Editor's Choice: Scroll below for our monthly blend of mainstream and alternative December 2024 news and views
Note: Excerpts are from the authors' words except for subheads and occasional "Editor's notes" such as this.
January 25 Update
Jan. 1
Top Headliness
Washington Post, U.S. Treasury says it was hacked by China-backed intruder
Washington Post, Investigation: Years of inaction on ‘crisis’ at Secret Service set stage for Trump shooting in Butler, Carol D. Leonnig and Emmanuel Martinez
Washington Post, ‘Critical failure’ of Puerto Rico’s power grid means dark New Year’s Eve
Trump Transition News, Commentary
Politico, Former FBI and CIA head prods Senate to reject Patel, Gabbard, Kierra Frazier,
More U.S. Legal News
Washington Post, Rapist behind ‘Gone Girl’ kidnapping charged in more crimes — 15 years later, Jonathan Edwards
More U.S. Politics, Governance, Elections
Washington Post, D.C. Mayor Bowser goes to Mar-a-Lago, says she had ‘great meeting’ with Trump
More On Carter Life, Legacy
New York Times, ‘Hanging Out With Jimmy Carter,’ Biden Faces the Echoes of History, Peter Baker
New York Times, Carter the Critic Didn’t Spare His Successors
More U.S. Political Commentary
Trump's Cases, Allies, Vengence, Threats, Opponents
New York Times, Trump Loses Appeal of Carroll’s $5 Million Award in Sex-Abuse Case
New York Times, Trump Loses Appeal of Carroll’s $5 Million Award in Sex-Abuse Case
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)
New York Times, Research Finds Vaccines Are Not Behind the Rise in Autism. So What Is?
More On Health Care CEO's Murder
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 On Middle East Crises: Syria, Israel, Lebanon
At the country’s most notorious prison, Syrians confront their worst fears: that they will never know what happened to the loved ones who disappeared (New York Times photo).
More On U.S. Foreign Policy, Defense, Tariffs
White House Chronicle, Commentary: Trump, Who Thinks He Bought the Nation, Now Eyes the World, Llewellyn King
Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Liquor Stash Photos Bolster NBC Report on Pete Hegseth Drinking Allegations, J.D. Wolf
More On Presidential Pardons, Cases
Russia, Russian War Against Ukraine
Global Politics, War, Famine, Human Rights
U.S. Defense, Foreign Policy, Security
New York Times, Departing Air Force Secretary Will Leave Space Weaponry as a Legacy
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 
Associated Press, Top-ranking NYPD officer abruptly resigns amid sexual misconduct allegations
U.S. Economy, Jobs, Pensions
New York Times, Richard Parsons, Serial Fixer of Media and Finance Giants, Dies at 76
Washington Post, Skyrocketing car-insurance premiums are pushing inflation higher
Energy, Environment, Transportation, Climate Change, Disasters
Media, High-Tech, Culture, Education, Sports
Top Stories
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 hisname. 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 below.
Washington Post, 10 killed, 30 injured in New Orleans as vehicle plows into crowd, city says, Victoria Bisset, Jan. 1, 2024. The emergency preparedness agency of New Orleans said the mass casualty incident took place on Bourbon Street overnight.
Around 3:15 a.m. local time, a man drove down Bourbon Street “at a very face pace” and “was trying to run over as many people as he possibly could,” New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said Wednesday. “This is not a DUI situation.”
Kirkpatrick said 35 injured people were taken to hospitals, but said there could be more taken to other hospitals. The city’s emergency preparedness agency, NOLA Ready, said on its website earlier that 30 people were injured in the mass casualty incident that took place on Canal and Bourbon Street.
The suspect, who went around barricades to crash into the crowd, also fired on officers after he crashed the vehicle, Kirkpatrick said; 2 officers were shot. “He was hell bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did,” Kirkpatrick said, noting the FBI would be taking over the investigation.
FBI Special Agent in Charge for New Orleans, Alethea Duncan, said that “this is not a terrorist event." "What it is right now is improvised explosive devices that was found and we are working on confirming if it was a viable device.”
New York Times, Suspect in New Orleans Attack Is Identified as a Texan and Had an ISIS Flag With Him, Mike Baker, Shannon Sims, Maria Jimenez Moya and J. David Goodman, Jan. 1, 2025. In a YouTube video from 2020, the man identified as the suspect said he had been born and raised in Beaumont, Texas, and had served in the U.S. military.
The man killed in a shootout with the police after ramming into dozens of revelers in New Orleans early on New Year’s Day was Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a native of Texas who had served with the U.S. Army, officials confirmed on Wednesday as they sought to determine a motivation for the attack.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said that it was examining an Islamic State flag that was found in the truck used in the attack and that it believed the Mr. Jabbar “was not solely responsible.” Several improvised explosive devices were found and disposed of, officials said.
Mr. Jabbar, who officials confirmed was honorably discharged from the Army, had converted to Islam at some point, according to Dwayne Marsh, who is married to Mr. Jabbar’s ex-wife Nakedra Charrlle. Mr. Jabbar and Ms. Charrlle had two daughters, ages 15 and 20, Mr. Marsh said, adding that “the girls are a mess” after the attack.
In recent months, he said, Mr. Jabbar had been acting erratically, “being all crazy, cutting his hair” after converting, Mr. Marsh said. Mr. Marsh and his wife then stopped allowing the daughters to spend time with Mr. Jabbar, he said.
In a YouTube video from 2020 that appears to have been posted by Mr. Jabbar, he spoke positively about his skills in real estate. He said he had been born and raised in Beaumont, Texas, and had served in the U.S. military.
New York Times, Live Updates: Sugar Bowl Postponed After Deadly New Year’s Attack in New Orleans, Devlin Barrett, Adam Goldman, Hamed Aleaziz and Ali Watkins, Jan. 1, 2024. Officials said they did not believe the suspect who rammed into New Year’s revelers was “solely responsible” for the attack, which killed at least 10 people and injured about 35 more, and were hunting for possible connections to terrorist organizations.
Federal investigators were seeking possible connections between terrorist groups and the 42-year-old Texas man who rammed a pickup into New Year’s revelers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans early Wednesday, killing at least 10 people and injuring dozens more.
The attack raised concerns about the city’s security precautions, which failed to stop the driver, and forced officials to postpone the Sugar Bowl until Thursday.
The suspect, a U.S. Army veteran who died in a shootout with police officers, was identified by the F.B.I. as Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, a U.S. citizen. The truck carried an Islamic State flag, weapons and a “potential” improvised explosive, the agency said, adding that other potential bombs were also found in the French Quarter.
Here’s what else to know:
New York Times, 1 Dead After a Cybertruck Explodes Outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, Emmett Lindner and Pashtana Usufzy, Jan. 1, 2025. At least seven people were injured, the authorities said. Videos posted to social media appeared to show a vehicle engulfed in flames outside the lobby’s entrance.
One person was dead and at least seven people were injured after a Tesla Cybertruck exploded and caught fire outside of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on Wednesday morning, according to the authorities.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department received a report of an explosion at about 8:40 a.m. local time at the Trump Hotel. They were told that a 2024 Cybertruck “pulled up to the last entrance doors of the hotel,” Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at a news conference.
“We saw that smoke started showing from the vehicle, and then a large explosion from the truck occurs,” he added.
The person killed was inside the vehicle, he said, adding that at least seven others were reported to have sustained minor injuries. It was not immediately clear what was the cause of the explosion, but the authorities mentioned the attack in New Orleans during the news conference.
“We’re very well aware of what has happened in New Orleans with the event that occurred there,” Sheriff McMahill said, referring to a man who drove a truck through a crowd in New Orleans on Wednesday morning, killing at least 10 people. “As you can imagine, with an explosion here on an iconic Las Vegas Boulevard, we are taking all of the precautions that we need to take to keep our community safe.”
There did not appear to be any further threat to the public, Sheriff McMahill said, adding that the investigation would continue: “Obviously, a Cybertruck, the Trump Hotel, there’s lots of questions that we have to answer as we move forward.”
Videos posted to social media showed what appeared to be a Tesla Cybertruck engulfed in flames just outside a hotel’s lobby entrance doors. Other social media posts showed what appeared to be a line of people being led out of the building.
“Earlier today, a reported electric vehicle fire occurred in the porte cochère of Trump Las Vegas,” Eric Trump, Donald J. Trump’s son and a leader of the Trump Organization, said in a statement on X. “The safety and well-being of our guests and staff remain our top priority.”
The same message was posted by the Trump Las Vegas’s social media account. People who were staying at the hotel said they were evacuated because of the fire.
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.
Secret Service agents surround then-GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump after an assassination attempt in Butler, PA on July 14, 2024.
Washington Post, Investigation: Years of inaction on ‘crisis’ at Secret Service set stage for Trump shooting in Butler, Carol D. Leonnig and Emmanuel Martinez, Jan. 1, 2024 (print ed.). An exodus of veteran agents over the past 10 years forced the agency to rely even more on less experienced agents, a Post analysis revealed.
In the days before Donald Trump’s July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, the Secret Service needed a member of his protective detail to develop a security plan to keep the former president safe as he addressed a crowd of thousands at an open-air fairground.You are what you read. Reveal your 2024 reader type with Newsprint.
With agents stretched thin by the presidential campaign, the agency turned to a “junior” member of the detail, according to an independent review panel commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security.
In the past, the Secret Service would have trained new agents in a field office for a minimum of five years and had them work at least two more in a protective detail before assigning them to oversee such a large public event, multiple former agents told The Washington Post. The agent put in charge of security at Butler had joined the Secret Service four years earlier and only started in the protective detail in 2023, the panel found.
“If an agent with this little experience was responsible for planning Butler, that means there was nobody else,” said Jonathan Wackrow, a security executive and former supervisor on then-President Barack Obama’s Secret Service detail. “Now we are introducing hope as a strategy. And that is just plain dangerous. ”
The July 13 shooting, in which the agency’s failure to block sight lines from a nearby rooftop allowed a gunman with limited firearms training to come close to killing Trump, stunned many Americans and prompted lawmakers to ask what had happened to an agency long charged with keeping sitting and former presidents safe. Besides a bullet that grazed Trump’s ear, the shooting left one spectator dead and two injured.
The causes of the mistakes in Butler, the Secret Service’s biggest security failure since the 1981 attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan, had been years in the making, a Post review found.
Spurred by a string of humiliating security lapses during the Obama administration, the White House and Congress launched separate investigations in 2014 that diagnosed the Secret Service as being in crisis and stretched beyond its abilities. The investigative panels recommended sharp increases in agent training and the hiring of fresh leadership to disrupt an insular culture that the probes said tended to cover up problems rather than own and fix them.
But three presidents and Congress have failed to fix the major vulnerabilities in the Secret Service that were identified a decade ago, the Post review has found. Instead, some problems have grown worse and left the agency weaker on key measures. For instance, the agency was never able to hire enough staff to spare agents for routine training; instead its mission expanded and was shouldered by an overworked workforce, leading to burnout and low morale.
Washington Post, Va. man had largest homemade bomb stockpile in FBI history, prosecutors say, Salvador Rizzo, Jan. 1, 2024 (print ed.). An informant said Brad K. Spafford used photographs of President Joe Biden for target practice.
A Virginia man was arrested on Dec. 17 after federal agents seized 150 pipe bombs from his home on a 20-acre farm outside Newport News, the largest stockpile of homemade explosives ever found by the FBI, prosecutors said.
Brad K. Spafford, 36, was arrested and charged with possessing an unregistered short-barrel rifle, though U.S. officials may pursue additional counts. His friend and former neighbor, according to court records, was a government informant who chatted with Spafford for years and wore a wire to secretly record one visit in October.
According to prosecutors, the informant described how Spafford voiced support for political assassinations, boasted of keeping unregistered firearms, used photographs of President Joe Biden for target practice and had blown off three of his own fingers years earlier, while working on a homemade explosive device.
A law enforcement search of Spafford’s farm in Isle of Wight County turned up 150 homemade pipe bombs, “assessed as the largest seizure by number of finished explosive devices in FBI history,” federal prosecutors said in a court filing.
Prosecutors said Spafford lives with his wife and two children, and that his wife thought the firearms were registered and was not aware of the explosives stockpile. Authorities detonated most of the explosive devices at the scene and tested a subset, according to court filing from prosecutors.Washington Post, U.S. Treasury says it was hacked by China-backed intruder.
Washington Post, ‘Critical failure’ of Puerto Rico’s power grid means dark New Year’s Eve, Ben Brasch, Jan. 1, 2024 (print ed.). The massive blackout may leave much of the island without electricity as 2025 begins.
A “massive blackout” that hit much of Puerto Rico early Tuesday may keep the U.S. territory in the dark through New Year’s Eve and beyond, according to the governor and the private energy company that provides power to the island.You are what you read. Reveal your 2024 reader type with Newsprint.
The outage began about 5:30 a.m., when an underground power line failed, Luma Energy said. The blackout may last 24 to 48 hours.
As of 1 p.m. Tuesday, crews had restored power to 44,700 customers — 3 percent of those affected, according to Luma. Two hours later, that number was 73,000 customers.
Trump Transition Commentary
Washington Post, Trump endorses Mike Johnson ahead of what could be a prolonged House speaker fight, Marianna Sotomayor, Mariana Alfaro and Meryl Kornfield, Dec. 31, 2024 (print ed.). House Republicans have said for weeks that Donald Trump would have the final say on whether Johnson keeps the gavel or is replaced.
President-elect Donald Trump gave House Republican lawmakers a directive on Monday, days before what is expected to become an embattled speakership fight: Support Mike Johnson’s reelection.
In a lengthy post on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump argued that Republicans should “NOT BLOW THIS GREAT OPPORTUNITY WHICH WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN” by voters to immediately govern, which would require Johnson (R-Louisiana), right, to be swiftly reelected as House speaker on Friday.Get the latest election news and results
“Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man. He will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN. Mike has my Complete & Total Endorsement,” Trump wrote.
But not all Republicans are following Trump’s directive, testing the GOP’s narrow majority and foreshadowing a prolonged fight on the House floor Friday.
“I respect and support President Trump, but his endorsement of Mike Johnson is going to work out about as well as his endorsement of Speaker Paul Ryan,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) posted on X. “We’ve seen Johnson partner with the democrats to send money to Ukraine, authorize spying on Americans, and blow the budget.”
Recent Relevant Headlines
The Hartmann Report, Commentary: Americans are sick of the Grinches stealing healthcare, Thom Hartmann
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More U.S. Legal News
Deputies lead Ian Cramer out of a courtroom Monday at the Mercer County Courthouse in Stanton, N.D. (Jack Dura photo via Associated Press).
Washington Post, Sen. Kevin Cramer’s adult son sentenced to 28 years in prison, Azi Paybarah,Jan. 1, 2024 (print ed.). Ian Cramer led law enforcement in North Dakota on a high-speed chase, crashing into a vehicle and killing a sheriff’s deputy.
Ian Cramer, the 43-year-old son of Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-North Dakota), was sentenced Monday to 28 years in prison for leading police on a high-speed car chase in North Dakota that ended when he crashed into another vehicle and killed a sheriff’s deputy.Get the latest election news and results
The sentencing came after Ian Cramer pleaded guilty in September to charges that included homicide while fleeing a peace officer, fleeing a peace officer, preventing arrest, reckless endangerment, driving under suspension, possession of methamphetamine, possession of cocaine, unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of marijuana, the Associated Press reported.
The sentence from Judge Bobbi Weiler of the South Central Judicial District of North Dakota included 38 years in prison, with 10 years suspended, followed by three years of probation.
“You had resources, more resources than 99 percent of the people that I’ve seen,” Weiler said in a video published by the Bismarck Tribune.
The senator, who did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment from The Washington Post, said in a statement issued in December 2023 that his son “suffers from serious mental disorders which manifest in severe paranoia and hallucinations.”
The younger Cramer struggled with substance abuse and mental health issues for years, according to the judge and statements from his family.
On Dec. 6, 2023, Cramer’s mother drove him to a hospital for mental health care. But when she got out of the car, he jumped into the driver’s seat and drove away, according to the senator’s statement.
Law enforcement officials pursued Cramer for several miles as he reached speeds of over 100 mph, the outlet NewsDakota reported.
The pursuit ended when Cramer crashed into an unoccupied patrol vehicle, behind which Deputy Sheriff Paul Martin was trying to deploy a tire-deflation device, the outlet reported. Later in court, state prosecutors showed body-cam footage of officers rushing to the scene to try to save Martin, KFYR-TV reported.
Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: GOP Senator EXPOSED after Son SENTENCED to 35 YEARS, Ben Meiselas, Dec. 31, 2024. NY MeidasTouch host 
Ben Meiselas reports on a MAGA GOP Senator who led the charge against Hunter Biden but whose own son was just sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Reader Comments: Kevin Cramer's son Isaac died at 35 from alcoholism and his older son Ian (45) killed a cop while out of his mind on drugs. Like how the hell were these kids raised and yet Senator Cramer gets to tell us how to raise ours? Cramer's son will likely serve a fourth of his sentence or less. He should be in for life....When is Matt Gaetz getting arrested for not disclosing his drug use on his gun registration?
Politico, ‘Lawless’: Trump’s TikTok brief asks Supreme Court to overreach, legal experts say, Brendan Bordelon, Lawyers believe the president-elect’s request for the Supreme Court to delay the TikTok law lacks a legal basis — and they fear it’s an early sign that Trump plans to blow past precedent. President-elect Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to exceed its authority with his unprecedented request in the case over the federal TikTok ban, legal experts say.
Trump filed a brief Friday asking the high court to suspend the law’s critical Jan. 19 deadline until after he takes office. The law — if the justices allow it to take effect — will effectively ban TikTok in the United States if the social media platform fails to cut ties with its Beijing-based owner by that date.
Experts said Trump had no grounds to ask to pause the TikTok law before he takes office as president, and they faulted him for requesting a “stay” of the law without taking a stance on whether the law is unconstitutional.
“The fact that the law goes into effect the day before Trump is inaugurated is just too bad for Trump, but a future president cannot ask a court to delay a law,” said Alan Rozenshtein, a former official at the Department of Justice who now teaches at the University of Minnesota Law School. He said the Supreme Court “does not have the authority to pause a law that was written by Congress and enacted” without considering its constitutionality.
The high court, of course, is weighing a constitutional challenge from TikTok, which says the law violates the First Amendment. But legal experts criticized Trump’s unconventional attempt to intervene in the dispute before taking office.
Washington Post, Rapist behind ‘Gone Girl’ kidnapping charged in more crimes — 15 years later, Jonathan Edwards, A man convicted of kidnapping and raping a California woman, whom police initially accused of staging her abduction, has been charged in two similar crimes. Matthew Muller, seen at right in a 2015 booking photo, was behind what became known as the “Gone Girl Hoax” kidnapping and is now charged in two similar crimes.
Matthew Muller, a U.S. Marine turned Harvard University-educated lawyer, was still six years away from gaining national infamy for the abduction that would later become known as the “Gone Girl Hoax” kidnapping.
The driver of the pickup truck in New Orleans was killed in a police shootout, officials said, and the attack is being investigated as an act of terrorism.But in 2009, he was already honing his craft as a kidnapper and rapist by breaking into women’s homes and drugging them, prosecutors now allege.
More than 15 years later, Muller has been charged with breaking into two women’s houses in the San Francisco Bay Area, tying them up, forcibly drugging them and threatening to rape them, prosecutors said Monday.
Muller, now 47 and incarcerated in Tucson, gained national attention in 2015 when he was accused of kidnapping and raping a physical therapist in an attack that Vallejo, California, police first called an elaborate hoax as they tried to get her boyfriend to admit that he had killed her and dumped her body somewhere.
Muller pleaded guilty in 2016 to kidnapping Denise Huskins and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. He later was convicted of two counts of forcible rape, for which he was sentenced to 31 years.
Santa Clara District Attorney Jeff Rosen on Monday addressed the 2009 attacks. “The details of this person’s violent crime spree seem scripted for Hollywood, but they are tragically real,” Rosen said in a statement.
On Monday, Muller was arraigned on two counts of committing sexual assault during a home invasion. Prosecutors accuse him of breaking into a woman’s home in Mountain View, California, early on Sept. 29, 2009, and forcing her to drink a cocktail of medications. He threatened to rape her, but she persuaded him not to, prosecutors said Monday in a statement. Instead, he allegedly suggested she get a dog before fleeing her home.
Less than a month later, on Oct. 18, Muller broke into a different woman’s home in neighboring Palo Alto, California, prosecutors said. He allegedly bound and gagged the woman, who was in her 30s, forced her to drink NyQuil and then assaulted her. The woman persuaded him to stop, prompting Muller to give her crime prevention advice and then bolt, prosecutors allege.
Washington Post, Investigtation: Scouring social media, a firm fights NFL settlement payouts, Will Hobson, Dec. 30, 2024 (print ed.). Despite vowing to act fast, the firm that oversees the NFL settlement still delays and denies claims, The Post found, including because of players’ online activity.
It took five years, three doctor’s visits, two federal lawsuits and countless emails with his lawyers, but Reggie Brown finally got word in February: Heofficially had dementia. Which meant, he believed, it was time for the NFL to pay up.
Brown, 64, had been fighting for years to get paid by the landmark NFL concussion settlement, which promised to compensate every former player with dementia or a brain disease linked to head trauma. Under the rules of the settlement, Brown’s lawyers told him, his diagnosis entitled him to about $200,000.
All that stood between him and a check was BrownGreer, the independent administrative firm that examines all claims. He had heard stories about the firm taking months, even years, to review claims, but he hoped his would move quickly. After all, his diagnosis had come from a board-certified settlement doctor who had been vetted by BrownGreer and lawyers for the NFL.
Then, in July, Brown received an email from the firm. It had reviewed his tax returns and scoured his social media activity, and it wanted to know:
If Brown had dementia, how had he managed to work part-time, earning about $30,000 annually the past five years?
Why did he claim online he worked as a motivational speaker?
And what about the Facebook posts that showed him attending his daughter’s graduate school graduation, traveling with his wife and going to the gym?
When lawyers for the NFL and thousands of former players struck the historic settlement a decade ago, they entrusted the crucial role of managing it to BrownGreer, one of the most experienced firms in the country focused on settlement administration. And BrownGreer’s founding partner, Orran Brown Sr., publicly assured former players that his firm would work to make the process as efficient and fair as possible
It was building a nationwide network of settlement-approved doctors whose diagnoses would quickly lead to payments, Brown said. And while the firm would consult a panel of expert review doctors on some claims, he said, it would rarely — if ever — deny claims involving diagnoses made by those settlement doctors.
“We do not take orders from the NFL,” he said then. His firm, he added, wanted to “get this done correctly and get it done quickly.”
But seven years later, BrownGreer has denied hundreds of claims involving diagnoses made by settlement doctors, and the firm has spent months — and, in some cases, years — scouring players’ social media and scrutinizing medical records, sparking an outcry from former players and causing some doctors to quit the settlement’s languishing network, a Washington Post investigation found.
SCOTUSblog, In year-end report, chief justice defends judiciary’s independence, Amy Howe Jan 1, 2025 At the end of an eventful year at the Supreme Court that included a ruling giving former President Donald Trump broad immunity from criminal prosecution for his conduct while in office, reporting that controversial flags had flown at the homes of Justice Samuel Alito, and an ethics inquiry from Senate Democrats that found more gift trips that Justice Clarence Thomas had failed to disclose, Chief Justice John Roberts’ annual report, released on Tuesday evening, focused on what he sees as the threats to judicial independence.
One of those threats, Roberts wrote, is disinformation from abroad fomented by foreign countries. Although Roberts did not mention any of the “hostile foreign state actors” responsible for such disinformation by name, the justices will hear oral arguments next week in a challenge to a federal law that would require social media giant TikTok to shut down in the United States unless its parent company can sell it off by Jan. 19.
A federal appeals court upheld the law earlier this month, calling it part of “a broader effort to counter a well-substantiated national security threat posed by the People’s Republic of China.” Roberts’ discussion of disinformation in his report seemed to suggest that he may be sympathetic to the TikTok ban.
The chief justice traditionally releases his year-end report on the federal judiciary every year on New Year’s Eve. Roberts’s 2023 report discussed the legal profession and the role of artificial intelligence. His 2022 report, in the aftermath of the court’s decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion, stressed the importance of judicial security.
This year’s report comes in the wake of mounting criticism of the court and the justices’ decision in June overturning the longstanding Chevron doctrine, which instructed courts to generally defer to a federal agency’s interpretation of the statutes that it administers. Quoting his predecessor, the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Roberts characterized the United States’s independent federal judiciary as “one of the ‘crown jewels of our system of government” – and essential to the rule of law.
But “four areas of illegitimate activity” pose a danger to that independence, Roberts wrote on Tuesday. T
here has “been a significant uptick in” threats directed at judges, he noted, requiring the commitment of “significant additional resources” to protect judges and investigate and prosecute threats against them.A bill passed earlier this month to avert a government shutdown included more than $25 million in funding for security at the justices’ homes. A California man, Nicholas Roske, is scheduled to stand trial in Maryland next year on charges that he attempted to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022.Efforts to intimidate judges – whether by “activist groups” or public officials – can undermine independence, Roberts continued.
Roberts cautioned that critics of the judiciary “should be mindful that intemperance in their statements when it comes to judges may prompt dangerous reactions by others.”Roberts also cited disinformation as a threat to judicial independence, observing that “distortion of the factual or legal basis for a ruling can undermine confidence in the court system.” The judicial branch, Roberts added, “is peculiarly ill-suited to combat this problem, because judges typically speak only through their decisions.” (The Supreme Court does not make audio of its opinion announcements, at which the justices normally read summaries of their written opinions, available for several months after the opinions are released.)
Roberts pointed to the influence of “hostile foreign state actors” as another part of that potential threat. Such actors, he said, could “feed false information into the marketplace of ideas” or “steal information.” Defending the TikTok ban, the Biden administration told the court on Dec. 27 that TikTok “collects vast swaths of data about tens of millions of Americans, which” China “could use for espionage or blackmail,” and that China could “covertly manipulate the platform to advance its geopolitical interests and harm the United States — by, for example, sowing discord and disinformation during a crisis.”
Finally, Roberts concluded, “judicial independence is undermined unless the other branches are firm in their responsibility to enforce the court’s decrees.” Roberts harkened back to the 1950s and 1960s, when federal judges and the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations stood together when state governors tried to defy court orders to desegregate schools. Since then, he said, the United States has “avoided the standoffs,” but recently “elected officials from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings. These dangerous suggestions, however sporadic, must be rejected,” he wrote.The Supreme Court will be back in the spotlight early in the new year. On Jan. 10, the court will hear oral arguments in TikTok’s effort to invalidate a federal law that would require the company to shut down in the United States unless its parent company can sell it off by Jan. 19.The post In year-end report, chief justice defends judiciary’s independence appeared first on SCOTUSblog.
New York Times, Chief Justice Roberts Condemns Threats to Judicial Independence, Adam Liptak, Dec. 31, 2024. In his year-end report on the federal judiciary, John Roberts decried violence, intimidation and disinformation and warned against defiance of court rulings.
Judicial independence is under grave threat on several fronts, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote on Tuesday in an unusually urgent and somber year-end report on the state of the federal judiciary.
“Violence, intimidation and defiance directed at judges because of their work undermine our Republic, and are wholly unacceptable,” he wrote.
The report, which arrived in the wake of questions about the court’s ethical standards and a drop in its approval ratings, said some criticism of judges’ work is healthy, warranted and welcome.
“Unfortunately, not all actors engage in ‘informed criticism’ or anything remotely resembling it,” he wrote. “I feel compelled to address four areas of illegitimate activity that, in my view, do threaten the independence of judges on which the rule of law depends.”
Excerpt Continued Below.
New York Times, Investigation: How Shen Yun Tapped Religious Fervor to Make $266 Million, Michael Rothfeld and Nicole Hong, Dec. 30, 2024 (print ed.). The dance group has accumulated enormous wealth, in large part by getting followers of the Falun Gong religious movement to work for free and pay its bills.
Over the past decade, the dance group Shen Yun Performing Arts has made money at a staggering rate.
The group had $60 million in 2015.
It had $144 million by 2019.
And by the end of last year, tax records show, it had more than a quarter of a billion dollars, stockpiling wealth at a pace that would be extraordinary for any company, let alone a nonprofit dance group from Orange County, N.Y.
Operated by Falun Gong, the persecuted Chinese religious movement, Shen Yun’s success flows in part from its ability to pack venues worldwide — while exploiting young, low-paid performers with little regard for their health or well-being.
But it also is a token of the power that Falun Gong’s founder, Li Hongzhi, has wielded over his followers. In the name of fighting communism, and obeying Mr. Li’s mystical teachings, they have created a global network to glorify him and enrich his movement.your times access
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. 30, 2024. 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.”
Excerpt Continued Below.
New York Times, Investigation: The Men Who Use Instagram to Groom Child Influencers, Jennifer Valentino-DeVries and Michael H. Keller, Dec. 30, 2024. Photographers and other men offer to build online followings for young girls, but some are pedophiles who work with parents to sexualize them.
Everyone had an idea about how the 12-year-old girl should pose in a G-string bikini as they assembled in an Airbnb rental home in a small Louisiana town.
The photographer was new to the business of shooting child influencers, so he welcomed suggestions, he later explained in an interview.
The girl’s mother, swiping through images of women from men's magazines on her phone, recommended that she stand with one leg raised provocatively on a bed, he recalled. The girl, he said, proposed imitating a scene from an erotic film she had watched — she would lie on her back with her hands grasping for the bedposts.
In the end, several shots positioned her “head on a pillow and her buttocks raised in the air,” and in one, the camera focused on her “barely covered” genitals. That was the description in court documents, written by federal authorities who charged the photographer and mother with crimes related to child sexual abuse material.
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New York Times, Social Media Companies Face Global Tug-of-War Over Free Speech, Cecilia Kang and Adam Satariano, Dec. 30, 2024. Donald Trump’s picks for the F.C.C. and F.T.C. have vowed to remove censorship online. That conflicts with European regulators pushing for stricter moderation.
President-elect Donald J. Trump and his allies have vowed to squash an online “censorship cartel” of social media firms that they say targets conservatives.
Already, the president-elect’s newly chosen regulators at the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission have outlined plans to stop social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube from removing content the companies deem offensive — and punish advertisers that leave less restrictive platforms like X in protest of the lack of moderation.
“The censorship and advertising boycott cartel must end now!” Elon Musk, the owner of X, whom Mr. Trump has appointed to cut the federal budget, posted on his site last month.
In Europe, social media companies face the opposite problem. There, regulators accuse the platforms of being too lax about the information they host, including allowing posts that stoked political violence in Britain and spread hate in Germany and France.
Excerpt Continued Below.
New York Times, Chinese Companies Have Sidestepped Trump’s Tariffs. They Could Do It Again, Ana Swanson, Dec. 31, 2024. The companies have found plenty of new channels to the U.S. market, demonstrating the potential limits of the tariffs Donald Trump has promised to impose.
After President Donald J. Trump slapped tariffs on Chinese bicycles in 2018, Arnold Kamler, then the chief executive of the bike maker Kent International, saw a curious trend play out in the bicycle industry.
Chinese bicycle factories moved their final manufacturing and assembly operations out of China, setting up new facilities in Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia and India. Using parts mostly from China, those companies made bicycles that they could export directly to the United States — without paying the 25 percent tariff had the bike been shipped straight from China.
“The net effect of what’s going on with these tariffs is that Chinese factories in China are setting up Chinese factories in other countries,” said Mr. Kamler, whose company imports some bicycles from China and makes others at a South Carolina factory.
Pushing those factories into other countries resulted in additional costs for companies and consumers, without increasing the amount of manufacturing in the United States, Mr. Kamler said. He said he had been forced to raise his prices several times as a result of the tariffs.
“There’s no real gain here,” said Mr. Kamler, whose bikes are sold at Walmart and other retailers. “It’s very inflationary.”
New York Times, Drugs, Scams and Sin: Myanmar’s War Has Made It the Global Crime Capital, Hannah Beech, Dec. 31, 2024. The chaotic country is now a magnet for criminal syndicates, particularly from China, destabilizing law enforcement across much of Asia.
Since descending into a full-blown civil conflict nearly four years ago, after the military overthrew the elected government, Myanmar has cemented its status as a hotbed of transnational crime. It is a playground for warlords, arms dealers, human traffickers, poachers, drug syndicates and generals wanted by international courts.
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More U.S. Political News
Washington Post, D.C. Mayor Bowser goes to Mar-a-Lago, says she had ‘great meeting’ with Trump, Meagan Flynn and Martin Weil, Jan. 1, 2024 (print ed.). 
Bowser said the two had met “to discuss our shared priorities” for Donald Trump’s second term as president.
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) met with President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Monday, saying in a late-night statement that they discussed “shared priorities” involving the federal workforce, buildings and park space during the “great meeting.”
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.
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New York Times, Guest Essay: What’s the Matter With Chicago? Andrew G. Biggs (senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, serving since 2016 as a presidentially appointed member of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico, which has overseen the Puerto Rico government’s bankruptcy.), Dec. 31, 2024 (print ed.).
