitol and the Washington, D.C., police departments were wounded by Trump’s followers that day. One died hours later and four others died by suicide over the coming months. Trump, though, has never acknowledged their injuries and deaths.
Trump’s aides, presented with HuffPost’s findings, would not address them directly, and instead referred to his comments to NBC News on the topic earlier this month in which he promised to start the pardon process on “Day 1,” would look at the cases individually but was inclined to pardon everyone except those who had acted “radical” or “crazy.”
But in that interview, Trump also provided indications that he was not particularly knowledgeable about the details of the prosecutions.
Trump, for example, said that Jan. 6 insurrectionists had been incarcerated “three or four years” in a “filthy, disgusting place that shouldn’t even be allowed to be open.”
In fact, it has not yet been four years since the Capitol assault, and the majority of the defendants were not arrested until many months later. And Trump’s “filthy, disgusting” description appears to refer to the District of Columbia jail, which at any given time has only held a couple of dozen defendants who are either awaiting trial or are about to be transferred to a federal prison after their conviction.
U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, left, a Florida Republican who was President-elect Trump's's first nominee to become U.S. Attorney General in a second Trump administration, is shown with Trump in a file photo via Facebook.
New York Times, Trump Transition Updates: Ethics Panel Report Accuses Gaetz of ‘Regularly’ Paying for Sex and Using Drugs, Luke Broadwater, Maggie Haberman and Robert Draper, Dec. 24, 2024 (print ed.). Former Representative Matt Gaetz has been under investigation over allegations including sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.
A report (here) by the House Ethics Committee accused former Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, of regularly paying for sex, using illegal drugs and having sexual relations with a 17-year-old girl. The report concluded that the actions by Mr. Gaetz — President-elect Donald J. Trump’s former pick for attorney general — violated state sexual misconduct laws, including Florida’s statutory rape law, and violated House rules. But the committee said it did not find conclusive evidence that he violated federal sex trafficking laws. Read more ›
President Biden commuted the sentences of nearly all prisoners on federal death row, sparing the lives of 37 men just a month before Mr. Trump returns to the Oval Office with a promise to restart federal executions. Only three men, who each carried out notorious mass killings, will remain on federal death row. Mr. Biden campaigned in 2020 on ending the federal death penalty, but legislation to that effect failed to advance in Congress during his administration.
An ethics panel report concluded that Gaetz violated state laws and House rules.
The House Ethics Committee accused former Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s former pick for attorney general, of regularly paying for sex, possessing illegal drugs and having sexual relations with an underage girl, according to a draft of the panel’s report.
The report, which was released on Monday, found that from at least 2017 to 2020, Mr. Gaetz “regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him”; and, in 2017, “engaged in sexual activity with a 17-year-old girl,” the report said.
U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), center, in a 2017 Facebook photo with friends and fellow ardent Trump supporters Roger Stone and Joel Greenberg, the latter a former Florida tax collector now imprisoned on multiple federal felony charges for sex trafficking, allegedly in part with Gaetz.
Politico, Gaetz report renews debate about how he escaped federal charges, Josh Gerstein, Betsy Woodruff Swan and Kyle Cheney, Dec. 24, 2024 (print ed.). The Justice Department applies federal sex-trafficking laws narrowly.
The House Ethics Committee report about former Rep. Matt Gaetz offers some hints about why the Justice Department decided not to prosecute the former Florida congressman after a wide-ranging federal investigation into whether he committed sex trafficking.
The decision likely stemmed from concerns about the strength of the evidence and the department’s history of applying sex-trafficking laws narrowly, former prosecutors said Monday.
The modern federal sex trafficking law is limited to cases involving coercion, fraud or the interstate or international movement of minors for sex. Despite its damning evidence of wide-ranging violations of law and House rules by Gaetz, the Ethics Committee report did not find those factors.
An older statute, known as the Mann Act, sweeps more broadly, but the Justice Department as a matter of discretion limits its application to particularly egregious acts of trafficking.Jeffries on Gaetz Report: 'Sunlight is the best disinfectant'
The most egregious allegation Gaetz faces is having sex with a 17-year-old. But the Ethics Committee report does not say that he transported or arranged for transport of the alleged victim across state lines — an important point because some connection to interstate commerce is required for it to become a federal sex-trafficking crime. The report also says the then-17-year-old told investigators she did not tell Gaetz her age at the time, and that he didn’t ask.
The report does bluntly accuse Gaetz of having violated Florida’s statutory rape law. But it concluded that a state prosecution is impossible at this point because he allegedly had sex with the 17-year-old in 2017, and the state’s statute of limitations has expired.
The report also found “substantial evidence” that Gaetz committed other illegal conduct, including hiring prostitutes and using illicit drugs. Some of that conduct was connected to interstate commerce — but federal prosecutors likely felt it did not rise to the level of what is typically prosecuted under the relevant federal statutes.
The Mann Act is traditionally reserved “for situations where there’s severe forms of trafficking and exploitation of the victims,” said Margaret Gandy, a former federal prosecutor.
Because Gaetz’ alleged interstate and international conduct involved women over 18 and there was no suggestion of violence or duress, DOJ may not have thought it was an appropriate Mann Act case to charge, Gandy said.
“When it is exploitative and abusive, when there’s obviously physical force, coercion, duress, all those things, that makes it easy,” Gandy said. “There’s more of a gray area sometimes around some more transactional sex with consenting adults that warrants that additional pause and consideration.”
Another former federal prosecutor, Robert Bittman, agreed that the department rarely brings sex-trafficking charges in cases of consensual sex between adults, even if money changed hands.
“It’s a crime, it’s a statute on the books that they can prosecute — but it’s not a high-priority thing,” he said. “It’s not something that’s often prosecuted, and really would only be prosecuted if there are significant, other aggravating factors.”
Federal prosecutors have also historically hesitated to bring cases that involve quid-pro-quos for sex that involve things other than an explicit payment.
The Justice Department concluded its investigation into Gaetz last year. A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.
However, a law enforcement official said all DOJ decisions about Gaetz were made by career prosecutors. The official, who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly, added that this has been the standard practice for the Public Integrity Section, which handles sensitive investigations into political figures.
An attorney for Gaetz did not respond to a request for comment, and Gaetz directed reporters seeking comment to his social media posts.
“There is a reason they did this to me in a Christmas Eve-Eve report and not in a courtroom of any kind where I could present evidence and challenge witnesses,” Gaetz wrote on X, contending that many of the claims in the report were inaccurate. He has repeatedly denied having sex with anyone under 18 and said money he transferred to women was to compensate girlfriends or ex-girlfriends for their travel.MOST READbiden-37249.jpg
New York Times, Trump’s Suit Over Iowa Poll Is His Latest Action Against News Media, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Maggie Haberman, David Enrich and Alan Feuer, Dec. 18, 2024 (print ed.). Donald J. Trump sued The Des Moines Register for running a poll before the election that showed him trailing Vice President Kamala Harris, escalating his threats to seek retribution against the mainstream media and his political enemies.
Lance's Substack, Political Commentary and Opinion: Why Biden must issue Sweeping Preemptive pardons For Trump Retribution Targets, Lance F. Rosen, right, Dec. 15, 2024. Kash Patel Is A Lunatic.
This MSNBC article by author and writer Jay Michaelson makes a strong case for Biden to carry out sweeping pre-emptive pardons to protect those targeted for revenge prosecutions by Trump and his incoming "Himmler," Kash Patel, left.
The counterarguments by legalists, MAGA fascists and several Biden-bashing liberal media pundits are fairly well refuted, and in fact shown to be bogus in each example.
Americans by and large are letting their fears affect their judgment, and are either blocking out the Trump/Patel threat to our constitutional system and targeted individuals, or have resigned themselves to it and are retreating into a psychological bunker mentality.
The only remedy is effective political action. Throwing junk memes up against your Facebook wall is no solution and represents a net negative as far as wasted time and energy.Facebook is part of the apparatus which will be deployed to identify us and pick us off, one by one. Be clear that this is a devolving Orwellian type of platform designed to neutralize Trump's political opposition.
I should not have to make this case. You all saw what Facebook did with their algorithm to spike most of the posts about Project 2025 when that became the leading issue in the campaign. And of course it was soon determined that the corporate figure who designed that algorithm in charge of so-called “community guidelines” was a Trump guy.
And now you have Zuckerberg crawling to Mar-a-Lago to kiss Trump's bone spurs, then funding his inaugural to the tune of 1 million, with who knows what other kinds of backroom deals were struck to keep Trump off his back. Same with Bezos.
My days here are numbered. You also saw this week that my page was hijacked and I lost all but a handful of my 1400 readers. My wife posted a notice on my timeline to notify everyone that I have a new page, and how to find it. That message was removed, either by Facebook or the hijacker.
So this place is a dead end for those resisting the regime. That is where we are. I'm taking steps this weekend to backup and safeguard my Substack archive of a 1000 articles going back six years. Others who are writers and posters should consider taking similar steps to preserve their data.
Don't block on this, we are headed into dark territory.
Trump Legal Cases, Strategies, Allies
Legal Schnauzer, New York Times reports that Judge Aileen Cannon plans to make another pro-Trump ruling, but experts say she likely lacks jurisdiction to make such a move, Roger Shuler, Jan. 7, 2025. The New York Times reported this morning that U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, of Florida, intended to issue an order that would temporarily block Special Counsel Jack Smith from releasing his report on the criminal investigation of President-Elect Donald Trump.
The order would be in line with Cannon's history of making dubious rulings that favor Trump, the president who nominated her for the federal bench. By this afternoon, legal experts were stating that Cannon probably does not have authority to make such a ruling, according to a report at Raw Story (RS) under the headline "'No basis': Experts believe Aileen Cannon may not have power to block Jack Smith report." RS's Brad Reed writes:
MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin on Tuesday (1/7/25) questioned whether Judge Aileen Cannon has the authority to block the United States Department of Justice from releasing special counsel Jack Smith's report on his two criminal investigations into President-elect Donald Trump.