The word bankruptcy has been hanging over Chicago like a storm cloud about to burst.
Mayor Brandon Johnson is the latest leader to attempt to close Chicago’s gaping fiscal gap: He proposed a $300 million property tax increase to partly fill Chicago’s $982 million projected budget deficit, only to be unanimously rejected by the City Council. The City Council narrowly passed a budget on Dec. 16, with far less in tax increases than the mayor had initially demanded.
The Windy City’s woes are the product of decades of fiscal profligacy and a cautionary tale to policymakers in every region and at every level of government: Retirement benefits are like free junk food to politicians — everyone loves them, and the bills don’t arrive until later. They can be ruinous for a city’s long-term fiscal health.
At the heart of Chicago’s deficit are decades of increasingly generous retirement benefits offered by Chicago’s leaders to more than 30,000 public employees, a politically powerful constituency. Today, a city employee retiring after 35 years with a final salary of $75,000 would receive combined pension and retiree health benefits of about $77,000.
The City government has failed to fund those pension promises fully and the bill has come due. Retirement benefits and debt service together made up 43 percent of Chicago’s budget in 2022, the highest rate of any U.S. city. Chicago spends more on debt and pensions than it does on the police and infrastructure, according to an analysis from the Illinois Policy Institute, a libertarian-leaning policy group. In other words, Chicago is paying for the past, not investing for the future.your times access
Chicago’s pension actuary warned in a letter to the plan’s leadership last year that “the Fund is still at risk of potential insolvency if an economic recession or investment market downturn were to occur in the near term.” (He wrote it in boldface to get policymakers to take notice.)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.
Chicago owes bondholders almost $29 billion. It also faces $35 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and almost $2 billion in unfunded retiree health benefits. And these figures do not include an additional $14 billion in unfunded benefits owed to Chicago’s teachers. The watchdog group Truth in Accounting gives Chicago a grade of “F” for fiscal responsibility, ranking it 74 out of 75 cities. (New York City is last.)
City leaders may continue to ignore these warnings. If the pension fund does get close to insolvency, Chicago can most likely keep the pension checks flowing by suspending payments to bondholders. Illinois has no legal provision for Chicago to declare bankruptcy, meaning the state would be forced to rush legislation into place to prevent financial chaos.
Judging by the experience of places such as Detroit and Puerto Rico, where I serve on a federally appointed board overseeing the island government’s bankruptcy, pensions would largely be protected in the event of fiscal chaos, followed by core government operations. Nonessential government services would be reduced, and bondholders would receive what remains.
Even if Chicago can contain the political fallout locally, the economic impact would reach far beyond the city limits. Chicago is the largest city in the Midwest and the third largest nationwide. The state of Illinois, which faces vast debts of its own, is not in a position to bail out its largest city, so Congress or the Federal Reserve might have to step in to help.
Policymakers in other big American cities ought to be paying attention. Truth in Accounting gave San Francisco a fiscal grade of D, while New York’s largest-in-the-nation debt burden of $61,800 per taxpayer caused it to share a failing grade with Chicago. New York and San Francisco each already devote more than 22 percent of their total budgets to retirement benefits and debt.
One reason it’s easy to allow pension-fueled deficits to keep growing is that there are very few guardrails. State and local government pensions are unregulated by the federal government, so they operate with much lower funding standards than federal government pensions or those offered by private companies.
Like private pensions, state and local governments should be required to assume conservative returns on pension investments and to address unfunded liabilities quickly, rather than letting funding shortfalls fester over decades.
If, as in Chicago, decades of fiscal recklessness are allowed to go unchecked, changing course can be extremely painful. Chicago has increased its pension contributions significantly. But the city must pay for its $927 million in additional pension contributions by reducing other essential government functions.
The consequence is a lower level of public services for everyone. With the city police force down by over 1,600 officers since 2018, the city’s inspector general found that 49 percent of 911 calls appear to go unanswered. Chicago is already seeing the effects of this deterioration. Companies such as Boeing, United Airlines, Tyson Foods and the hedge fund Citadel have all moved operations away from Chicago in recent years, citing the business environment, public safety and governance quality among their reasons.+Andrew G Biggs is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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.
Washington Post, D.C. Mayor Bowser goes to Mar-a-Lago, says she had ‘great meeting’ with Trump, Meagan Flynn and Martin Weil, Jan. 1, 2024 (print ed.). Bowser said the two had met “to discuss our shared priorities” for Donald Trump’s second term as president.
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) met with President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Monday, saying in a late-night statement that they discussed “shared priorities” involving the federal workforce, buildings and park space during the “great meeting.”
New York Times, Trump Weighs In on Immigrant Visa Debate but Offers Little Clarity, Ken Bensinger, Dec. 29, 2024 (print ed.). President-elect Trump said he had used the visas for skilled workers “many times.” But he has mainly used visas for unskilled workers like housekeepers.
President-elect Donald J. Trump appeared to weigh in on Saturday on a heated debate among his supporters over the role of skilled immigrant workers in the U.S. economy, saying he had frequently used the visas for those workers and backed the program.
“I have many H-1B visas on my properties,” he told The New York Post. “I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program.”
But his comments — which were enthusiastically embraced by the technology industry as an endorsement — may muddy the waters because Mr. Trump appears to have only sparingly used the H-1B visa program, which allows skilled workers like software engineers to work in the United States for up to three years and can be extended to six years.
Instead, he has been a frequent and longtime user of the similarly named, but starkly different, H-2B visa program, which is for unskilled workers like gardeners and housekeepers, as well as the H-2A program, which is for agricultural workers. Those visas allow a worker to remain in the country for 10 months. Federal data show Mr. Trump’s companies have received approval to employ over 1,000 workers through the two H-2 programs in the past 20 years.
New York Times, Trump Previews Second Term in Sprawling Speech to Conservative Conference, Michael D. Shear, Dec. 22, 2024. President-elect Trump repeated false claims about immigration and the border and discussed the Panama Canal in the 90-minute address.
President-elect Donald J. Trump delivered a sprawling address on Sunday that he called a “small preview of the common-sense revolution” his administration will bring, pledging to slam shut the nation’s borders, end federal regulations, lower taxes, prosecute his rivals, “stop woke” and “end the transgender lunacy.”
In a 90-minute speech at a conservative conference in Phoenix, Mr. Trump offered a triumphant view of his election victory in which he described his liberal adversaries as “befuddled” and promised that a new “golden age in America” had begun.
“We will end the occupation, and Jan. 20 will truly be liberation day in America,” Mr. Trump told thousands of people at AmericaFest, a four-day conference run by the conservative group Turning Point USA.
The president-elect’s speech was a familiar mash-up of false assertions, self-praise, fierce attacks on his adversaries and promises about how his return to power would change the country for the better.
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More On Carter Life, Legacy
President Jimmy Carter and Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 1978. Both saw themselves as straight shooters in a world of spinners (Photo:
Barry Thumma/Associated Press
New York Times, ‘Hanging Out With Jimmy Carter,’ Biden Faces the Echoes of History, Peter Baker, Jan. 1, 2024 (print ed.). President Biden is another Democrat hurt by inflation and struggling to free hostages. But Mr. Carter’s enhanced reputation post-presidency offers hope.
When President Biden appeared on camera to pay tribute to former President Jimmy Carter, he sounded almost as if he were thinking of himself in these final days in office.
“In today’s world, some look at Jimmy Carter and see a man of a bygone era — with honesty and character, faith and humility,” Mr. Biden said in breaking away from his Caribbean vacation on Sunday after the former president’s death. “It mattered. But I don’t believe it’s a bygone era.”
Mr. Biden, too, has been dismissed as a man of a bygone era, an old-school politician in a new-school world, an octogenarian president playing by rules he learned in the 1970s when he served in the Senate and Mr. Carter was in the White House, rules that did not help him in today’s fast-paced, smash-mouth political arena. He is, in this view, a man out of time — Mr. Carter’s time.
Washington Post, Jimmy Carter: They wrote obituaries about Carter — but died before him, Laura Wagner, Jan. 1, 2024 (print ed.). Carter’s longevity meant that some of his obit writers have by now not only left journalism but also their mortal coils.
New York Times, In Carter’s Hometown, a Long Vigil Ends With Sorrow, but Also Uplift, Rick Rojas, Christina Morales and Christian Boone, Jan. 1, 2024 (print ed.). Plains, Ga., had been bracing for the inevitable through Jimmy Carter’s ailments and nearly two years of hospice care. Still, his death “doesn’t seem real.”
The Georgia town known first and foremost as the home of Jimmy Carter had steeled itself time and again for an existence without him. First, there was his cancer diagnosis in 2015, and then the fall that broke a hip, and the disclosure almost two years ago that he had entered hospice care.
But sure enough, every time, he held on.
And so, Plains, a speck of a community tied to the 39th president for the better part of a century, awoke on Monday to a reality that, strangely enough, seemed almost as inconceivable as it was inevitable. Mr. Carter, 100, was gone. He died on Sunday at his home, the modest ranch house hidden behind the security fencing and guard stations in the center of town.
“Honestly, it doesn’t seem real,” said Philip Kurland, the owner of the Plains Trading Post, an overstuffed emporium of political memorabilia in the strip of businesses that makes up downtown. “It was inevitable, but there’s still sadness. There’s also a feeling of: Let’s celebrate a life well lived.”
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter (New York Times photo by Damon Winter )
New York Times, Jimmy Carter, Peacemaking President Amid Crises, Is Dead at 100, Peter Baker and Roy Reed, Dec. 30, 2024 (print ed.). Jimmy Carter, who rose from Georgia farmland to become the 39th president of the United States on a promise of national healing after the wounds of Watergate and Vietnam, then lost the White House in a cauldron of economic turmoil at home and crisis in Iran, died on Sunday at his home in Plains, Ga. He was 100.
The Carter Center in Atlanta announced his death, which came nearly three months after Mr. Carter, already the longest-living president in American history, became the first former commander in chief to reach the century mark. Mr. Carter went into hospice care 22 months ago, but held on longer than even his family expected.
Tributes poured in from presidents, world leaders and many everyday people from around the world who admired not only Mr. Carter’s service during four years in the White House but his four decades of efforts since leaving office to fight disease, broker peace and provide for the poor. President Biden ordered a state funeral to be held and was expected to deliver a eulogy.
“To all of the young people in this nation and for anyone in search of what it means to live a life of purpose and meaning — the good life — study Jimmy Carter, a man of principle, faith and humility,” Mr. Biden, the first Democratic senator to endorse Mr. Carter’s long-shot 1976 bid for the presidency, said in a statement. “He showed that we are great nation because we are a good people.”
President-elect Donald J. Trump, who often denigrated Mr. Carter on the campaign trail and in recent days spoke of unraveling one of the former president’s signature accomplishments, the transfer of the Panama Canal to Panama, issued a gracious statement. “The challenges Jimmy faced as president came at a pivotal time for our country, and he did everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans,” Mr. Trump said. “For that, we owe him a debt of gratitude.”
Mr. Carter was no fan of Mr. Trump and family members said he was holding on in part to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. The former president cast his absentee ballot for her in mid-October after making his final public appearance on his birthday when he was rolled out to his yard in a wheelchair to watch a flyover of military jets in his honor.
Other than interludes in the White House and the Georgia governor’s mansion, he and his wife, the former first lady Rosalynn Carter, lived in the same simple home in Plains for most of their adult lives and each of them passed away there, Mrs. Carter in November last year.
A lifelong farmer who still worked with his hands building houses for the poor well into his 90s, Mr. Carter had long defied death and outlived not only his wife but his vice president, most of his cabinet, key aides and allies as well as the Republican president he defeated and the Republican challenger who later defeated him. Over the years, he beat back a series of health crises, including a bout with the skin cancer melanoma, which spread to his liver and brain, and repeated falls, one giving him a broken hip.
The Carter Center announced in February last year that Mr. Carter, “after a series of short hospital stays,” had decided to forgo further life-prolonging medical treatment and would receive hospice care at home.
News that he seemed to be in his final days prompted a wave of tributes and remembrances of his extended and eventful life, but even then he upended expectations by hanging on for nearly two years. He lived long enough to bid farewell to Mrs. Carter, who died at 96, culminating a marriage of 77 years.
Jimmy Carter, furthest right, is standing in the Oval Office with four of his successors. From left to right: George H.W. Bush, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Former President Jimmy Carter, furthest right, in a group photo of his successors in January 2009 (New York Times photo by Doug Mills)
New York Times, Carter the Critic Didn’t Spare His Successors, Linda Qiu, Dec. 30, 2024 (print ed.). Jimmy Carter defied the unwritten rule of former presidents: Don’t criticize the occupant of the Oval Office.
Former President Jimmy Carter grinned in the Oval Office in January 2009 for a photograph, a visible gap separating him from four of his successors. As the others stood shoulder to shoulder, he positioned himself off to the side, a hand in one pocket, as if to distance himself just slightly from that most exclusive club.
Mr. Carter had no qualms about breaking one of that club’s unwritten rules, namely that former presidents restrain their critiques of the current occupant of the Oval Office. In the four decades after leaving the White House following the 1980 election, he caused regular stirs with pointed opinions about his successors.
“He was in fights with everyone, Democrats, Republicans,” said Julian E. Zelizer, the author of “Jimmy Carter” and a historian at Princeton University, who called Mr. Carter “a maverick through and through.”
Stuart Eizenstat, a former adviser to Mr. Carter, said the former president wasn’t the type of person to just go back to Plains, Ga., and “work on carpentry and painting.”
“When he left office, he was in his mid 50s,” Mr. Eizenstat said. “He didn’t want his voice to be unheard.”
Washington Post, Carter to lie in state at Capitol, with state funeral to follow on Jan. 9, Azi Paybarahm, Dec. 30, 2024. Former presidents and other dignitaries are expected to attend the service at Washington National Cathedral where President Joe Biden will deliver the eulogy.
The death of former president Jimmy Carter touched off an American mourning ritual that requires quickly coordinating a sprawling group of federal officials, local partners and law enforcement, as well as elected leaders from across the political spectrum.Get the latest election news and results
Services to honor Carter will begin Jan. 4 in his home state of Georgia and conclude Jan. 9 with a state funeral at Washington National Cathedral, where President Joe Biden will deliver the eulogy. Carter will lie in state in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol for three days, which will give members of Congress and everyday Americans the opportunity to pay their respects.
The events require a complicated choreography of protocol, ceremony and security at which official Washington excels, but the timing of Carter’s funeral presents some particular challenges. The former president died Sunday at the age of 100.
The tributes to Carter come after the New Year’s Day holiday and as Washington is experiencing a political transition, with Biden preparing to hand power to President-elect Donald Trump. Separately, a fractured House Republican majority will try to elect a speaker on Jan. 3, a process that previously took the GOP dozens of rounds of votes spread over several days of public feuding.
New York Times, After Jimmy Carter Won the Presidency, Democrats Lost the South, Richard Fausset, Dec. 30, 2024. On the day he was sworn in as governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter, an ambitious white peanut farmer from rural Sumter County, announced that “the time for racial discrimination is over.”
The declaration landed like the carefully calculated bomb it was intended to be in the South of 1971 — and landed Mr. Carter on the cover of Time magazine, along with the blurb, “Dixie whistles a different tune.”
But in his ensuing half-century of public life, Mr. Carter, the one-term Democratic president who died Sunday at 100, would be forced to listen rather helplessly as Republicans mostly called the tune in his native South, supported by white voters who were uncomfortable with the Democrats’ embrace of racial inclusion and abortion rights, and were attracted to the small-government, low-tax promises of the party of Ronald Reagan.
Indeed, after Mr. Carter’s ascension to the White House, the states of the old Confederacy would go on to become, with a few exceptions, a crucial base of support for Republican presidential candidates. Much of that support came from Mr. Carter’s fellow Southern evangelicals, who turned sharply away from him and the Democrats during his presidential term. They became one of the most loyal Republican voting blocs and remain so to this day.
That was part of a shift that had begun in the early 1960s, as Republicans found a way to chip and then blast away at what had been a solidly Democratic South since the end of Reconstruction. Southerners’ fealty to the party had been based on their appreciation for Roosevelt’s New Deal, and their bitterness over the 19th century Republicanism of Lincoln that helped erode the region’s strict racial hierarchies.
Yet Mr. Carter also helped to create a model for Democratic success in a South that has become increasingly Republican‚ a model that remains workable to varying degrees today. The election of 1976 was one of a number of times that a Democratic candidate has emerged with just the right balance of rhetoric and policy promises, uniting just enough white Southern progressives and white moderates in a successful coalition with Black and other minority voters.
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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.
The ruling came as Mr. Trump prepares to take the presidency next month amid unceasing legal entanglements. This month, he accused a juror of misconduct that he said should void a 34-count felony conviction in Manhattan. He also sued The Des Moines Register for running a poll that showed him trailing Vice President Kamala Harris. ABC News this month settled a defamation lawsuit brought by Mr. Trump, agreeing to pay $15 million.
During the trial last year, Ms. Carroll testified that she had run into Mr. Trump at Bergdorf’s on Fifth Avenue and he asked her to help him buy a present for a female friend. Ms. Carroll testified that they wound up in the lingerie department, where he pulled her into a dressing room, shut the door and began assaulting her.
Ms. Carroll said he shoved her against a wall, pulled down her tights and inserted his fingers and then his penis into her vagina. She said she pushed him away and fled. Other than telling two friends, she kept the encounter secret until disclosing it in a 2019 book excerpt in New York magazine.
Mr. Trump did not testify at the trial but denied wrongdoing and claimed he had never met Ms. Carroll. He earned a rebuke from the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, when he posted on Truth Social that Ms. Carroll’s lawsuit was a scam and wrote that Ms. Carroll’s lawyer was a “political operative.” He also said that the dress Ms. Carroll wore at Bergdorf’s that day should be “allowed to be part of the case.”Editors’ PicksThe Timeless Spell of Rome’s Oldest ChurchesHow to Pack Formal Clothing12 Ways to Get Fitter in 2025
The jury of six men and three women found that Mr. Trump had sexually abused Ms. Carroll but did not find that he raped her. It was unclear why jurors chose the lesser offense of abuse over rape, which is defined under state law as sexual intercourse without consent that involves any penetration of the penis in the vaginal opening.
The federal jury also found that Mr. Trump defamed Ms. Carroll when he wrote on Truth Social in 2022 that her case was “a complete con job” and “a Hoax and a lie.” The jury ordered him to pay Ms. Carroll $5 million in damages.
This year, another Manhattan jury ordered Mr. Trump to pay Ms. Carroll $83.3 million for defaming her in 2019 after she accused him of rape, and continuing to do so in social media posts at news conferences and even during the trial. Ms. Carroll’s lawyers argued that a large award was necessary to stop Mr. Trump from continuing to deride her.
America has a serious oligarch problem and it’s getting worse by the day. If Citizens United isn’t reversed, the voices of average Americans will be totally drowned out by billionaire cash in our upcoming elections…
America has a serious oligarch problem and it’s getting worse by the day. If Citizens United isn’t reversed, the voices of average Americans will be totally drowned out by billionaire cash in our upcoming elections…
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.
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
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).
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.
When President-elect Donald J. Trump mused in a recent television interview about whether vaccines cause autism — a theory that has been discredited by dozens of scientific studies — autism researchers across the country collectively sighed in frustration.
But during the interview, on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Mr. Trump made one passing comment with which they could agree: “I mean, something is going on,” he said, referring to skyrocketing rates of autism. “I think somebody has to find out.”
What is going on? Autism diagnoses are undeniably on the rise in the United States — about 1 in 36 children have one, according to data the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collected from 11 states, compared with 1 in 150 children in 2000 — and researchers have not yet arrived at a clear explanation. They attribute most of the surge to increased awareness of the disorder and changes in how it is classified by medical professionals. But scientists say there are other factors, genetic and environmental, that could be playing a role too.
Autism spectrum disorder, as it is officially called, is inherently wide-ranging, marked by a blend of social and communication issues, repetitive behaviors and thinking patterns that vary in severity. A mildly autistic child could simply struggle with social cues, while a child with a severe case could be nonverbal. There is no blood test or brain scan to determine who has autism, just a clinician’s observations.
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
Letters from an American, Commentary: December 5, 2024 [Health Care CEO's Murder], Heather Cox Richardson
Washington Post, Trump’s CDC pick wouldn’t let go of false theory that vaccines cause autism
U.S. Law, Cases, Courts
The Hartmann Report, Commentary: Weiner went to prison but Gaetz won’t? Thom Hartmann, Dec. 28, 2024. Remember when Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner 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…
Politico, How prosecutors’ evidence mistakes could let Menendez walk away from corruption charges, Ry Rivard, Dec. 25, 2024. Five months after a jury convicted Sen. Bob Menendez of corruption-related charges that ended his political career, federal prosecutors have admitted to a series of errors that could upend the verdicts.
The missteps have handed Menendez’s attorneys just the kind of opening they’d been looking for, and they have already requested a new trial. If they get their way, Menendez could beat federal charges once again — a remarkable prospect given the stash of gold bars and piles of cash used as evidence against him.
“The prosecution gift-wrapped them one here,” said Jonathan Kravis, a former federal prosecutor who is now a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson.
Menendez’s conviction on 16 counts this summer led to his resignation from the Senate, and he is expected to be sentenced in January.
In several surprise legal filings since mid-November, prosecutors from the Southern District of New York revealed they had inadvertently given the jury access to evidence a judge ruled jurors should not see.
The evidence at issue was loaded onto a laptop the jury was given during its deliberations. Prosecutors have said it’s “vanishingly unlikely” and unreasonable to think any juror actually poured through all the documents on the laptop and came across the tainted material, which amounts to scraps of unredacted text messages amid 3,000 often lengthy documents.
Recent Relevant Headlines
Jose Ibarra listens through an interpreter during his trial at Athens-Clarke County Superior Court, Nov. 20, 2024, in Athens, Ga. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution pool photo by Hyosub Shin via Associated Press).
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, 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.
Washington Post, Under Biden, a generational shift in U.S. views of Israel, Yasmeen Abutaleb, Dec. 23, 2024. Support for Israel was once widespread across the American political spectrum.
New York Times, Syria’s New Leaders Try to Unite Rebel Factions Under a Single Government, Adam Rasgon, Dec. 25, 2024. The fighters who ousted Bashar al-Assad are aiming to transform their revolutionary movement and assert control over the country.
Syria’s new leadership has taken steps to unite disparate rebel factions under a single government in the wake of Bashar al-Assad’s ouster.
Under a new accord, a number of rebel factions agreed to dissolve themselves, Sana, the Syrian state-run news service, reported on Tuesday. The agreement suggested that the new Syrian administration was making progress in asserting its authority over the country.
The rebel groups agreed to be integrated under the defense ministry, the Sana report said. Pictures posted on social media showed Ahmad al-Shara, the rebel who led the offensive that overthrew the Assad dictatorship, meeting on Tuesday with dozens of rebels, many of them clad in military uniforms.
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.
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.
Washington Post, Alawites live in fear as Syrian rebels hunt members of Assad’s regime, Kareem Fahim and Zakaria Zakaria, Jan. 1, 2024. Syria’s minority Alawite community is gripped by terror as reports spread of killings and disappearances under the country’s new Islamist rulers.
A sense of euphoria in much of Syria has been tempered by dread in areas like Khirbet al-Hammam, where most residents are Alawites, the Muslim sect Assad belongs to. As the country’s new Sunni Islamist rulers embark on a hunt for former government figures, Alawite districts are gripped by terror and confusion, as reports spread of killings, disappearances, beatings and sectarian harassment.
The violence has posed an early test for Syria’s fledgling government, led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, the former rebel group that toppled Assad in early December with the help of other insurgent factions and was quick to promise tolerance for minorities.
Washington Post, Australia, wary of China, prepares workforce to build nuclear subs, Michael E. Miller, Dec. 30, 2024 (print ed.). Australia is investing in education to support the AUKUS nuclear submarine program amid jitters that incoming President Donald Trump could scrutinize the deal.
the United States and the United Kingdom are helping Australia build nuclear-propelled submarines to counter China’s growing military assertiveness in the region. Australia has committed to spend as much as $250 billion over three decades, first to acquire used submarines, then to build its own.
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.
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, 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, 179 Dead in Plane Crash in South Korea, Choe Sang-Hun, John Yoon and Jin Yu Young, Dec. 29, 2024. The passenger plane was landing when it went off the runway in Muan, in the country’s southwest. The flight came from Bangkok; only two people survived the crash.
Only two people survived the crash, which happened as the plane was landing at an airport in the southwest. Officials said they were investigating the cause.
New York Times, Investigation: ‘This Is What Makes Us Rich’: Inside a Sinaloa Cartel Fentanyl Lab, Natalie Kitroeff and Paulina Villegas, Photographs and Video by Meridith Kohut, Dec. 29, 2024. Our reporters witnessed the dangerous fentanyl production process inside a secret lab in Culiacán run by Mexico’s most powerful criminal syndicate.
We had just walked into the fentanyl lab when the cook poured a white powder into a stockpot full of liquid. He began mixing it with an immersion blender and fumes rose from the pot, filling the small kitchen.
We wore gas masks and hazmat suits, but the cook had on only a surgical mask. He and his partner had rushed here to fulfill an order for 10 kilograms of fentanyl. While one sniff of the toxic chemicals could kill us, they explained, they had built up a tolerance to the lethal drug.
But then, the cook jerked back.
“It really hit me,” he said, looking dazed. “I need to take a breather.”
The young man rushed out of the room.
In September, a war broke out within Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel. Fighting between the rival factions has terrorized the northwestern state of Sinaloa in the months since, leaving hundreds dead and causing a billion dollars in economic damage, business leaders say. The Mexican government responded by sending in a swarm of soldiers and making a slew of arrests.
ground. Fearing law enforcement raids or attacks by their rivals, they say they’re moving their labs around more often than usual and producing drugs in new locations.
And yet, even in the middle of all-out war and intense government pressure, Mexico’s cartels are still doing a swift business. In the last five years, illicit fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, became the leading cause of death for young adults in the United States.
We — two New York Times reporters and one photographer — had been trying for months to get access to a fentanyl lab run by the Sinaloa cartel, which the U.S. government says is responsible for much of the product flooding into the United States. But every time we thought we were getting close, some unforeseen outburst of violence derailed our plans.
New York Times, Ignoring Warnings, a Growing Band of Tourists Venture to Afghanistan, David Zucchino, Photographs by Elise Blanchard, Dec. 29, 2024. With the war now over, the Taliban are welcoming foreign travelers, even as governments advise their citizens to stay away.
Yi-Pin Lin, an associate professor at Tufts University, proudly says he has vacationed in 120 nations over the past decade.
But there was one country he had always dreamed of visiting, only to be frightened off by decades of war, kidnappings and terrorism: Afghanistan.
With the end of the Afghan war in 2021, the country’s new Taliban rulers began encouraging tourists to visit. So last month, Mr. Lin packed his bags, paid $130 for a visa and boarded a flight to Kabul, the Afghan capital.
“When I told my friends where I was going, they all thought I was crazy,” he said. “They said it was too dangerous.”
Mr. Lin, 43, is part of a small but growing vanguard of venturesome tourists making their way to Afghanistan, disregarding dire warnings issued by their governments. The State Department advises Americans not to travel to Afghanistan “due to terrorism, risk of wrongful detention, civil unrest, kidnapping and crime.”
Over the past three years, Taliban officials say, 14,500 foreign tourists have visited the isolated, poverty-stricken nation. They have arrived with hard currency that Afghanistan desperately needs.
New York Times, U.S. Designates American Teacher Held in Russia as ‘Wrongfully Detained,’ Helene Cooper, Dec. 29, 2024 (print ed.). Marc Fogel, an American teacher serving a 14-year prison sentence in Russia, has been designated by the U.S. government as wrongfully detained, the State Department said on Friday.
Mr. Fogel, a former worker at the United States Embassy in Moscow, was arrested in Russia in August 2021 and convicted of drug smuggling. He was sentenced in June 2022 by the same court that handled the case of Brittney Griner, the American basketball star who was also sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to drug charges. The White House negotiated on behalf of Ms. Griner and eventually struck a prisoner swap deal in which she was released in December 2022 in exchange for the convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout.
Mr. Fogel, by contrast, has remained imprisoned in Russia, serving his sentence in a high-security penal colony. A State Department statement on Friday said that “the United States has been working to secure Marc Fogel’s release for some time.” But Mr. Fogel was not included in the prisoner swap in August that secured the release of the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.
“We have long called for his humanitarian release and tried to include him in the Aug. 1 deal, but were unable to,” the statement said. It added that Mr. Fogel had been designated in October as “wrongfully detained.” It was unclear why the department had waited until this week to announce the change in classification.
The designation moves Mr. Fogel’s case to the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs within the State Department. The office focuses on the release of hostages who are found to have been wrongfully detained. The designation means that the State Department has credible information that the person is innocent, or possibly was detained for the primary purpose of influencing U.S. policy.
Associated Press via Politico, Taliban say Pakistani airstrikes killed 46 people in eastern Afghanistan, mostly women and children, Staff Report, Dec. 25, 2024. Taliban say Pakistani airstrikes killed 46 people in eastern Afghanistan, mostly women and children
Pakistan’s airstrikes on eastern Afghanistan killed 46 people, mostly women and children, a Taliban government official said Wednesday, raising fears of further straining the relations between the two neighbors.
Hamdullah Fitrat, the deputy spokesman for the Afghan government, said those killed in the strikes that targeted four locations in Barmal, a district in the province of Paktika, were refugees, adding that six others were also wounded.
This comes a day after Pakistani security officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with regulations, told The Associated Press that Tuesday’s operation was to dismantle a training facility and kill insurgents in Paktika in Afghanistan.
Earlier Wednesday, Mohammad Khurasani, the spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, claimed in a statement that 50 people, including 27 women and children, have died in the strikes. He said they were “unarmed refugees” who fled to Afghanistan because of Pakistan’s offensive in the northwest.
The TTP — a separate group but also a close ally of the Afghan Taliban — also shared photos, alleging they were of children killed during the Pakistani operation.
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New York Times, Mexico, Betting Trump Is Bluffing on Tariffs, Sees an Opportunity, Peter S. Goodman, Dec. 28, 2024. Business leaders in Mexico say President-elect Trump’s new administration will enhance the appeal of their factories as an alternative to plants in China.
Last month, President-elect Trump threatened the economics of nearshoring by promising to impose 25 percent tariffs on all goods entering the United States from Mexico and Canada. Mexican industry was confronted with a high-stakes question: Was Mr. Trump bluffing, hoping the threat would pressure the Mexican government to halt the movement of people and drugs toward the border? Or was he really preparing to put tariffs on Mexican imports to force companies to move production to the United States?
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.
New York Times, Departing Air Force Secretary Will Leave Space Weaponry as a Legacy, Eric Lipton, Dec. 30, 2024 (print ed.). Frank Kendall, right, who grew up on an apple farm and rose to the pinnacle of the U.S. military, has preached the need for better preparation for the next big fight.
Weapons in space. Fighter jets powered by artificial intelligence.
As the Biden administration comes to a close, one of its legacies will be kicking off the transformation of the nearly 80-year-old U.S. Air Force under the orchestration of its secretary, Frank Kendall.
When he leaves office in January — after more than five decades at the Defense Department and as a military contractor, including nearly four years as Air Force secretary — Mr. Kendall, 75, will have set the stage for a transition that is not only changing how the Air Force is organized but how global wars will be fought.
One of the biggest elements of this shift is the move by the United States to prepare for potential space conflict with Russia, China or some other nation.
In a way, space has been a military zone since the Germans first reached it in 1944 with their V2 rockets that left the earth’s atmosphere before they rained down on London, causing hundreds of deaths. Now, at Mr. Kendall’s direction, the United States is preparing to take that concept to a new level by deploying space-based weapons that can disable or disrupt the growing fleet of Chinese or Russian military satellites.
To Mr. Kendall, there is no other choice for the Air Force.
“If there were one thing I could accomplish as secretary, it would be to give the enterprise — the institution — a sense of urgency about responding to the threat and being more prepared,” he said during an hourlong interview at the Pentagon this month with The New York Times. “Conflict can happen. It’s not inevitable. It may not even be likely. But it can happen at any time. And we need to be ready.”
Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Pete Hegseth Wants the U.S. Military to "Be the World's Sheriff", J.D. Wolf, Dec. 30, 2024. The Trump Defense nominee's rhetoric clashes with MAGA's "America First" movement.
Pete Hegseth, a potential Defense nominee, has expressed views that conflict with the MAGA base and Donald Trump's "America First" foreign policy rhetoric. During a 2016 speech at the Heritage Foundation,Hegseth advocated for the U.S. military to "be the world's sheriff," signaling support for a more interventionist approach to global conflicts:
"So as good patriots after 7 years of Obama, what do we need to do? We need to unapologetically lead, be willing to acknowledge that without America there is no leader of the free world. And, again, it doesn't mean we have to be the policeman in every corner, but we better be the world's sheriff with a big, shiny badge willing to say our security and our interests are important to us and when our word matters, and we will backup our allies and stand up to our enemies."