"It is not clear... whether she has jurisdiction because earlier this year, she threw out the Mar-a-Lago documents case explaining that, from her reasoning, Jack Smith did not have constitutional authority to bring that prosecution under the appointments clause of the Constitution," Rubin said.
"And so there is no basis here to block the report in part because it is not clear there is a case or controversy in front of her, but if there were, the argument that Trump is making -- that presidential immunity also precludes the release of the report -- is a stretch of the Supreme Court's ruling that a president cannot be prosecuted for acts having to do with his presidency while he is a sitting president."
Rubin was not the only expert to take issue with Cannon's plans. Reed reports:
Legal analyst Barbara McQuade, meanwhile, speculated that Cannon's move was simply to help Trump run out the clock until his inauguration on January 20th.
"I don't think she has any jurisdiction, but delay is the name of the game," she said. "If they can stop the clock until January 20th. then the Department of Justice will be a Trump appointee, and they will kill the whole thing. That's the goal here."
The Hartmann Report, Commentary: Weiner went to prison but Gaetz won’t? Thom Hartmann, Dec. 28, 2024. Remember when Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner, right, served 18 months in prison for texting a dick pic to an underage girl he never met or touched or paid or anything else?
Now comes Matt Gaetz and, according to a new report from the House Ethics Committee, the Republican Congressman actually paid an underage girl for sex that he then had with her in such a public part of a party house that multiple people witnessed it.
Will Gaetz similarly go to prison? Don’t count on it; Republicans are generally immune from prosecution for such crimes, particularly when their fathers are major and morbidly rich Republican movers-and-shakers and Trump is trying to pack his administration with accused rapists and predators…
Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: WHOA! DOJ Drops BOMBSHELL FILING in Trump Case, Michael Popok, Dec. 31, 2024. Dec 31, 2024 Special Counsel Jack Smith and President Biden just gave Trump a New Year’s surprise, handing off the Mar a Lago appeal to the main Miami federal prosecutor, rather than dismiss it, in hopes that the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals rules against Judge Cannon and her ruling that the Special Counsel is unconstitutional before the inauguration. reports.
New York Times, Guest Essay: What Judges Can Do for the Rule of Law Under Trump, Nancy Gertner, right,and Joel Cohen (Ms. Gertner is a retired federal judge. Mr. Cohen is a former federal prosecutor), Dec. 27, 2024 (print ed.).
President-elect Trump recently threatened to lock up political foes, like Liz Cheney, as well as members of Congress who investigated his role in the Jan. 6 attack. “For what they did,” he said, “honestly, they should go to jail.”
On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump said repeatedly that he would encourage the Justice Department and the F.B.I. to go after his enemies. His picks for attorney general (Pam Bondi) and F.B.I. director (Kash Patel) have echoed these remarks. Mr. Patel even compiled an enemies list, which includes Christopher Wray and retired Gen. Mark Milley.
This impulse could reach beyond leadership and may well trickle down in significant part to the 94 federal district courts around the nation. Each United States attorney will have been appointed by Mr. Trump and will be subject to his whim — meaning their potential firing if he does not approve of their performance.
If these confirmed public servants can’t stand up to the pressure from above to serve not an individual person but justice as a principle, who will? It will have to be the judges.
Judges simply can’t be blind to what Mr. Trump, Ms. Bondi and Mr. Patel have said. They can’t ignore their words if the Justice Department under Mr. Trump or the F.B.I. goes after those on an enemies list who have committed no crime beyond opposing the president-elect.Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
Suppose a federal district judge is asked to sign off on an eavesdropping warrant under Title III of the federal criminal law. He or she will receive one-sided (“ex parte”) submissions from prosecutors applying for search warrants (for a physical search or a wiretap), an application that the target’s attorney will not know about nor have the ability to contest.
In previous administrations, federal trial judges have had generally well-founded confidence that the Justice Department and the post-Hoover F.B.I., under presidents from either party, have not been employed to attack political enemies. Most district judges — especially those who have served as federal prosecutors, as most have — believe that the prosecutors appearing before them act with integrity, that their offices are not being manipulated to undermine those who challenged the current administration or its leader.
A judge could assume that the warrant has gone through layers of approval within the Justice Department, even reaching the assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division, an extremely high ranking official in the department. That judge could also be reasonably confident that very little, if anything, would be amiss after passing through the layers of the approval process, including senior department officials.
But with the astonishing comments from the president-elect and his appointments, it is reasonable to ask if judges can still assume that level of confidence in the review process. The previous assumption that prosecutions would be undertaken only against individuals suspected of committing crimes may be wrong.Editors’ PicksLin-Manuel Miranda on ‘Mufasa’ and the Secret to a Disney HitThe Trinidadian Christmas Staple Worth the Yearlong WaitHow ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ (and Its Writer) Went Down in History
Now, when judges are asked to review warrant applications, or any other ex parte submissions from the government, they should do so through a different lens, much more scrupulously than ever before.
Or consider a motion to dismiss an indictment based on selective prosecution. In the usual case, prosecutors are given broad discretion, so long as there is probable cause to believe a crime has been committed and the prosecution does not run afoul of constitutional protections.
A selective prosecution motion alleges that criminal charges were brought for reasons forbidden by the Constitution. The defendant must prove that he was singled out for prosecution when those similarly situated were not and that the prosecution was based on an impermissible reason, such as race, religion or political affiliation.
Since courts presume that the government undertakes a prosecution in good faith, the defendant’s burden of proof is typically quite heavy. The motion rarely succeeds — for example, Hunter Biden’s motion to dismiss his gun case on selective prosecution grounds failed.
But what if, in Mr. Trump’s second term, the object of the prosecution is on Mr. Patel’s list, or is expressly targeted in a Trump speech? Judges should obviously not assume that prosecutors in the Trump administration are always acting in bad faith. But they should consider accusations of selective prosecution differently than they have in the past.
If a defendant in a political case raises legitimate concerns about the integrity of a case in Mr. Trump’s second term, federal judges can’t bury their heads in the sand and ignore the attorney general’s clear intentions or those of the proposed F.B.I. director.
When these individuals announce that political affiliation will influence their prosecution decisions, judges should believe them — and act accordingly.
Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge, teaches law, neuroscience and sentencing at Harvard Law School and is the author of “In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate” and the forthcoming “Incomplete Sentences.” Joel Cohen, a former federal prosecutor, is a senior counsel at Petrillo Klein & Boxer and the author of “Blindfolds Off: Judges on How They Decide.”
Politico Magazine, Trumpian Revenge, Campus Revolts and the Collapse of a Presidency: 24 Stories That Explain a Chaotic Year, Staff Report, Dec. 25, 2024. It has been a year of unprecedented headlines — even for an election year.
The conviction of Donald Trump. An assassination attempt just weeks later. An abrupt end to Joe Biden’s candidacy, followed by the rise and fall of Kamala Harris. It was a historically chaotic and consequential year on the campaign trail, and beyond. America saw intense protests on campus colleges over the Israel-Hamas war, a rising gender divide among the youth and the kind of widening polarization that can even fracture families.
It might have been too many events to fully process in one year, so POLITICO Magazine has you covered. Check out these 24 stories — many of them our top reads of the year — that will help you understand what just happened and what’s to come under Trump 2.0.
New York Times, Devin Nunes, Pugnacious Trump Loyalist, to Lead Espionage Advisory Board, Charlie Savage, Dec. 15, 2024 (print ed.). As chair of the House Intelligence Committee (shown above), he attacked the Russia inquiry and Donald J. Trump’s first impeachment. Now, Mr. Nunes runs Mr. Trump’s social media company.
President-elect Donald J. Trump announced on Saturday that he would appoint Devin Nunes, a former member of Congresswho had used his role as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee to try to delegitimize the Trump-Russia investigation, to head an independent advisory board on espionage policy.
The organization — the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board — dates back to the early Cold War and consists of private citizens with top-level security clearances who are supposed to help the White House analyze spy agency effectiveness and planning. Its members do not need Senate confirmation, so presidents can pick whomever they want for it.
In a statement, Mr. Trump praised Mr. Nunes — who is currently the chief executive of the Trump Media & Technology Group, which runs the Truth Social platform — for his counterinvestigation into the Trump-Russia inquiry in 2017-18, when Mr. Nunes led the House Intelligence Committee as a Republican congressman from California.
“While continuing his leadership of Trump Media & Technology Group, Devin will draw on his experience as former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and his key role in exposing the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, to provide me with independent assessments of the effectiveness and propriety of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s activities,” Mr. Trump wrote in his announcement.
New York Times, Trump Names Richard Grenell for ‘Special Missions’ Role, Elizabeth Williamson, Dec. 15, 2024 (print ed.). A combative loyalist and the president-elect’s former ambassador to Germany, Mr. Grenell had hoped to be secretary of state.
President-elect Donald J. Trump named Richard Grenell, his former ambassador to Germany and former acting director of national intelligence, as his “envoy for special missions,” Mr. Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Saturday.
A loyalist known for unbridled social media attacks on Mr. Trump’s perceived critics and many others, Mr. Grenell led a shambolic effort to challenge the 2020 election results in Nevada after Mr. Trump’s loss, and he has lobbied assiduously for a diplomatic job in the new administration.
He got his start in government before Mr. Trump’s rise, as a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations under multiple presidents. But his online toxicity, foreign business contacts and tendency toward biting personal attacks on political opponents and the media turned off many centrist conservatives, helping propel him toward Mr. Trump, a man he denounced in 2016 as “dangerous.”
“Ric will continue to fight for Peace through Strength, and always put AMERICA FIRST,” Mr. Trump wrote in his announcement.