Pete Hegseth: "We better be the world's sheriff with a big, shiny badge..."
This perspective contrasts sharply with Trump's repeated criticism of U.S. involvement in foreign wars, exemplified by his 2018 tweet opposing the U.S. acting as the "Policeman of the Middle East."Trump
In 2013, Trump also called for focusing on domestic issues instead of policing the world.Trump
Trump and the MAGA base have consistently emphasized ending "endless wars" and reducing U.S. military commitments abroad, aligning with a non-interventionist philosophy. Hegseth's stance, advocating for an active global policing role, suggests a potential ideological divide between his vision and the isolationist leanings of Trump’s base.
Politico Magazine, Exit Interview: Patrick McHenry Lets Loose on the Republican Insurgents He Left Behind, Eleanor Mueller and Zachary Warmbrodt, Dec. 31, 2024. The retiring Republican reflects on his transformation over 20 years in Congress.Patrick McHenry talks in a chair.
When a 29-year-old Patrick McHenry entered Congress in 2005, few would have believed the man described as the GOP’s “attack dog-in-training” would retire two decades later as a paragon of pragmatism.
But after he spent his first terms brawling to little effect, the North Carolina Republican decided to get serious. The bow-tied conservative followed a path that led to the chairship of the House Financial Services Committee and, for three tumultuous weeks, temporary speaker of the House.
In an exit interview with POLITICO Magazine, he recounted the “out-of-body experience” he had when he assumed power after Kevin McCarthy’s ousting. And he talked about how the Republican Party has shifted over his time in office in a way that often left him feeling like he was “going upstream from the traffic.”
But that’s not why he’s leaving. Twenty years is enough, he said, plus his chairmanship is over on account of committee term limits, something he still thinks is a great idea.Patrick McHenry arrives for a vote at the U.S. Capitol.
McHenry followed a path that led to the chairship of the House Financial Services Committee and, for three tumultuous weeks, temporary speaker of the House. | Francis Chung/POLITICO
In his final years in office, McHenry had the opportunity to rise through the ranks of leadership — John Boehner said he would be speaker one day — but instead chose to focus on crafting financial policy, including landmark cryptocurrency legislation. It’s a decision he doesn’t regret.
“[After] that crucible in October, when all the dust settled, and I could kind of get my wits about me, I was in complete peace,” he said. “I knew it was the right thing. That I was done.”
This conversation was edited for length and clarity.
You came into Congress as a bomb-thrower and left a pragmatist. How do you explain what changed?
Let me just rewind here. I ran for state House when I was in college and lost. I worked in the Bush campaign, worked in the Bush administration, went home. And I thought, “I’m going home, and I’m going to come back to politics. Once I have some financial stability, I’ll come back sometime later, you know, 10, 20 years later.”
I set up life in my hometown in the suburbs of Charlotte. And six months in, a state House seat comes open. There’s a piece written about me as if I had designed this thing — fantastic and insanely not true — that I had this sort of set up. And I’m like, “No, no, when I left D.C., I was firmly done.”you
Associated Press via Politico, Pentagon chief loses bid to reject 9/11 plea deals, Staff Report, Dec. 31, 2024. A military appeals court has ruled against Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s effort to throw out the plea deals reached for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other defendants in the 9/11 attacks.
A military appeals court has ruled against Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s effort to throw out the plea deals reached for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other defendants in the 9/11 attacks, a U.S. official said.
The decision puts back on track the agreements that would have the three men plead guilty to one of the deadliest attacks on the United States in exchange for being spared the possibility of the death penalty. The attacks by al-Qaida killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001, and helped spur U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in what the George W. Bush administration called its war on terror.
The military appeals court released its ruling Monday night, according to the U.S. official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Military prosecutors and defense attorneys for Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the attacks, and two co-defendants reached the plea agreements after two years of government-approved negotiations. The deals were announced late last summer.
Washington Post, Trump team says Canada, Greenland, Panama comments are part of a broader plan, Jacqueline Alemany and Cat Zakrzewski ,Dec. 29, 2024 (print ed.). Not everyone is convinced.
In the past several weeks — and before he has been sworn in for his second term — President-elect Donald Trump has threatened trade wars with both of the United States’ closest neighbors, mused about taking over Greenland, blustered about bringing the Panama Canal back under American control and suggested making Canada the 51st state.Get the latest election news and results
Less than a month before his inauguration, Trump — who vowed to end foreign wars and made “peace through strength” a rallying cry of his 2024 presidential campaign — is crafting an “America First” foreign policy defined by antagonism toward U.S. allies and adversaries alike, centered around dreams of territorial expansionism, and channeled through the president-elect’s braggadocio.
Trump’s pre-presidency tactics regarding Greenland, the Panama Canal and the United States’ closest neighbors aren’t likely to result in massive change. Canadians and their political leaders are unlikely to prove receptive to dissolving their country, and U.S. lawmakers have not broadly expressed willingness to absorb Canada as a new state. Greenland’s prime minister has said the island is not for sale, and Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino has said that “every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zone belongs to Panama and will remain so.”
White House Chronicle, Commentary: Trump, Who Thinks He Bought the Nation, Now Eyes the World Llewellyn King, Dec. 28, 2024. When Donald Trump began his first term as president in 2017, I wrote that he came to office not as a politician who had won an election, but rather as a businessman who had won a takeover battle and was ready to hire, fire, sell-off, and generally to reshape the property he had bought.
On Christmas Day, Trump – with a series of posts on social media — revealed himself as a businessman who believes not that he has won the nation in a takeover battle, but rather that he has won the whole world and that he is ready to hire, fire and sell-off.
Also, like a canny takeover artist, he didn’t reveal his hand during the takeover struggle. During the election, there was no hint that Canada should become the U.S. 51st state, that Panama was overcharging U.S. shipping nor that ownership of Greenland was essential over and above the key role it already plays with a vital U.S. base, happily provided for by treaty with Denmark.
Like a businessman, Trump offered to buy Greenland during his first presidential term. His offer was soundly and summarily rejected. Now he is back and the answer hasn’t changed.
Canada, Trump believes, takes unfair advantage of the United States in trade, although the regime of the flourishing cross-border trading is the selfsame one: the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, signed in July 2020 by Trump himself as a vast improvement over its predecessor, the North American Free Trade Agreement, although in substance and spirit it is very similar.
When it comes to Panama, Trump has a double accusation. Beyond the belief that Panama is ripping us off, this kind of national business paranoia is part of the Trump manual of expectations in foreign policy: All foreign governments are scalawags bent on cheating America.
It is part of a kind of permanent, low-grade C-Suite paranoia that is present in many companies: Who is stealing an advantage, who is going to concede to the unions, who is angling for more shelf space, etc. You might call it corporate situational awareness paranoia.
Statesmanship is learned; good instincts help, but it isn't intuitive for most leaders. It is learned through studying history, meeting, talking, traveling, and moving in foreign policy circles. It is learned best on the job, if the job is in the House or the Senate.
Trump has learned not in that world, but in the world of New York real estate with its own jungle law — deals are done, undone, litigated, and political influence is brought to bear. Ultimately, there is victory for one side.
Trump correctly — and it could be said belatedly because he took no action during his first administration — has cast a penetrating light on China in the Americas. China, as Trump has said, doesn’t operate the Panama Canal. Panama does. A subsidiary of Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings manages two ports at the canal's entrances, with Chinese firms providing more than $1 billion for the construction of a new bridge over the canal.
Panama’s revenues are up as a result of congestion charging, but fewer ships are transiting the canal due to drought. The vast Lake Gatun, which feeds the canal and keeps the lock system viable, is only partially full. The less water available, the fewer transits are possible. These dipped from 38 large ships to just 22 but rains have improved the situation and transits have risen.
Seizing canals is a fraught business, witness the disaster of France and Britain trying to seize the Suez Canal in 1956. Major damage to the Panama Canal would cost the United States for decades. It is a masterpiece of big, intricate engineering. I took a cruise through it for the purpose of understanding it better.
The British word “gobsmacked” is easily understood: smacked in the mouth. That is what happened to the commentariat — those who comment on national affairs. Trump’s Christmas Day declarations on Truth Social, his social media network, went almost unmentioned. The reporting was there, the networks and newspapers turned up the volume, but the commentators were silent,
That, in its way, is as notable as Trump’s implication that he has bought the world and plans to take possession. The enormity of the thing has been quieting. We, the opinion writers, have been struck dumb, you might say. That is news in itself.
New York Times, Trump’s Wish to Control Greenland and Panama Canal: Not a Joke This Time, David E. Sanger and Lisa Friedman, Dec. 24, 2024 (print ed.). In recent days the president-elect has called for asserting U.S. control over the Panama Canal and Greenland, showing that his “America First” philosophy has an expansionist dimension.
Over the past two days, President-elect Donald J. Trump has made clear that he has designs for American territorial expansion, declaring that the United States has both security concerns and commercial interests that can best be addressed by bringing the Panama Canal and Greenland under American control or outright ownership.
Mr. Trump’s tone has had none of the trolling jocularity that surrounded his repeated suggestions in recent weeks that Canada should become America’s “51st state,” including his social media references to the country’s beleaguered prime minister as “Governor Justin Trudeau.”
Instead, while naming a new ambassador to Denmark — which controls Greenland’s foreign and defense affairs — Mr. Trump made clear on Sunday that his first-term offer to buy the landmass could, in the coming term, become a deal the Danes cannot refuse.
He appears to covet Greenland both for its strategic location at a time when the melting of Arctic ice is opening new commercial and naval competition and for its reserves of rare earth minerals needed for advanced technology.
“For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media, “the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”
On Saturday evening, he had accused Panama of price-gouging American ships traversing the canal, and suggested that unless that changed, he would abandon the Jimmy Carter-era treaty that returned all control of the canal zone to Panama.
“The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,” he wrote, just ahead of an increase in the charges scheduled for Jan. 1. “This complete ‘rip-off’ of our country will immediately stop.”
He went on to express worry that the canal could fall into the “wrong hands,’' an apparent reference to China, the second-largest user of the canal. A Hong Kong-based firm controls two ports near the canal, but China has no control over the canal itself.
Not surprisingly, the government of Greenland immediately rejected Mr. Trump’s demands, as it did in 2019, when he first floated the idea. “Greenland is ours,” Prime Minister Mute B. Egede said in a statement. “We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.”Editors’ Picks7 New Movies Our Critics Are Talking About This WeekA Hanukkah-Ready Recipe That Does Everything RightStaffers at The Times on the Books They Enjoyed in 2024
The Danish prime minister’s office was more circumspect, writing in a statement that the government was “looking forward to working with the new administration” and offering no further comment on Mr. Trump’s remarks.
After Mr. Trump brought up the Panama Canal again in a speech on Sunday, Panama’s president, José Raúl Mulino, said in a video that “every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zones is part of Panama, and it will continue to be.” He added: “Our country’s sovereignty and independence are not negotiable.”
But the president-elect’s statements — and the not-so-subtle threats behind them — were another reminder that his version of “America First” is not an isolationist creed.
His aggressive interpretation of the phrase evokes the expansionism, or colonialism, of President Theodore Roosevelt, who took control of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. And it reflects the instincts of a real estate developer who suddenly has the power of the world’s largest military to back up his negotiating strategy.
Mr. Trump has often suggested that he does not always see the sovereignty of other nations’ borders as sacrosanct. When Russia invaded Ukraine, his first response was not a condemnation of the blatant land grab, but rather the observation that President Vladimir V. Putin’s move was an act of “genius.”
Even now, as Mr. Trump seeks a deal to end the war in Ukraine, he has never said that the country’s borders must be restored, a key demand of the United States and NATO — he has only promised a “deal” to end the fighting.
Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Liquor Stash Photos Bolster NBC Report on Pete Hegseth Drinking Allegations, J.D. Wolf, Dec. 20, 2024. Social media posts reveal Trump's Defense nominee stored bottles of alcohol in his office at work (as shown above via Instagram).
Multiple social media posts reviewed by MeidasTouch reveal that Pete Hegseth had a liquor stash in his office for years. NBC News reported that "Pete Hegseth's drinking worried colleagues at Fox News" citing 10 current and former Fox News employees as sources.
New York Times, Mexico, Betting Trump Is Bluffing on Tariffs, Sees an Opportunity, Peter S. Goodman, Dec. 28, 2024. Business leaders in Mexico say President-elect Trump’s new administration will enhance the appeal of their factories as an alternative to plants in China.
Last month, President-elect Trump threatened the economics of nearshoring by promising to impose 25 percent tariffs on all goods entering the United States from Mexico and Canada. Mexican industry was confronted with a high-stakes question: Was Mr. Trump bluffing, hoping the threat would pressure the Mexican government to halt the movement of people and drugs toward the border? Or was he really preparing to put tariffs on Mexican imports to force companies to move production to the United States?
New York Times, As Ambassador, Rahm Emanuel Says His Impatience Nudged Japan Forward, Motoko Rich, Dec. 15, 2024. Patience, Rahm Emanuel likes to say, is a waste of time.
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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.
New York Times, How Will the Rebels Rule Syria? Their Past Offers Clues, Neil MacFarquhar and Justin Scheck, Dec. 15, 2024. The Islamist rebels who ousted Syria’s dictator ran a pragmatic and disciplined administration in the territory they controlled. They also jailed their critics.
Since 2017, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its affiliated organizations, driven by a hunger for broader power, created a certain level of stability in Idlib, governing with pragmatism and discipline. While the group retained overall control, it governed through a civilian authority with 11 ministries, which allowed it to concentrate on rebuilding its militia as a more structured force.
In Idlib, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham maintained a robust internal security force to confront other military factions and domestic critics, prompting regular protests against what were seen as authoritarian methods and against harsh jail conditions.
The primary question is whether these rebels, who are now trying to form a national government, can scale up what they achieved in Idlib, a poor, agrarian region with a relatively small population.
In Idlib, ministers who dealt with outside aid organizations could never make a decision on the spot, they always had to consult first with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leaders, according to one representative of a humanitarian organization who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of aid operations in the area. Such tight control might work in a small governorate, but could prove unwieldy in a large country.
With its roots in the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham modified and moderated its own jihadist orientation starting around 2016. While it enforced some conservative Islamic practices, they did not resort to the strictures imposed by the Islamic State terrorist group when it ruled parts of Syria.
Still, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham remains designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the United Nations, Turkey and others. Because that designation blocked overt outside support, the group found new ways to sustain itself financially and militarily.
It levied fees on all kinds of goods and enterprises, including crops, border crossings, construction, trade, shopkeeping and craftwork. In addition, companies linked to the group enjoyed a monopoly on providing fuel, electricity, water and garbage collection.
“H.T.S. exemplifies adaptability in conflict economics,” said Mark Nakhla, the chief research officer at Kharon, an open-source analytics firm that advises companies on complying with sanctions against armed groups and other hostile actors.
He has been tracking Hayat Tahrir al-Sham since its jihadist days, and has watched it go through what he called a “strategic rebranding” and a shift from relying financially on wealthy foreign donors to sustaining military and civilian operations through local taxation and governance.
New York Times, How Will the Rebels Rule Syria? Their Past Offers Clues, Neil MacFarquhar and Justin Scheck, Dec. 15, 2024. The Islamist rebels who ousted Syria’s dictator ran a pragmatic and disciplined administration in the territory they controlled. They also jailed their critics.
Since 2017, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its affiliated organizations, driven by a hunger for broader power, created a certain level of stability in Idlib, governing with pragmatism and discipline. While the group retained overall control, it governed through a civilian authority with 11 ministries, which allowed it to concentrate on rebuilding its militia as a more structured force.
In Idlib, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham maintained a robust internal security force to confront other military factions and domestic critics, prompting regular protests against what were seen as authoritarian methods and against harsh jail conditions.
The primary question is whether these rebels, who are now trying to form a national government, can scale up what they achieved in Idlib, a poor, agrarian region with a relatively small population.
In Idlib, ministers who dealt with outside aid organizations could never make a decision on the spot, they always had to consult first with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leaders, according to one representative of a humanitarian organization who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of aid operations in the area. Such tight control might work in a small governorate, but could prove unwieldy in a large country.
With its roots in the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham modified and moderated its own jihadist orientation starting around 2016. While it enforced some conservative Islamic practices, they did not resort to the strictures imposed by the Islamic State terrorist group when it ruled parts of Syria.
Still, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham remains designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the United Nations, Turkey and others. Because that designation blocked overt outside support, the group found new ways to sustain itself financially and militarily.
It levied fees on all kinds of goods and enterprises, including crops, border crossings, construction, trade, shopkeeping and craftwork. In addition, companies linked to the group enjoyed a monopoly on providing fuel, electricity, water and garbage collection.
“H.T.S. exemplifies adaptability in conflict economics,” said Mark Nakhla, the chief research officer at Kharon, an open-source analytics firm that advises companies on complying with sanctions against armed groups and other hostile actors.
He has been tracking Hayat Tahrir al-Sham since its jihadist days, and has watched it go through what he called a “strategic rebranding” and a shift from relying financially on wealthy foreign donors to sustaining military and civilian operations through local taxation and governance.
New York Times, Man Found in Syria Appears to Be a Missing American, Ben Hubbard and Amelia Nierenberg, Dec. 12, 2024. The man told reporters that his name was Travis Timmerman and that he had entered Syria on a religious pilgrimage. He said that he had been detained for months.
The Syrian authorities said on Thursday that a foreign man who had been imprisoned while Bashar al-Assad was in power had been found outside Damascus and handed over to the rebel group that now controls the capital.
In interviews with international news media, the man appeared to identify himself as Travis Timmerman, an American who is believed to have gone missing from Budapest, Hungary, this year. In a video aired on Thursday by the news channel Al Arabiya, someone is heard asking the man if his name is Travis Timmerman. The man says, “That’s right.”
Hisham al-Eid, the mayor of Al-Thihabiyeh, a poor, partly rural town east of Damascus, said that the man had been found on Thursday morning on a main road. He was barefoot and cold but otherwise seemed to be in good health, Mr. al-Eid said.
The man told reporters that he had entered Syria from Lebanon on a Christian pilgrimage, and had been detained for several months. He said he had received food and water while in detention, and was allowed to go to the bathroom three times a day.
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.
Russian War Against Ukraine
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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New York Times, Syrian Rebels Breach City of Aleppo, in Biggest Advance in Years
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.
New York Times, Texas Attorney General Sues New York Doctor for Mailing Abortion Pills, J. David Goodman and Pam Belluck, Dec. 14, 2024 (print ed.). The lawsuit appeared to be among the first attempts to stop doctors from mailing the medication to states that ban abortions.
The Texas attorney general opened a new front in the contentious battle over access to abortion this week by suing a New York doctor for sending abortion pills into Texas. It appeared to be among the first attempts to stop the mailing of such medication into states that ban abortion.
The lawsuit from Attorney General Ken Paxton — filed on Thursday in state court in Collin County, north of Dallas — pits the laws of Texas, which has a near-total ban on abortion, against those of New York, where lawmakers have taken steps to shield doctors from out-of-state prosecution.
Under shield laws, states like New York will refuse to cooperate with attempts by other states to prosecute or sue abortion providers who prescribe and send pills across state lines. Such laws exist in eight states and have allowed doctors there to send more than 10,000 abortion pills per month to women in states with bans.
But legal experts say they expect Texas to try to pursue its case even if it is rebuffed by New York’s law. Such an effort could wind up in federal court, potentially imperiling the ability of women in other states with bans to receive abortion pills by mail, and becoming a major test of whether states can enforce contradictory laws across state lines.
“It’s a huge deal,” said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis. “Shield doctors mailing pills into ban states was always going to be, I think, both the most consequential in terms of access to abortion and the highest risk.”
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U.S. Immigration
Washington Post, Trump says he backs H-1B visas, aligning with Musk on immigration, Will Oremus, Dec. 29, 2024 (print ed.). President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday threw his weight behind H-1B visas, taking the side of Elon Musk in the squabble among conservatives over the program that allows foreigners with technical skills to temporarily work in the United States.Get concise answers to your questions.
“I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas,” Trump told the New York Post in a phone interview. He added: “I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program.”
The comments come amid an online clash that has revealed a rift in Trump’s coalition ahead of his January inauguration. Musk and other business leaders see the visa program as essential for the U.S. tech industry, but anti-immigrant hard-liners such as right-wing activist Laura Loomer and former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon say the system lets companies exploit cheap foreign labor at the expense of Americans.
While Trump said he employs H-1B workers, past reporting has found he employs workers under the H-2A program, which covers temporary visas for agricultural workers, and the H-2B program, for seasonal workers in sectors such as tourism, hospitality and landscaping. The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
Still, Trump’s words send an important signal, said Sophie Alcorn, an attorney in Silicon Valley who specializes in business immigration.
“The president’s statement that he supports immigration and visas for highly skilled workers allows tech workers in Silicon Valley and the companies that employ them to breathe a huge sigh of relief in what has been a tumultuous several months,” Alcorn said.
Washington Post, Trump’s top border adviser says he will bring back family detention, Nick Miroff, Dec. 27, 2024 (print ed.)..Tom Homan oversaw implementation of the “zero tolerance” policy that separated more than 4,000 children from their parents during the president-elect’s first term.
U.S. immigration authorities will once more put families with children in detention centers when President-elect Donald Trump returns to office next month, according to incoming White House “border czar” Tom Homan.You are what you read. Reveal your 2024 reader type with Newsprint.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will look to hold parents with children in “soft-sided” tent structures similar to those used by U.S. border officials to handle immigration surges, Homan said. The government will not hesitate to deport parents who are in the country illegally, even if they have young U.S.-born children, he added, leaving it to those families to decide whether to exit together or be split up.
“Here’s the issue,” Homan said in a wide-ranging interview that included some of his most extensive comments to date on Trump’s plans for mass deportations. “You knew you were in the country illegally and chose to have a child. So you put your family in that position.”
President Joe Biden ended family detention in 2021, closing three facilities ICE called “residential centers” that offered about 3,000 beds. The facilities had a dorm-like design with recreational and educational programming. They were criticized by immigration advocates and pediatricians who said detention was harmful for children.
The federal judge who oversees immigration detention programs involving minors has set 20 days as the maximum amount of time children can be held at the family facilities. The deportation process often requires more time, so ICE has generally preferred to prioritize easier-to-remove adults. But Homan said that may change once Trump takes office.
“We’re going to need to construct family facilities,” he said. “How many beds we’re going to need will depend on what the data says.”
Washington Post, For some Latinos, ‘prosperity gospel’ led them to Trump, Michelle Boorstein, Dec. 27, 2024 (print ed.). The belief system has overtaken traditional theologies centered on the poor. Some experts say that helps explain a shift among Latino Christians to Donald Trump.
The mix of hope, drive for success and belief in a God who rewards faith, sometimes with financial accomplishments, has become dominant across the United States and Latin America, experts on Latino religion say. The belief system is sometimes called “seed faith,” “health and wealth gospel,” or “prosperity gospel.”
In the past half-century, driven by larger-than-life pastors, it has overtaken other more traditional theologies centered on God’s priority being poor and disenfranchised people, some experts said. This belief system, they said, helps explain what exit polls showed was a significant shift among Latino Christian voters to Trump, who they see as an uber-successful, strong and God-focused striver.
“If you take Trump and all his characteristics, it’s almost exactly as any prosperity gospel preacher,” said Tony Tian-Ren Lin, an Asian-Latino pastor in New York who wrote a book on Latino Americans and the prosperity gospel. “The big personality, talking a big game, saying things like ‘no one can do it’ but him … If for years you’ve been listening to someone like that, you’re not surprised when a political leader says those things.”
Washington Post, Immigration: Hundreds more migrants have died in Rio Grande crossings than U.S., Mexico reported, Arelis R. Hernández, Melissa del Bosque, Charles Boutaud, Monica Camacho, Sarah Cahlan, Jack Sapoch and Miriam Ramirez, Dec. 8, 2024. An investigation by The Washington Post; Lighthouse Reports, an investigative news organization, and the El Universal newspaper in Mexico found that hundreds more people have drowned than the U.S. and Mexican governments have reported.
And nowhere in Texas have more people died than in Eagle Pass, where Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s $11 billion border security initiative, Operation Lone Star, is concentrated.
Washington Post, Many targeted for removal by Trump can’t be deported, ICE data shows, Nick Miro, Dec. 8, 2024. Nearly half of the 1.4 million people in the U.S. immigration system who have pending deportation orders cannot be sent back to their home countries, according to internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement data, posing one of several looming obstacles to President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge for a mass removal campaign.
Some orders can’t be carried out because the would-be deportee’s home country won’t take them or limits cooperation with ICE. Others identified for deportation are serving prison terms, or have received a reprieve or deferral from an immigration judge, due to a medical condition, a credible persecution threat or another extenuating factor.
An array of other logistical and legal impediments also could constrain mass deportations, according to current and former ICE officials.
Trump promises to brush aside hurdles and mount a campaign modeled after the harsh roundups of the Eisenhower administration, when the U.S. government expelled hundreds of thousands of migrant workers to Mexico.
“We will begin — and we have no choice — the largest deportation operation in American history,” he said on the campaign trail.
Trump’s aides describe the anticipated campaign as an enforcement blitz that will leverage the power and resources of the U.S. military to roll back the effect of record numbers of illegal border crossings under President Joe Biden. Criminals and those with outstanding deportation orders will be the administration’s priority as of Trump’s inauguration, Jan. 20, aides say.
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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.
Washington Post, Japanese buyer sends Biden new U.S. Steel proposal in final bid for support, David J. Lynch and Jeff Stein, Dec. 31, 2024. President Joe Biden has publicly opposed Nippon Steel’s proposed $14.9 billion purchase of U.S. Steel, leaving him at odds with many of his advisers who favor the deal, according to two administration officials.
Nippon Steel proposed giving the U.S. government a veto over any reduction in U.S. Steel’s “production capacity” in a last-ditch bid for President Joe Biden’s approval to acquire the venerable American steelmaker, according to a document sent to the White House on Monday.Get a curated selection of 10 of our best stories in your inbox every weekend.
The proposal is aimed at mollifying the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which warned last week that Nippon Steel’s $14.9 billion takeover of U.S. Steel could lead to a decline in domestic steel output that would pose “risks to the national security of the United States.”
The president has publicly opposed the takeover for months, leaving him at odds with many of his advisers who favor the deal, according to two senior administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Biden is siding with David McCall, the president of the United Steelworkers union, who has blasted Nippon Steel’s bid as “bad for workers” and questioned the company’s commitment to U.S. Steel’s unionized operations.
New York Times, Richard Parsons, Serial Fixer of Media and Finance Giants, Dies at 76, Benjamin Mullin, Dec. 27, 2024 (print ed.). Mr. Parsons’s lengthy résumé is a catalog of corporate emergencies at Time Warner, Citigroup and the Los Angeles Clippers.
Richard D. Parsons, whose humane approach to business made him a serial troubleshooter at distressed companies such as Time Warner, CBS and Citigroup and a sought-after adviser at the highest echelons of American industry, died on Thursday at his Manhattan home. He was 76.
The cause was cancer, said Ronald S. Lauder, a member of the Estée Lauder board and one of Mr. Parsons’s oldest friends.
Mr. Parsons’s winding career tracked the biggest companies in American media and finance — and the biggest problems. Time and again, he stepped in when things looked catastrophic and put his smooth leadership style to work, disentangling Gordian knots and assuaging discontented shareholders.
Mr. Parsons, a jazz-loving oenophile who served on the board of the Apollo Theater and owned a Tuscan winery, rose to the top of the business world in an era when he was frequently the only Black executive in the boardroom. A self-described “Rockefeller Republican,” Mr. Parsons spoke out on social justice issues in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020, signed a letter protesting a 2021 law that imposed restrictions on Georgia voters and co-founded the Equity Alliance, a fund that backs early-stage ventures led by women and people of color.your times accessHave a moment? Play these games.
Mr. Parsons’s lengthy résumé is a catalog of corporate emergencies: He stanched losses at Dime Bancorp during the savings-and-loan crisis in the 1980s; cleaned up the disastrous merger of AOL and Time Warner after the dot-com bust at the turn of the century; stepped in at Citigroup as the banking colossus teetered after the 2007-8 financial crisis; served as CBS’s board chairman after its disgraced chief executive, Leslie Moonves, went to war with its controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone; and came out of semiretirement to steady the Los Angeles Clippers after their owner at the time, Donald Sterling, made racist remarks.
Throughout it all, Mr. Parsons deployed his easy manner and extensive Rolodex — he was an aide to Nelson A. Rockefeller, the former vice president and New York governor — to lead, charm and cajole his way out of tight corporate corners. In 2007, as Time Warner was crawling back from the brink of disaster, Mr. Parsons summed up his career during a steakhouse interview with The New York Times before ordering a second bottle of wine.
“I want my legacy to be simple: I left the place in good shape and in good hands,” he said.
His survivors include his wife, Laura (Bush), and their three children, Gregory, Leslie and Rebecca.
Richard Dean Parsons was born on April 4, 1948, in Brooklyn, N.Y., one of five children of Lorenzo, an electrical technician, and Isabelle. A huge fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Mr. Parsons soon moved reluctantly with his family to the Ozone Park neighborhood in Queens, where he was a precocious but somewhat indifferent student. An astronomy and physics enthusiast, he nearly blew up a friend’s house trying to make rocket fuel on the stove. He skipped two grades and graduated from high school at 16 before enrolling at the University of Hawaii on a whim.
“I put down University of Hawaii, not actually really knowing if there was one,” Mr. Parsons said in a 2008 interview with the Brooklyn Historical Society. “I just assumed there was. I had sat next to this girl in physics class who was from Hawaii who was just gorgeous.”
How The Times decides who gets an obituary. There is no formula, scoring system or checklist in determining the news value of a life. We investigate, research and ask around before settling on our subjects. If you know of someone who might be a candidate for a Times obituary, please suggest it here.Learn more about our process.
Mr. Parsons was somewhat unprepared for college life when he arrived in Hawaii — he hadn’t made any lodging plans — but things fell into place quickly. After going broke within weeks, he learned to manage his money, settled on a major (history) and joined a fraternity.
Later in life, he would recall a conversation with one of his white fraternity brothers, who told Mr. Parsons that although he hadn’t had any Black friends growing up outside Detroit, he was able to bond with Mr. Parsons “because you’re different.”
“On reflection, I’ve thought, different than what, or different than whom?” Mr. Parsons said in an interview with Citigroup in 2021. “Was I different than his other Black friends? No, because he didn’t have any other Black friends. In fact, I was different from an image he had in his head of what Black people were supposed to be like.”
Mr. Parsons met Ms. Bush during his sophomore year at the university. She had come to his rescue during an English class for which he hadn’t done the reading. She eventually let him see the paper she was working on, Mr. Parsons said in a 2008 interview with PBS. They were soon married.ImageMr. Parsons stands behind Laura Parsons, resting his left hand on her left shoulder, at a formal gala.Mr. Parsons with his wife, Laura, in 2008. They met while students at the University of Hawaii. Credit...Joe Corrigan/Getty Images
Laura Parsons helped focus her husband. She dragged him out of bed the morning he was supposed to take his law school admission exams and guided him toward Albany Law School. He was admitted despite being several credits short of his undergraduate degree, and finished at the top of his class.
When he landed a job on Governor Rockefeller’s staff, it was a full-circle moment for the Parsons clan: Decades earlier, his grandfather had worked as the head groundskeeper at Kykuit, the Rockefeller estate in Pocantico Hills, N.Y. Mr. Parsons would go on to serve as the chair of the Rockefeller Foundation’s board of trustees.
When Mr. Rockefeller became vice president under President Gerald R. Ford, Mr. Parsons decamped to Washington, serving on Mr. Rockefeller’s legal team and on Mr. Ford’s Domestic Council. After his stint in the White House, Mr. Parsons moved back to New York and joined a prestigious law firm, Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler.
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Energy, Transportation, Climate Change, Environment, Space
New York Times, Flood-Soaked Homeowners Face a Costly Choice: Raise or Raze, Gregory Barber, Dec. 29, 2024. As climate change intensifies, flooding is emerging as a threat for some homes. Some people are responding by lifting up their houses.
Hydraulic lifts, set in trenches dug under the foundation, push the house upward, a process so smooth that lifters are known to leave a vase standing in a window for dramatic effect. A new foundation is installed, along with elongated staircases and reworked wires and plumbing.
On a recent weekend, Albert Jasuwan, owner of JAS Builders, one of a few house-raising specialists in the Tampa Bay area, had three houses “in the air” and 22 more awaiting permits. “Mother Nature is giving us more than the ground can take,” Mr. Jasuwan said. Prices can range from $75 to $200 per square foot, depending on the home’s design. A typical Florida home built on a concrete slab may cost $400,000 to raise, though larger houses can exceed $1 million.
New York Times, A.I., the Electricians and the Boom Towns of Central Washington, Karen Weise, Photographs by Jovelle Tamayo, Dec. 25, 2024. The rural region is changing fast as electricians from around the U.S. plug the tech industry’s new, giant data centers into its ample power supply.
Washington Post, In the shadows of Arizona’s data center boom, thousands live without power, Pranshu Verma, Dec. 24, 2024 (print ed.). As data centers drain America’s power grids, a fierce battle is being waged for electricity. On Navajo Nation land, many are on the losing end.