Mr. Grenell did not immediately reply to a texted question about his priorities for the role, which does not currently exist. Mr. Trump outlined it as: “Ric will work in some of the hottest spots around the World, including Venezuela and North Korea.”
The role is a far cry from secretary of state, the job Mr. Grenell coveted, but to which Mr. Trump plans to appoint Senator Marco Rubio, the Republican from Florida. Being named for a lower-profile White House envoy job could help Mr. Grenell avoid persistent questions about his paid work for foreign clients, including luxury hotel development projects he has pursued in the Balkans with Jared Kushner, the president-elect’s son-in-law.
During the first Trump administration, Mr. Grenell was ambassador to Germany. His abrasiveness and partisanship alarmed diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic, particularly after he told Breitbart London that he planned to “empower” German conservatives opposing “the failed policies of the left.”
In 2020, Mr. Trump named Mr. Grenell to temporarily replace the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, whom Mr. Trump had fired.
New York Times, An Epidemic of Vicious School Brawls, Fueled by Student Cellphones, Natasha Singer (Natasha Singer reported from Revere, Mass., and reviewed more than 400 student fight videos from schools in 15 states), Dec. 15, 2024. Cafeteria melees. Students kicked in the head. Injured educators. Technology is stoking cycles of violence in schools.
Ricardo Martinez, an 11th grader, was in his high school lunchroom in April when a mass brawl erupted.
He watched, horrified, as a dozen teenage boys rampaged through the cafeteria, pummeling and kicking one another, overturning tables and chairs. Other students jeered and jostled to film the fight on their phones.
“It was like a stampede of videos,” said Mr. Martinez, now 18 and a senior. “Everyone was trying to get the best angle.”
But the pandemonium at Revere High School in Revere, Mass., was just beginning.
Within minutes, students in other parts of the building began receiving text messages about the lunchroom brawl. Suddenly, teachers said, dozens of riled-up teenagers started racing down hallways and careening down stairways with their phones to get to the fight.
Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, left, and former President Donald Trump, shown in a collage via CNN.
Washington Post, Special counsel Jack Smith moves to dismiss Trump’s D.C. prosecution, Perry Stein and Spencer S. Hsu, Nov. 26, 2024 (print ed.). The special counsel filed a motion to dismiss Donald Trump’s election-obstruction case without prejudice, which means the case could be revived in the future.
Special counsel Jack Smith asked U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan on Monday to dismiss the federal election interference charges against President-elect Donald Trump, putting an end to a lengthy investigation that never made it to trial.Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what's true, false or in-between in politics.
Smith’s motion seeks to dismiss the case without prejudice, acknowledging that Justice Department policy prohibits prosecuting a sitting president. If she does that, it leaves open the possibility that prosecutors could again bring charges once Trump leaves office after his second White House term.
But legal experts said it’s possible that once Trump is in office, he could try to do something that has never been tested before: pardon himself to foreclose the possibility of legal jeopardy in the future.
Trump faces four counts related to conspiring to obstruct the 2020 election results. Smith’s filing acknowledges that the Justice Department has longed believed a sitting president cannot stand trial, and says prosecutors conferred with Trump’s attorneys and that they did not oppose the request to dismiss the case.
Former President Donald J. Trump, in a blue suit, sits with his attorneys shortly before arraignment in New York City's state court on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records related to the 2016 presidential campaign season, reportedly involving in part hush money to women ((Associated Press photo by Seth Wong). Below, the presiding judge in the case was Juan Merchon, below left.
New York Times, Judge Denies Trump’s Bid to Throw Out Conviction Over Immunity Ruling, Ben Protess and Kate Christobek, Dec. 16, 2024. Justice Juan Merchan thwarted one of several attempts by President-elect Trump to clear his record of 34 felonies before returning to the White House.
Relevant Recent Headlines
Deadline, Donald Trump, On ‘Meet The Press,’ Again Pledges To Pardon January 6th Rioters, Says Liz Cheney And Other Committee Members “Should Go To Jail
Public Health, RFK Jr., Healthcare CEO's Murder
New York Times, U.S. Surgeon General Calls for Cancer Warnings on Alcohol, Roni Caryn Rabin, Jan. 3, 2025. Dr. Vivek Murthy’s report cites studies linking alcoholic beverages to malignancies, including breast cancer. But to label them, Congress would have to act.
Alcohol is a leading preventable cause of cancer, and alcoholic beverages should carry a warning label as packs of cigarettes do, the U.S. surgeon general, above, said on Friday.
It is the latest salvo in a fierce debate about the risks and benefits of moderate drinking as the influential U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans are about to be updated. For decades, moderate drinking was said to help prevent heart attacks and strokes.
That perception has been embedded in the dietary advice given to Americans. But growing research has linked drinking, sometimes even within the recommended limits, to various types of cancer.
Labels currently affixed to bottles and cans of alcoholic beverages warn about drinking while pregnant or before driving and operating other machinery, and about general “health risks.”
But alcohol directly contributes to 100,000 cancer cases and 20,000 related deaths each year, the surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, said.
He called for updating the labels to include a heightened risk of breast cancer, colon cancer and at least five other malignancies now linked by scientific studies to alcohol consumption.
“Many people out there assume that as long as they’re drinking at the limits or below the limits of current guidelines of one a day for women and two for men, that there is no risk to their health or well-being,” Dr. Murthy said in an interview.
“The data does not bear that out for cancer risk.”
Only Congress can mandate new warning labels of the sort Dr. Murthy recommended, and it’s not clear that the incoming administration would support the change.
Still, President-elect Donald J. Trump does not drink, and his choice to head the Health and Human Services Department, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., swore off alcohol and drugs decades ago, and says he regularly attends AA meetings.
Excerpt Continued From Above.
There is no question that heavy consumption is harmful. But supporters of moderate drinking — including makers of wine, beer and spirits, and some physicians and scientists — argue that a little alcohol each day may reduce cardiovascular disease, the No. 1 killer in the United States.
Newer scientific studies have criticized the methodology of earlier studies, however, and have challenged that view, which was once a consensus.
While most cancer deaths occur at drinking levels that exceed the current recommended dietary guidelines, the risk for cancers of the breast, the mouth and the throat may rise with consumption of as little as one drink a day, or even less, Dr. Murthy said on Friday.
Overall, one of every six breast cancer cases is attributable to alcohol consumption, Dr. Murthy said. More recent studies have also linked moderate alcohol consumption to certain forms of heart disease, including atrial fibrillation, a heart arrhythmia.
Two scientific reviews will be used to inform the updated recommendations about alcohol consumption in the federal dietary guidelines.
Five years ago, the scientific report that informed the writing of the 2020-2025 dietary guidelines acknowledged that alcohol is a carcinogen and generally unhealthy and suggested “tightening guidelines” by capping the recommendation for men at one standard drink, or 14 grams of alcohol a day.
When the final guidelines were drafted, however, there was no change in the advice that moderate drinking of up to two drinks a day for men was acceptable.
President-elect Donald Trump with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump's nominee to become U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (Photo via Getty Images).
Washington Post, Democrats’ new push to stop RFK Jr.: Highlight Samoa’s measles outbreak, Dan Diamond, Jan. 8, 2025 (print ed.). They say the island’s public health crisis, which followed Kennedy’s meeting with local anti-vaccine activists, reveals the consequences of questioning vaccines.
In June 2019, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. traveled to the small Pacific island nation of Samoa, where he met with activists calling for Samoans to skip measles vaccines and opt for alternatives instead. Now that visit — and the country’s subsequent measles outbreak — are receiving new political attention, as Democrats and advocates seek to block Kennedy’s confirmation as America’s top health official.
Five months after Kennedy’s visit, Samoa declared a measles emergency, with leaders warning that vaccination levels had declined precipitously. Thousands of Samoans were infected during the outbreak, and 83 people died of the vaccine-preventable disease — an episode that Democrats say could foreshadow a future American crisis, should Kennedy be elevated to a Cabinet position and sow doubts about vaccines here. Most of Samoa’s measles deaths were in young children.
“It’s a real-life example of what this individual will [do] as the nation’s leading health-care official,” said Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (D), a physician who responded to Samoa’s outbreak five years ago and said he witnessed the deaths of measles-afflicted infants. Green traveled to Capitol Hill this week in a bid to sway senators by sharing his story, part of a larger effort by advocates to scuttle Kennedy’s selection as secretary of health and human services by focusing on the Samoan crisis.
New York Times, Research Finds Vaccines Are Not Behind the Rise in Autism. So What Is? Emily Baumgaertner, Dec. 24, 2024 (print ed.). There is no one factor that causes autism — or explains its growing prevalence. Researchers are seeking explanations for the surge. Here are some possibilities.
The Bulwark, Political Opinion: Preferring Not to See, Andrew Egger, Dec. 19, 2024. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hasn’t exactly hidden his anti-vaccine views over the years, as hundreds of hours of video footage, numerous books, and many documentaries show. And yet, on the cusp of being considered for the top health post in the country, Senate Republicans are suggesting they’re reassured Kennedy has moderated his views based on their brief, one-on-one conversations.
“I think he’s done a good job of answering a lot of the questions about his views on vaccines,” incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told CNN after meeting with Kennedy this week. “I think he understands the values and benefit that vaccines play and have played through the years preventing disease.”
We don’t know exactly what Thune and Kennedy discussed. (Neither party opted to fill me in, although I did ask.) But come on!
Kennedy may well have denied—as he has in public for years—that he is truly “anti-vaccine.” Like many other anti-vaxxers, Kennedy prefers to be thought of as a stickler for vaccine safety.
But one would have to be deliberately obtuse or willingly naïve to think that Kennedy has suddenly seen the light about the benefits of vaccines. He has spent years arguing that the vaccines currently on the market are harming more people than they help. And he’s actively campaigning against their continued use, pending a brand-new regimen of placebo-controlled testing.