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Media, High Tech, Culture, Education
New York Times, Investigation: The Men Who Use Instagram to Groom Child Influencers, Jennifer Valentino-DeVries and Michael H. Keller, Dec. 30, 2024. Photographers and other men offer to build online followings for young girls, but some are pedophiles who work with parents to sexualize them.Everyone had an idea about how the 12-year-old girl should pose in a G-string bikini as they assembled in an Airbnb rental home in a small Louisiana town.
The photographer was new to the business of shooting child influencers, so he welcomed suggestions, he later explained in an interview.
The girl’s mother, swiping through images of women from men's magazines on her phone, recommended that she stand with one leg raised provocatively on a bed, he recalled. The girl, he said, proposed imitating a scene from an erotic film she had watched — she would lie on her back with her hands grasping for the bedposts.
In the end, several shots positioned her “head on a pillow and her buttocks raised in the air,” and in one, the camera focused on her “barely covered” genitals. That was the description in court documents, written by federal authorities who charged the photographer and mother with crimes related to child sexual abuse material.
“We just provided what we knew that men wanted to purchase,” the photographer, Grant Durtschi, said by telephone from a jail outside Baton Rouge.
For the past year, The New York Times has been investigating how a drive for online fame has created a marketplace on Instagram of girl influencers who are managed by their parents — Instagram does not allow children under 13 to have their own accounts — and frequently draw an audience of men.
Some of the parents, like the Louisiana mother, develop monetary relationships with the men, selling them images of the girls. Others also offer chat sessions with them and even their worn leotards.
Those looking to supercharge their daughters’ online presence sometimes tap into an established network of men, The Times found, many of them convicted of sex crimes or accused of pedophilia, who participate in the grooming of children under the guise of working as social media professionals.
Among them was Mr. Durtschi, who pleaded guilty in March 2023 to producing child sexual abuse imagery, sometimes legally known as child pornography, during the photo shoot with the 12-year-old. He had been arrested a year earlier in San Francisco.
The men present themselves to parents — almost always mothers — as photographers, social media experts or web technicians who can create photo-selling sites for them. Some go even further, working with mothers to produce ever more sexualized content as they cultivate inappropriate relationships of their own with the daughters.
In rare cases, people like Mr. Durtschi and the 12-year-old’s mother are prosecuted. But The Times found multiple instances in which allegations of pedophilia and possible criminal conduct circulated widely in the child-influencer world or had been reported to law enforcement with no known consequences.
New York Times, Social Media Companies Face Global Tug-of-War Over Free Speech, Cecilia Kang and Adam Satariano, Dec. 30, 2024. Donald Trump’s picks for the F.C.C. and F.T.C. have vowed to remove censorship online. That conflicts with European regulators pushing for stricter moderation.
President-elect Donald J. Trump and his allies have vowed to squash an online “censorship cartel” of social media firms that they say targets conservatives.
Already, the president-elect’s newly chosen regulators at the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission have outlined plans to stop social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube from removing content the companies deem offensive — and punish advertisers that leave less restrictive platforms like X in protest of the lack of moderation.
“The censorship and advertising boycott cartel must end now!” Elon Musk, the owner of X, whom Mr. Trump has appointed to cut the federal budget, posted on his site last month.
In Europe, social media companies face the opposite problem. There, regulators accuse the platforms of being too lax about the information they host, including allowing posts that stoked political violence in Britain and spread hate in Germany and France.
Mr. Trump’s return to the White House is expected to widen the speech divide that has long existed between the United States and Europe, setting up parallel regulatory systems that tech policy experts say could influence elections, public health and public discourse. That’s putting social media companies in the middle of a global tug of war over how to police content on their sites.
“What you are seeing is conflicting laws emerging from the world’s democracies, and consumers in the end suffer,” said Kate Klonick, an associate professor of property and internet law at St. John’s University School of Law. The result could be a fractured internet experience where people see different content based on the laws where they live, she said.
Free speech is core to making America great, said Morgan Ackley, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump. “President Trump is committed to protecting this right for all Americans,” she added.
The cross-Atlantic regulatory clash stems from distinctly different global views on free speech. The United States, which has the First Amendment, also passed a law in 1996, known as Section 230, that shields companies from liability for content posted online — meaning it is largely up to social media sites to decide what to remove.
New York Times, Charles Dolan, Cablevision Founder Who Sat Atop a Media Empire, Dies at 98, Richard Goldstein, Dec. 29, 2024. His business choices were diverse and prolific: He founded HBO, bought Madison Square Garden and the New York Knicks, and took over a Long Island newspaper.
Charles F. Dolan, who bought a group of small cable TV systems on Long Island in 1973, merged them into a network he called Cablevision and amassed a fortune building an innovative communications, entertainment and sports empire that included HBO and Madison Square Garden and its professional teams, died on Saturday. He was 98.
A representative for Mr. Dolan’s family confirmed the death on Sunday in a statement, which did not say where he died.
Cablevision Systems Corporation had 1,500 customers when Mr. Dolan founded it. It was serving three million cable TV households in the New York metropolitan area and providing internet and digital telephone service when he reached a deal in September 2015 to sell it to Altice, a European media company, for $17.7 billion. Altice USA now runs it under the Optimum brand.
Mr. Dolan “helped establish cable television as an economic, social and cultural force in the United States during the final quarter of the 20th century,” Douglas Gomery, a mass communications scholar, wrote in the 2004 edition of “Encyclopedia of Television,” a publication of the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago.
The deal with Altice, completed in June 2016, included the Long Island-based Newsday and Mr. Dolan’s News 12 cable stations providing news from the New York metropolitan area. But the Dolan family regained control of Newsday two weeks later, buying back a 75 percent interest for an undisclosed sum.
In August 2018, Newsday announced that Mr. Dolan’s son Patrick, who had been the president and majority owner of the Newsday Media Group, had acquired the remaining shares to become the sole owner of Newsday. (Patrick Dolan continued as president of the News 12 stations when Altice obtained them from Cablevision, but later stepped down and was named a senior adviser of the network.)
The Dolan family also remains a powerful presence on the New York sports and entertainment scenes. It owns the Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corporation, which operates the arena; the Madison Square Garden Sports Corporation, whose properties include the arena’s teams, the Knicks and the Rangers; and the MSG sports-programming cable TV stations. All are run by Charles Dolan’s son James.
The Guardian, Trump’s threat to defund all US public media has NPR and PBS on the back foot, Cecilia Nowell, Dec. 28, 2024. President-elect’s agenda and Project 2025 playbook align in stripping Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s license.
On the campaign trail this year, Donald Trump routinely criticized US media. The president-elect called for CBS to be stripped of its broadcast license after it aired an interview with Kamala Harris, refused to participate in an interview with 60 Minutes and routinely called journalists the “enemy of the people”.
But perhaps no American media has attracted as much ire from the president-elect as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting – a non-profit corporation created by federal law in 1967 to distribute funding to public media organizations like PBS and NPR.
“NO MORE FUNDING FOR NPR, A TOTAL SCAM!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social in April. “THEY ARE A LIBERAL DISINFORMATION MACHINE. NOT ONE DOLLAR!!!”
As the Trump prepares to take office next month, public media organizations – such as NPR and PBS, which have aired longtime favorites such as Curious George and All Things Considered – are readying themselves for funding cuts and other attacks against their programming. After Trump was re-elected in November, NPR member stations circulated a report warning that “it would be unwise to assume that events will play out as they have in the past” where funding is concerned, the New York Times reported Friday, and PBS board members received an update from political consultants earlier this month.
Trump and his allies have repeatedly called for the federal government to cut all funding to public media. In March 2017, Trump called for Congress to cut all funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in the first proposed budget of his presidency – a call he repeated throughout his presidency.
In response to a 2020 effort to defund public media, the PBS president and CEO, Paula Kerger, issued a statement noting that “PBS and our member stations have earned bipartisan Congressional support because of the vital role that public television plays in homes and communities across the country. For 50 years, PBS has served as a trusted source for educational and thought-provoking programming, including school readiness initiatives for children, support for teachers and caregivers, public safety communications and lifelong learning across broadcast and digital platforms.”
But the conservative playbook Project 2025 has continued echoing conservative calls to cut funding to PBS and NPR, stating that the new Trump administration should strip public media of federal funding and licenses for noncommercial education stations.
“Not only is the federal government trillions of dollars in debt and unable to afford the more than half a billion dollars squandered on leftist opinion each year, but the government should not be compelling the conservative half of the country to pay for the suppression of its own views,” Mike Gonzalez, a Heritage Foundation senior fellow, wrote in the document, repeating a common conservative refrain that public media leans to the left.
In recent months, Trump allies such as Elon Musk have taken up the call to defund public media. In April 2023, NPR moved off Twitter after Musk labeled the news organization “state-affiliated media”, the same term it uses for propaganda outlets in Russia and China. After NPR quit the platform, Musk posted a tweet saying “Defund @NPR”.
In November, shortly after Trump won the 2024 presidential election, Musk coauthored an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal with Vivek Ramaswamy (the two have been tasked with leading a “department of government efficiency”, an agency Trump claims he will create). In it, the pair identified the $535m Congress allocates each year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as one line item they would cut to reduce federal expenditures. As recently as this week, Musk posted on X that “legacy media must die”.
Although these attacks against public media are growing more concerted, they’re not new. Every Republican administration has aimed to defund public media since the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was founded.
American public media traces its origins to the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, passed under Lyndon B Johnson’s administration. A public-private partnership, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting connects 1,190 public radio stations and 356 public television stations with federal grants, allowing those stations to maintain editorial independence and also raise funds from members and sponsorships. Today, 99% of the US population lives within listening range of at least one public media station.
Yet, the US spends considerably less on public media than its peer nations. A 2021 study from the University of Pennsylvania found that Germany spends $142.42 a person on its public media, Norway spends $110.73, the UK $81.30, and Spain $58.25, while the US spends just $3.16.
In 2005, while defending against a Bush administration attempt to defund public media, then representative Ed Markey said: “What parents and kids get from public TV is an incredible bargain. The question is not: ‘Can we afford it?’ but rather: ‘Can we afford to lose it?’”
Although Republican-sponsored bills to eliminate federal funding of public media are already before Congress (including the No Propaganda act and the Defund NPR act), two details may slow those efforts: the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is funded two years in advance and many local public media stations run emergency alerts, a crucial system that would have to be transferred elsewhere.
Efforts to defund public media are likely to affect local newsrooms the most in rural areas where Trump was the favored candidate, as federal grants can make up a significant portion of a member station’s budget.
“The most vulnerable stations serving the most vulnerable people are going to be the ones that are hurt the hardest,” Eric Nuzum, a former NPR executive and a co-founder of the audio consulting and production company Magnificent Noise, told the New York Times. “We’re talking about very rural parts of the United States.”
New York Times, Trump Urges Supreme Court to Pause TikTok Ban So He Can Weigh In, Adam Liptak, Dec. 27, 2024. President-elect Trump took no position on the app’s First Amendment challenge to the law, which sets a Jan. 19 deadline to sell or close the popular platform. President-elect Donald J. Trump filed an unusual brief on Friday asking the Supreme Court to block a law that requires TikTok to be sold or shut down by Jan. 19.
The deadline falls a day before Mr. Trump is to be inaugurated, and the brief asks the justices for the delay so that he may address the matter.
“President Trump opposes banning TikTok in the United States at this juncture,” the brief said, “and seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office.”
The brief took no position on the legal question that the justices are set to consider when they hear arguments in the case next month: whether Congress violated the First Amendment by effectively banning TikTok. Adopting a distinctive tone at odds with the sober and measured arguments more typical in Supreme Court advocacy, the brief instead touted Mr. Trump’s expertise.
“President Trump alone possesses the consummate deal-making expertise, the electoral mandate and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the government — concerns which President Trump himself has acknowledged,” the brief said.
Mr. Trump, the brief added, is particularly knowledgeable about social media in general and TikTok in particular.
“President Trump is one of the most powerful, prolific and influential users of social media in history,” the brief said. “Consistent with his commanding presence in this area, President Trump currently has 14.7 million followers on TikTok with whom he actively communicates, allowing him to evaluate TikTok’s importance as a unique medium for freedom of expression, including core political speech.” READ IN APP
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President Jimmy Carter and Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 1978. Both saw themselves as straight shooters in a world of spinners (Photo:
Barry Thumma/Associated Press
New York Times, ‘Hanging Out With Jimmy Carter,’ Biden Faces the Echoes of History, Peter Baker, Dec. 31, 2024. President Biden is another Democrat hurt by inflation and struggling to free hostages. But Mr. Carter’s enhanced reputation post-presidency offers hope.
When President Biden appeared on camera to pay tribute to former President Jimmy Carter, he sounded almost as if he were thinking of himself in these final days in office.
“In today’s world, some look at Jimmy Carter and see a man of a bygone era — with honesty and character, faith and humility,” Mr. Biden said in breaking away from his Caribbean vacation on Sunday after the former president’s death. “It mattered. But I don’t believe it’s a bygone era.”
Mr. Biden, too, has been dismissed as a man of a bygone era, an old-school politician in a new-school world, an octogenarian president playing by rules he learned in the 1970s when he served in the Senate and Mr. Carter was in the White House, rules that did not help him in today’s fast-paced, smash-mouth political arena. He is, in this view, a man out of time — Mr. Carter’s time.
New York Times, In Carter’s Hometown, a Long Vigil Ends With Sorrow, but Also Uplift, Rick Rojas, Christina Morales and Christian Boone, Dec. 31, 2024. Plains, Ga., had been bracing for the inevitable through Jimmy Carter’s ailments and nearly two years of hospice care. Still, his death “doesn’t seem real.”
The Georgia town known first and foremost as the home of Jimmy Carter had steeled itself time and again for an existence without him. First, there was his cancer diagnosis in 2015, and then the fall that broke a hip, and the disclosure almost two years ago that he had entered hospice care.
But sure enough, every time, he held on.
And so, Plains, a speck of a community tied to the 39th president for the better part of a century, awoke on Monday to a reality that, strangely enough, seemed almost as inconceivable as it was inevitable. Mr. Carter, 100, was gone. He died on Sunday at his home, the modest ranch house hidden behind the security fencing and guard stations in the center of town.
“Honestly, it doesn’t seem real,” said Philip Kurland, the owner of the Plains Trading Post, an overstuffed emporium of political memorabilia in the strip of businesses that makes up downtown. “It was inevitable, but there’s still sadness. There’s also a feeling of: Let’s celebrate a life well lived.”
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter (New York Times photo by Damon Winter )
New York Times, Jimmy Carter, Peacemaking President Amid Crises, Is Dead at 100, Peter Baker and Roy Reed, Dec. 30, 2024 (print ed.). Jimmy Carter, who rose from Georgia farmland to become the 39th president of the United States on a promise of national healing after the wounds of Watergate and Vietnam, then lost the White House in a cauldron of economic turmoil at home and crisis in Iran, died on Sunday at his home in Plains, Ga. He was 100.
The Carter Center in Atlanta announced his death, which came nearly three months after Mr. Carter, already the longest-living president in American history, became the first former commander in chief to reach the century mark. Mr. Carter went into hospice care 22 months ago, but held on longer than even his family expected.
Tributes poured in from presidents, world leaders and many everyday people from around the world who admired not only Mr. Carter’s service during four years in the White House but his four decades of efforts since leaving office to fight disease, broker peace and provide for the poor. President Biden ordered a state funeral to be held and was expected to deliver a eulogy.
“To all of the young people in this nation and for anyone in search of what it means to live a life of purpose and meaning — the good life — study Jimmy Carter, a man of principle, faith and humility,” Mr. Biden, the first Democratic senator to endorse Mr. Carter’s long-shot 1976 bid for the presidency, said in a statement. “He showed that we are great nation because we are a good people.”
President-elect Donald J. Trump, who often denigrated Mr. Carter on the campaign trail and in recent days spoke of unraveling one of the former president’s signature accomplishments, the transfer of the Panama Canal to Panama, issued a gracious statement. “The challenges Jimmy faced as president came at a pivotal time for our country, and he did everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans,” Mr. Trump said. “For that, we owe him a debt of gratitude.”
Mr. Carter was no fan of Mr. Trump and family members said he was holding on in part to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. The former president cast his absentee ballot for her in mid-October after making his final public appearance on his birthday when he was rolled out to his yard in a wheelchair to watch a flyover of military jets in his honor.
Other than interludes in the White House and the Georgia governor’s mansion, he and his wife, the former first lady Rosalynn Carter, lived in the same simple home in Plains for most of their adult lives and each of them passed away there, Mrs. Carter in November last year.
A lifelong farmer who still worked with his hands building houses for the poor well into his 90s, Mr. Carter had long defied death and outlived not only his wife but his vice president, most of his cabinet, key aides and allies as well as the Republican president he defeated and the Republican challenger who later defeated him. Over the years, he beat back a series of health crises, including a bout with the skin cancer melanoma, which spread to his liver and brain, and repeated falls, one giving him a broken hip.
The Carter Center announced in February last year that Mr. Carter, “after a series of short hospital stays,” had decided to forgo further life-prolonging medical treatment and would receive hospice care at home.
News that he seemed to be in his final days prompted a wave of tributes and remembrances of his extended and eventful life, but even then he upended expectations by hanging on for nearly two years. He lived long enough to bid farewell to Mrs. Carter, who died at 96, culminating a marriage of 77 years.
Jimmy Carter, furthest right, is standing in the Oval Office with four of his successors. From left to right: George H.W. Bush, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Former President Jimmy Carter, furthest right, in a group photo of his successors in January 2009 (New York Times photo by Doug Mills)
New York Times, Carter the Critic Didn’t Spare His Successors, Linda Qiu, Dec. 30, 2024 (print ed.). Jimmy Carter defied the unwritten rule of former presidents: Don’t criticize the occupant of the Oval Office.
Former President Jimmy Carter grinned in the Oval Office in January 2009 for a photograph, a visible gap separating him from four of his successors. As the others stood shoulder to shoulder, he positioned himself off to the side, a hand in one pocket, as if to distance himself just slightly from that most exclusive club.
Mr. Carter had no qualms about breaking one of that club’s unwritten rules, namely that former presidents restrain their critiques of the current occupant of the Oval Office. In the four decades after leaving the White House following the 1980 election, he caused regular stirs with pointed opinions about his successors.
“He was in fights with everyone, Democrats, Republicans,” said Julian E. Zelizer, the author of “Jimmy Carter” and a historian at Princeton University, who called Mr. Carter “a maverick through and through.”
Stuart Eizenstat, a former adviser to Mr. Carter, said the former president wasn’t the type of person to just go back to Plains, Ga., and “work on carpentry and painting.”
“When he left office, he was in his mid 50s,” Mr. Eizenstat said. “He didn’t want his voice to be unheard.”
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. 30, 2024. 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.”
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New York Times, Investigation: The Men Who Use Instagram to Groom Child Influencers, Jennifer Valentino-DeVries and Michael H. Keller, Dec. 30, 2024. Photographers and other men offer to build online followings for young girls, but some are pedophiles who work with parents to sexualize them.
Everyone had an idea about how the 12-year-old girl should pose in a G-string bikini as they assembled in an Airbnb rental home in a small Louisiana town.
The photographer was new to the business of shooting child influencers, so he welcomed suggestions, he later explained in an interview.
The girl’s mother, swiping through images of women from men's magazines on her phone, recommended that she stand with one leg raised provocatively on a bed, he recalled. The girl, he said, proposed imitating a scene from an erotic film she had watched — she would lie on her back with her hands grasping for the bedposts.
In the end, several shots positioned her “head on a pillow and her buttocks raised in the air,” and in one, the camera focused on her “barely covered” genitals. That was the description in court documents, written by federal authorities who charged the photographer and mother with crimes related to child sexual abuse material.
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New York Times, Social Media Companies Face Global Tug-of-War Over Free Speech, Cecilia Kang and Adam Satariano, Dec. 30, 2024. Donald Trump’s picks for the F.C.C. and F.T.C. have vowed to remove censorship online. That conflicts with European regulators pushing for stricter moderation.
President-elect Donald J. Trump and his allies have vowed to squash an online “censorship cartel” of social media firms that they say targets conservatives.
Already, the president-elect’s newly chosen regulators at the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission have outlined plans to stop social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube from removing content the companies deem offensive — and punish advertisers that leave less restrictive platforms like X in protest of the lack of moderation.
“The censorship and advertising boycott cartel must end now!” Elon Musk, the owner of X, whom Mr. Trump has appointed to cut the federal budget, posted on his site last month.
In Europe, social media companies face the opposite problem. There, regulators accuse the platforms of being too lax about the information they host, including allowing posts that stoked political violence in Britain and spread hate in Germany and France.
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New York Times, Chinese Companies Have Sidestepped Trump’s Tariffs. They Could Do It Again, Ana Swanson, Dec. 31, 2024. The companies have found plenty of new channels to the U.S. market, demonstrating the potential limits of the tariffs Donald Trump has promised to impose.
After President Donald J. Trump slapped tariffs on Chinese bicycles in 2018, Arnold Kamler, then the chief executive of the bike maker Kent International, saw a curious trend play out in the bicycle industry.
Chinese bicycle factories moved their final manufacturing and assembly operations out of China, setting up new facilities in Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia and India. Using parts mostly from China, those companies made bicycles that they could export directly to the United States — without paying the 25 percent tariff had the bike been shipped straight from China.
“The net effect of what’s going on with these tariffs is that Chinese factories in China are setting up Chinese factories in other countries,” said Mr. Kamler, whose company imports some bicycles from China and makes others at a South Carolina factory.
Pushing those factories into other countries resulted in additional costs for companies and consumers, without increasing the amount of manufacturing in the United States, Mr. Kamler said. He said he had been forced to raise his prices several times as a result of the tariffs.
“There’s no real gain here,” said Mr. Kamler, whose bikes are sold at Walmart and other retailers. “It’s very inflationary.”
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.
New York Times, Drugs, Scams and Sin: Myanmar’s War Has Made It the Global Crime Capital, Hannah Beech, Dec. 31, 2024. The chaotic country is now a magnet for criminal syndicates, particularly from China, destabilizing law enforcement across much of Asia.
Since descending into a full-blown civil conflict nearly four years ago, after the military overthrew the elected government, Myanmar has cemented its status as a hotbed of transnational crime. It is a playground for warlords, arms dealers, human traffickers, poachers, drug syndicates and generals wanted by international courts.
Washington Post, Investigtation: Scouring social media, a firm fights NFL settlement payouts, Will Hobson, Dec. 30, 2024 (print ed.). Despite vowing to act fast, the firm that oversees the NFL settlement still delays and denies claims, The Post found, including because of players’ online activity.
It took five years, three doctor’s visits, two federal lawsuits and countless emails with his lawyers, but Reggie Brown finally got word in February: Heofficially had dementia. Which meant, he believed, it was time for the NFL to pay up.
Brown, 64, had been fighting for years to get paid by the landmark NFL concussion settlement, which promised to compensate every former player with dementia or a brain disease linked to head trauma. Under the rules of the settlement, Brown’s lawyers told him, his diagnosis entitled him to about $200,000.
All that stood between him and a check was BrownGreer, the independent administrative firm that examines all claims. He had heard stories about the firm taking months, even years, to review claims, but he hoped his would move quickly. After all, his diagnosis had come from a board-certified settlement doctor who had been vetted by BrownGreer and lawyers for the NFL.
Then, in July, Brown received an email from the firm. It had reviewed his tax returns and scoured his social media activity, and it wanted to know:
If Brown had dementia, how had he managed to work part-time, earning about $30,000 annually the past five years?
Why did he claim online he worked as a motivational speaker?
And what about the Facebook posts that showed him attending his daughter’s graduate school graduation, traveling with his wife and going to the gym?
When lawyers for the NFL and thousands of former players struck the historic settlement a decade ago, they entrusted the crucial role of managing it to BrownGreer, one of the most experienced firms in the country focused on settlement administration. And BrownGreer’s founding partner, Orran Brown Sr., publicly assured former players that his firm would work to make the process as efficient and fair as possible
It was building a nationwide network of settlement-approved doctors whose diagnoses would quickly lead to payments, Brown said. And while the firm would consult a panel of expert review doctors on some claims, he said, it would rarely — if ever — deny claims involving diagnoses made by those settlement doctors.
“We do not take orders from the NFL,” he said then. His firm, he added, wanted to “get this done correctly and get it done quickly.”
But seven years later, BrownGreer has denied hundreds of claims involving diagnoses made by settlement doctors, and the firm has spent months — and, in some cases, years — scouring players’ social media and scrutinizing medical records, sparking an outcry from former players and causing some doctors to quit the settlement’s languishing network, a Washington Post investigation found.
SCOTUSblog, In year-end report, chief justice defends judiciary’s independence, Amy Howe Jan 1, 2025 At the end of an eventful year at the Supreme Court that included a ruling giving former President Donald Trump broad immunity from criminal prosecution for his conduct while in office, reporting that controversial flags had flown at the homes of Justice Samuel Alito, and an ethics inquiry from Senate Democrats that found more gift trips that Justice Clarence Thomas had failed to disclose, Chief Justice John Roberts’ annual report, released on Tuesday evening, focused on what he sees as the threats to judicial independence.
One of those threats, Roberts wrote, is disinformation from abroad fomented by foreign countries. Although Roberts did not mention any of the “hostile foreign state actors” responsible for such disinformation by name, the justices will hear oral arguments next week in a challenge to a federal law that would require social media giant TikTok to shut down in the United States unless its parent company can sell it off by Jan. 19.
A federal appeals court upheld the law earlier this month, calling it part of “a broader effort to counter a well-substantiated national security threat posed by the People’s Republic of China.” Roberts’ discussion of disinformation in his report seemed to suggest that he may be sympathetic to the TikTok ban.
The chief justice traditionally releases his year-end report on the federal judiciary every year on New Year’s Eve. Roberts’s 2023 report discussed the legal profession and the role of artificial intelligence. His 2022 report, in the aftermath of the court’s decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion, stressed the importance of judicial security.
This year’s report comes in the wake of mounting criticism of the court and the justices’ decision in June overturning the longstanding Chevron doctrine, which instructed courts to generally defer to a federal agency’s interpretation of the statutes that it administers. Quoting his predecessor, the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Roberts characterized the United States’s independent federal judiciary as “one of the ‘crown jewels of our system of government” – and essential to the rule of law.
But “four areas of illegitimate activity” pose a danger to that independence, Roberts wrote on Tuesday. T
here has “been a significant uptick in” threats directed at judges, he noted, requiring the commitment of “significant additional resources” to protect judges and investigate and prosecute threats against them.A bill passed earlier this month to avert a government shutdown included more than $25 million in funding for security at the justices’ homes. A California man, Nicholas Roske, is scheduled to stand trial in Maryland next year on charges that he attempted to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022.Efforts to intimidate judges – whether by “activist groups” or public officials – can undermine independence, Roberts continued.
Roberts cautioned that critics of the judiciary “should be mindful that intemperance in their statements when it comes to judges may prompt dangerous reactions by others.”Roberts also cited disinformation as a threat to judicial independence, observing that “distortion of the factual or legal basis for a ruling can undermine confidence in the court system.” The judicial branch, Roberts added, “is peculiarly ill-suited to combat this problem, because judges typically speak only through their decisions.” (The Supreme Court does not make audio of its opinion announcements, at which the justices normally read summaries of their written opinions, available for several months after the opinions are released.)
Roberts pointed to the influence of “hostile foreign state actors” as another part of that potential threat. Such actors, he said, could “feed false information into the marketplace of ideas” or “steal information.” Defending the TikTok ban, the Biden administration told the court on Dec. 27 that TikTok “collects vast swaths of data about tens of millions of Americans, which” China “could use for espionage or blackmail,” and that China could “covertly manipulate the platform to advance its geopolitical interests and harm the United States — by, for example, sowing discord and disinformation during a crisis.”
Finally, Roberts concluded, “judicial independence is undermined unless the other branches are firm in their responsibility to enforce the court’s decrees.” Roberts harkened back to the 1950s and 1960s, when federal judges and the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations stood together when state governors tried to defy court orders to desegregate schools. Since then, he said, the United States has “avoided the standoffs,” but recently “elected officials from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings. These dangerous suggestions, however sporadic, must be rejected,” he wrote.The Supreme Court will be back in the spotlight early in the new year. On Jan. 10, the court will hear oral arguments in TikTok’s effort to invalidate a federal law that would require the company to shut down in the United States unless its parent company can sell it off by Jan. 19.The post In year-end report, chief justice defends judiciary’s independence appeared first on SCOTUSblog.
New York Times, Chief Justice Roberts Condemns Threats to Judicial Independence, Adam Liptak, Dec. 31, 2024. In his year-end report on the federal judiciary, John Roberts decried violence, intimidation and disinformation and warned against defiance of court rulings.
Judicial independence is under grave threat on several fronts, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote on Tuesday in an unusually urgent and somber year-end report on the state of the federal judiciary.
“Violence, intimidation and defiance directed at judges because of their work undermine our Republic, and are wholly unacceptable,” he wrote.
The report, which arrived in the wake of questions about the court’s ethical standards and a drop in its approval ratings, said some criticism of judges’ work is healthy, warranted and welcome.
“Unfortunately, not all actors engage in ‘informed criticism’ or anything remotely resembling it,” he wrote. “I feel compelled to address four areas of illegitimate activity that, in my view, do threaten the independence of judges on which the rule of law depends.”
New York Times, Departing Air Force Secretary Will Leave Space Weaponry as a Legacy, Eric Lipton, Dec. 30, 2024 (print ed.). Frank Kendall, right, who grew up on an apple farm and rose to the pinnacle of the U.S. military, has preached the need for better preparation for the next big fight.
Weapons in space. Fighter jets powered by artificial intelligence.
As the Biden administration comes to a close, one of its legacies will be kicking off the transformation of the nearly 80-year-old U.S. Air Force under the orchestration of its secretary, Frank Kendall.
When he leaves office in January — after more than five decades at the Defense Department and as a military contractor, including nearly four years as Air Force secretary — Mr. Kendall, 75, will have set the stage for a transition that is not only changing how the Air Force is organized but how global wars will be fought.
One of the biggest elements of this shift is the move by the United States to prepare for potential space conflict with Russia, China or some other nation.
In a way, space has been a military zone since the Germans first reached it in 1944 with their V2 rockets that left the earth’s atmosphere before they rained down on London, causing hundreds of deaths. Now, at Mr. Kendall’s direction, the United States is preparing to take that concept to a new level by deploying space-based weapons that can disable or disrupt the growing fleet of Chinese or Russian military satellites.
To Mr. Kendall, there is no other choice for the Air Force.
“If there were one thing I could accomplish as secretary, it would be to give the enterprise — the institution — a sense of urgency about responding to the threat and being more prepared,” he said during an hourlong interview at the Pentagon this month with The New York Times. “Conflict can happen. It’s not inevitable. It may not even be likely. But it can happen at any time. And we need to be ready.”
New York Times, Trump Weighs In on Immigrant Visa Debate but Offers Little Clarity, Ken Bensinger, Dec. 29, 2024 (print ed.). President-elect Trump said he had used the visas for skilled workers “many times.” But he has mainly used visas for unskilled workers like housekeepers.
President-elect Donald J. Trump appeared to weigh in on Saturday on a heated debate among his supporters over the role of skilled immigrant workers in the U.S. economy, saying he had frequently used the visas for those workers and backed the program.
“I have many H-1B visas on my properties,” he told The New York Post. “I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program.”
But his comments — which were enthusiastically embraced by the technology industry as an endorsement — may muddy the waters because Mr. Trump appears to have only sparingly used the H-1B visa program, which allows skilled workers like software engineers to work in the United States for up to three years and can be extended to six years.
Instead, he has been a frequent and longtime user of the similarly named, but starkly different, H-2B visa program, which is for unskilled workers like gardeners and housekeepers, as well as the H-2A program, which is for agricultural workers. Those visas allow a worker to remain in the country for 10 months. Federal data show Mr. Trump’s companies have received approval to employ over 1,000 workers through the two H-2 programs in the past 20 years.
New York Times, Charles Dolan, Cablevision Founder Who Sat Atop a Media Empire, Dies at 98, Richard Goldstein, Dec. 30, 2024 (print ed.). His business choices were diverse and prolific: He founded HBO, bought Madison Square Garden and the New York Knicks, and took over a Long Island newspaper.
Charles F. Dolan, who bought a group of small cable TV systems on Long Island in 1973, merged them into a network he called Cablevision and amassed a fortune building an innovative communications, entertainment and sports empire that included HBO and Madison Square Garden and its professional teams, died on Saturday. He was 98.
A representative for Mr. Dolan’s family confirmed the death on Sunday in a statement, which did not say where he died.
Cablevision Systems Corporation had 1,500 customers when Mr. Dolan founded it. It was serving three million cable TV households in the New York metropolitan area and providing internet and digital telephone service when he reached a deal in September 2015 to sell it to Altice, a European media company, for $17.7 billion. Altice USA now runs it under the Optimum brand.