In one interview, Kennedy made the case against the measles vaccine by noting what a great time he had when he and his siblings caught the disease, which can have gruesome complications including brain swelling (you don’t say?), gastrointestinal issues and fever, sepsis, and septicemia.
“My 11 brothers and sisters, we all had measles and it was a great week” he said, describing the cure for measles as “chicken soup and vitamin A.”
He has declared that “the polio vaccine does not work” and argued that it in fact could be responsible for a wave of cancers “that killed many, many, many, many, many more people than polio ever did.”
In 2021, he told podcaster Alec Zeck that he tries to actively convince people not to get their kids vaccinated. “I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and I say to him, ‘Better not to get him vaccinated.’”
Last year, he went further while speaking to podcaster Lex Fridman: “There is no vaccine that is safe and effective.”
A few months later, in a CNN appearance, he tried to clean those comments up:
"What I meant—which was a bad use of words in this—none of the vaccines that are currently on the mandated schedule for children, the 72 vaccines for children, have ever been tested in a pre-licensing safety study. What that means is that we do not know what the risk profile is for those products."
When Kennedy argues that he just wants to “test” vaccines—or when Donald Trump says, as he did last weekend, that “there are problems” surrounding pediatric vaccination and “we’re going to find out what those problems are”—what he is saying is actually quite drastic.
The Bulwark, Political Opinion: Never Trumpers Were Right, Actually, Jonathan V. Last, right, Dec. 18, 2024. A response to Bret Stephens. Plus drone talk from the front lines.
Bret Stephens has a column today in which he renounces his Never Trump patrimony and castigates Trump critics for being overheated and wrong about so many things.
You should read his piece to get the full breadth of his argument. But I’ll give you a taste:
Never Trumpers also overstated our case and, in doing so, defeated our purpose. We warned that Trump would be a reckless president who might stumble into World War III. If anything, his foreign policy in his first term was, in practice, often cautious to a fault. We hyperventilated about his odd chumminess with Vladimir Putin. But the collusion allegations were a smear, and Trump’s Russia policy — whether it was his opposition to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline or his covert aid to Ukraine — was much tougher than either Barack Obama’s or (at least until Russia invaded Ukraine) President Biden’s.
New York Times, Suspect in C.E.O.’s Killing Withdrew From a Life of Privilege and Promise, Corey Kilgannon, Mike Baker, Luke Broadwater and Shawn Hubler, Dec. 10, 2024 (print ed.). Luigi Mangione, above, charged in the death of an executive in New York, was an Ivy League graduate who had recently suffered physical and psychological pain.
Luigi Mangione, the online version of him, was an Ivy League tech enthusiast who flaunted his tanned, chiseled looks in beach photos and party pictures with blue-blazered frat buddies.
He was the valedictorian of a prestigious Baltimore prep school who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Pennsylvania and served as a head counselor at a pre-college program at Stanford University.
With his credentials and connections, he could have ended up one day as an entrepreneur or the chief executive of one of his family’s thriving businesses. Instead, investigators suspect, he took a different path.
The police now believe that Mr. Mangione, 26, is the masked gunman who calmly took out a pistol equipped with a suppressor on a Midtown Manhattan street last week and assassinated Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare. He was arrested in Altoona, Pa., on Monday after an employee at a McDonald’s recognized him and called the police. Officers said they found him with fake identification, a weapon similar to the one seen in video of the killing and a manifesto decrying the health care industry.
Later on Monday, Mr. Mangione was charged in Manhattan with murder, along with additional counts of forgery and illegal weapons possession. And in the hours after his apprehension, his baffling journey from star student to murder suspect began to come into focus.
Washington Post, Person of interest in UnitedHealthcare shooting arrested in Pa., police say, Mark Berman and Shayna Jacobs, Dec. 10, 2024 (print ed.). Luigi Mangione faces gun charges and other counts. He was denied bail after his arraignment in Altoona, Pa.police commissioner, said at a news briefing.
Thompson, 50, right, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, was shot and killed Wednesday outside a Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan, a stunning act of early-morning violence in one of New York’s busiest areas.
Police said it appeared that the suspect they were seeking escaped the city shortly after the shooting. Law enforcement officials said they were scouring reams of video footage and tips, but they pleaded with the public for more help, sharing several images of a person they said was wanted in connection with the killing.
ABC News, What we know about Luigi Mangione, Ivy League grad and suspect in CEO's murder, Aaron Katersky, Mark Crudele, Josh Margolin, and Meredith Deliso, Dec. 9, 2024. Mangione, above, was located in Pennsylvania nearly a week after Brian Thompson's death.
Salon, Alleged UnitedHealthcare assassin praised Elon Musk for battle against “woke mind virus," Russell Payne, Dec, 9, 2024. Not so fast, what kind of "anti-capitalist" is praising Elon Musk and retweeting Peter Thiel?
On Monday afternoon, police announced that they had arrested a person of interest in the investigation into the killing of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson, who was shot outside his hotel in midtown Manhattan last week.
According to police, Luigi Mangione was arrested around 9:15 a.m. in Altoona, Pennsylvania with a ghost gun and suppressor that New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said was “consistent with the weapon used in the murder.”
Recent Relevant Headlines
New York Times, Suspect in C.E.O.’s Killing Withdrew From a Life of Privilege and PromiseABC News, What we know about Luigi Mangione, Ivy League grad and suspect in CEO's murder,
More On Presidential Pardons
Huff Post, Investigation: Trump’s Jan. 6 Pardon Promise Would Put Police-Assaulters Back On The Streets, S.V. Date and Arthur Delaney, Dec. 27, 2024. A HuffPost analysis of Jan. 6 cases finds that 83% of those given a year or more in prison committed acts of violence.
Andrew Taake pepper-sprayed police officers defending the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and hit one with a metal whip. He is serving 74 months at a federal prison in Beaumont, Texas.
Christopher Alberts carried a loaded 9 mm pistol onto Capitol grounds that day and hit police officers with a wooden pallet. He is serving an 84-month sentence at the federal prison in Milan, Michigan.
Steven Cappuccio held his cellphone in his mouth so he could beat an officer using both of his hands, including with the officer’s own baton. He is doing 85 months at the federal prison in Forrest City, Arkansas.
All three will be back on the streets if Donald Trump, the man who incited them and some 2,000 others to attack the Capitol in the first place, follows through on his oft-repeated pledge to pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.
“LET THE JANUARY 6 PRISONERS GO. THEY WERE CONVICTED, OR ARE AWAITING TRIAL, BASED ON A GIANT LIE, A RADICAL LEFT CON JOB,” Trump wrote on social media on March 7, 2023.
“It will be my great honor to pardon the peaceful January 6 protesters, or as I often call them, the hostages,” Trump said in a speech this past May. “There has never been a group of people treated so harshly or unfairly in our country’s history.”
Trump’s claims that a large number of “peaceful” protesters are being held behind bars, however, is demonstrably false.
A HuffPost analysis of sentencing data shows that in the vast majority of cases, the people serving substantial prison time are those who committed violent crimes that day. And conversely, the vast majority of those prosecuted for nonviolent offenses either never went to jail in the first place or had such short sentences that they are already out.
Of those serving a year or more in prison, a full 57% are there following a conviction in cases involving an assault on a police officer. In all, 83% serving a year or more were convicted of committing an act of violence.
All of which means that, with few exceptions, the only people Trump could release from prison with his pardons are those who attacked a police officer, possessed weapons or explosives, or were convicted of some other violent felony.
“People who will be pardoned will be the violent ones. That’s who’s left to pardon. ... Those who went to jail were the most violent that day,” said Harry Dunn, a former Capitol police officer who was among the hundreds assaulted on Jan. 6.
In all, more than 140 members of the Capitol and the Washington, D.C., police departments were wounded by Trump’s followers that day. One died hours later and four others died by suicide over the coming months. Trump, though, has never acknowledged their injuries and deaths.
Trump’s aides, presented with HuffPost’s findings, would not address them directly, and instead referred to his comments to NBC News on the topic earlier this month in which he promised to start the pardon process on “Day 1,” would look at the cases individually but was inclined to pardon everyone except those who had acted “radical” or “crazy.”
But in that interview, Trump also provided indications that he was not particularly knowledgeable about the details of the prosecutions.
Trump, for example, said that Jan. 6 insurrectionists had been incarcerated “three or four years” in a “filthy, disgusting place that shouldn’t even be allowed to be open.”
In fact, it has not yet been four years since the Capitol assault, and the majority of the defendants were not arrested until many months later. And Trump’s “filthy, disgusting” description appears to refer to the District of Columbia jail, which at any given time has only held a couple of dozen defendants who are either awaiting trial or are about to be transferred to a federal prison after their conviction.
Trump in that interview also repeated favorite right-wing conspiracy theories about Jan. 6 ― that “Antifa” was behind the violence and that a man named Ray Epps actually instigated the attack.
What’s more, Trump said his pardons would also extend to those who actually pleaded guilty to assaulting officers because, in his view, the justice system is “corrupt,” and the accused were coerced into taking pleas. “Because they had no choice,” he said.
Further, the “radical” and “crazy” qualifiers for those who might not get pardons conflicts with dozens of statements at his rallies over the past three years in which he has promised to pardon all the Jan. 6 defendants.
Relevant Recent Headlines
Emptywheel, Analysis: Judge Mark Scarsi’s Umbrage: Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler)
Middle East Wars, Reactions
New York Times, In Damascus, Syrians Reclaim Freedoms Off Limits Under Bashar al-Assad, Raja Abdulrahim, Photographs by Laura Boushnak, Jan. 5, 2025. Residents of Syria’s capital are picnicking on a once-forbidden mountaintop and trading dollars and imported Nescafe. They say the city seems theirs again.
Across Damascus, as in much of the country, Syrians are reclaiming, and in some cases embracing anew, spaces and freedoms that had been off limits for years under the Assad regime. There were places ordinary Syrians were not allowed to go and things that they were not permitted to say when the Assad family was in power. The country, many said, increasingly felt as if it did not belong to them.
But with the newfound sense of freedom comes some trepidation about the future under a government formed by Islamist rebels, and whether with time it might institute new restrictions and limitations.
Many Syrians are watching each decision and announcement as a harbinger of how their new rulers may govern. Last week, Syria’s de facto new leader, Ahmed al-Shara, said it could take two to three years to draft a new Constitution and up to four years to hold elections, alarming Syrians who fear they may have traded one authoritarian leader for another.New York Times, Saudi Arabia and U.A.E. Tread Cautiously With Syria’s New Leaderssing money from the drivers who contribute to it. The plan will help generate $15 billion for crucial upgrades to the region’s mass transit system.
New York Times, As Hopes Rise for Gaza Cease-Fire, Conditions There Have Only Worsened, Aryn Baker and Abu Bakr Bashir, Dec. 28, 2024. Israel says that it tries to limit the loss of civilian life. But the dire humanitarian situation has prompted condemnation from human rights organizations.
Even as mediators try to secure a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas, Palestinians and human rights organizations say the humanitarian situation is getting more desperate.
In the 14 months since Israel launched its invasion of Gaza in response to the Hamas-led terror attack on Israel, military bombardments have turned cities into rubble-filled wastelands and 90 percent of the population of about 2.1 million has been displaced at least once. Winter is adding to the misery. A doctor at a hospital in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, said that four infants in tent encampments had died from the cold in the past week.
Israel says that its target is Hamas and that it does everything possible to limit the loss of civilian life. But the increasingly dire humanitarian situation has prompted a particularly scathing chorus of condemnation from the United Nations and international human rights organizations.
Here is a closer look at three parts of Gaza’s humanitarian crisis.
Washington Post, U.S. amplifies strikes on Yemen’s Houthis as tensions with Israel flare, Missy Ryan, Jan. 1, 2024 (print ed.). The latest round of strikes occurred as the United States and its ally Israel struggle to halt a campaign of regional assaults by the Iranian-backed militant group.
The Biden administration directed new airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen on Tuesday, as the United States and its ally Israel struggle to halt a campaign of regional assaults by the Iranian-backed militant group.Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what's true, false or in-between in politics.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, said the attacks struck targets in coastal Yemen and the capital, Sanaa, including a command node and facilities used for manufacturing and storing weapons. The operations, which also included strikes on Monday, destroyed radar positions and one-way aerial drones, Centcom said in a statement.
Video provided by Centcom showed aircraft taking off from the USS Harry S. Truman, an aircraft carrier positioned in the Red Sea.
The strikes mark the latest salvo in a year-long U.S.-led campaign aimed at halting ongoing attacks by the Houthis, a militant group that functions as the de facto government in much of Yemen, on commercial ships and military vessels in nearby waters. The Houthis’ campaign has impaired global shipping and taken a major toll on U.S. allies reliant on related revenue.
New York Times, Investigation: Israel Loosened Its Rules to Bomb Hamas Fighters, Killing Many More Civilians, Patrick Kingsley, Natan Odenheimer, Bilal Shbair, Ronen Bergman, John Ismay, Sheera Frenkel and Adam Sella (The reporters interviewed more than 100 soldiers and officials in Israel, dozens of victims of the strikes in Gaza, and experts on the rules of armed conflict), Dec. 27, 2024 (print ed.).
Fearful of another Oct. 7-style attack, Israel weakened safeguards meant to protect noncombatants. One of the deadliest attacks of the 21st century followed.
At exactly 1 p.m. on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel’s military leadership issued an order that unleashed one of the most intense bombing campaigns in contemporary warfare.
Effective immediately, the order granted mid-ranking Israeli officers the authority to strike thousands of militants and military sites that had never been a priority in previous wars in Gaza. Officers could now pursue not only the senior Hamas commanders, arms depots and rocket launchers that were the focus of earlier campaigns, but also the lowest-ranking fighters.
In each strike, the order said, officers had the authority to risk killing up to 20 civilians.
The order, which has not previously been reported, had no precedent in Israeli military history. Mid-ranking officers had never been given so much leeway to attack so many targets, many of which had lower military significance, at such a high potential civilian cost.
It meant, for example, that the military could target rank-and-file militants as they were at home surrounded by relatives and neighbors, instead of only when they were alone outside.
In previous conflicts with Hamas, many Israeli strikes were approved only after officers concluded that no civilians would be hurt. Sometimes, officers could risk killing up to five civilians and only rarely did the limit rise to 10 or above, though the actual death toll was sometimes much higher.
On Oct. 7, the military leadership changed its rules of engagement because it believed that Israel faced an existential threat, according to a senior military officer who answered questions about the order on the condition of anonymity.
New York Times, Here Are 8 Ways Israel Weakened Civilian Protections, Samuel Granados, Patrick Kingsley and Natan Odenheimer, Dec. 26, 2024. Here are some of the main takeaways from the investigation.The Israeli military said its air force had struck a vehicle overnight in Nuseirat with a “terrorist cell” from the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad inside. Reports about journalists being targeted were “fake claims,” Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said on social media.
The media office of Gaza’s Hamas-run government said five journalists from Al Quds Today, a Palestinian television channel, were killed in an Israeli strike on their broadcast vehicle. The channel has regularly featured Islamic Jihad leaders and promoted the group’s ideology.
The office said this brought the number of journalists killed in Gaza to 201 since the start of the war in October last year.
The vehicle, bearing the word “Press” in red letters, was hit near the gates of Al Awda Hospital, according to a post on social media from Quds News Network, another Palestinian news outlet. The Israeli military has previously said that it has never deliberately targeted journalists but that it considers members of “an organized armed group,” such as the military wing of Hamas, or those who participate in hostilities, as lawful targets.
Recent Relevant Headlines
Washington Post, Israeli government approves plan to expand settlements on occupied Golan
More Global News
Washington Post, Russia’s gas supply to Europe halted after Ukraine transit deal expires, Francesca Ebel and David L. Stern, Jan. 1, 2024. Ukraine, which had allowed Russian oil and gas to cross its territory to serve Europe while fighting Moscow’s invasion since 2022, refused to renew the deal.
Despite a brutal Russian invasion that has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians and laid waste to swaths of the country since 2022, Ukraine continued to allow Russian oil and gas to cross its territory to serve its European neighbors — generating revenue for Kyiv and Moscow and illustrating how hard it is for the bitter enemies to cut ties.
New York Times, Elon Musk Doubles Down on Support for German Far-Right Party, Christopher F. Schuetze, Dec. 28, 2024. The world’s richest man, a key adviser to President-elect Trump, ridiculed critics over his backing of the extremist party AfD, as Germany prepares for elections.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a close adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump, shocked many in Germany last week by endorsing its far-right Alternative for Germany party, which is under surveillance by domestic intelligence for being extremist.
This week, Mr. Musk entangled himself even more in the country’s snap election, explaining in a newspaper opinion essay why he believes the far-right party is the “last spark of hope” for Germany.
“The traditional parties have failed in Germany,” Mr. Musk wrote in comments published online by the daily Welt on Saturday. “Their policies have led to economic stagnation, social unrest, and the erosion of national identity.”
Mr. Musk’s opinion piece comes as Germany girds itself for an intense winter election after Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition collapsed in November. On Friday President Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany officially announced the disbandment of Parliament and set Feb. 23 as the date for new elections.
With four mainstream and three extremist parties on the left and right vying for seats in Parliament and government participation, polls are favoring the conservative Christian Democratic Union. However, the AfD, with its anti-immigrant platform, is polling in second place, with roughly 20 percent.
Mr. Musk’s commentary was printed in the Sunday edition of the Welt, a conservative daily owned by the Axel Springer media group, which also owns Politico in the United States. Many of the paper’s journalists protested the printing of the commentary, according to reports. Eva Marie Kogel, who had been the paper’s head of opinion, resigned from her post after the printing, she confirmed on X.
In an apparent acknowledgment that Mr. Musk’s thoughts on the AfD could be controversial, the paper printed a response by Jan Philipp Burgard, the editor in chief-designate on the same page.
Relevant Recent Headlines
New York Times, Trump Threatens 25% Tariff on Canada and Mexico, Potentially Crippling TradeNew York Times, Taiwan Says China Has Deployed Largest Fleet of Ships in Decades
More On U.S. Foreign Policy, National Security, Tariffs
Lance Rosen Substack, The Trump Press Conference Gives Us A Clear Look Into The Abyss, Lance F Rosen, Jan. 7, 2025. I would say we have a category five emergency.
Taking Greenland by force is bad enough. It would be an attack on the sovereign territory of a NATO ally. Technically the US would be in violation of Article 5 of the NATO charter, which is what has held it together since its inception. "An attack on any member nation is an attack on all, therefore will be met with full retaliation," to paraphrase. Which of course will not under sny circumstances happen. At that precise moment, NATO is dead, the treaties notwithstanding.
This is how the forty-year long Russian asset intends to end it. He knows he will never get the NATO treaty repealed by the Senate, so this is his "work around."
At that point Ukraine is gone, and Putin will be free to establish hegemony in Europe. The US would retreat into "Fortress America," operating to conquer and colonize our hemisphere, surving through using our military to seize assets and raw materials. That is what explains his planned Panama gambit.
That is the dystopian future which the sabotage by the Democratic leadership is bringing us into, if we don't take the next 100 days to put it to a stop.
I keep telling everyone, the most important task, the key flank is derailing these nominations.
None of you that I know of is taking that up, or acting with an ounce of urgency.