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New York Times, Investigation: How Shen Yun Tapped Religious Fervor to Make $266 Million, Michael Rothfeld and Nicole Hong, Dec. 30, 2024 (print ed.). The dance group has accumulated enormous wealth, in large part by getting followers of the Falun Gong religious movement to work for free and pay its bills.
Over the past decade, the dance group Shen Yun Performing Arts has made money at a staggering rate.
The group had $60 million in 2015.
It had $144 million by 2019.
And by the end of last year, tax records show, it had more than a quarter of a billion dollars, stockpiling wealth at a pace that would be extraordinary for any company, let alone a nonprofit dance group from Orange County, N.Y.
Operated by Falun Gong, the persecuted Chinese religious movement, Shen Yun’s success flows in part from its ability to pack venues worldwide — while exploiting young, low-paid performers with little regard for their health or well-being.
But it also is a token of the power that Falun Gong’s founder, Li Hongzhi, has wielded over his followers. In the name of fighting communism, and obeying Mr. Li’s mystical teachings, they have created a global network to glorify him and enrich his movement.your times access
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: December 27, 2024 [MAGA Food Fight], Heather Cox Richardson, Dec. 28, 2024. Civil war has broken out within the MAGA Republicans. On the one side are the traditional MAGAs, who tend to be white, anti-immigrant, and less educated than the rest of the U.S. They believe that the modern government’s protection of equal rights for women and minorities has ruined America, and they tend to want to isolate the U.S. from the rest of the world. They make up Trump’s voting base.
On the other side are the new MAGAs who appear to have taken control of the incoming Trump administration. Led by Elon Musk, who bankrolled Trump’s campaign, the new MAGA wing is made up of billionaires, especially tech entrepreneurs, many of whom are themselves immigrants.
During the campaign, these two wings made common cause because they both want to destroy the current U.S. government, especially as President Joe Biden had been using it to strengthen American democracy. Traditional MAGA wants to get rid of the government that protects equality and replace it with one that enforces white male supremacy and Christianity. New MAGA—which some have started to call DOGE, after the Department of Government Efficiency run by Musk and pharmaceutical entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy—wants to get rid of the government that regulates business, especially technology, and protects American interests against competition from countries like China.
Their shared commitment to the destruction of the current government is about the only overlap between these two factions.
With the campaign over, traditional MAGA and DOGE are ripping apart. Trump sparked the fight when he announced on Sunday, December 22, that he would appoint Musk associate Sriram Krishnan, who was born in India, as a senior policy advisor on artificial intelligence.
On Monday, MAGA activist Laura Loomer criticized Trump’s choice of Krishnan. Loomer was in Trump’s inner circle until three months ago, when her anti-immigrant tirades made Trump campaign staff worry she would cost Trump votes and forced her out of his public schedule. Loomer noted that Krishnan wants to remove the cap on green cards for workers from certain countries.
Krishnan has also called for making it easier for skilled foreign workers to come to the U.S. on H-1B temporary visas. These programs are important to the technology sector, but critics say they enable companies to hire foreign workers at lower pay than U.S. workers, that H-1B workers are trapped in their jobs, and that wage theft is rampant in the H-1B program.
Loomer said those jobs “should be given to American STEM students.” Then she got to the heart of the matter, complaining that MAGA is getting left out of the new administration. She noted that “none of the tech executives who are meeting with Trump and getting appointed in his cabinet supported him in 2020 or during the 2024 primary.” She continued: “I feel like many of them are trying to get into Trump’s admin[istration] to enrich themselves and get contracts at [the] D[epartment] O[f] D[efense]. This is not America First Policy.”
Now, with Trump not even in office yet, the two factions of Trump’s MAGA base—which, indeed, have opposing interests—are at war.
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.
Politico, Former FBI and CIA head prods Senate to reject Patel, Gabbard, Kierra Frazier, Kierra Frazier, Dec. 27, 2024 (print ed.). William Webster, the only person to lead both the FBI and CIA, wrote that neither nominee meets the demands of top intelligence jobs.
A former head of the FBI and CIA is raising objections over whether Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Donald Trump's picks to be directors of the FBI and national intelligence, respectively, are qualified to serve in the Cabinet.
In a letter to senators on Thursday, William Webster, the only person to lead both the FBI and CIA, wrote that neither nominee meets the demands of top intelligence jobs.
Webster, who is 100 years old, praised Patel's patriotism but wrote that his allegiance to Trump was concerning.
“His record of executing the president’s directives suggest a loyalty to individuals rather than the rule of law — a dangerous precedent for an agency tasked with impartial enforcement of justice,” he said.
When it came to Gabbard, Webster wrote that her "profound lack" of intelligence experience stood in contrast to the seasoned leadership needed for the role.
“Effective management of our intelligence community requires unparalleled expertise to navigate the complexities of global threats and to maintain the trust of allied nations,” he wrote. “Without that trust, our ability to safeguard sensitive secrets and collaborate internationally is severely diminished.”
Trump's transition did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Webster was appointed FBI director in 1978 by President Jimmy Carter and remained director under President Ronald Reagan until 1987. Reagan tapped him to be head of the CIA until 1991, under President George H.W. Bush.
“I urge you to weigh the critical importance of nonpartisan leadership and experience,” Webster wrote. “The safety of the American people — and your own families — depends on it.”
New York Times, Guards in Fatal Prison Assault Were Accused of Beating Inmates Before, Jan Ransom, Dec. 28, 2024. Three of the 13 guards implicated in the savage beating of Robert Brooks had been accused in lawsuits of earlier attacks in New York prisons.
At least three of the New York prison guards implicated in the savage beating death of a handcuffed man had been accused of participating in similar attacks on prisoners across the state.
Two of the corrections officers and a sergeant accused in the death of Robert Brooks, an inmate at the Marcy Correctional Facility in central New York, were previously named in federal lawsuits filed by prisoners accusing them of brutal attacks that left one man disfigured and another in a wheelchair.
A lawyer for one of the injured men drew a line from the earlier accusations of violence to the attack this month.
“The fact that they failed to rein in these officers that they knew had beaten someone else is a direct contributor to Mr. Brooks’s death,” said Katie Rosenfeld, the lawyer. She criticized the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision for fighting her client’s lawsuit for four years.
Letitia James, the state attorney general, on Friday released video footage of guards beating Mr. Brooks in a prison infirmary on Dec. 9. The footage, captured on body cameras worn by four of the officers, showed the guards punching, kicking and choking Mr. Brooks over roughly 20 minutes.
New York Times, Mexico, Betting Trump Is Bluffing on Tariffs, Sees an Opportunity, Peter S. Goodman, Dec. 28, 2024. Business leaders in Mexico say President-elect Trump’s new administration will enhance the appeal of their factories as an alternative to plants in China.
Last month, President-elect Trump threatened the economics of nearshoring by promising to impose 25 percent tariffs on all goods entering the United States from Mexico and Canada. Mexican industry was confronted with a high-stakes question: Was Mr. Trump bluffing, hoping the threat would pressure the Mexican government to halt the movement of people and drugs toward the border? Or was he really preparing to put tariffs on Mexican imports to force companies to move production to the United States?
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, 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.
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.
More On Trump's Billionaire Allies, Their Rants & Their Contracts
The Hartmann Report, Commentary: Americans are sick of the Grinches stealing healthcare, Thom Hartmann, Dec. 28, 2024. hTis is what happens when five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court put our government up for sale to the highest bidder.
Greetings from Australia; Louise and I are visiting a dear old friend who’s one of the top neuroscientists in the world and, driving for a few hours from the airport to their home on the Pacific Ocean, we passed dozens of Teslas.
They’re all over the place, and they’re made in China. In fact, reports suggest that more than half of Teslas are made in China.
Which is why it makes so much sense that when Republicans and Democrats negotiated a deal to keep the government open and that deal put limits on American companies and morbidly rich billionaires from investing in or expanding operations in China, suddenly President Elect Musk threw nearly a hundred tweets out on Xitter demanding Republicans kill the deal.
And kill it they did: instant obedience. The new revised bill that Congress passed and Biden signed into law no longer puts any obstacles in the richest man in the world’s ability to keep on cranking out cars in China. Even more troubling, when Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro pointed this out and implied it was a form of corruption, Musk went after her on Xitter, suggesting he may use his massive fortune — larger than any amassed by any individual in the world’s history of all the pharaohs, kings, popes, and caliphs over the past 5,000 years — to unseat her in the next election. DeLauro wrote to congressional leadership, in part:
”It is particularly disturbing that Musk may have sought to upend this critical negotiated agreement to remove a bipartisan provision regulating U.S. investments in China in order to protect his wallet and the Chinese Communist Party at the expense of American workers, innovators, and businesses.
“Despite the four corners of the Appropriations Committees and Congressional leadership having reached a government funding agreement earlier this week, Republican leadership caved at the last minute to the demands of ‘President’ Musk to shut down the government and strip out hundreds of pages of critical provisions that would have reauthorized important programs to support American workers and families. One key provision that Republicans’ new government funding bill stripped out: a bill to screen U.S. investments in critical sectors in China. “
This outbound investment provision was agreed to after months of bipartisan, bicameral negotiations and years of advocacy from Members of Congress. It would have kept innovation and manufacturing in semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, and other cutting-edge technologies in the United States and prevented wealthy investors from continuing to offshore production and U.S. intellectual property into China – benefiting only their bottom lines and the Chinese Communist Party, while hurting American workers and threatening our national security.
Importantly, many of the innovations this bill would have protected were developed with the help of taxpayer dollars – all the more reason for these innovations to remain at home and not be used to fuel adversaries’ technological and military capabilities.
“It is no surprise, then, that ‘President’ Musk does not want to see a funding deal containing this provision be signed into law. Musk’s investments in China, and ties with its government, have only grown over the last few years – alongside his growing involvement in American politics.
America has a serious oligarch problem and it’s getting worse by the day. If Citizens United isn’t reversed, the voices of average Americans will be totally drowned out by billionaire cash in our upcoming elections…
Wayne Madsen Report (WMR), Investigative Commentary, America hasn't gone right-wing, it has gone completely neo-Nazi, Wayne Madsen, Dec. 25-27, 2024. Trump and Musk are the most dangerous duo of Nazis since Hitler and Goebbels.
Thinking about....Commentary on Tyranny: Why is Musk-Trump the 'Mump Regime'? Timothy Snyder, right, best-selling author and Yale historian, Dec. 22-23, 2024. Ask the Mumpers and the MumpetsTimothy Snyder, For a new world we need new words.
Facing the coming Musk-Trump regime, we will have to be creative. It will not be enough just to rely on the standard terms that come to easily to our lips and pens ("administration," "presidency", and the like). That normalizes the abnormal.
And to repeat unreflectively the words that Musk and Trump and other mumpers use is to take part in the transformation that they bring. Opposition requires clarity and clarity requires concepts. "Mump regime" is one I propose.
As I explained in the last post, "Mump regime," Musk+Trump, keeps the two men who currently matter the most, Elon Musk and Donald Trump, in the proper order.
Musk matters more than Trump. He is the one with the money, the one to whom Trump owes debts. Musk also has a much more lively sense of his own interests and more energy generally. When the two men's ideas clash, as over China in the recent shutdown dispute, Musk gets his way.
"Mump regime" also keeps front and center the basic issue of illness. Democracy is closely connected to health. The historic path to modern political peace and the rule of law led through two stages: vaccines and institutions of public health. Americans have never broke through to a universal health insurance system, and the associated disease, death, fear and poverty is a central problem for our democracy. Now the mumpers and the mumpets are threatening to take away vaccination, which could kill millions of people. One of the diseases it would bring back is, precisely, mumps. Some of the others are far worse.
"Mump regime" is also better, at this point, than "MAGA." That term was always Trump's propaganda, and Trump simply does matter as he once did. So “MAGA” is not only misleading but obsolete.
Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Suspect in German Market Attack is a Member of the Far-Right Movement Just Endorsed by Musk, Troy Matthews, Dec. 23, 2024. Taleb Al Abdulmohsen is an anti-Islam extremist who has lived in Germany since 2006.
Taleb Al Abdulmohsen is in custody after driving his car into a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg Friday, killing five people, including a nine-year-old child, and injuring over 200 others.
Early reports profiled the 50-year-old Saudi Arabian immigrant as committing an act of Islamic extremism, but further research into the online profile of Taleb has revealed the exact opposite: he has lived in Germany since 2006 and harbors violent extremist anti-Islamic views. He has been a supporter the far-right AfD (Alternative for Germany) Party for years, the same party that was just endorsed by Elon Musk.
Taleb's account on X has nearly 50K followers. His recent content promotes violent conspiracy theories against the German government, suggesting the government is "Islamizing" Germany, and professing his willingness to commit murder to fight back against what he perceives as the silencing of the far-right.
Taleb posted in X in May that, "German terrorism will be brought to justice. It’s very likely that I will die this year in order to bring justice," and again in August stating, "I assure you that if Germany wants a war, we will fight it. If Germany wants to kill us, we will slaughter them, die, or go to prison with pride."
The Hartmann Report, Commentary: Depressing the Vote with Money in Politics, Thom Hartmann, right, Dec. 22-23, 2024. Your weekly excerpt from one of my books. This week: "The Hidden History of the War on Voting: The Republican War against your right to vote. Over the next few months the entire book will be here, new chapters posted every Sunday, for subscribers to read at no cost. If you want to get a physical book to mark up or share with others, just click on the picture above, visit your local bookstore, or check your favorite online seller.
Money in politics has a long and ignominious history.
Corruption by money of individual politicians, and of the legislative process as a whole, hit three peaks in the history of our nation: during the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, the Roaring Twenties in the last century, and the years since 2010 when the Supreme Court struck down numerous campaign finance and good-government laws, throwing the doors open to corporate and billionaire cash with its Citizens United decision.
U.S. President-Elect Elon Musk with Vice Presidential mascot Elect Donald Trump in Oval Office parody via Jeff Tiedrich
Everyone Is Entitled To My Own Opinion, Political advocacy: Scenes from President Musk’s shutdown-that-wasn’ty, Jeff Tiedrich, right, Dec. 22-23, 2024. Welcome to a perfectly normal weekend in the good old US of A.
United States President-Elect Elon Musk was definitely one of those kids who woke up early on Christmas morning, ran downstairs, grabbed his presents from under the tree, frantically ripped the wrapping off — and immediately smashed the shit out of each and every one of his new toys.
You know this is a fact, because when handed the biggest toy of his life — the entire country of America — the very first thing President-Elect Musk tried to do was break it.
Recent Relevant Headlines
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: December 21, 2024 [U.S. Government Shutdown Avoided], Heather Cox RichardsonEgberto Off The Record, Opinion: Spineless greedy parasitic CEOs are sucking up to Trump, a clear and present danger to all, Egberto Willies
Opposition To Trump
The Hartmann Report, Political Commentary: Why is President Musk endorsing the “German neo-Nazi Party”?,Thom Hartmann, right, Dec. 21, 2024. Both President Musk and his sidekick Donald Trump are in deep with the Chinese Communist Party (which has given millions to the Trump family and where Musk makes roughly half of his Tesla cars and many of his billions) and Vladimir Putin (both are reported to have had multiple phone calls and other communications with the Russian dictator over the past two years, including Musk cutting off Starlink internet access for Ukrainian drones that were supposed to attack the Russian fleet in Crimea).
Musk this week also endorsed the Nazi-infested German racist, far-right party Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) and in the past has endorsed other European hard-right politicians and parties including in France and the UK.
Putin’s involved in a major effort to disrupt democratic governments around the world, mainly through using social media and video channels, and it increasingly appears that an anti-democracy coalition is forming here that includes several American and other rightwing billionaires and the Trump operation.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat expands on this extensively in her excellent Lucid newsletter this week; it’s well worth the read (and subscribing to).
Meanwhile, Senator Rand Paul (R-Crackpot) has suggested Republicans in the House should make Musk their Speaker (and third in the line of succession for the presidency), an idea that’s been endorsed by Marjorie Taylor Greene and others. The Constitution doesn’t have a citizenship requirement or election requirement for the job, so it’s a real possibility, although probably wouldn’t get the necessary votes if Johnson is taken down.
No matter what, though, unless Musk and Trump get into some sort of major personality conflict (which I consider unlikely; Trump just wants to play golf and be loved, while Musk wants to get involved, presumably to protect the billions he gets in federal government grants and subsidies), it looks like the Muskrat is going to be America’s new overlord regardless of having or not having any official position.
The Bulwark, Political Opinion: Bannon: Kash Patel Will Absolutely Investigate The People Named In His Book, Tim Miller, Dec. 20, 2024. A tough break for those hoping that the likely next FBI director may moderate if confirmed
Donald Trump's nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, right, is dead serious when it comes to investigating the political enemies who he listed in his book “Government Gangsters,” according to Trump’s on-again-off-again adviser Steve Bannon (shown above in a file photo).
“Kash didn’t try to hide the football. Steve Bannon didn’t try,” Bannon asserted, speaking in the third person during a one-on-one interview with The Bulwark following his speech to Americafest, a yearly gathering of MAGA diehards hosted by Turning Point USA.
“He made a fucking movie that’s called Government Gangsters and the first guy is Merrick Garland ok. And Lisa Monaco’s in there who the nation doesn’t know, we’re trying to make these people famous. So no. First of all, it has to happen. Number two, it's going to happen.”
Among those who would have a clear understanding of Patel’s intentions, Bannon stands high up on the list. He worked with Patel on the documentary that accompanied Patel’s book. He has also routinely hosted Patel on his podcast. His comments serve as a stark contrast to how congressional Republicans have talked up Patel’s nomination by portraying him more as a force of reform at the FBI. Patel will need 50 votes in the Senate in order to be confirmed.
Bannon’s remarks, delivered during a wide-ranging interview, came after I expressed concern that Patel might use the powers of the FBI to target political foes in the shadows without accountability. Bannon asserted that it shouldn't be concerning, not because Patel would moderate his desire to ensnare political foes of President Trump but because he would do so right out in the open.
“Transparency and sunlight is our friend,” Bannon said before ruminating on the importance of Patel’s poorly written but politically potent book.
“I would say Kash’s book is more typing than writing, ok” Bannon quipped. “It’s not a literary thing. But when you see it, it’s so in your face and at the end he lists on eight pages people from the deep state that need to be investigated. … So I think it’s pretty transparent.”
Bannon was adamant that Patel’s forthcoming investigations would not be about political revenge but, rather, an important cleansing of institutions that Trump and the MAGA movement believe are fundamentally broken. Bannon himself served a four-month sentence in Danbury federal correctional institution for defying a subpoena in the congressional investigation into the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“These investigations and all that, it's not for personal retribution. I would be the person then at the forefront since I spent four months in a federal prison and I could care less. [Prison] actually was very empowering for me,” he said. “We can never allow again to happen what happened. The debanking, the deplatforming, the coming after President Trump. You have to get to the bottom of it.”
Among the investigations Bannon specifically expected from Patel were ones that look into the supposed “fedsurrection” on January 6th (a conspiracy that the FBI was behind the attack on the Capitol, which I covered back in 2023) and the purported “vast criminal conspiracy” against President-elect Trump. A recent watchdog report found that there were 26 FBI informants—and no undercover employees—at the Capitol on January 6th. None were authorized to enter the building or otherwise break the law.
“I think there will be a massive investigation. The vast criminal conspiracy, including the medias,’ what was it Andrew Weissman and all those FBI guys that work on MSNBC, I think there will be big investigations into all these people, I just do. I think there is going to be a huge investigation, I believe, into 2020. I think it's going to be a huge investigation on January 6th, the fedsurrection, I think it's going to be a huge investigation about the vast criminal conspiracy against President Trump.”
Washington Post, Opinion: Democrats shouldn’t try to find ‘common ground’ with Trump, Jennifer Rubin, right, Dec. 23, 2024. Unwise, premature and embarrassing outreach from what is supposed to be the opposition.
A depressingly high number of elected Democrats are declaring their intent to find “common ground” with President-elect Donald Trump and his crackpot Cabinet picks. Their naive, tone-deaf declarations epitomize an infatuation with bipartisanship for bipartisanship’s sake. Sometimes, it’s better not to bend the knee before the bidding even gets underway.Make sense of the latest news and debates with our daily newsletter
Democrats strain credulity if they imagine they can find common ground with someone who vows, among other mind-boggling schemes, to imprison opponents, deploy the military against immigrants, snatch the power of the purse from Congress and pay for tax cuts for billionaires with cuts to entitlements and other programs that serve ordinary Americans. (What would common ground even look like? Deport just 5.5 million people, not 11 million? Cut Social Security only a little bit?)
The fruitless search for nonexistent common ground instantaneously normalizes Trump. Democrats should not propound the dubious assertion that Trump can operate rationally and in good faith. Mouthing this platitude makes Democrats look weak, foolish and unprepared to stand up to an authoritarian agenda.
Moreover, what is the point of declaring their “common ground” aspirations now? Similar aspirational statements were made before MAGA Republicans reneged on the budget deal (later giving up the effort to suspend the debt ceiling when Democrats stood their ground). That should be a wake-up call: There is no bargaining with people who break deals. Democrats must not be in the position of chasing after Republicans. They will find themselves negotiating against themselves to reach the mythical “common ground.”
Lance's Substack, Political Commentary:The Democrats And Media (With A Few Exceptions) Are Not In The Real World, Or Are Lying Through Their Teeth, Lance F Rosen, Dec. 22, 2024. Trump has been obsessed with having the power to use the military domestically to crush his enemies since he entered politics. Remember that he told General Kelly "Hitler did some good things," and later "I wish my Generals were as loyal to me as Hitler's were for him."
He knows that his program will produce rioting and violence in reaction, because that is what he and his team of fascist thugs want. He said as much when discussing the mass deportations, which he said would be "bloody." His worldview was literally influenced by reading Hitler's speeches, and being mentored by his KKK- supporting father.
His other influences were J. Edgar Hoover, The John Birch Society, Nixon and Roy Cohn (shown above at right), who was Joe McCarthy's lawyer and later the Gambino mob family lawyer. When Nixon ok'd the Governor of Ohio James Rhodes deploying the National Guard in 1971 to Kent State University and those students were shot, that put an end to anti-war demonstrations for the most part, while the draft-evading bone spur victim Trump supported it fully and never forgot the lesson from that. It was a formative event for him. Ordering protesters shot amounts to a psycho-sexual obsession which he has always carried, because the thrill of putting people to death who oppose him stands at the center of his aspirational fantasy life.
So his personal history is a road map for what he intends to do. He wanted to use the military to shoot social justice protesters in June of 2020 but Secretary Of Defense Esper and JCOS Chairman General Milley blocked him. (Remember he symbolically put the Missouri would-be vigilante gun brandishing couple on the RNC speakers list) This is one reason Trump will put Milley on trial for treason and try to have him executed. The point being there won't be anyone in this incoming White House team like Generals Milley and Kelly with the balls and honesty to oppose him.
The ruling by SCOTUS on immunity said that the President has the power to order Seal Team Six to murder his opponents because it is considered an "official act." The only conservative Justice who fussed a little bit was Barrett, but that was just an ass-covering dance routine which amounts to nothing. And be sure that Trump and Musk, along with their compliant Attorney General Bondi intend to push the envelope as far as possible starting the moment this blasphemous lunatic puts his hand on that Bible and lies like a pig when he swears to uphold the Constitution.
Trump has consulted with Vladimir Putin for years in direct conversations, (the number of which is both substantial but unknown) asking him for advice on many things. During the George Floyd demonstrations in front of the White House, a scared shitless Trump called him to ask how he would handle it. Reportedly Putin told him in effect, "you can't let people think that you appear weak." That was roughly when he tried to invoke the 1807 Act and deploy the military, and became the infamous "bunker boy" who descended into his underground lair, just like Hitler in his final days, to scream at his Generals and give out orders to non-existent Army groups.
So these commentators who are cheerleading for GOP moderates and celebrating their factional brawls, in effect watching all of this, both-sidesing most of his nominees, "eating popcorn" and arguing that there should be "no worries," that the moderates and MAGAs will devour each other, that Trump will become envious of Musk and dump him, are absolutely in a delusional fantasy state. None of those things, even to the extent they are real, will succeed in stopping the Trump fascist counterrevolution against democracy.
The Democratic strategy as it now stands is to lay back and let it all happen, because they think Trump will have to own his destruction and carnage and this will propel the Democrats victory in the mid-terms, and after that "on to 2028."
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More On Carter Life, Legacy
Washington Post, Carter to lie in state at Capitol, with state funeral to follow on Jan. 9, Azi Paybarahm, Dec. 30, 2024. Former presidents and other dignitaries are expected to attend the service at Washington National Cathedral where President Joe Biden will deliver the eulogy.
The death of former president Jimmy Carter touched off an American mourning ritual that requires quickly coordinating a sprawling group of federal officials, local partners and law enforcement, as well as elected leaders from across the political spectrum.Get the latest election news and results
Services to honor Carter will begin Jan. 4 in his home state of Georgia and conclude Jan. 9 with a state funeral at Washington National Cathedral, where President Joe Biden will deliver the eulogy. Carter will lie in state in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol for three days, which will give members of Congress and everyday Americans the opportunity to pay their respects.
The events require a complicated choreography of protocol, ceremony and security at which official Washington excels, but the timing of Carter’s funeral presents some particular challenges. The former president died Sunday at the age of 100.
The tributes to Carter come after the New Year’s Day holiday and as Washington is experiencing a political transition, with Biden preparing to hand power to President-elect Donald Trump. Separately, a fractured House Republican majority will try to elect a speaker on Jan. 3, a process that previously took the GOP dozens of rounds of votes spread over several days of public feuding.
New York Times, When Jimmy Carter Turned TV Into a Pulpit, James Poniewozik, Dec. 30, 2024 (print ed.). Other presidents were more celebrated for their on-screen presences, but in 1979 he gave one of the White House’s most astonishing televised speeches.
“This is not a message of happiness or reassurance. But it is the truth.” — President Jimmy Carter, July 15, 1979
Since Americans began buying television sets, several commanders in chief have been given the title “TV president”: Richard Nixon, who faced John F. Kennedy in the first televised presidential debate and announced his resignation on air; Ronald Reagan, the former actor and “General Electric Theater” host; and Donald J. Trump, previously of “The Apprentice.”
Jimmy Carter, who died on Sunday at 100, is not one of the first leaders who come to mind in this way. But Mr. Carter was arguably the first president of TV’s full maturity. He served at the peak of the broadcast network monoculture, just before the spread of cable TV in the 1980s began to gradually split the audience into niche camps.
And he related to TV in a way that captured the 1970s essence of his presidency and his time.
Arriving post-Nixon and post-Vietnam — when Americans’ trust in authority was at a nadir — Mr. Carter offered a different image of national leadership. His was more approachable, humble, in sync with the dressed-down spirit of the ’70s and in tune with a national mood of soul-searching. He was a “Jimmy,” not a “James.”
New York Times, After Jimmy Carter Won the Presidency, Democrats Lost the South, Richard Fausset, Dec. 30, 2024. On the day he was sworn in as governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter, an ambitious white peanut farmer from rural Sumter County, announced that “the time for racial discrimination is over.”
The declaration landed like the carefully calculated bomb it was intended to be in the South of 1971 — and landed Mr. Carter on the cover of Time magazine, along with the blurb, “Dixie whistles a different tune.”
But in his ensuing half-century of public life, Mr. Carter, the one-term Democratic president who died Sunday at 100, would be forced to listen rather helplessly as Republicans mostly called the tune in his native South, supported by white voters who were uncomfortable with the Democrats’ embrace of racial inclusion and abortion rights, and were attracted to the small-government, low-tax promises of the party of Ronald Reagan.
Indeed, after Mr. Carter’s ascension to the White House, the states of the old Confederacy would go on to become, with a few exceptions, a crucial base of support for Republican presidential candidates. Much of that support came from Mr. Carter’s fellow Southern evangelicals, who turned sharply away from him and the Democrats during his presidential term. They became one of the most loyal Republican voting blocs and remain so to this day.
That was part of a shift that had begun in the early 1960s, as Republicans found a way to chip and then blast away at what had been a solidly Democratic South since the end of Reconstruction. Southerners’ fealty to the party had been based on their appreciation for Roosevelt’s New Deal, and their bitterness over the 19th century Republicanism of Lincoln that helped erode the region’s strict racial hierarchies.
Yet Mr. Carter also helped to create a model for Democratic success in a South that has become increasingly Republican‚ a model that remains workable to varying degrees today. The election of 1976 was one of a number of times that a Democratic candidate has emerged with just the right balance of rhetoric and policy promises, uniting just enough white Southern progressives and white moderates in a successful coalition with Black and other minority voters.
More U.S. Political Commentary
New York Times, Guest Essay: What’s the Matter With Chicago? Andrew G. Biggs (senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, serving since 2016 as a presidentially appointed member of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico, which has overseen the Puerto Rico government’s bankruptcy.), Dec. 31, 2024 (print ed.).
The word bankruptcy has been hanging over Chicago like a storm cloud about to burst.
Mayor Brandon Johnson is the latest leader to attempt to close Chicago’s gaping fiscal gap: He proposed a $300 million property tax increase to partly fill Chicago’s $982 million projected budget deficit, only to be unanimously rejected by the City Council. The City Council narrowly passed a budget on Dec. 16, with far less in tax increases than the mayor had initially demanded.
The Windy City’s woes are the product of decades of fiscal profligacy and a cautionary tale to policymakers in every region and at every level of government: Retirement benefits are like free junk food to politicians — everyone loves them, and the bills don’t arrive until later. They can be ruinous for a city’s long-term fiscal health.
At the heart of Chicago’s deficit are decades of increasingly generous retirement benefits offered by Chicago’s leaders to more than 30,000 public employees, a politically powerful constituency. Today, a city employee retiring after 35 years with a final salary of $75,000 would receive combined pension and retiree health benefits of about $77,000.
The City government has failed to fund those pension promises fully and the bill has come due. Retirement benefits and debt service together made up 43 percent of Chicago’s budget in 2022, the highest rate of any U.S. city. Chicago spends more on debt and pensions than it does on the police and infrastructure, according to an analysis from the Illinois Policy Institute, a libertarian-leaning policy group. In other words, Chicago is paying for the past, not investing for the future.your times access
Chicago’s pension actuary warned in a letter to the plan’s leadership last year that “the Fund is still at risk of potential insolvency if an economic recession or investment market downturn were to occur in the near term.” (He wrote it in boldface to get policymakers to take notice.)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.
Chicago owes bondholders almost $29 billion. It also faces $35 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and almost $2 billion in unfunded retiree health benefits. And these figures do not include an additional $14 billion in unfunded benefits owed to Chicago’s teachers. The watchdog group Truth in Accounting gives Chicago a grade of “F” for fiscal responsibility, ranking it 74 out of 75 cities. (New York City is last.)
City leaders may continue to ignore these warnings. If the pension fund does get close to insolvency, Chicago can most likely keep the pension checks flowing by suspending payments to bondholders. Illinois has no legal provision for Chicago to declare bankruptcy, meaning the state would be forced to rush legislation into place to prevent financial chaos.
Judging by the experience of places such as Detroit and Puerto Rico, where I serve on a federally appointed board overseeing the island government’s bankruptcy, pensions would largely be protected in the event of fiscal chaos, followed by core government operations. Nonessential government services would be reduced, and bondholders would receive what remains.
Even if Chicago can contain the political fallout locally, the economic impact would reach far beyond the city limits. Chicago is the largest city in the Midwest and the third largest nationwide. The state of Illinois, which faces vast debts of its own, is not in a position to bail out its largest city, so Congress or the Federal Reserve might have to step in to help.
Policymakers in other big American cities ought to be paying attention. Truth in Accounting gave San Francisco a fiscal grade of D, while New York’s largest-in-the-nation debt burden of $61,800 per taxpayer caused it to share a failing grade with Chicago. New York and San Francisco each already devote more than 22 percent of their total budgets to retirement benefits and debt.
One reason it’s easy to allow pension-fueled deficits to keep growing is that there are very few guardrails. State and local government pensions are unregulated by the federal government, so they operate with much lower funding standards than federal government pensions or those offered by private companies.
Like private pensions, state and local governments should be required to assume conservative returns on pension investments and to address unfunded liabilities quickly, rather than letting funding shortfalls fester over decades.
If, as in Chicago, decades of fiscal recklessness are allowed to go unchecked, changing course can be extremely painful. Chicago has increased its pension contributions significantly. But the city must pay for its $927 million in additional pension contributions by reducing other essential government functions.
The consequence is a lower level of public services for everyone. With the city police force down by over 1,600 officers since 2018, the city’s inspector general found that 49 percent of 911 calls appear to go unanswered. Chicago is already seeing the effects of this deterioration. Companies such as Boeing, United Airlines, Tyson Foods and the hedge fund Citadel have all moved operations away from Chicago in recent years, citing the business environment, public safety and governance quality among their reasons.+Andrew G Biggs is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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.
Trump Transition News, Commentary
New York Times, Trump Previews Second Term in Sprawling Speech to Conservative Conference, Michael D. Shear, Dec. 22, 2024. President-elect Trump repeated false claims about immigration and the border and discussed the Panama Canal in the 90-minute address.