What else should I say? Is anyone on board with what I am saying? We are running out of time. We have to jolt the Dem leadership into emergency actions now.
New York Times, U.S. Weighs Ban on Chinese Drones, Citing National Security Concerns, Ana Swanson, Jan. 3, 2025 (print ed.). The Commerce Department requested that companies comment on the implications of the rule by March. The final decision will fall to the Trump administration.
The Biden administration said on Thursday that it was considering a new rule that could restrict or ban Chinese drones in the United States out of national security concerns.
In a notice, the Commerce Department said the involvement of foreign adversaries — notably China and Russia — in the design, development, manufacture and supply of drones could pose “undue or unacceptable risk to U.S. national security.”
The notice requested private companies to comment on the scope and implications of the rule by March 4. The decision of what restrictions to impose, if any, on Chinese and Russian drones will fall to the Trump administration.
China and Russia have shown a willingness to compromise U.S. infrastructure and security through cyberespionage, the Commerce Department said, adding that the governments could leverage their laws and political situations to “co-opt private entities for national interests.”
Beyond the use of drones by hobbyists, the devices are employed in a variety of U.S. industries. They help farmers monitor crops and spray for pests, inspect pipelines for the chemical industry, survey bridges and construction sites, and aid firefighters and other emergency responders.
But drones have evolved over the past decade to include sophisticated cameras, receivers and artificial intelligence abilities, fueling concerns that they could be turned into a useful tool for an adversarial government.
Relevant Recent Headlines
New York Times, Trump Threatens 25% Tariff on Canada and Mexico, Potentially Crippling TradeThe Bulwark, Political Opinion: Trade Wars Are Good, And Easy to Win, Andrew Egger
Russia, Russian War Against Ukraine
New York Times, Russia Targets West With Drones, Exploding Parcels and Sabotage, Lara Jakes, Jan. 5, 2025 (print ed.). Russia has become increasingly brazen in adopting “gray zone” attacks against Europe and the U.S., leaving officials with a dilemma: How to respond?
When mysterious drones began appearing over oil rigs and wind farms off Norway’s coast about three years ago, officials were not certain where they came from.
But “we knew what they were doing,” Stale Ulriksen, a researcher at the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy, said in a recent interview. “Some of it was espionage, where they are charting a lot of things. Some of it, I think, was positioning in case of a war or a deep crisis.”
The drones were suspected of being launched from Russian-controlled ships in the North Sea, Mr. Ulriksen said, including some ships that were near underwater energy pipelines. Norway could not do much to stop them, he added, given that they were flying over international waters.
In recent weeks, reports of drone swarms over the United States’ East Coast have brought fears of hybrid warfare to widespread attention. Only 100 out of 5,000 drone sightings there required further examination, U.S. officials said, and so far none are believed to have been foreign surveillance drones. But it is a different story for the drones spotted in late November and early December over military bases in England and Germany where American forces are stationed.
Military analysts have concluded those drones may have been on a state-sponsored surveillance mission, according to one U.S. official familiar with the incidents, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an open investigation. British and German defense officials declined to discuss details of the sightings.
Experts said the drones’ presence was indicative of a so-called hybrid or “gray zone” attack against the West, where a range of tactics — military, cyber, economic and even psychological — are used to covertly attack or destabilize an enemy.
As Russia, Iran and other hostile states become increasingly brazen in their hybrid attacks on Western countries — such as the hacking of sensitive computer systems and alleged assassination plots — defense officials face a thorny challenge. How to deter such acts without touching off a broader and potentially deadly conflict? And how to assign blame against the attacker when the strikes are designed to evade culpability?
New York Times Magazine, Ukraine Was Outgunned. Its Solution: Small, Cheap Suicide Drones, C.J. Chivers, Photographs and Video by David Guttenfelder, Jan. 5, 2025 (print ed.). Outnumbered and desperate, the nation began hacking cheap consumer drones with explosives — bringing a brutal new form of violence to 21st-century warfare.
Known as first-person-view drones, or FPVs, the weapons have altered the human experience of war and flooded the internet with footage chronicling the desperate last seconds of lives ended by miniaircraft that transmit video of the people they pursue, then smack into them and explode.
Its camera revealed a surprise: a Russian T-80 tank parked in the foliage. A $3 million military machine had been discovered by a $400 repurposed toy.
The tank was well defended. Its crew had backed the 44-ton vehicle into undergrowth, blocking access to its vulnerable exhaust grate. Slats of reactive armor, which can thwart armor-piercing charges, bedecked its sloped front end. Its rotating turret carried a metal frame and netting, a combination derisively referred to as a cope cage, designed to snag drones and prevent warheads from making direct strikes on hulls. All its hatches were closed, blocking Prorok from flying the warhead inside.
In the past, attacking an armored vehicle with such a warhead typically required a soldier to risk exposure to take a hasty shot with a rocket-propelled grenade, sending a projectile at almost 1,000 feet per second that may not hit the vehicle at all. Weaponized FPV drones have created a new way. In the field south of Belgorod, the combination of the tank’s defensive measures and the drone’s peculiar characteristics made for an exercise that was almost surreal. Time seemed to slow down. The little drone hovered patiently before the massive military machine, rising and falling, swaying on the breeze, emitting its high-pitched buzz while Prorok flew it safely from afar, deciding his attack’s best place, which he could strike with uncanny precision.
Prorok selected the turret’s base, where armor was thinner. “Yes, yes,” Buryi said. Prorok leaned forward as he pushed the flight controller and the drone plunged into the spot. The screen went blank. Watching from the surveillance drone, Andy called out. “I see an explosion!” he said.
Alexander Dugin, a far-right writer and ideologue known as “Putin’s brain,” is seen in 2016 in his studio in Moscow (Photo by Francesca Ebel of the Associated Press).
Washington Post, U.S. imposes Russia, Iran sanctions over attempted election interference, Jeff Stein, Jan. 1, 2024 (print ed.). The Treasury Department accused a Russian entity of having “manipulated a video” about a vice-presidential candidate.
The Treasury Department announced new sanctions Tuesday on Iranian and Russian entities accused of trying to interfere with the U.S. 2024 elections, including by allegedly using artificial intelligence to disseminate false information.Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what's true, false or in-between in politics.
In its statement, Treasury said it was imposing sanctions on both a subsidiary of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and an affiliate of Russia’s military intelligence agency over their efforts to “stoke sociopolitical tensions and influence the U.S. electorate during the 2024 election.”
Treasury’s statement also said the Russian entity used AI tools to “quickly create disinformation that would be distributed across a massive network” of fake news websites and produced “baseless accusations” about a 2024 vice-presidential candidate, whom Treasury declined to identify.
Although the sanctions target relatively minor entities and are unlikely to have major economic effects, they reflect the deteriorating relationship between the United States and two of its chief geopolitical adversaries. President Joe Biden is weighing much more far-reaching sanctions against Russia’s energy sector, while President-elect Donald Trump is expected to try to significantly increase economic pressure on Tehran.
“The Governments of Iran and Russia have targeted our election processes and institutions and sought to divide the American people through targeted disinformation campaigns,” Bradley Smith, Treasury’s acting undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement. “The United States will remain vigilant against adversaries who would undermine our democracy.”
Sanctions were imposed on the Center for Geopolitical Expertise (CGE), a Moscow-based group founded by Aleksandr Dugin, whom Treasury had already sanctioned in 2015. Treasury accused the center of working closely with the Russian military intelligence service that “oversees sabotage, political interference operations and cyberwarfare” against the West. Dugin's daughter, Darya Dugina, shown in an image circulated on X by @AlexKokcharov, was another ultra nationalist killed in car bomb attack that some suspect was aimed at her father.
In its statement, Treasury said the intelligence service both directed and provided financial support to the center to influence the 2024 presidential election. With that support, Treasury said, the center maintained a network of “at least 100 websites” for its “disinformation operations,” through which it pushed false information.
“CGE and its personnel used generative AI tools to quickly create disinformation that would be distributed across a massive network of websites designed to imitate legitimate news outlets to create false corroboration between the stories, as well as to obfuscate their Russian origin,” the Treasury statement said.
The Russian center also “manipulated a video” to “produce baseless accusations concerning a 2024 vice-presidential candidate,” Treasury said. Treasury did not identify the video, but The Washington Post and other news organizations reported in October that, according to U.S. intelligence officials, Moscow was behind a faked video and other material smearing Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz with abuse allegations. Separately, Microsoft researchers said this fall that Russian entities had circulated false videos on social media in which an actor accused Vice President Kamala Harris of a nonexistent hit-and-run.
The sanctions also target the Cognitive Design Production Center, a subsidiary of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, over its “influence operations,” according to the Treasury Department. The Justice Department previously charged three men with an alleged hack-and-leak attack against Trump’s presidential campaign.
Washington Post, Putin says he saved Russia, but a year of challenges suggests Moscow’s position is precarious, Mary Ilyushina, Jan. 1, 2024 (print ed.). Marking 25 years in office, Vladimir Putin says he has remade Russia as a sovereign power and will prevail in Ukraine, but economic and strategic setbacks complicate the picture.
When Russia’s first democratically elected president, Boris Yeltsin, resigned on New Year’s Eve in 1999, he publicly implored Vladimir Putin, his handpicked but little-known successor, to “take care of Russia.”A quarter-century later, Putin insists he has done just that — and more.
As he wrapped up his marathon year-end news conference on Dec. 19, Putin boasted that he had thwarted efforts by the United States and its Western allies to subjugate Russia after the Soviet Union fell apart.
“I have not just taken care of it, but I believe we have stepped back from the edge of the abyss,” he declared, in response to a question about Yeltsin’s remark.
“I have done everything so that Russia can be an independent and sovereign state that is capable of making decisions in its interests,” Putin said, “rather than in the interests of the countries that were dragging it toward them, patting it on the back, only to use it for their own purposes.”
But as 2024 draws to a close, Russia is in a far more precarious place than Putin’s rhetoric and bravado suggest. His forces are making slow but steady advances in Ukraine, but estimates by some NATO countries suggest hundreds of thousands of Russian troops have been killed or wounded in the war, which has dragged on for nearly three years.
Washington Post, U.S. Treasury says it was hacked by China-backed intruder, Pranshu Verma and Ellen Nakashima, Dec. 31, 2024 (print ed.). The department told lawmakers that the breach gained access to government workstations and unclassified documents.
The U.S. Treasury Department said Monday that it was hacked by a Chinese state-sponsored actor who gained access to government workstations and unclassified documents, according to a letter reviewed by The Washington Post.Get concise answers to your questions. Try Ask The Post AI.
The department was notified Dec. 8 by a third-party software provider, BeyondTrust, that a hacker had gained access to a security key, which allowed the intruder to override certain security protocols and access some Treasury Department office workstations and unclassified documents stored on them, according to the letter notifying the Senate Banking Committee leadership of the breach.
The Treasury Department labeled the breach a “major incident,” in line with department policy that, according to the letter, categorizes nation-state intrusions as “major.” Once Treasury was alerted to the issue, it contacted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and it has taken the BeyondTrust service offline, according to a Treasury spokesperson. There is no evidence the hacker still has access to Treasury systems, the spokesperson said.
New York Times, Putin Apologizes for Kazakhstan Crash but Stops Short of Taking Responsibility, Anatoly Kurmanaev, Dec. 28, 2024.President Vladimir Putin of Russia called his Azerbaijani counterpart, the Kremlin said, to apologize for the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Saturday apologized for the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane this past week, breaking the Kremlin’s three-day silence on the accident that killed 38 people. He did not explicitly acknowledge Russia’s responsibility for the crash.
Mr. Putin “offered his apologies” for the crash in a phone call to his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, the Kremlin said in a statement. Mr. Putin initiated the phone call, according to the statement, and told Mr. Aliyev “that the tragic incident took place in Russian airspace.”
Mr. Putin said that as the plane approached its scheduled destination of Grozny, in southern Russia, Russian air defenses had begun to repulse an attack by Ukrainian drones on the Grozny airport and others nearby, according to the Kremlin.
Aviation experts and U.S. officials believe a Russian air-defense missile may have mistakenly downed the passenger jet. The Kremlin statement stopped short of attributing the crash to a Russian missile, but in its own statement acknowledging the apology, Azerbaijan’s presidential office suggested that was indeed the cause.
New York Times, Plane Crash Investigators Focus on Russian Air Defenses as Possible Cause, Ivan Nechepurenko, Dec. 27, 2024 (print ed.).Russian aviation authorities said the Azerbaijan Airlines plane had hit a flock of birds. But some experts cast doubt on that account, pointing to footage showing apparent holes in the fuselage.Listen to this article · 5:51 min Learn more
As authorities in several countries tried to determine what caused the deadly crash of a passenger airplane in Kazakhstan, investigators and experts on Thursday were focusing on the possibility that a Russian air defense system had struck the plane.
Aviation experts cast doubt on a Russian agency’s contention that the Azerbaijan Airlines jet had hit a flock of birds, saying images of the crash site show holes in the plane’s fuselage that appeared unlikely to have been caused by them.
The jet had been flying on Wednesday morning from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to Grozny, in Russia’s Chechnya republic, at a time when drone strikes were taking place around Grozny and Russian air defense systems were responding, according to residents and local news media reports.
Two Azerbaijanis briefed on a government inquiry said that Azerbaijani officials now believe that a Russian Pantsir-S defense system damaged the plane. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing. Caliber, a news outlet in Azerbaijan that is close to the government, also reported that the country’s investigators believe a Russian Pantsir system was responsible.-
New York Times, Analysis: Has Russia’s Shadow Fleet, Built to Evade Sanctions, Engaged in Sabotage? Michael Schwirtz, Dec. 28, 2024. Russia has assembled a fleet of hundreds of vessels to covertly ship its oil. The idea of using some to cause havoc may be proving irresistible to the Kremlin.
Western officials have long been concerned about Moscow’s so-called shadow fleet, an assemblage of aged tankers created to covertly carry Russian crude oil around the world. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the worry primarily concerned the use of such off-the-books ships to circumvent Western sanctions and generate revenue to fuel the Kremlin’s war machine.
But Russia’s shadow fleet may now present a more pressing danger to the West.
This week, Finnish commandos boarded an oil tanker that officials suspect had cut through vital underwater cables in the Baltic Sea, including one that carries electricity between Finland and Estonia. The ship, the Eagle S, bears all the hallmarks of vessels belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet, officials said, and had embarked from a Russian port shortly before the cables were cut.
If confirmed, it would be the first known instance of a shadow fleet vessel being used to intentionally sabotage critical infrastructure in Europe — and, officials and experts said, a clear escalation by Russia in its conflict with the West.
New York Times, Finland Says Vessel Suspected of Cutting Cable May Be Part of Russia’s ‘Shadow Fleet,’ Johanna Lemola and Lynsey Chutel, Dec. 27, 2024 (print ed.). Finland seized an oil tanker after the latest in a series of disruptions to undersea infrastructure.
The Finnish authorities seized an oil tanker on Thursday on the suspicion that it was involved in cutting vital undersea cables and said the ship might have been part of Russia’s “shadow fleet,” aimed at evading Western sanctions.
In a statement, the police in Finland said the authorities had boarded the Eagle S tanker in Finnish waters. The ship, which is registered in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific, had been sailing from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Port Said, Egypt, when it was detained.The police said they were investigating whether the vessel was involved in the latest suspected act of sabotage on undersea infrastructure: the cutting on Wednesday of the Estlink 2 submarine cable, which carries electricity between Finland and Estonia. The Finnish authorities said Thursday that four other cables carrying data also had been damaged. The police called the latest cable cuts “aggravated vandalism.”
The Finnish authorities said the tanker might be part of Russia’s shadow fleet, which emerged as a way to circumvent Western-imposed price caps on Russian oil transported by sea. The caps were introduced several months after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Washington Post, In major shift, Zelensky appears open to negotiating an end to the war, Isabelle Khurshudyan and Ellen Francis, Dec. 24, 2024 (print ed.). A new U.S. president and battlefield realities appear to be pushing Ukraine’s leader, who had long insisted on fighting for every inch of occupied land, to the table.
As Ukrainian forces struggle to hold off Russia’s army on the battlefield and President-elect Donald Trump looks to broker a peace deal, President Volodymyr Zelensky has in recent weeks signaled a greater willingness for negotiations to end the war — a major shift for the Ukrainian leader, who had long vowed to fight for every last inch of his country’s land.Get concise answers to your questions. Try Ask The Post AI.
Zelensky’s messaging has been careful; he has not explicitly said Kyiv would agree to concessions — territorial or otherwise — even while Russia occupies more than 20 percent of Ukraine and would probably retain control of that land after any ceasefire. But after previously stating that negotiations could begin only once Moscow withdrew all its troops, Zelensky is now emphasizing the need for long-term security rather than the immediate return of territory.
Zelensky’s change in rhetoric — something Ukrainian and Western officials have noticed — can probably be attributed to a worsening situation on the front line and an incoming U.S. administration that has put future security assistance for Kyiv in doubt. Ukrainian officials throughout the first year of the war stressed the importance of reclaiming all of Ukraine’s land, including Crimea and other areas Russia has effectively ruled since 2014, as a condition for any deal.
In recent meetings with Trump and European leaders, however, Zelensky has focused more on what he has referred to as “lasting peace” for Ukraine. The top priority is securing an invite to the NATO military alliance and other security guarantees, such as the possible presence of Western peacekeepers, to prevent future Russian attacks.
Officials and analysts said Zelensky’s tone shift is probably an attempt to be more in line with Trump’s emphasis on halting the conflict. But the Ukrainian leader is also trying to ensure his country doesn’t come out empty-handed.
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Global Politics, War, Famine, Human Rights
Politico, Driver Rams Christmas Market in Germany, Killing at Least 2 in Suspected Attack, Christopher F. Schuetze, Dec. 20, 2024. Video showed a car plowing into a large crowd in the city of Magdeburg. The driver, identified as a 50-year-old Saudi Arabian citizen who worked as a doctor, was arrested
A driver plowed a vehicle into a Christmas market in the central German city of Magdeburg on Friday evening, killing an adult and a small child and injuring dozens of other people in what officials indicated was a targeted attack.
The driver was arrested, the authorities said. He was identified as a 50-year-old Saudi Arabian citizen who first came to Germany in 2006 and worked as a doctor in a small town 25 miles south of Magdeburg, officials said.
Saudi Arabia condemned the attack in a statement by its Foreign Ministry that did not mention the suspect. “The Kingdom expresses its solidarity with the German people and the families of the victims,” the statement said.
More than 65 people were injured, 14 of them severely, said Michael Reif, the spokesman for Magdeburg. The authorities say they believe it was a deliberate attack. They are working to determine a motive, said Reiner Haseloff, the governor of Saxony-Anhalt state, where Magdeburg is the capital.your times accessHave a moment? Play these games.Connections
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“Every human life lost in this attack is a terrible tragedy and one human life too many,” a visibly shaken Mr. Haseloff told reporters on Friday night.200 mi.300 km.© Mapbox © OpenStreetMap
Nancy Faeser, who as Germany’s interior minister is responsible for public safety, said in a statement: “The shocking act in Magdeburg a few days before Christmas hits us in the heart. We continue to fear for the lives of the seriously injured and mourn the people who were torn from life by this terrible act.”
Before leaving his post in November, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, Thomas Haldenwang, warned that the country’s threat level was higher because of the war in Middle East.