President-elect Donald J. Trump delivered a sprawling address on Sunday that he called a “small preview of the common-sense revolution” his administration will bring, pledging to slam shut the nation’s borders, end federal regulations, lower taxes, prosecute his rivals, “stop woke” and “end the transgender lunacy.”
In a 90-minute speech at a conservative conference in Phoenix, Mr. Trump offered a triumphant view of his election victory in which he described his liberal adversaries as “befuddled” and promised that a new “golden age in America” had begun.
“We will end the occupation, and Jan. 20 will truly be liberation day in America,” Mr. Trump told thousands of people at AmericaFest, a four-day conference run by the conservative group Turning Point USA.
The president-elect’s speech was a familiar mash-up of false assertions, self-praise, fierce attacks on his adversaries and promises about how his return to power would change the country for the better.
New York Times, Trump Picks a Former Treasury Official as His Top Economist, Lisa Friedman, Dec. 22, 2024. Stephen Miran, who served during Donald Trump’s first term and now works at a hedge fund, has accused the Biden administration of manipulating markets.
Politico, Transition of Power, Trump names ‘Apprentice’ producer Mark Burnett as special envoy to the UK, Irie Sentner and Eric Bazail-Eimil, Dec. 21, 2024. Burnett is seen as the architect of Trump’s post-bankruptcy image — and is largely responsible for Trump’s rise to the national spotlight as a high-powered Manhattan businessperson as displayed in the show (above), contrasted with more recently images as above.
President-elect Donald Trump (on Saturday tapped Mark Burnett, the producer of “The Apprentice,” to serve as the special envoy to the United Kingdom.
Burnett, shown in a 2009 photo, formerly served as chair of MGM’s television studio and is a multi-Emmy-winning producer of several popular U.S. television shows, including “Survivor,” “Shark Tank” and “The Voice.” With “The Apprentice,” Burnett was the architect of Trump’s post-bankruptcy image — and is largely responsible for Trump’s rise in the national imagination as a high-powered Manhattan businessman.
“With a distinguished career in television production and business, Mark brings a unique blend of diplomatic acumen and international recognition to this important role,” Trump said Saturday in a post on Truth Social.
Burnett, who was born in the U.K., “will work to enhance diplomatic relations, focusing on areas of mutual interest, including trade, investment opportunities, and cultural exchanges,” Trump said. He has never held a diplomatic post.
It is unclear how Burnett’s responsibilities would differ from those of Trump’s pick to be ambassador to the court of St. James, banker and donor Warren Stephens, who would be the main U.S. diplomat based in London representing Washington in front of the U.K. government. Typically, the position is a sleepy one, as most contact between both countries’ governments occurs at the direct official level. The U.K. and U.S. also directly and fully collaborate on all matters of espionage and intelligence collection.
But the allusion to trade and investment suggests a possibility that Burnett could be tasked with promoting bilateral commercial ties between the U.S. and the U.K., which has long been a goal for Westminster since the U.K. left the European Union in 2020.
Successive British governments have pushed for a free trade agreement between the United States and United Kingdom to make up for the economic losses experienced after the U.K. left the European Union’s common market. Yet both the Trump and Biden administrations have slow-walked any discussion of a trade deal.
Most recently, President Joe Biden quashed hopes that his administration would broker a trade deal with the U.K. before the election, disappointing the government of then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, after encountering resistance from some Senate Democrats.
Trump advisers, however, telegraphed in 2024 that a trade deal between the U.S. and U.K. would be a key priority for the administration.
Trump’s post did not specify whether Burnett would face a Senate confirmation process. Special envoys, by law, must receive Senate confirmation, but the Biden administration has, at times, gotten around that by tweaking job descriptions. Burnett, however, would likely face little resistance from Senate Republicans as he is not seen as a polarizing figure.
Politico, Trump taps critic of Pope Francis for Vatican ambassadorship, Eric Bazail-Eimil, Dec. 20, 2024. President-elect Donald Trump said Friday that he is picking the head of a right-wing Catholic advocacy group and critic of Pope Francis to serve as ambassador to the Holy See, potentially teeing up tensions with the Vatican.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that Brian Burch, head of the group Catholic Vote, “loves his Church and the United States — He will make us all proud.” Trump also praised Burch for advocating for him and encouraging Catholics to vote for him in 2024.
Burch will face a Senate confirmation process, but it is unlikely he will encounter stiff resistance from Republicans, as his views aren’t considered controversial in the party.
Burch would be far from the first ambassador to the Holy See with a political background. Presidents from both parties have selected former elected officials who are practicing Catholics such as President Joe Biden picking Sen. Joe Donnelly of Indiana. Trump picked political activist Callista Gingrich in his first term. He also wouldn't be the first to have ideological or theological disagreements with the church.
But none of the picks to helm the Vatican to date would come into the role with as much a digital record of criticizing church leadership. On social media, Burch has criticized Francis’ leadership and shared the writings of some right-wing clerics who are critical of him. In 2023, he insinuated that church leaders were collaborating with controversial U.S. law enforcement probes into parishes that celebrated the Catholic Mass in Latin, a practice that was phased out decades ago for liturgy in local languages.
Writing on X, Burch said he is “committed to working with leaders inside the Vatican and the new Administration to promote the dignity of all people and the common good.”
Catholic Vote has engaged in tactics that have prompted criticism from more progressive factions of the U.S. church. In 2020, the organization used “geofencing” to identify Catholic voters who attended Mass in swing states and target them with ads boosting Trump.
At the time, Burch defended geofencing as needed to “reach our fellow Catholics in the pews” and “ensure that our fellow Catholic voters get the facts and hear the truth — not the latest lies peddled by the media.”
Recent Relevant Headlines
Everyone's Entitled To My Own Opinion, Commentary: Oh look, Elderly Golfer is a geopolitical madman, Jeff TiedrichPolitico, Lara Trump removes herself from Florida Senate sweepstakes
Trump's Cases, Allies, Vengence, Threats
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. 30, 2024. 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.
The ruling came as Mr. Trump prepares to take the presidency next month amid unceasing legal entanglements. This month, he accused a juror of misconduct that he said should void a 34-count felony conviction in Manhattan. He also sued The Des Moines Register for running a poll that showed him trailing Vice President Kamala Harris. ABC News this month settled a defamation lawsuit brought by Mr. Trump, agreeing to pay $15 million.
During the trial last year, Ms. Carroll testified that she had run into Mr. Trump at Bergdorf’s on Fifth Avenue and he asked her to help him buy a present for a female friend. Ms. Carroll testified that they wound up in the lingerie department, where he pulled her into a dressing room, shut the door and began assaulting her.
Ms. Carroll said he shoved her against a wall, pulled down her tights and inserted his fingers and then his penis into her vagina. She said she pushed him away and fled. Other than telling two friends, she kept the encounter secret until disclosing it in a 2019 book excerpt in New York magazine.
Mr. Trump did not testify at the trial but denied wrongdoing and claimed he had never met Ms. Carroll. He earned a rebuke from the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, when he posted on Truth Social that Ms. Carroll’s lawsuit was a scam and wrote that Ms. Carroll’s lawyer was a “political operative.” He also said that the dress Ms. Carroll wore at Bergdorf’s that day should be “allowed to be part of the case.”Editors’ PicksThe Timeless Spell of Rome’s Oldest ChurchesHow to Pack Formal Clothing12 Ways to Get Fitter in 2025
The jury of six men and three women found that Mr. Trump had sexually abused Ms. Carroll but did not find that he raped her. It was unclear why jurors chose the lesser offense of abuse over rape, which is defined under state law as sexual intercourse without consent that involves any penetration of the penis in the vaginal opening.
The federal jury also found that Mr. Trump defamed Ms. Carroll when he wrote on Truth Social in 2022 that her case was “a complete con job” and “a Hoax and a lie.” The jury ordered him to pay Ms. Carroll $5 million in damages.
This year, another Manhattan jury ordered Mr. Trump to pay Ms. Carroll $83.3 million for defaming her in 2019 after she accused him of rape, and continuing to do so in social media posts at news conferences and even during the trial. Ms. Carroll’s lawyers argued that a large award was necessary to stop Mr. Trump from continuing to deride her.
America has a serious oligarch problem and it’s getting worse by the day. If Citizens United isn’t reversed, the voices of average Americans will be totally drowned out by billionaire cash in our upcoming elections…
America has a serious oligarch problem and it’s getting worse by the day. If Citizens United isn’t reversed, the voices of average Americans will be totally drowned out by billionaire cash in our upcoming elections…
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.
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
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).
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.
When President-elect Donald J. Trump mused in a recent television interview about whether vaccines cause autism — a theory that has been discredited by dozens of scientific studies — autism researchers across the country collectively sighed in frustration.
But during the interview, on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Mr. Trump made one passing comment with which they could agree: “I mean, something is going on,” he said, referring to skyrocketing rates of autism. “I think somebody has to find out.”
What is going on? Autism diagnoses are undeniably on the rise in the United States — about 1 in 36 children have one, according to data the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collected from 11 states, compared with 1 in 150 children in 2000 — and researchers have not yet arrived at a clear explanation. They attribute most of the surge to increased awareness of the disorder and changes in how it is classified by medical professionals. But scientists say there are other factors, genetic and environmental, that could be playing a role too.
Autism spectrum disorder, as it is officially called, is inherently wide-ranging, marked by a blend of social and communication issues, repetitive behaviors and thinking patterns that vary in severity. A mildly autistic child could simply struggle with social cues, while a child with a severe case could be nonverbal. There is no blood test or brain scan to determine who has autism, just a clinician’s observations.
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
Letters from an American, Commentary: December 5, 2024 [Health Care CEO's Murder], Heather Cox RichardsonWashington Post, Trump’s CDC pick wouldn’t let go of false theory that vaccines cause autism
U.S. Law, Cases, Courts
The Hartmann Report, Commentary: Weiner went to prison but Gaetz won’t? Thom Hartmann, Dec. 28, 2024. Remember when Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner 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…
Politico, How prosecutors’ evidence mistakes could let Menendez walk away from corruption charges, Ry Rivard, Dec. 25, 2024. Five months after a jury convicted Sen. Bob Menendez of corruption-related charges that ended his political career, federal prosecutors have admitted to a series of errors that could upend the verdicts.
The missteps have handed Menendez’s attorneys just the kind of opening they’d been looking for, and they have already requested a new trial. If they get their way, Menendez could beat federal charges once again — a remarkable prospect given the stash of gold bars and piles of cash used as evidence against him.
“The prosecution gift-wrapped them one here,” said Jonathan Kravis, a former federal prosecutor who is now a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson.
Menendez’s conviction on 16 counts this summer led to his resignation from the Senate, and he is expected to be sentenced in January.
In several surprise legal filings since mid-November, prosecutors from the Southern District of New York revealed they had inadvertently given the jury access to evidence a judge ruled jurors should not see.
The evidence at issue was loaded onto a laptop the jury was given during its deliberations. Prosecutors have said it’s “vanishingly unlikely” and unreasonable to think any juror actually poured through all the documents on the laptop and came across the tainted material, which amounts to scraps of unredacted text messages amid 3,000 often lengthy documents.
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Jose Ibarra listens through an interpreter during his trial at Athens-Clarke County Superior Court, Nov. 20, 2024, in Athens, Ga. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution pool photo by Hyosub Shin via Associated Press).
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, 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.
Washington Post, Under Biden, a generational shift in U.S. views of Israel, Yasmeen Abutaleb, Dec. 23, 2024. Support for Israel was once widespread across the American political spectrum.
New York Times, Syria’s New Leaders Try to Unite Rebel Factions Under a Single Government, Adam Rasgon, Dec. 25, 2024. The fighters who ousted Bashar al-Assad are aiming to transform their revolutionary movement and assert control over the country.
Syria’s new leadership has taken steps to unite disparate rebel factions under a single government in the wake of Bashar al-Assad’s ouster.
Under a new accord, a number of rebel factions agreed to dissolve themselves, Sana, the Syrian state-run news service, reported on Tuesday. The agreement suggested that the new Syrian administration was making progress in asserting its authority over the country.
The rebel groups agreed to be integrated under the defense ministry, the Sana report said. Pictures posted on social media showed Ahmad al-Shara, the rebel who led the offensive that overthrew the Assad dictatorship, meeting on Tuesday with dozens of rebels, many of them clad in military uniforms.
Recent Relevant Headlines
Washington Post, Israeli government approves plan to expand settlements on occupied Golan
More Global News
New York Times, 179 Dead in Plane Crash in South Korea, Choe Sang-Hun, John Yoon and Jin Yu Young, Dec. 29, 2024. The passenger plane was landing when it went off the runway in Muan, in the country’s southwest. The flight came from Bangkok; only two people survived the crash.
Only two people survived the crash, which happened as the plane was landing at an airport in the southwest. Officials said they were investigating the cause.
New York Times, Investigation: ‘This Is What Makes Us Rich’: Inside a Sinaloa Cartel Fentanyl Lab, Natalie Kitroeff and Paulina Villegas, Photographs and Video by Meridith Kohut, Dec. 29, 2024. Our reporters witnessed the dangerous fentanyl production process inside a secret lab in Culiacán run by Mexico’s most powerful criminal syndicate.
We had just walked into the fentanyl lab when the cook poured a white powder into a stockpot full of liquid. He began mixing it with an immersion blender and fumes rose from the pot, filling the small kitchen.
We wore gas masks and hazmat suits, but the cook had on only a surgical mask. He and his partner had rushed here to fulfill an order for 10 kilograms of fentanyl. While one sniff of the toxic chemicals could kill us, they explained, they had built up a tolerance to the lethal drug.
But then, the cook jerked back.
“It really hit me,” he said, looking dazed. “I need to take a breather.”
The young man rushed out of the room.
In September, a war broke out within Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel. Fighting between the rival factions has terrorized the northwestern state of Sinaloa in the months since, leaving hundreds dead and causing a billion dollars in economic damage, business leaders say. The Mexican government responded by sending in a swarm of soldiers and making a slew of arrests.
ground. Fearing law enforcement raids or attacks by their rivals, they say they’re moving their labs around more often than usual and producing drugs in new locations.
And yet, even in the middle of all-out war and intense government pressure, Mexico’s cartels are still doing a swift business. In the last five years, illicit fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, became the leading cause of death for young adults in the United States.
We — two New York Times reporters and one photographer — had been trying for months to get access to a fentanyl lab run by the Sinaloa cartel, which the U.S. government says is responsible for much of the product flooding into the United States. But every time we thought we were getting close, some unforeseen outburst of violence derailed our plans.
New York Times, Ignoring Warnings, a Growing Band of Tourists Venture to Afghanistan, David Zucchino, Photographs by Elise Blanchard, Dec. 29, 2024. With the war now over, the Taliban are welcoming foreign travelers, even as governments advise their citizens to stay away.
Yi-Pin Lin, an associate professor at Tufts University, proudly says he has vacationed in 120 nations over the past decade.
But there was one country he had always dreamed of visiting, only to be frightened off by decades of war, kidnappings and terrorism: Afghanistan.
With the end of the Afghan war in 2021, the country’s new Taliban rulers began encouraging tourists to visit. So last month, Mr. Lin packed his bags, paid $130 for a visa and boarded a flight to Kabul, the Afghan capital.
“When I told my friends where I was going, they all thought I was crazy,” he said. “They said it was too dangerous.”
Mr. Lin, 43, is part of a small but growing vanguard of venturesome tourists making their way to Afghanistan, disregarding dire warnings issued by their governments. The State Department advises Americans not to travel to Afghanistan “due to terrorism, risk of wrongful detention, civil unrest, kidnapping and crime.”
Over the past three years, Taliban officials say, 14,500 foreign tourists have visited the isolated, poverty-stricken nation. They have arrived with hard currency that Afghanistan desperately needs.
New York Times, U.S. Designates American Teacher Held in Russia as ‘Wrongfully Detained,’ Helene Cooper, Dec. 29, 2024 (print ed.). Marc Fogel, an American teacher serving a 14-year prison sentence in Russia, has been designated by the U.S. government as wrongfully detained, the State Department said on Friday.
Mr. Fogel, a former worker at the United States Embassy in Moscow, was arrested in Russia in August 2021 and convicted of drug smuggling. He was sentenced in June 2022 by the same court that handled the case of Brittney Griner, the American basketball star who was also sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to drug charges. The White House negotiated on behalf of Ms. Griner and eventually struck a prisoner swap deal in which she was released in December 2022 in exchange for the convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout.
Mr. Fogel, by contrast, has remained imprisoned in Russia, serving his sentence in a high-security penal colony. A State Department statement on Friday said that “the United States has been working to secure Marc Fogel’s release for some time.” But Mr. Fogel was not included in the prisoner swap in August that secured the release of the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.
“We have long called for his humanitarian release and tried to include him in the Aug. 1 deal, but were unable to,” the statement said. It added that Mr. Fogel had been designated in October as “wrongfully detained.” It was unclear why the department had waited until this week to announce the change in classification.
The designation moves Mr. Fogel’s case to the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs within the State Department. The office focuses on the release of hostages who are found to have been wrongfully detained. The designation means that the State Department has credible information that the person is innocent, or possibly was detained for the primary purpose of influencing U.S. policy.
Associated Press via Politico, Taliban say Pakistani airstrikes killed 46 people in eastern Afghanistan, mostly women and children, Staff Report, Dec. 25, 2024. Taliban say Pakistani airstrikes killed 46 people in eastern Afghanistan, mostly women and children
Pakistan’s airstrikes on eastern Afghanistan killed 46 people, mostly women and children, a Taliban government official said Wednesday, raising fears of further straining the relations between the two neighbors.
Hamdullah Fitrat, the deputy spokesman for the Afghan government, said those killed in the strikes that targeted four locations in Barmal, a district in the province of Paktika, were refugees, adding that six others were also wounded.
This comes a day after Pakistani security officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with regulations, told The Associated Press that Tuesday’s operation was to dismantle a training facility and kill insurgents in Paktika in Afghanistan.
Earlier Wednesday, Mohammad Khurasani, the spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, claimed in a statement that 50 people, including 27 women and children, have died in the strikes. He said they were “unarmed refugees” who fled to Afghanistan because of Pakistan’s offensive in the northwest.
The TTP — a separate group but also a close ally of the Afghan Taliban — also shared photos, alleging they were of children killed during the Pakistani operation.
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
Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Pete Hegseth Wants the U.S. Military to "Be the World's Sheriff", J.D. Wolf, Dec. 30, 2024. The Trump Defense nominee's rhetoric clashes with MAGA's "America First" movement.
Pete Hegseth, a potential Defense nominee, has expressed views that conflict with the MAGA base and Donald Trump's "America First" foreign policy rhetoric. During a 2016 speech at the Heritage Foundation,Hegseth advocated for the U.S. military to "be the world's sheriff," signaling support for a more interventionist approach to global conflicts:
"So as good patriots after 7 years of Obama, what do we need to do? We need to unapologetically lead, be willing to acknowledge that without America there is no leader of the free world. And, again, it doesn't mean we have to be the policeman in every corner, but we better be the world's sheriff with a big, shiny badge willing to say our security and our interests are important to us and when our word matters, and we will backup our allies and stand up to our enemies."
Pete Hegseth: "We better be the world's sheriff with a big, shiny badge..."
This perspective contrasts sharply with Trump's repeated criticism of U.S. involvement in foreign wars, exemplified by his 2018 tweet opposing the U.S. acting as the "Policeman of the Middle East."Trump
In 2013, Trump also called for focusing on domestic issues instead of policing the world.Trump
Trump and the MAGA base have consistently emphasized ending "endless wars" and reducing U.S. military commitments abroad, aligning with a non-interventionist philosophy. Hegseth's stance, advocating for an active global policing role, suggests a potential ideological divide between his vision and the isolationist leanings of Trump’s base.
Politico Magazine, Exit Interview: Patrick McHenry Lets Loose on the Republican Insurgents He Left Behind, Eleanor Mueller and Zachary Warmbrodt, Dec. 31, 2024. The retiring Republican reflects on his transformation over 20 years in Congress.Patrick McHenry talks in a chair.
When a 29-year-old Patrick McHenry entered Congress in 2005, few would have believed the man described as the GOP’s “attack dog-in-training” would retire two decades later as a paragon of pragmatism.
But after he spent his first terms brawling to little effect, the North Carolina Republican decided to get serious. The bow-tied conservative followed a path that led to the chairship of the House Financial Services Committee and, for three tumultuous weeks, temporary speaker of the House.
In an exit interview with POLITICO Magazine, he recounted the “out-of-body experience” he had when he assumed power after Kevin McCarthy’s ousting. And he talked about how the Republican Party has shifted over his time in office in a way that often left him feeling like he was “going upstream from the traffic.”
But that’s not why he’s leaving. Twenty years is enough, he said, plus his chairmanship is over on account of committee term limits, something he still thinks is a great idea.Patrick McHenry arrives for a vote at the U.S. Capitol.
McHenry followed a path that led to the chairship of the House Financial Services Committee and, for three tumultuous weeks, temporary speaker of the House. | Francis Chung/POLITICO
In his final years in office, McHenry had the opportunity to rise through the ranks of leadership — John Boehner said he would be speaker one day — but instead chose to focus on crafting financial policy, including landmark cryptocurrency legislation. It’s a decision he doesn’t regret.
“[After] that crucible in October, when all the dust settled, and I could kind of get my wits about me, I was in complete peace,” he said. “I knew it was the right thing. That I was done.”
This conversation was edited for length and clarity.
You came into Congress as a bomb-thrower and left a pragmatist. How do you explain what changed?
Let me just rewind here. I ran for state House when I was in college and lost. I worked in the Bush campaign, worked in the Bush administration, went home. And I thought, “I’m going home, and I’m going to come back to politics. Once I have some financial stability, I’ll come back sometime later, you know, 10, 20 years later.”
I set up life in my hometown in the suburbs of Charlotte. And six months in, a state House seat comes open. There’s a piece written about me as if I had designed this thing — fantastic and insanely not true — that I had this sort of set up. And I’m like, “No, no, when I left D.C., I was firmly done.”you
Associated Press via Politico, Pentagon chief loses bid to reject 9/11 plea deals, Staff Report, Dec. 31, 2024. A military appeals court has ruled against Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s effort to throw out the plea deals reached for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other defendants in the 9/11 attacks.
A military appeals court has ruled against Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s effort to throw out the plea deals reached for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other defendants in the 9/11 attacks, a U.S. official said.
The decision puts back on track the agreements that would have the three men plead guilty to one of the deadliest attacks on the United States in exchange for being spared the possibility of the death penalty. The attacks by al-Qaida killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001, and helped spur U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in what the George W. Bush administration called its war on terror.
The military appeals court released its ruling Monday night, according to the U.S. official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Military prosecutors and defense attorneys for Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the attacks, and two co-defendants reached the plea agreements after two years of government-approved negotiations. The deals were announced late last summer.
Washington Post, Trump team says Canada, Greenland, Panama comments are part of a broader plan, Jacqueline Alemany and Cat Zakrzewski ,Dec. 29, 2024 (print ed.). Not everyone is convinced.
In the past several weeks — and before he has been sworn in for his second term — President-elect Donald Trump has threatened trade wars with both of the United States’ closest neighbors, mused about taking over Greenland, blustered about bringing the Panama Canal back under American control and suggested making Canada the 51st state.Get the latest election news and results
Less than a month before his inauguration, Trump — who vowed to end foreign wars and made “peace through strength” a rallying cry of his 2024 presidential campaign — is crafting an “America First” foreign policy defined by antagonism toward U.S. allies and adversaries alike, centered around dreams of territorial expansionism, and channeled through the president-elect’s braggadocio.
Trump’s pre-presidency tactics regarding Greenland, the Panama Canal and the United States’ closest neighbors aren’t likely to result in massive change. Canadians and their political leaders are unlikely to prove receptive to dissolving their country, and U.S. lawmakers have not broadly expressed willingness to absorb Canada as a new state. Greenland’s prime minister has said the island is not for sale, and Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino has said that “every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zone belongs to Panama and will remain so.”
White House Chronicle, Commentary: Trump, Who Thinks He Bought the Nation, Now Eyes the World Llewellyn King, Dec. 28, 2024. When Donald Trump began his first term as president in 2017, I wrote that he came to office not as a politician who had won an election, but rather as a businessman who had won a takeover battle and was ready to hire, fire, sell-off, and generally to reshape the property he had bought.
On Christmas Day, Trump – with a series of posts on social media — revealed himself as a businessman who believes not that he has won the nation in a takeover battle, but rather that he has won the whole world and that he is ready to hire, fire and sell-off.
Also, like a canny takeover artist, he didn’t reveal his hand during the takeover struggle. During the election, there was no hint that Canada should become the U.S. 51st state, that Panama was overcharging U.S. shipping nor that ownership of Greenland was essential over and above the key role it already plays with a vital U.S. base, happily provided for by treaty with Denmark.
Like a businessman, Trump offered to buy Greenland during his first presidential term. His offer was soundly and summarily rejected. Now he is back and the answer hasn’t changed.
Canada, Trump believes, takes unfair advantage of the United States in trade, although the regime of the flourishing cross-border trading is the selfsame one: the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, signed in July 2020 by Trump himself as a vast improvement over its predecessor, the North American Free Trade Agreement, although in substance and spirit it is very similar.
When it comes to Panama, Trump has a double accusation. Beyond the belief that Panama is ripping us off, this kind of national business paranoia is part of the Trump manual of expectations in foreign policy: All foreign governments are scalawags bent on cheating America.
It is part of a kind of permanent, low-grade C-Suite paranoia that is present in many companies: Who is stealing an advantage, who is going to concede to the unions, who is angling for more shelf space, etc. You might call it corporate situational awareness paranoia.
Statesmanship is learned; good instincts help, but it isn't intuitive for most leaders. It is learned through studying history, meeting, talking, traveling, and moving in foreign policy circles. It is learned best on the job, if the job is in the House or the Senate.
Trump has learned not in that world, but in the world of New York real estate with its own jungle law — deals are done, undone, litigated, and political influence is brought to bear. Ultimately, there is victory for one side.
Trump correctly — and it could be said belatedly because he took no action during his first administration — has cast a penetrating light on China in the Americas. China, as Trump has said, doesn’t operate the Panama Canal. Panama does. A subsidiary of Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings manages two ports at the canal's entrances, with Chinese firms providing more than $1 billion for the construction of a new bridge over the canal.
Panama’s revenues are up as a result of congestion charging, but fewer ships are transiting the canal due to drought. The vast Lake Gatun, which feeds the canal and keeps the lock system viable, is only partially full. The less water available, the fewer transits are possible. These dipped from 38 large ships to just 22 but rains have improved the situation and transits have risen.
Seizing canals is a fraught business, witness the disaster of France and Britain trying to seize the Suez Canal in 1956. Major damage to the Panama Canal would cost the United States for decades. It is a masterpiece of big, intricate engineering. I took a cruise through it for the purpose of understanding it better.
The British word “gobsmacked” is easily understood: smacked in the mouth. That is what happened to the commentariat — those who comment on national affairs. Trump’s Christmas Day declarations on Truth Social, his social media network, went almost unmentioned. The reporting was there, the networks and newspapers turned up the volume, but the commentators were silent,
That, in its way, is as notable as Trump’s implication that he has bought the world and plans to take possession. The enormity of the thing has been quieting. We, the opinion writers, have been struck dumb, you might say. That is news in itself.
New York Times, Trump’s Wish to Control Greenland and Panama Canal: Not a Joke This Time, David E. Sanger and Lisa Friedman, Dec. 24, 2024 (print ed.). In recent days the president-elect has called for asserting U.S. control over the Panama Canal and Greenland, showing that his “America First” philosophy has an expansionist dimension.
Over the past two days, President-elect Donald J. Trump has made clear that he has designs for American territorial expansion, declaring that the United States has both security concerns and commercial interests that can best be addressed by bringing the Panama Canal and Greenland under American control or outright ownership.
Mr. Trump’s tone has had none of the trolling jocularity that surrounded his repeated suggestions in recent weeks that Canada should become America’s “51st state,” including his social media references to the country’s beleaguered prime minister as “Governor Justin Trudeau.”
Instead, while naming a new ambassador to Denmark — which controls Greenland’s foreign and defense affairs — Mr. Trump made clear on Sunday that his first-term offer to buy the landmass could, in the coming term, become a deal the Danes cannot refuse.
He appears to covet Greenland both for its strategic location at a time when the melting of Arctic ice is opening new commercial and naval competition and for its reserves of rare earth minerals needed for advanced technology.
“For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media, “the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”
On Saturday evening, he had accused Panama of price-gouging American ships traversing the canal, and suggested that unless that changed, he would abandon the Jimmy Carter-era treaty that returned all control of the canal zone to Panama.
“The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,” he wrote, just ahead of an increase in the charges scheduled for Jan. 1. “This complete ‘rip-off’ of our country will immediately stop.”
He went on to express worry that the canal could fall into the “wrong hands,’' an apparent reference to China, the second-largest user of the canal. A Hong Kong-based firm controls two ports near the canal, but China has no control over the canal itself.
Not surprisingly, the government of Greenland immediately rejected Mr. Trump’s demands, as it did in 2019, when he first floated the idea. “Greenland is ours,” Prime Minister Mute B. Egede said in a statement. “We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.”Editors’ Picks7 New Movies Our Critics Are Talking About This WeekA Hanukkah-Ready Recipe That Does Everything RightStaffers at The Times on the Books They Enjoyed in 2024
The Danish prime minister’s office was more circumspect, writing in a statement that the government was “looking forward to working with the new administration” and offering no further comment on Mr. Trump’s remarks.
After Mr. Trump brought up the Panama Canal again in a speech on Sunday, Panama’s president, José Raúl Mulino, said in a video that “every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zones is part of Panama, and it will continue to be.” He added: “Our country’s sovereignty and independence are not negotiable.”
But the president-elect’s statements — and the not-so-subtle threats behind them — were another reminder that his version of “America First” is not an isolationist creed.
His aggressive interpretation of the phrase evokes the expansionism, or colonialism, of President Theodore Roosevelt, who took control of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. And it reflects the instincts of a real estate developer who suddenly has the power of the world’s largest military to back up his negotiating strategy.
Mr. Trump has often suggested that he does not always see the sovereignty of other nations’ borders as sacrosanct. When Russia invaded Ukraine, his first response was not a condemnation of the blatant land grab, but rather the observation that President Vladimir V. Putin’s move was an act of “genius.”
Even now, as Mr. Trump seeks a deal to end the war in Ukraine, he has never said that the country’s borders must be restored, a key demand of the United States and NATO — he has only promised a “deal” to end the fighting.
Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Liquor Stash Photos Bolster NBC Report on Pete Hegseth Drinking Allegations, J.D. Wolf, Dec. 20, 2024. Social media posts reveal Trump's Defense nominee stored bottles of alcohol in his office at work (as shown above via Instagram).
Multiple social media posts reviewed by MeidasTouch reveal that Pete Hegseth had a liquor stash in his office for years. NBC News reported that "Pete Hegseth's drinking worried colleagues at Fox News" citing 10 current and former Fox News employees as sources. Hegseth drinking“Bottoms Up”— Pete Hegseth Took Swigs from Champagne Bottle, Plunged Into the Alcoholic Beverage During Fox News BroadcastRead More
New York Times, As Ambassador, Rahm Emanuel Says His Impatience Nudged Japan Forward, Motoko Rich, Dec. 15, 2024. Patience, Rahm Emanuel likes to say, is a waste of time.
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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
Trump Legal Cases, Strategies, Allies
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.
New York Times, How Will the Rebels Rule Syria? Their Past Offers Clues, Neil MacFarquhar and Justin Scheck, Dec. 15, 2024. The Islamist rebels who ousted Syria’s dictator ran a pragmatic and disciplined administration in the territory they controlled. They also jailed their critics.
Since 2017, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its affiliated organizations, driven by a hunger for broader power, created a certain level of stability in Idlib, governing with pragmatism and discipline. While the group retained overall control, it governed through a civilian authority with 11 ministries, which allowed it to concentrate on rebuilding its militia as a more structured force.
In Idlib, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham maintained a robust internal security force to confront other military factions and domestic critics, prompting regular protests against what were seen as authoritarian methods and against harsh jail conditions.
The primary question is whether these rebels, who are now trying to form a national government, can scale up what they achieved in Idlib, a poor, agrarian region with a relatively small population.
In Idlib, ministers who dealt with outside aid organizations could never make a decision on the spot, they always had to consult first with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leaders, according to one representative of a humanitarian organization who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of aid operations in the area. Such tight control might work in a small governorate, but could prove unwieldy in a large country.
With its roots in the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham modified and moderated its own jihadist orientation starting around 2016. While it enforced some conservative Islamic practices, they did not resort to the strictures imposed by the Islamic State terrorist group when it ruled parts of Syria.
Still, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham remains designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the United Nations, Turkey and others. Because that designation blocked overt outside support, the group found new ways to sustain itself financially and militarily.
It levied fees on all kinds of goods and enterprises, including crops, border crossings, construction, trade, shopkeeping and craftwork. In addition, companies linked to the group enjoyed a monopoly on providing fuel, electricity, water and garbage collection.