“The danger is real and more acute than it has been in a long time,” he said at the time.
More than 1,000 temporary Christmas markets pop up every year in Germany, and they have been the target of terrorists in the past. Last month, the police in Germany arrested two teenagers suspected of exchanging plans about attacking a Christmas market, but those alleged plans appear to have nothing to do with the attack on Friday.Editors’ PicksMy Neighbor Won’t Stop Praying for Me. What Should I Do?A Woman on Our Girls’ Trip Has Grown Snarky. Can We Stop Inviting Her?Skiing’s Budget Secret: It Can Be Cheaper in Europe
In 2016, an extremist rammed a truck into a crowd in Berlin, killing 13. Since then, the police have secured many Christmas markets with temporary barriers.
It remains unclear how the driver in Magdeburg was able to circumvent the barriers that were protecting the market. The car drove some 1,200 feet before it stopped, officials said.
The authorities said the driver had rented a car before plowing it into the market on the last Friday before Christmas, when it was especially crowded with visitors. Many police officers were at the site. The area around the market was closed after the episode, a police spokeswoman said.
The attack in Germany inspired additional security measures around Christmas markets thousands of miles away, in New York City.
The New York Police Department said in a statement on Friday: “The N.Y.P.D. has been closely monitoring recent events in Germany and coordinating with federal and international partners. While we have not identified any specific/credible threats to New York City at this time, resources have been deployed to various Christmas markets and other locations throughout the city out of an abundance of caution.”
The city of Magdeburg, population 240,000, used to be part of Communist East Germany. The year’s Christmas market is in the old market square, just in front of City Hall.
Surveillance footage circulating on social media and verified by The New York Times on Friday shows a car plowing into a large crowd at the Christmas market. The car then turns right onto another crowded street. Video of the aftermath shows people helping the wounded as cries are heard.
“The reports from Magdeburg are alarming,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in social media post. “My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
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Sex Assault, Trafficking, #MeToo, Abortion, Women's Health
NYPD Chief Jeffrey Maddrey attends a news conference outside New York City Police Department 40th Precinct, July 17, 2023, in New York. (AP File photo by Jeenah Moon).
Associated Press, Top-ranking NYPD officer abruptly resigns amid sexual misconduct allegations, Philip Marcelou, Dec. 22, 2024. The highest-ranking uniformed officer in the New York Police Department has resigned amid allegations he demanded sex from a subordinate in exchange for opportunities to earn extra pay.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch accepted Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey ’s resignation Friday night, effective immediately, according to a department statement Saturday.
Chief of Patrol John Chell will take over as interim chief of department, and Philip Rivera will assume Chell’s duties as the head of the patrol division, the NYPD said.
Late Saturday, Tisch replaced the head of the internal affairs bureau, which investigates alleged police misconduct, saying in a statement that the unit “must always be dedicated to preserving integrity and rooting out corruption in all its forms.” She appointed Edward Thompson as interim chief after Miguel Iglesias was relieved of his command.
The NYPD declined to comment on the allegations against Maddrey other than to say it “takes all allegations of sexual misconduct seriously and will thoroughly investigate this matter.”
A lawyer for his accuser, Lt. Quathisha Epps, said the move was overdue.
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U.S. Immigration
New York Times, Trump Vowed Mass Deportations. Mexico and Central America Brace for Impact, Emiliano Rodríguez Mega, Jan. 7, 2025. Donald J. Trump has said that Mexico is allowing an “invasion” of migrants into the United States. But the current situation on the ground tells a different story: Unlawful crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border dropped sharply last year.
Crossings into the United States from Mexico dropped sharply last year. But countries south of the U.S. border are waiting nervously to see if President-elect Donald J. Trump orders mass deportations.
The possibility that millions of undocumented immigrants could be expelled — what would be the largest deportation program in American history — has sent shock waves through Latin America and sowed confusion among migrants and asylum seekers.
“We see dark times coming for the migrant community,” said Irineo Mujica, the Mexico director of People Without Borders, a transnational advocacy group. “Anyone who falls prey to the Trump administration is now going to be devoured, chewed up and spat out.”
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U.S. Jobs, Investment, Economy, Pensions
Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: United States Stock Market On Pace For Best Two Year Period This Century, Aaron Parnas, Dec. 31, 2024. The Biden Administration's economic policy is working.
The United States stock market is expected to have its best two year stretch this entire century, achieving a feat that has only happened a few times in history. According to latest numbers, the S&P 500 is set to gain over 20% this year.
This comes one year after the index rose 24%. Should these results hold, which they will for all intents and purposes, it would be the best performance for the index since 1997 and 1998.
According to statistics over the past two centuries, this type of performance by the index has only occurred three other times, in 1927 and 1928, in 1935 and 1936, and again in 1954 and 1955. This would mean that the current pace for the market is one that has been achieved only four other times in our nation's history.
In total, the S&P 500 is now up over 60% of the past two years, marking significant gains from 2022 which saw the index fall about 20%. Today's news is a testament to the Biden-Harris Administration's economic policy which has successfully ushered the United States out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is now almost certain that the economy will achieve the vaunted soft landing, ensuring that the United States stays out of a recession following extremely high inflation. It also means that the incoming Trump Administration will now be inheriting a booming, record breaking economy.
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New York Times, Opinion: Crony Capitalism Is Coming to America, Paul Krugman
Energy, Transportation, Climate Change, Environment, Space
New York Times Photo by Philip Cheung
New York Times, Why the Blazes Overwhelmed L.A.’s Well-Trained Firefighters, Thomas Fuller, Alexandra Berzon, Kellen Browning and Shawn Hubler, Jan. 12, 2025 (print ed.). Officials say there simply weren’t enough firefighters to quell the wildfires, but questions are being raised about whether modern fires require a new playbook.
The alert came in blaring, hot-pink, all-caps: Be prepared for a “LIFE THREATENING & DESTRUCTIVE WINDSTORM!!!”
The notice on Monday was one in a series of warnings issued by the National Weather Service about the powerful Santa Ana winds that were about to blow through Southern California, which hadn’t seen serious rain in months.
Officials in Los Angeles, a city that is accustomed to treacherous fire conditions, turned to a well-worn playbook. The city predeployed nine trucks in vulnerable areas and called in 90 extra firefighters. The county fire department moved 30 extra engines into the field and called up 100 off-duty firefighters. The U.S. Forest Service brought in trucks and support units, as well as bulldozers, helicopters and planes.
But by Tuesday afternoon, five hours after a fire ignited high in a canyon in the oceanside Pacific Palisades neighborhood, it was clear their preparations would not be enough. As furious wind gusts approaching 100 miles per hour tore through the city and propelled showers of embers that ignited entire neighborhoods, Anthony Marrone, the chief of the Los Angeles County Fire Department, stood at a command post on the edge of the Pacific Ocean.
New York Times, Biggest L.A. Fire Spreads Despite Calmer Winds, Yan Zhuang, Amy Graff and Jonathan Wolfe, Jan. 12, 2025 (print ed.). Dry terrain helped the giant Palisades blaze grow, prompting officials to expand mandatory evacuation orders to Brentwood, including the Getty Center.
Washington Post, Pacific Palisades fire erupts, spurring evacuations in California amid strong winds, Staff Report, Jan. 7, 2025. "‘Let’s get out of here’: Palisades residents flee fire.
An ominous fire broke out Tuesday near the Pacific Palisades — a coastal neighborhood on the west side of Los Angeles — and quickly exploded. The fire has grown to at least 2,921 acres, according to Cal Fire. Evacuation orders were issued as officials ordered residents in notoriously winding hillside neighborhoods to leave immediately.
Smoke plumes spread rapidly, moving toward structures and homes. A large swath of residences in Topanga Canyon, a woodsy, tucked-away community with one winding road in and out, are under evacuation warnings. The fire sparked amid a “life-threatening and destructive” windstorm event that is sweeping through a region that has not seen significant rain since spring. The Palisades Fire has now grown to at least 2,921 acres and is zero percent contained, according to a 6:18 p.m. update from Cal Fire. State fire officials are warning of extreme fire behavior — including short and long-range spotting — and say that wind gusts of up to 60 mph are expected to continue through Thursday. The cause is still under investigation.
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Media, High Tech, Culture, Education
New York Times, MSNBC's President Rashida Jones Stepping Down, Benjamin Mullin and Michael M. Grynbaum, Jan. 14, 2025. The president of MSNBC, Rashida Jones, is stepping down from that position, the company said on Tuesday, a major change at the news network just days before President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office.
Rebecca Kutler, senior vice president for content strategy at MSNBC, will succeed Ms. Jones as interim president, effective immediately. Ms. Jones will stay on in an advisory role through March.
“Rebecca is the ideal leader to guide us through this moment, and I look forward to collaborating with her as we shape our collective future together,” Mark Lazarus, the chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group, said in a note to staffers.
Ms. Jones’s exit comes amid industrywide pressure for the cable news industry, which has seen declining ratings after the U.S. presidential election. MSNBC has been the second most-watched cable network during that period, ahead of CNN but behind longtime ratings leader Fox News.
Executives at the network are hopeful that audiences will return as Mr. Trump takes office and viewers seek to dissect his early policy moves. On Monday, the company announced that Rachel Maddow, its most popular host, would temporarily return to broadcasting her one-hour show every weeknight at 9 p.m. Eastern for Mr. Trump’s first 100 days in office.
MSNBC is among a bundle of cable channels that its parent company, Comcast, is planning to spin out later this year into a new company. CNBC, another news channel in Comcast’s cable portfolio, is also being spun out, along with entertainment networks like USA and Syfy.
Ms. Kutler is a cable news executive with experience in the streaming business. Before joining MSNBC in 2022, Ms. Kutler was a key architect of CNN+, the ambitious streaming news service that was shut down by Warner Bros. Discovery that year.
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