“H.T.S. exemplifies adaptability in conflict economics,” said Mark Nakhla, the chief research officer at Kharon, an open-source analytics firm that advises companies on complying with sanctions against armed groups and other hostile actors.
He has been tracking Hayat Tahrir al-Sham since its jihadist days, and has watched it go through what he called a “strategic rebranding” and a shift from relying financially on wealthy foreign donors to sustaining military and civilian operations through local taxation and governance.
New York Times, How Will the Rebels Rule Syria? Their Past Offers Clues, Neil MacFarquhar and Justin Scheck, Dec. 15, 2024. The Islamist rebels who ousted Syria’s dictator ran a pragmatic and disciplined administration in the territory they controlled. They also jailed their critics.
Since 2017, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its affiliated organizations, driven by a hunger for broader power, created a certain level of stability in Idlib, governing with pragmatism and discipline. While the group retained overall control, it governed through a civilian authority with 11 ministries, which allowed it to concentrate on rebuilding its militia as a more structured force.
In Idlib, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham maintained a robust internal security force to confront other military factions and domestic critics, prompting regular protests against what were seen as authoritarian methods and against harsh jail conditions.
The primary question is whether these rebels, who are now trying to form a national government, can scale up what they achieved in Idlib, a poor, agrarian region with a relatively small population.
In Idlib, ministers who dealt with outside aid organizations could never make a decision on the spot, they always had to consult first with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leaders, according to one representative of a humanitarian organization who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of aid operations in the area. Such tight control might work in a small governorate, but could prove unwieldy in a large country.
With its roots in the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham modified and moderated its own jihadist orientation starting around 2016. While it enforced some conservative Islamic practices, they did not resort to the strictures imposed by the Islamic State terrorist group when it ruled parts of Syria.
Still, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham remains designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the United Nations, Turkey and others. Because that designation blocked overt outside support, the group found new ways to sustain itself financially and militarily.
It levied fees on all kinds of goods and enterprises, including crops, border crossings, construction, trade, shopkeeping and craftwork. In addition, companies linked to the group enjoyed a monopoly on providing fuel, electricity, water and garbage collection.
“H.T.S. exemplifies adaptability in conflict economics,” said Mark Nakhla, the chief research officer at Kharon, an open-source analytics firm that advises companies on complying with sanctions against armed groups and other hostile actors.
He has been tracking Hayat Tahrir al-Sham since its jihadist days, and has watched it go through what he called a “strategic rebranding” and a shift from relying financially on wealthy foreign donors to sustaining military and civilian operations through local taxation and governance.
New York Times, Man Found in Syria Appears to Be a Missing American, Ben Hubbard and Amelia Nierenberg, Dec. 12, 2024. The man told reporters that his name was Travis Timmerman and that he had entered Syria on a religious pilgrimage. He said that he had been detained for months.
The Syrian authorities said on Thursday that a foreign man who had been imprisoned while Bashar al-Assad was in power had been found outside Damascus and handed over to the rebel group that now controls the capital.
In interviews with international news media, the man appeared to identify himself as Travis Timmerman, an American who is believed to have gone missing from Budapest, Hungary, this year. In a video aired on Thursday by the news channel Al Arabiya, someone is heard asking the man if his name is Travis Timmerman. The man says, “That’s right.”
Hisham al-Eid, the mayor of Al-Thihabiyeh, a poor, partly rural town east of Damascus, said that the man had been found on Thursday morning on a main road. He was barefoot and cold but otherwise seemed to be in good health, Mr. al-Eid said.
The man told reporters that he had entered Syria from Lebanon on a Christian pilgrimage, and had been detained for several months. He said he had received food and water while in detention, and was allowed to go to the bathroom three times a day.
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.
Russian War Against Ukraine
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.
New York Times, Texas Attorney General Sues New York Doctor for Mailing Abortion Pills, J. David Goodman and Pam Belluck, Dec. 14, 2024 (print ed.). The lawsuit appeared to be among the first attempts to stop doctors from mailing the medication to states that ban abortions.
The Texas attorney general opened a new front in the contentious battle over access to abortion this week by suing a New York doctor for sending abortion pills into Texas. It appeared to be among the first attempts to stop the mailing of such medication into states that ban abortion.
The lawsuit from Attorney General Ken Paxton — filed on Thursday in state court in Collin County, north of Dallas — pits the laws of Texas, which has a near-total ban on abortion, against those of New York, where lawmakers have taken steps to shield doctors from out-of-state prosecution.
Under shield laws, states like New York will refuse to cooperate with attempts by other states to prosecute or sue abortion providers who prescribe and send pills across state lines. Such laws exist in eight states and have allowed doctors there to send more than 10,000 abortion pills per month to women in states with bans.
But legal experts say they expect Texas to try to pursue its case even if it is rebuffed by New York’s law. Such an effort could wind up in federal court, potentially imperiling the ability of women in other states with bans to receive abortion pills by mail, and becoming a major test of whether states can enforce contradictory laws across state lines.
“It’s a huge deal,” said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis. “Shield doctors mailing pills into ban states was always going to be, I think, both the most consequential in terms of access to abortion and the highest risk.”
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U.S. Immigration
Washington Post, Trump says he backs H-1B visas, aligning with Musk on immigration, Will Oremus, Dec. 29, 2024 (print ed.). President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday threw his weight behind H-1B visas, taking the side of Elon Musk in the squabble among conservatives over the program that allows foreigners with technical skills to temporarily work in the United States.Get concise answers to your questions.
“I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas,” Trump told the New York Post in a phone interview. He added: “I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program.”
The comments come amid an online clash that has revealed a rift in Trump’s coalition ahead of his January inauguration. Musk and other business leaders see the visa program as essential for the U.S. tech industry, but anti-immigrant hard-liners such as right-wing activist Laura Loomer and former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon say the system lets companies exploit cheap foreign labor at the expense of Americans.
While Trump said he employs H-1B workers, past reporting has found he employs workers under the H-2A program, which covers temporary visas for agricultural workers, and the H-2B program, for seasonal workers in sectors such as tourism, hospitality and landscaping. The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
Still, Trump’s words send an important signal, said Sophie Alcorn, an attorney in Silicon Valley who specializes in business immigration.
“The president’s statement that he supports immigration and visas for highly skilled workers allows tech workers in Silicon Valley and the companies that employ them to breathe a huge sigh of relief in what has been a tumultuous several months,” Alcorn said.
Washington Post, Trump’s top border adviser says he will bring back family detention, Nick Miroff, Dec. 27, 2024 (print ed.)..Tom Homan oversaw implementation of the “zero tolerance” policy that separated more than 4,000 children from their parents during the president-elect’s first term.
U.S. immigration authorities will once more put families with children in detention centers when President-elect Donald Trump returns to office next month, according to incoming White House “border czar” Tom Homan.You are what you read. Reveal your 2024 reader type with Newsprint.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will look to hold parents with children in “soft-sided” tent structures similar to those used by U.S. border officials to handle immigration surges, Homan said. The government will not hesitate to deport parents who are in the country illegally, even if they have young U.S.-born children, he added, leaving it to those families to decide whether to exit together or be split up.
“Here’s the issue,” Homan said in a wide-ranging interview that included some of his most extensive comments to date on Trump’s plans for mass deportations. “You knew you were in the country illegally and chose to have a child. So you put your family in that position.”
President Joe Biden ended family detention in 2021, closing three facilities ICE called “residential centers” that offered about 3,000 beds. The facilities had a dorm-like design with recreational and educational programming. They were criticized by immigration advocates and pediatricians who said detention was harmful for children.
The federal judge who oversees immigration detention programs involving minors has set 20 days as the maximum amount of time children can be held at the family facilities. The deportation process often requires more time, so ICE has generally preferred to prioritize easier-to-remove adults. But Homan said that may change once Trump takes office.
“We’re going to need to construct family facilities,” he said. “How many beds we’re going to need will depend on what the data says.”
Washington Post, For some Latinos, ‘prosperity gospel’ led them to Trump, Michelle Boorstein, Dec. 27, 2024 (print ed.). The belief system has overtaken traditional theologies centered on the poor. Some experts say that helps explain a shift among Latino Christians to Donald Trump.
The mix of hope, drive for success and belief in a God who rewards faith, sometimes with financial accomplishments, has become dominant across the United States and Latin America, experts on Latino religion say. The belief system is sometimes called “seed faith,” “health and wealth gospel,” or “prosperity gospel.”
In the past half-century, driven by larger-than-life pastors, it has overtaken other more traditional theologies centered on God’s priority being poor and disenfranchised people, some experts said. This belief system, they said, helps explain what exit polls showed was a significant shift among Latino Christian voters to Trump, who they see as an uber-successful, strong and God-focused striver.
“If you take Trump and all his characteristics, it’s almost exactly as any prosperity gospel preacher,” said Tony Tian-Ren Lin, an Asian-Latino pastor in New York who wrote a book on Latino Americans and the prosperity gospel. “The big personality, talking a big game, saying things like ‘no one can do it’ but him … If for years you’ve been listening to someone like that, you’re not surprised when a political leader says those things.”
Washington Post, Immigration: Hundreds more migrants have died in Rio Grande crossings than U.S., Mexico reported, Arelis R. Hernández, Melissa del Bosque, Charles Boutaud, Monica Camacho, Sarah Cahlan, Jack Sapoch and Miriam Ramirez, Dec. 8, 2024. An investigation by The Washington Post; Lighthouse Reports, an investigative news organization, and the El Universal newspaper in Mexico found that hundreds more people have drowned than the U.S. and Mexican governments have reported.
And nowhere in Texas have more people died than in Eagle Pass, where Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s $11 billion border security initiative, Operation Lone Star, is concentrated.
Washington Post, Many targeted for removal by Trump can’t be deported, ICE data shows, Nick Miro, Dec. 8, 2024. Nearly half of the 1.4 million people in the U.S. immigration system who have pending deportation orders cannot be sent back to their home countries, according to internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement data, posing one of several looming obstacles to President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge for a mass removal campaign.
Some orders can’t be carried out because the would-be deportee’s home country won’t take them or limits cooperation with ICE. Others identified for deportation are serving prison terms, or have received a reprieve or deferral from an immigration judge, due to a medical condition, a credible persecution threat or another extenuating factor.
An array of other logistical and legal impediments also could constrain mass deportations, according to current and former ICE officials.
Trump promises to brush aside hurdles and mount a campaign modeled after the harsh roundups of the Eisenhower administration, when the U.S. government expelled hundreds of thousands of migrant workers to Mexico.
“We will begin — and we have no choice — the largest deportation operation in American history,” he said on the campaign trail.
Trump’s aides describe the anticipated campaign as an enforcement blitz that will leverage the power and resources of the U.S. military to roll back the effect of record numbers of illegal border crossings under President Joe Biden. Criminals and those with outstanding deportation orders will be the administration’s priority as of Trump’s inauguration, Jan. 20, aides say.
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U.S. Jobs, Investment, Economy, Pensions
Washington Post, Japanese buyer sends Biden new U.S. Steel proposal in final bid for support, David J. Lynch and Jeff Stein, Dec. 31, 2024. President Joe Biden has publicly opposed Nippon Steel’s proposed $14.9 billion purchase of U.S. Steel, leaving him at odds with many of his advisers who favor the deal, according to two administration officials.
Nippon Steel proposed giving the U.S. government a veto over any reduction in U.S. Steel’s “production capacity” in a last-ditch bid for President Joe Biden’s approval to acquire the venerable American steelmaker, according to a document sent to the White House on Monday.Get a curated selection of 10 of our best stories in your inbox every weekend.
The proposal is aimed at mollifying the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which warned last week that Nippon Steel’s $14.9 billion takeover of U.S. Steel could lead to a decline in domestic steel output that would pose “risks to the national security of the United States.”
The president has publicly opposed the takeover for months, leaving him at odds with many of his advisers who favor the deal, according to two senior administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Biden is siding with David McCall, the president of the United Steelworkers union, who has blasted Nippon Steel’s bid as “bad for workers” and questioned the company’s commitment to U.S. Steel’s unionized operations.
New York Times, Richard Parsons, Serial Fixer of Media and Finance Giants, Dies at 76, Benjamin Mullin, Dec. 27, 2024 (print ed.). Mr. Parsons’s lengthy résumé is a catalog of corporate emergencies at Time Warner, Citigroup and the Los Angeles Clippers.
Richard D. Parsons, whose humane approach to business made him a serial troubleshooter at distressed companies such as Time Warner, CBS and Citigroup and a sought-after adviser at the highest echelons of American industry, died on Thursday at his Manhattan home. He was 76.
The cause was cancer, said Ronald S. Lauder, a member of the Estée Lauder board and one of Mr. Parsons’s oldest friends.
Mr. Parsons’s winding career tracked the biggest companies in American media and finance — and the biggest problems. Time and again, he stepped in when things looked catastrophic and put his smooth leadership style to work, disentangling Gordian knots and assuaging discontented shareholders.
Mr. Parsons, a jazz-loving oenophile who served on the board of the Apollo Theater and owned a Tuscan winery, rose to the top of the business world in an era when he was frequently the only Black executive in the boardroom. A self-described “Rockefeller Republican,” Mr. Parsons spoke out on social justice issues in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020, signed a letter protesting a 2021 law that imposed restrictions on Georgia voters and co-founded the Equity Alliance, a fund that backs early-stage ventures led by women and people of color.your times accessHave a moment? Play these games.
Mr. Parsons’s lengthy résumé is a catalog of corporate emergencies: He stanched losses at Dime Bancorp during the savings-and-loan crisis in the 1980s; cleaned up the disastrous merger of AOL and Time Warner after the dot-com bust at the turn of the century; stepped in at Citigroup as the banking colossus teetered after the 2007-8 financial crisis; served as CBS’s board chairman after its disgraced chief executive, Leslie Moonves, went to war with its controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone; and came out of semiretirement to steady the Los Angeles Clippers after their owner at the time, Donald Sterling, made racist remarks.
Throughout it all, Mr. Parsons deployed his easy manner and extensive Rolodex — he was an aide to Nelson A. Rockefeller, the former vice president and New York governor — to lead, charm and cajole his way out of tight corporate corners. In 2007, as Time Warner was crawling back from the brink of disaster, Mr. Parsons summed up his career during a steakhouse interview with The New York Times before ordering a second bottle of wine.
“I want my legacy to be simple: I left the place in good shape and in good hands,” he said.
His survivors include his wife, Laura (Bush), and their three children, Gregory, Leslie and Rebecca.
Richard Dean Parsons was born on April 4, 1948, in Brooklyn, N.Y., one of five children of Lorenzo, an electrical technician, and Isabelle. A huge fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Mr. Parsons soon moved reluctantly with his family to the Ozone Park neighborhood in Queens, where he was a precocious but somewhat indifferent student. An astronomy and physics enthusiast, he nearly blew up a friend’s house trying to make rocket fuel on the stove. He skipped two grades and graduated from high school at 16 before enrolling at the University of Hawaii on a whim.
“I put down University of Hawaii, not actually really knowing if there was one,” Mr. Parsons said in a 2008 interview with the Brooklyn Historical Society. “I just assumed there was. I had sat next to this girl in physics class who was from Hawaii who was just gorgeous.”
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Mr. Parsons was somewhat unprepared for college life when he arrived in Hawaii — he hadn’t made any lodging plans — but things fell into place quickly. After going broke within weeks, he learned to manage his money, settled on a major (history) and joined a fraternity.
Later in life, he would recall a conversation with one of his white fraternity brothers, who told Mr. Parsons that although he hadn’t had any Black friends growing up outside Detroit, he was able to bond with Mr. Parsons “because you’re different.”
“On reflection, I’ve thought, different than what, or different than whom?” Mr. Parsons said in an interview with Citigroup in 2021. “Was I different than his other Black friends? No, because he didn’t have any other Black friends. In fact, I was different from an image he had in his head of what Black people were supposed to be like.”
Mr. Parsons met Ms. Bush during his sophomore year at the university. She had come to his rescue during an English class for which he hadn’t done the reading. She eventually let him see the paper she was working on, Mr. Parsons said in a 2008 interview with PBS. They were soon married.ImageMr. Parsons stands behind Laura Parsons, resting his left hand on her left shoulder, at a formal gala.Mr. Parsons with his wife, Laura, in 2008. They met while students at the University of Hawaii. Credit...Joe Corrigan/Getty Images
Laura Parsons helped focus her husband. She dragged him out of bed the morning he was supposed to take his law school admission exams and guided him toward Albany Law School. He was admitted despite being several credits short of his undergraduate degree, and finished at the top of his class.
When he landed a job on Governor Rockefeller’s staff, it was a full-circle moment for the Parsons clan: Decades earlier, his grandfather had worked as the head groundskeeper at Kykuit, the Rockefeller estate in Pocantico Hills, N.Y. Mr. Parsons would go on to serve as the chair of the Rockefeller Foundation’s board of trustees.
When Mr. Rockefeller became vice president under President Gerald R. Ford, Mr. Parsons decamped to Washington, serving on Mr. Rockefeller’s legal team and on Mr. Ford’s Domestic Council. After his stint in the White House, Mr. Parsons moved back to New York and joined a prestigious law firm, Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler.
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Energy, Transportation, Climate Change, Environment, Space
New York Times, Flood-Soaked Homeowners Face a Costly Choice: Raise or Raze, Gregory Barber, Dec. 29, 2024. As climate change intensifies, flooding is emerging as a threat for some homes. Some people are responding by lifting up their houses.
Hydraulic lifts, set in trenches dug under the foundation, push the house upward, a process so smooth that lifters are known to leave a vase standing in a window for dramatic effect. A new foundation is installed, along with elongated staircases and reworked wires and plumbing.
On a recent weekend, Albert Jasuwan, owner of JAS Builders, one of a few house-raising specialists in the Tampa Bay area, had three houses “in the air” and 22 more awaiting permits. “Mother Nature is giving us more than the ground can take,” Mr. Jasuwan said. Prices can range from $75 to $200 per square foot, depending on the home’s design. A typical Florida home built on a concrete slab may cost $400,000 to raise, though larger houses can exceed $1 million.
New York Times, A.I., the Electricians and the Boom Towns of Central Washington, Karen Weise, Photographs by Jovelle Tamayo, Dec. 25, 2024. The rural region is changing fast as electricians from around the U.S. plug the tech industry’s new, giant data centers into its ample power supply.
Washington Post, In the shadows of Arizona’s data center boom, thousands live without power, Pranshu Verma, Dec. 24, 2024 (print ed.). As data centers drain America’s power grids, a fierce battle is being waged for electricity. On Navajo Nation land, many are on the losing end.
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Media, High Tech, Culture, Education
New York Times, Investigation: The Men Who Use Instagram to Groom Child Influencers, Jennifer Valentino-DeVries and Michael H. Keller, Dec. 30, 2024. Photographers and other men offer to build online followings for young girls, but some are pedophiles who work with parents to sexualize them.Everyone had an idea about how the 12-year-old girl should pose in a G-string bikini as they assembled in an Airbnb rental home in a small Louisiana town.
The photographer was new to the business of shooting child influencers, so he welcomed suggestions, he later explained in an interview.
The girl’s mother, swiping through images of women from men's magazines on her phone, recommended that she stand with one leg raised provocatively on a bed, he recalled. The girl, he said, proposed imitating a scene from an erotic film she had watched — she would lie on her back with her hands grasping for the bedposts.
In the end, several shots positioned her “head on a pillow and her buttocks raised in the air,” and in one, the camera focused on her “barely covered” genitals. That was the description in court documents, written by federal authorities who charged the photographer and mother with crimes related to child sexual abuse material.
“We just provided what we knew that men wanted to purchase,” the photographer, Grant Durtschi, said by telephone from a jail outside Baton Rouge.
For the past year, The New York Times has been investigating how a drive for online fame has created a marketplace on Instagram of girl influencers who are managed by their parents — Instagram does not allow children under 13 to have their own accounts — and frequently draw an audience of men.
Some of the parents, like the Louisiana mother, develop monetary relationships with the men, selling them images of the girls. Others also offer chat sessions with them and even their worn leotards.
Those looking to supercharge their daughters’ online presence sometimes tap into an established network of men, The Times found, many of them convicted of sex crimes or accused of pedophilia, who participate in the grooming of children under the guise of working as social media professionals.
Among them was Mr. Durtschi, who pleaded guilty in March 2023 to producing child sexual abuse imagery, sometimes legally known as child pornography, during the photo shoot with the 12-year-old. He had been arrested a year earlier in San Francisco.
The men present themselves to parents — almost always mothers — as photographers, social media experts or web technicians who can create photo-selling sites for them. Some go even further, working with mothers to produce ever more sexualized content as they cultivate inappropriate relationships of their own with the daughters.
In rare cases, people like Mr. Durtschi and the 12-year-old’s mother are prosecuted. But The Times found multiple instances in which allegations of pedophilia and possible criminal conduct circulated widely in the child-influencer world or had been reported to law enforcement with no known consequences.
New York Times, Social Media Companies Face Global Tug-of-War Over Free Speech, Cecilia Kang and Adam Satariano, Dec. 30, 2024. Donald Trump’s picks for the F.C.C. and F.T.C. have vowed to remove censorship online. That conflicts with European regulators pushing for stricter moderation.
President-elect Donald J. Trump and his allies have vowed to squash an online “censorship cartel” of social media firms that they say targets conservatives.
Already, the president-elect’s newly chosen regulators at the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission have outlined plans to stop social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube from removing content the companies deem offensive — and punish advertisers that leave less restrictive platforms like X in protest of the lack of moderation.
“The censorship and advertising boycott cartel must end now!” Elon Musk, the owner of X, whom Mr. Trump has appointed to cut the federal budget, posted on his site last month.
In Europe, social media companies face the opposite problem. There, regulators accuse the platforms of being too lax about the information they host, including allowing posts that stoked political violence in Britain and spread hate in Germany and France.
Mr. Trump’s return to the White House is expected to widen the speech divide that has long existed between the United States and Europe, setting up parallel regulatory systems that tech policy experts say could influence elections, public health and public discourse. That’s putting social media companies in the middle of a global tug of war over how to police content on their sites.
“What you are seeing is conflicting laws emerging from the world’s democracies, and consumers in the end suffer,” said Kate Klonick, an associate professor of property and internet law at St. John’s University School of Law. The result could be a fractured internet experience where people see different content based on the laws where they live, she said.
Free speech is core to making America great, said Morgan Ackley, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump. “President Trump is committed to protecting this right for all Americans,” she added.
The cross-Atlantic regulatory clash stems from distinctly different global views on free speech. The United States, which has the First Amendment, also passed a law in 1996, known as Section 230, that shields companies from liability for content posted online — meaning it is largely up to social media sites to decide what to remove.
New York Times, Charles Dolan, Cablevision Founder Who Sat Atop a Media Empire, Dies at 98, Richard Goldstein, Dec. 29, 2024. His business choices were diverse and prolific: He founded HBO, bought Madison Square Garden and the New York Knicks, and took over a Long Island newspaper.
Charles F. Dolan, who bought a group of small cable TV systems on Long Island in 1973, merged them into a network he called Cablevision and amassed a fortune building an innovative communications, entertainment and sports empire that included HBO and Madison Square Garden and its professional teams, died on Saturday. He was 98.
A representative for Mr. Dolan’s family confirmed the death on Sunday in a statement, which did not say where he died.
Cablevision Systems Corporation had 1,500 customers when Mr. Dolan founded it. It was serving three million cable TV households in the New York metropolitan area and providing internet and digital telephone service when he reached a deal in September 2015 to sell it to Altice, a European media company, for $17.7 billion. Altice USA now runs it under the Optimum brand.
Mr. Dolan “helped establish cable television as an economic, social and cultural force in the United States during the final quarter of the 20th century,” Douglas Gomery, a mass communications scholar, wrote in the 2004 edition of “Encyclopedia of Television,” a publication of the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago.
The deal with Altice, completed in June 2016, included the Long Island-based Newsday and Mr. Dolan’s News 12 cable stations providing news from the New York metropolitan area. But the Dolan family regained control of Newsday two weeks later, buying back a 75 percent interest for an undisclosed sum.
In August 2018, Newsday announced that Mr. Dolan’s son Patrick, who had been the president and majority owner of the Newsday Media Group, had acquired the remaining shares to become the sole owner of Newsday. (Patrick Dolan continued as president of the News 12 stations when Altice obtained them from Cablevision, but later stepped down and was named a senior adviser of the network.)
The Dolan family also remains a powerful presence on the New York sports and entertainment scenes. It owns the Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corporation, which operates the arena; the Madison Square Garden Sports Corporation, whose properties include the arena’s teams, the Knicks and the Rangers; and the MSG sports-programming cable TV stations. All are run by Charles Dolan’s son James.
The Guardian, Trump’s threat to defund all US public media has NPR and PBS on the back foot, Cecilia Nowell, Dec. 28, 2024. President-elect’s agenda and Project 2025 playbook align in stripping Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s license.
On the campaign trail this year, Donald Trump routinely criticized US media. The president-elect called for CBS to be stripped of its broadcast license after it aired an interview with Kamala Harris, refused to participate in an interview with 60 Minutes and routinely called journalists the “enemy of the people”.
But perhaps no American media has attracted as much ire from the president-elect as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting – a non-profit corporation created by federal law in 1967 to distribute funding to public media organizations like PBS and NPR.
“NO MORE FUNDING FOR NPR, A TOTAL SCAM!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social in April. “THEY ARE A LIBERAL DISINFORMATION MACHINE. NOT ONE DOLLAR!!!”
As the Trump prepares to take office next month, public media organizations – such as NPR and PBS, which have aired longtime favorites such as Curious George and All Things Considered – are readying themselves for funding cuts and other attacks against their programming. After Trump was re-elected in November, NPR member stations circulated a report warning that “it would be unwise to assume that events will play out as they have in the past” where funding is concerned, the New York Times reported Friday, and PBS board members received an update from political consultants earlier this month.
Trump and his allies have repeatedly called for the federal government to cut all funding to public media. In March 2017, Trump called for Congress to cut all funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in the first proposed budget of his presidency – a call he repeated throughout his presidency.
In response to a 2020 effort to defund public media, the PBS president and CEO, Paula Kerger, issued a statement noting that “PBS and our member stations have earned bipartisan Congressional support because of the vital role that public television plays in homes and communities across the country. For 50 years, PBS has served as a trusted source for educational and thought-provoking programming, including school readiness initiatives for children, support for teachers and caregivers, public safety communications and lifelong learning across broadcast and digital platforms.”
But the conservative playbook Project 2025 has continued echoing conservative calls to cut funding to PBS and NPR, stating that the new Trump administration should strip public media of federal funding and licenses for noncommercial education stations.
“Not only is the federal government trillions of dollars in debt and unable to afford the more than half a billion dollars squandered on leftist opinion each year, but the government should not be compelling the conservative half of the country to pay for the suppression of its own views,” Mike Gonzalez, a Heritage Foundation senior fellow, wrote in the document, repeating a common conservative refrain that public media leans to the left.
In recent months, Trump allies such as Elon Musk have taken up the call to defund public media. In April 2023, NPR moved off Twitter after Musk labeled the news organization “state-affiliated media”, the same term it uses for propaganda outlets in Russia and China. After NPR quit the platform, Musk posted a tweet saying “Defund @NPR”.
In November, shortly after Trump won the 2024 presidential election, Musk coauthored an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal with Vivek Ramaswamy (the two have been tasked with leading a “department of government efficiency”, an agency Trump claims he will create). In it, the pair identified the $535m Congress allocates each year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as one line item they would cut to reduce federal expenditures. As recently as this week, Musk posted on X that “legacy media must die”.
Although these attacks against public media are growing more concerted, they’re not new. Every Republican administration has aimed to defund public media since the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was founded.
American public media traces its origins to the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, passed under Lyndon B Johnson’s administration. A public-private partnership, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting connects 1,190 public radio stations and 356 public television stations with federal grants, allowing those stations to maintain editorial independence and also raise funds from members and sponsorships. Today, 99% of the US population lives within listening range of at least one public media station.
Yet, the US spends considerably less on public media than its peer nations. A 2021 study from the University of Pennsylvania found that Germany spends $142.42 a person on its public media, Norway spends $110.73, the UK $81.30, and Spain $58.25, while the US spends just $3.16.
In 2005, while defending against a Bush administration attempt to defund public media, then representative Ed Markey said: “What parents and kids get from public TV is an incredible bargain. The question is not: ‘Can we afford it?’ but rather: ‘Can we afford to lose it?’”
Although Republican-sponsored bills to eliminate federal funding of public media are already before Congress (including the No Propaganda act and the Defund NPR act), two details may slow those efforts: the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is funded two years in advance and many local public media stations run emergency alerts, a crucial system that would have to be transferred elsewhere.
Efforts to defund public media are likely to affect local newsrooms the most in rural areas where Trump was the favored candidate, as federal grants can make up a significant portion of a member station’s budget.
“The most vulnerable stations serving the most vulnerable people are going to be the ones that are hurt the hardest,” Eric Nuzum, a former NPR executive and a co-founder of the audio consulting and production company Magnificent Noise, told the New York Times. “We’re talking about very rural parts of the United States.”
New York Times, Trump Urges Supreme Court to Pause TikTok Ban So He Can Weigh In, Adam Liptak, Dec. 27, 2024. President-elect Trump took no position on the app’s First Amendment challenge to the law, which sets a Jan. 19 deadline to sell or close the popular platform. President-elect Donald J. Trump filed an unusual brief on Friday asking the Supreme Court to block a law that requires TikTok to be sold or shut down by Jan. 19.
The deadline falls a day before Mr. Trump is to be inaugurated, and the brief asks the justices for the delay so that he may address the matter.
“President Trump opposes banning TikTok in the United States at this juncture,” the brief said, “and seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office.”
The brief took no position on the legal question that the justices are set to consider when they hear arguments in the case next month: whether Congress violated the First Amendment by effectively banning TikTok. Adopting a distinctive tone at odds with the sober and measured arguments more typical in Supreme Court advocacy, the brief instead touted Mr. Trump’s expertise.
“President Trump alone possesses the consummate deal-making expertise, the electoral mandate and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the government — concerns which President Trump himself has acknowledged,” the brief said.
Mr. Trump, the brief added, is particularly knowledgeable about social media in general and TikTok in particular.
“President Trump is one of the most powerful, prolific and influential users of social media in history,” the brief said. “Consistent with his commanding presence in this area, President Trump currently has 14.7 million followers on TikTok with whom he actively communicates, allowing him to evaluate TikTok’s importance as a unique medium for freedom of expression, including core political speech.” READ IN APP
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Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter (New York Times photo by Damon Winter )
New York Times, Jimmy Carter, Peacemaking President Amid Crises, Is Dead at 100, Peter Baker and Roy Reed, Dec. 30, 2024 (print ed.). Jimmy Carter, who rose from Georgia farmland to become the 39th president of the United States on a promise of national healing after the wounds of Watergate and Vietnam, then lost the White House in a cauldron of economic turmoil at home and crisis in Iran, died on Sunday at his home in Plains, Ga. He was 100.
The Carter Center in Atlanta announced his death, which came nearly three months after Mr. Carter, already the longest-living president in American history, became the first former commander in chief to reach the century mark. Mr. Carter went into hospice care 22 months ago, but held on longer than even his family expected.
Tributes poured in from presidents, world leaders and many everyday people from around the world who admired not only Mr. Carter’s service during four years in the White House but his four decades of efforts since leaving office to fight disease, broker peace and provide for the poor. President Biden ordered a state funeral to be held and was expected to deliver a eulogy.
“To all of the young people in this nation and for anyone in search of what it means to live a life of purpose and meaning — the good life — study Jimmy Carter, a man of principle, faith and humility,” Mr. Biden, the first Democratic senator to endorse Mr. Carter’s long-shot 1976 bid for the presidency, said in a statement. “He showed that we are great nation because we are a good people.”
President-elect Donald J. Trump, who often denigrated Mr. Carter on the campaign trail and in recent days spoke of unraveling one of the former president’s signature accomplishments, the transfer of the Panama Canal to Panama, issued a gracious statement. “The challenges Jimmy faced as president came at a pivotal time for our country, and he did everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans,” Mr. Trump said. “For that, we owe him a debt of gratitude.”
Mr. Carter was no fan of Mr. Trump and family members said he was holding on in part to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. The former president cast his absentee ballot for her in mid-October after making his final public appearance on his birthday when he was rolled out to his yard in a wheelchair to watch a flyover of military jets in his honor.
Other than interludes in the White House and the Georgia governor’s mansion, he and his wife, the former first lady Rosalynn Carter, lived in the same simple home in Plains for most of their adult lives and each of them passed away there, Mrs. Carter in November last year.
A lifelong farmer who still worked with his hands building houses for the poor well into his 90s, Mr. Carter had long defied death and outlived not only his wife but his vice president, most of his cabinet, key aides and allies as well as the Republican president he defeated and the Republican challenger who later defeated him. Over the years, he beat back a series of health crises, including a bout with the skin cancer melanoma, which spread to his liver and brain, and repeated falls, one giving him a broken hip.
The Carter Center announced in February last year that Mr. Carter, “after a series of short hospital stays,” had decided to forgo further life-prolonging medical treatment and would receive hospice care at home.
News that he seemed to be in his final days prompted a wave of tributes and remembrances of his extended and eventful life, but even then he upended expectations by hanging on for nearly two years. He lived long enough to bid farewell to Mrs. Carter, who died at 96, culminating a marriage of 77 years.
Jimmy Carter, furthest right, is standing in the Oval Office with four of his successors. From left to right: George H.W. Bush, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Former President Jimmy Carter, furthest right, in a group photo of his successors in January 2009 (New York Times photo by Doug Mills)
New York Times, Carter the Critic Didn’t Spare His Successors, Linda Qiu, Dec. 30, 2024 (print ed.). Jimmy Carter defied the unwritten rule of former presidents: Don’t criticize the occupant of the Oval Office.
Former President Jimmy Carter grinned in the Oval Office in January 2009 for a photograph, a visible gap separating him from four of his successors. As the others stood shoulder to shoulder, he positioned himself off to the side, a hand in one pocket, as if to distance himself just slightly from that most exclusive club.
Mr. Carter had no qualms about breaking one of that club’s unwritten rules, namely that former presidents restrain their critiques of the current occupant of the Oval Office. In the four decades after leaving the White House following the 1980 election, he caused regular stirs with pointed opinions about his successors.
“He was in fights with everyone, Democrats, Republicans,” said Julian E. Zelizer, the author of “Jimmy Carter” and a historian at Princeton University, who called Mr. Carter “a maverick through and through.”
Stuart Eizenstat, a former adviser to Mr. Carter, said the former president wasn’t the type of person to just go back to Plains, Ga., and “work on carpentry and painting.”
“When he left office, he was in his mid 50s,” Mr. Eizenstat said. “He didn’t want his voice to be unheard.”
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. 30, 2024. 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.”
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New York Times, Investigation: The Men Who Use Instagram to Groom Child Influencers, Jennifer Valentino-DeVries and Michael H. Keller, Dec. 30, 2024. Photographers and other men offer to build online followings for young girls, but some are pedophiles who work with parents to sexualize them.
Everyone had an idea about how the 12-year-old girl should pose in a G-string bikini as they assembled in an Airbnb rental home in a small Louisiana town.
The photographer was new to the business of shooting child influencers, so he welcomed suggestions, he later explained in an interview.
The girl’s mother, swiping through images of women from men's magazines on her phone, recommended that she stand with one leg raised provocatively on a bed, he recalled. The girl, he said, proposed imitating a scene from an erotic film she had watched — she would lie on her back with her hands grasping for the bedposts.
In the end, several shots positioned her “head on a pillow and her buttocks raised in the air,” and in one, the camera focused on her “barely covered” genitals. That was the description in court documents, written by federal authorities who charged the photographer and mother with crimes related to child sexual abuse material.
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New York Times, Social Media Companies Face Global Tug-of-War Over Free Speech, Cecilia Kang and Adam Satariano, Dec. 30, 2024. Donald Trump’s picks for the F.C.C. and F.T.C. have vowed to remove censorship online. That conflicts with European regulators pushing for stricter moderation.
President-elect Donald J. Trump and his allies have vowed to squash an online “censorship cartel” of social media firms that they say targets conservatives.
Already, the president-elect’s newly chosen regulators at the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission have outlined plans to stop social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube from removing content the companies deem offensive — and punish advertisers that leave less restrictive platforms like X in protest of the lack of moderation.
“The censorship and advertising boycott cartel must end now!” Elon Musk, the owner of X, whom Mr. Trump has appointed to cut the federal budget, posted on his site last month.
In Europe, social media companies face the opposite problem. There, regulators accuse the platforms of being too lax about the information they host, including allowing posts that stoked political violence in Britain and spread hate in Germany and France.
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Washington Post, Investigtation: Scouring social media, a firm fights NFL settlement payouts, Will Hobson, Dec. 30, 2024 (print ed.). Despite vowing to act fast, the firm that oversees the NFL settlement still delays and denies claims, The Post found, including because of players’ online activity.
It took five years, three doctor’s visits, two federal lawsuits and countless emails with his lawyers, but Reggie Brown finally got word in February: Heofficially had dementia. Which meant, he believed, it was time for the NFL to pay up.
Brown, 64, had been fighting for years to get paid by the landmark NFL concussion settlement, which promised to compensate every former player with dementia or a brain disease linked to head trauma. Under the rules of the settlement, Brown’s lawyers told him, his diagnosis entitled him to about $200,000.
All that stood between him and a check was BrownGreer, the independent administrative firm that examines all claims. He had heard stories about the firm taking months, even years, to review claims, but he hoped his would move quickly. After all, his diagnosis had come from a board-certified settlement doctor who had been vetted by BrownGreer and lawyers for the NFL.
Then, in July, Brown received an email from the firm. It had reviewed his tax returns and scoured his social media activity, and it wanted to know:
If Brown had dementia, how had he managed to work part-time, earning about $30,000 annually the past five years?
Why did he claim online he worked as a motivational speaker?
And what about the Facebook posts that showed him attending his daughter’s graduate school graduation, traveling with his wife and going to the gym?
When lawyers for the NFL and thousands of former players struck the historic settlement a decade ago, they entrusted the crucial role of managing it to BrownGreer, one of the most experienced firms in the country focused on settlement administration. And BrownGreer’s founding partner, Orran Brown Sr., publicly assured former players that his firm would work to make the process as efficient and fair as possible
It was building a nationwide network of settlement-approved doctors whose diagnoses would quickly lead to payments, Brown said. And while the firm would consult a panel of expert review doctors on some claims, he said, it would rarely — if ever — deny claims involving diagnoses made by those settlement doctors.
“We do not take orders from the NFL,” he said then. His firm, he added, wanted to “get this done correctly and get it done quickly.”
But seven years later, BrownGreer has denied hundreds of claims involving diagnoses made by settlement doctors, and the firm has spent months — and, in some cases, years — scouring players’ social media and scrutinizing medical records, sparking an outcry from former players and causing some doctors to quit the settlement’s languishing network, a Washington Post investigation found.
New York Times, Departing Air Force Secretary Will Leave Space Weaponry as a Legacy, Eric Lipton, Dec. 30, 2024 (print ed.). Frank Kendall, right, who grew up on an apple farm and rose to the pinnacle of the U.S. military, has preached the need for better preparation for the next big fight.
Weapons in space. Fighter jets powered by artificial intelligence.
As the Biden administration comes to a close, one of its legacies will be kicking off the transformation of the nearly 80-year-old U.S. Air Force under the orchestration of its secretary, Frank Kendall.
When he leaves office in January — after more than five decades at the Defense Department and as a military contractor, including nearly four years as Air Force secretary — Mr. Kendall, 75, will have set the stage for a transition that is not only changing how the Air Force is organized but how global wars will be fought.
One of the biggest elements of this shift is the move by the United States to prepare for potential space conflict with Russia, China or some other nation.
In a way, space has been a military zone since the Germans first reached it in 1944 with their V2 rockets that left the earth’s atmosphere before they rained down on London, causing hundreds of deaths. Now, at Mr. Kendall’s direction, the United States is preparing to take that concept to a new level by deploying space-based weapons that can disable or disrupt the growing fleet of Chinese or Russian military satellites.
To Mr. Kendall, there is no other choice for the Air Force.
“If there were one thing I could accomplish as secretary, it would be to give the enterprise — the institution — a sense of urgency about responding to the threat and being more prepared,” he said during an hourlong interview at the Pentagon this month with The New York Times. “Conflict can happen. It’s not inevitable. It may not even be likely. But it can happen at any time. And we need to be ready.”
New York Times, Trump Weighs In on Immigrant Visa Debate but Offers Little Clarity, Ken Bensinger, Dec. 29, 2024 (print ed.). President-elect Trump said he had used the visas for skilled workers “many times.” But he has mainly used visas for unskilled workers like housekeepers.
President-elect Donald J. Trump appeared to weigh in on Saturday on a heated debate among his supporters over the role of skilled immigrant workers in the U.S. economy, saying he had frequently used the visas for those workers and backed the program.
“I have many H-1B visas on my properties,” he told The New York Post. “I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program.”
But his comments — which were enthusiastically embraced by the technology industry as an endorsement — may muddy the waters because Mr. Trump appears to have only sparingly used the H-1B visa program, which allows skilled workers like software engineers to work in the United States for up to three years and can be extended to six years.
Instead, he has been a frequent and longtime user of the similarly named, but starkly different, H-2B visa program, which is for unskilled workers like gardeners and housekeepers, as well as the H-2A program, which is for agricultural workers. Those visas allow a worker to remain in the country for 10 months. Federal data show Mr. Trump’s companies have received approval to employ over 1,000 workers through the two H-2 programs in the past 20 years.
New York Times, Charles Dolan, Cablevision Founder Who Sat Atop a Media Empire, Dies at 98, Richard Goldstein, Dec. 30, 2024 (print ed.). His business choices were diverse and prolific: He founded HBO, bought Madison Square Garden and the New York Knicks, and took over a Long Island newspaper.
Charles F. Dolan, who bought a group of small cable TV systems on Long Island in 1973, merged them into a network he called Cablevision and amassed a fortune building an innovative communications, entertainment and sports empire that included HBO and Madison Square Garden and its professional teams, died on Saturday. He was 98.
A representative for Mr. Dolan’s family confirmed the death on Sunday in a statement, which did not say where he died.
Cablevision Systems Corporation had 1,500 customers when Mr. Dolan founded it. It was serving three million cable TV households in the New York metropolitan area and providing internet and digital telephone service when he reached a deal in September 2015 to sell it to Altice, a European media company, for $17.7 billion. Altice USA now runs it under the Optimum brand.
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New York Times, Investigation: How Shen Yun Tapped Religious Fervor to Make $266 Million, Michael Rothfeld and Nicole Hong, Dec. 30, 2024 (print ed.). The dance group has accumulated enormous wealth, in large part by getting followers of the Falun Gong religious movement to work for free and pay its bills.
Over the past decade, the dance group Shen Yun Performing Arts has made money at a staggering rate.
The group had $60 million in 2015.
It had $144 million by 2019.
And by the end of last year, tax records show, it had more than a quarter of a billion dollars, stockpiling wealth at a pace that would be extraordinary for any company, let alone a nonprofit dance group from Orange County, N.Y.
Operated by Falun Gong, the persecuted Chinese religious movement, Shen Yun’s success flows in part from its ability to pack venues worldwide — while exploiting young, low-paid performers with little regard for their health or well-being.
But it also is a token of the power that Falun Gong’s founder, Li Hongzhi, has wielded over his followers. In the name of fighting communism, and obeying Mr. Li’s mystical teachings, they have created a global network to glorify him and enrich his movement.your times access
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: December 27, 2024 [MAGA Food Fight], Heather Cox Richardson, Dec. 28, 2024. Civil war has broken out within the MAGA Republicans. On the one side are the traditional MAGAs, who tend to be white, anti-immigrant, and less educated than the rest of the U.S. They believe that the modern government’s protection of equal rights for women and minorities has ruined America, and they tend to want to isolate the U.S. from the rest of the world. They make up Trump’s voting base.
On the other side are the new MAGAs who appear to have taken control of the incoming Trump administration. Led by Elon Musk, who bankrolled Trump’s campaign, the new MAGA wing is made up of billionaires, especially tech entrepreneurs, many of whom are themselves immigrants.
During the campaign, these two wings made common cause because they both want to destroy the current U.S. government, especially as President Joe Biden had been using it to strengthen American democracy. Traditional MAGA wants to get rid of the government that protects equality and replace it with one that enforces white male supremacy and Christianity. New MAGA—which some have started to call DOGE, after the Department of Government Efficiency run by Musk and pharmaceutical entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy—wants to get rid of the government that regulates business, especially technology, and protects American interests against competition from countries like China.
Their shared commitment to the destruction of the current government is about the only overlap between these two factions.
With the campaign over, traditional MAGA and DOGE are ripping apart. Trump sparked the fight when he announced on Sunday, December 22, that he would appoint Musk associate Sriram Krishnan, who was born in India, as a senior policy advisor on artificial intelligence.
On Monday, MAGA activist Laura Loomer criticized Trump’s choice of Krishnan. Loomer was in Trump’s inner circle until three months ago, when her anti-immigrant tirades made Trump campaign staff worry she would cost Trump votes and forced her out of his public schedule. Loomer noted that Krishnan wants to remove the cap on green cards for workers from certain countries.
Krishnan has also called for making it easier for skilled foreign workers to come to the U.S. on H-1B temporary visas. These programs are important to the technology sector, but critics say they enable companies to hire foreign workers at lower pay than U.S. workers, that H-1B workers are trapped in their jobs, and that wage theft is rampant in the H-1B program.
Loomer said those jobs “should be given to American STEM students.” Then she got to the heart of the matter, complaining that MAGA is getting left out of the new administration. She noted that “none of the tech executives who are meeting with Trump and getting appointed in his cabinet supported him in 2020 or during the 2024 primary.” She continued: “I feel like many of them are trying to get into Trump’s admin[istration] to enrich themselves and get contracts at [the] D[epartment] O[f] D[efense]. This is not America First Policy.”
Now, with Trump not even in office yet, the two factions of Trump’s MAGA base—which, indeed, have opposing interests—are at war.
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.
Politico, Former FBI and CIA head prods Senate to reject Patel, Gabbard, Kierra Frazier, Kierra Frazier, Dec. 27, 2024 (print ed.). William Webster, the only person to lead both the FBI and CIA, wrote that neither nominee meets the demands of top intelligence jobs.
A former head of the FBI and CIA is raising objections over whether Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Donald Trump's picks to be directors of the FBI and national intelligence, respectively, are qualified to serve in the Cabinet.
In a letter to senators on Thursday, William Webster, the only person to lead both the FBI and CIA, wrote that neither nominee meets the demands of top intelligence jobs.
Webster, who is 100 years old, praised Patel's patriotism but wrote that his allegiance to Trump was concerning.
“His record of executing the president’s directives suggest a loyalty to individuals rather than the rule of law — a dangerous precedent for an agency tasked with impartial enforcement of justice,” he said.
When it came to Gabbard, Webster wrote that her "profound lack" of intelligence experience stood in contrast to the seasoned leadership needed for the role.
“Effective management of our intelligence community requires unparalleled expertise to navigate the complexities of global threats and to maintain the trust of allied nations,” he wrote. “Without that trust, our ability to safeguard sensitive secrets and collaborate internationally is severely diminished.”
Trump's transition did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Webster was appointed FBI director in 1978 by President Jimmy Carter and remained director under President Ronald Reagan until 1987. Reagan tapped him to be head of the CIA until 1991, under President George H.W. Bush.
“I urge you to weigh the critical importance of nonpartisan leadership and experience,” Webster wrote. “The safety of the American people — and your own families — depends on it.”
New York Times, Guards in Fatal Prison Assault Were Accused of Beating Inmates Before, Jan Ransom, Dec. 28, 2024. Three of the 13 guards implicated in the savage beating of Robert Brooks had been accused in lawsuits of earlier attacks in New York prisons.
At least three of the New York prison guards implicated in the savage beating death of a handcuffed man had been accused of participating in similar attacks on prisoners across the state.
Two of the corrections officers and a sergeant accused in the death of Robert Brooks, an inmate at the Marcy Correctional Facility in central New York, were previously named in federal lawsuits filed by prisoners accusing them of brutal attacks that left one man disfigured and another in a wheelchair.
A lawyer for one of the injured men drew a line from the earlier accusations of violence to the attack this month.
“The fact that they failed to rein in these officers that they knew had beaten someone else is a direct contributor to Mr. Brooks’s death,” said Katie Rosenfeld, the lawyer. She criticized the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision for fighting her client’s lawsuit for four years.
Letitia James, the state attorney general, on Friday released video footage of guards beating Mr. Brooks in a prison infirmary on Dec. 9. The footage, captured on body cameras worn by four of the officers, showed the guards punching, kicking and choking Mr. Brooks over roughly 20 minutes.
New York Times, Mexico, Betting Trump Is Bluffing on Tariffs, Sees an Opportunity, Peter S. Goodman, Dec. 28, 2024. Business leaders in Mexico say President-elect Trump’s new administration will enhance the appeal of their factories as an alternative to plants in China.
Last month, President-elect Trump threatened the economics of nearshoring by promising to impose 25 percent tariffs on all goods entering the United States from Mexico and Canada. Mexican industry was confronted with a high-stakes question: Was Mr. Trump bluffing, hoping the threat would pressure the Mexican government to halt the movement of people and drugs toward the border? Or was he really preparing to put tariffs on Mexican imports to force companies to move production to the United States?
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, 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.
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.
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.
Washington Post, Under Biden, a generational shift in U.S. views of Israel, Yasmeen Abutaleb, Dec. 23, 2024. Support for Israel was once widespread across the American political spectrum.
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…
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.
More On Trump's Billionaire Allies, Their Rants & Their Contracts
The Hartmann Report, Commentary: Americans are sick of the Grinches stealing healthcare, Thom Hartmann, Dec. 28, 2024. hTis is what happens when five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court put our government up for sale to the highest bidder.
Greetings from Australia; Louise and I are visiting a dear old friend who’s one of the top neuroscientists in the world and, driving for a few hours from the airport to their home on the Pacific Ocean, we passed dozens of Teslas.
They’re all over the place, and they’re made in China. In fact, reports suggest that more than half of Teslas are made in China.
Which is why it makes so much sense that when Republicans and Democrats negotiated a deal to keep the government open and that deal put limits on American companies and morbidly rich billionaires from investing in or expanding operations in China, suddenly President Elect Musk threw nearly a hundred tweets out on Xitter demanding Republicans kill the deal.
And kill it they did: instant obedience. The new revised bill that Congress passed and Biden signed into law no longer puts any obstacles in the richest man in the world’s ability to keep on cranking out cars in China. Even more troubling, when Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro pointed this out and implied it was a form of corruption, Musk went after her on Xitter, suggesting he may use his massive fortune — larger than any amassed by any individual in the world’s history of all the pharaohs, kings, popes, and caliphs over the past 5,000 years — to unseat her in the next election. DeLauro wrote to congressional leadership, in part:
”It is particularly disturbing that Musk may have sought to upend this critical negotiated agreement to remove a bipartisan provision regulating U.S. investments in China in order to protect his wallet and the Chinese Communist Party at the expense of American workers, innovators, and businesses.
“Despite the four corners of the Appropriations Committees and Congressional leadership having reached a government funding agreement earlier this week, Republican leadership caved at the last minute to the demands of ‘President’ Musk to shut down the government and strip out hundreds of pages of critical provisions that would have reauthorized important programs to support American workers and families. One key provision that Republicans’ new government funding bill stripped out: a bill to screen U.S. investments in critical sectors in China. “
This outbound investment provision was agreed to after months of bipartisan, bicameral negotiations and years of advocacy from Members of Congress. It would have kept innovation and manufacturing in semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, and other cutting-edge technologies in the United States and prevented wealthy investors from continuing to offshore production and U.S. intellectual property into China – benefiting only their bottom lines and the Chinese Communist Party, while hurting American workers and threatening our national security.
Importantly, many of the innovations this bill would have protected were developed with the help of taxpayer dollars – all the more reason for these innovations to remain at home and not be used to fuel adversaries’ technological and military capabilities.
“It is no surprise, then, that ‘President’ Musk does not want to see a funding deal containing this provision be signed into law. Musk’s investments in China, and ties with its government, have only grown over the last few years – alongside his growing involvement in American politics.
America has a serious oligarch problem and it’s getting worse by the day. If Citizens United isn’t reversed, the voices of average Americans will be totally drowned out by billionaire cash in our upcoming elections…
Wayne Madsen Report (WMR), Investigative Commentary, America hasn't gone right-wing, it has gone completely neo-Nazi, Wayne Madsen, Dec. 25-27, 2024. Trump and Musk are the most dangerous duo of Nazis since Hitler and Goebbels.
Thinking about....Commentary on Tyranny: Why is Musk-Trump the 'Mump Regime'? Timothy Snyder, right, best-selling author and Yale historian, Dec. 22-23, 2024. Ask the Mumpers and the MumpetsTimothy Snyder, For a new world we need new words.
Facing the coming Musk-Trump regime, we will have to be creative. It will not be enough just to rely on the standard terms that come to easily to our lips and pens ("administration," "presidency", and the like). That normalizes the abnormal.
And to repeat unreflectively the words that Musk and Trump and other mumpers use is to take part in the transformation that they bring. Opposition requires clarity and clarity requires concepts. "Mump regime" is one I propose.
As I explained in the last post, "Mump regime," Musk+Trump, keeps the two men who currently matter the most, Elon Musk and Donald Trump, in the proper order.
Musk matters more than Trump. He is the one with the money, the one to whom Trump owes debts. Musk also has a much more lively sense of his own interests and more energy generally. When the two men's ideas clash, as over China in the recent shutdown dispute, Musk gets his way.
"Mump regime" also keeps front and center the basic issue of illness. Democracy is closely connected to health. The historic path to modern political peace and the rule of law led through two stages: vaccines and institutions of public health. Americans have never broke through to a universal health insurance system, and the associated disease, death, fear and poverty is a central problem for our democracy. Now the mumpers and the mumpets are threatening to take away vaccination, which could kill millions of people. One of the diseases it would bring back is, precisely, mumps. Some of the others are far worse.
"Mump regime" is also better, at this point, than "MAGA." That term was always Trump's propaganda, and Trump simply does matter as he once did. So “MAGA” is not only misleading but obsolete.
Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Suspect in German Market Attack is a Member of the Far-Right Movement Just Endorsed by Musk, Troy Matthews, Dec. 23, 2024. Taleb Al Abdulmohsen is an anti-Islam extremist who has lived in Germany since 2006.
Taleb Al Abdulmohsen is in custody after driving his car into a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg Friday, killing five people, including a nine-year-old child, and injuring over 200 others.
Early reports profiled the 50-year-old Saudi Arabian immigrant as committing an act of Islamic extremism, but further research into the online profile of Taleb has revealed the exact opposite: he has lived in Germany since 2006 and harbors violent extremist anti-Islamic views. He has been a supporter the far-right AfD (Alternative for Germany) Party for years, the same party that was just endorsed by Elon Musk.
Taleb's account on X has nearly 50K followers. His recent content promotes violent conspiracy theories against the German government, suggesting the government is "Islamizing" Germany, and professing his willingness to commit murder to fight back against what he perceives as the silencing of the far-right.
Taleb posted in X in May that, "German terrorism will be brought to justice. It’s very likely that I will die this year in order to bring justice," and again in August stating, "I assure you that if Germany wants a war, we will fight it. If Germany wants to kill us, we will slaughter them, die, or go to prison with pride."
The Hartmann Report, Commentary: Depressing the Vote with Money in Politics, Thom Hartmann, right, Dec. 22-23, 2024. Your weekly excerpt from one of my books. This week: "The Hidden History of the War on Voting: The Republican War against your right to vote. Over the next few months the entire book will be here, new chapters posted every Sunday, for subscribers to read at no cost. If you want to get a physical book to mark up or share with others, just click on the picture above, visit your local bookstore, or check your favorite online seller.
Money in politics has a long and ignominious history.
Corruption by money of individual politicians, and of the legislative process as a whole, hit three peaks in the history of our nation: during the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, the Roaring Twenties in the last century, and the years since 2010 when the Supreme Court struck down numerous campaign finance and good-government laws, throwing the doors open to corporate and billionaire cash with its Citizens United decision.
U.S. President-Elect Elon Musk with Vice Presidential mascot Elect Donald Trump in Oval Office parody via Jeff Tiedrich
Everyone Is Entitled To My Own Opinion, Political advocacy: Scenes from President Musk’s shutdown-that-wasn’ty, Jeff Tiedrich, right, Dec. 22-23, 2024. Welcome to a perfectly normal weekend in the good old US of A.
United States President-Elect Elon Musk was definitely one of those kids who woke up early on Christmas morning, ran downstairs, grabbed his presents from under the tree, frantically ripped the wrapping off — and immediately smashed the shit out of each and every one of his new toys.
You know this is a fact, because when handed the biggest toy of his life — the entire country of America — the very first thing President-Elect Musk tried to do was break it.
Recent Relevant Headlines
Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: December 21, 2024 [U.S. Government Shutdown Avoided], Heather Cox RichardsonEgberto Off The Record, Opinion: Spineless greedy parasitic CEOs are sucking up to Trump, a clear and present danger to all, Egberto Willies
Opposition To Trump
The Hartmann Report, Political Commentary: Why is President Musk endorsing the “German neo-Nazi Party”?,Thom Hartmann, right, Dec. 21, 2024. Both President Musk and his sidekick Donald Trump are in deep with the Chinese Communist Party (which has given millions to the Trump family and where Musk makes roughly half of his Tesla cars and many of his billions) and Vladimir Putin (both are reported to have had multiple phone calls and other communications with the Russian dictator over the past two years, including Musk cutting off Starlink internet access for Ukrainian drones that were supposed to attack the Russian fleet in Crimea).
Musk this week also endorsed the Nazi-infested German racist, far-right party Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) and in the past has endorsed other European hard-right politicians and parties including in France and the UK.
Putin’s involved in a major effort to disrupt democratic governments around the world, mainly through using social media and video channels, and it increasingly appears that an anti-democracy coalition is forming here that includes several American and other rightwing billionaires and the Trump operation.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat expands on this extensively in her excellent Lucid newsletter this week; it’s well worth the read (and subscribing to).
Meanwhile, Senator Rand Paul (R-Crackpot) has suggested Republicans in the House should make Musk their Speaker (and third in the line of succession for the presidency), an idea that’s been endorsed by Marjorie Taylor Greene and others. The Constitution doesn’t have a citizenship requirement or election requirement for the job, so it’s a real possibility, although probably wouldn’t get the necessary votes if Johnson is taken down.
No matter what, though, unless Musk and Trump get into some sort of major personality conflict (which I consider unlikely; Trump just wants to play golf and be loved, while Musk wants to get involved, presumably to protect the billions he gets in federal government grants and subsidies), it looks like the Muskrat is going to be America’s new overlord regardless of having or not having any official position.
The Bulwark, Political Opinion: Bannon: Kash Patel Will Absolutely Investigate The People Named In His Book, Tim Miller, Dec. 20, 2024. A tough break for those hoping that the likely next FBI director may moderate if confirmed
Donald Trump's nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, right, is dead serious when it comes to investigating the political enemies who he listed in his book “Government Gangsters,” according to Trump’s on-again-off-again adviser Steve Bannon (shown above in a file photo).
“Kash didn’t try to hide the football. Steve Bannon didn’t try,” Bannon asserted, speaking in the third person during a one-on-one interview with The Bulwark following his speech to Americafest, a yearly gathering of MAGA diehards hosted by Turning Point USA.
“He made a fucking movie that’s called Government Gangsters and the first guy is Merrick Garland ok. And Lisa Monaco’s in there who the nation doesn’t know, we’re trying to make these people famous. So no. First of all, it has to happen. Number two, it's going to happen.”
Among those who would have a clear understanding of Patel’s intentions, Bannon stands high up on the list. He worked with Patel on the documentary that accompanied Patel’s book. He has also routinely hosted Patel on his podcast. His comments serve as a stark contrast to how congressional Republicans have talked up Patel’s nomination by portraying him more as a force of reform at the FBI. Patel will need 50 votes in the Senate in order to be confirmed.
Bannon’s remarks, delivered during a wide-ranging interview, came after I expressed concern that Patel might use the powers of the FBI to target political foes in the shadows without accountability. Bannon asserted that it shouldn't be concerning, not because Patel would moderate his desire to ensnare political foes of President Trump but because he would do so right out in the open.
“Transparency and sunlight is our friend,” Bannon said before ruminating on the importance of Patel’s poorly written but politically potent book.
“I would say Kash’s book is more typing than writing, ok” Bannon quipped. “It’s not a literary thing. But when you see it, it’s so in your face and at the end he lists on eight pages people from the deep state that need to be investigated. … So I think it’s pretty transparent.”
Bannon was adamant that Patel’s forthcoming investigations would not be about political revenge but, rather, an important cleansing of institutions that Trump and the MAGA movement believe are fundamentally broken. Bannon himself served a four-month sentence in Danbury federal correctional institution for defying a subpoena in the congressional investigation into the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“These investigations and all that, it's not for personal retribution. I would be the person then at the forefront since I spent four months in a federal prison and I could care less. [Prison] actually was very empowering for me,” he said. “We can never allow again to happen what happened. The debanking, the deplatforming, the coming after President Trump. You have to get to the bottom of it.”
Among the investigations Bannon specifically expected from Patel were ones that look into the supposed “fedsurrection” on January 6th (a conspiracy that the FBI was behind the attack on the Capitol, which I covered back in 2023) and the purported “vast criminal conspiracy” against President-elect Trump. A recent watchdog report found that there were 26 FBI informants—and no undercover employees—at the Capitol on January 6th. None were authorized to enter the building or otherwise break the law.
“I think there will be a massive investigation. The vast criminal conspiracy, including the medias,’ what was it Andrew Weissman and all those FBI guys that work on MSNBC, I think there will be big investigations into all these people, I just do. I think there is going to be a huge investigation, I believe, into 2020. I think it's going to be a huge investigation on January 6th, the fedsurrection, I think it's going to be a huge investigation about the vast criminal conspiracy against President Trump.”
Washington Post, Opinion: Democrats shouldn’t try to find ‘common ground’ with Trump, Jennifer Rubin, right, Dec. 23, 2024. Unwise, premature and embarrassing outreach from what is supposed to be the opposition.
A depressingly high number of elected Democrats are declaring their intent to find “common ground” with President-elect Donald Trump and his crackpot Cabinet picks. Their naive, tone-deaf declarations epitomize an infatuation with bipartisanship for bipartisanship’s sake. Sometimes, it’s better not to bend the knee before the bidding even gets underway.Make sense of the latest news and debates with our daily newsletter
Democrats strain credulity if they imagine they can find common ground with someone who vows, among other mind-boggling schemes, to imprison opponents, deploy the military against immigrants, snatch the power of the purse from Congress and pay for tax cuts for billionaires with cuts to entitlements and other programs that serve ordinary Americans. (What would common ground even look like? Deport just 5.5 million people, not 11 million? Cut Social Security only a little bit?)
The fruitless search for nonexistent common ground instantaneously normalizes Trump. Democrats should not propound the dubious assertion that Trump can operate rationally and in good faith. Mouthing this platitude makes Democrats look weak, foolish and unprepared to stand up to an authoritarian agenda.
Moreover, what is the point of declaring their “common ground” aspirations now? Similar aspirational statements were made before MAGA Republicans reneged on the budget deal (later giving up the effort to suspend the debt ceiling when Democrats stood their ground). That should be a wake-up call: There is no bargaining with people who break deals. Democrats must not be in the position of chasing after Republicans. They will find themselves negotiating against themselves to reach the mythical “common ground.”
Lance's Substack, Political Commentary:The Democrats And Media (With A Few Exceptions) Are Not In The Real World, Or Are Lying Through Their Teeth, Lance F Rosen, Dec. 22, 2024. Trump has been obsessed with having the power to use the military domestically to crush his enemies since he entered politics. Remember that he told General Kelly "Hitler did some good things," and later "I wish my Generals were as loyal to me as Hitler's were for him."
He knows that his program will produce rioting and violence in reaction, because that is what he and his team of fascist thugs want. He said as much when discussing the mass deportations, which he said would be "bloody." His worldview was literally influenced by reading Hitler's speeches, and being mentored by his KKK- supporting father.
His other influences were J. Edgar Hoover, The John Birch Society, Nixon and Roy Cohn (shown above at right), who was Joe McCarthy's lawyer and later the Gambino mob family lawyer. When Nixon ok'd the Governor of Ohio James Rhodes deploying the National Guard in 1971 to Kent State University and those students were shot, that put an end to anti-war demonstrations for the most part, while the draft-evading bone spur victim Trump supported it fully and never forgot the lesson from that. It was a formative event for him. Ordering protesters shot amounts to a psycho-sexual obsession which he has always carried, because the thrill of putting people to death who oppose him stands at the center of his aspirational fantasy life.
So his personal history is a road map for what he intends to do. He wanted to use the military to shoot social justice protesters in June of 2020 but Secretary Of Defense Esper and JCOS Chairman General Milley blocked him. (Remember he symbolically put the Missouri would-be vigilante gun brandishing couple on the RNC speakers list) This is one reason Trump will put Milley on trial for treason and try to have him executed. The point being there won't be anyone in this incoming White House team like Generals Milley and Kelly with the balls and honesty to oppose him.
The ruling by SCOTUS on immunity said that the President has the power to order Seal Team Six to murder his opponents because it is considered an "official act." The only conservative Justice who fussed a little bit was Barrett, but that was just an ass-covering dance routine which amounts to nothing. And be sure that Trump and Musk, along with their compliant Attorney General Bondi intend to push the envelope as far as possible starting the moment this blasphemous lunatic puts his hand on that Bible and lies like a pig when he swears to uphold the Constitution.
Trump has consulted with Vladimir Putin for years in direct conversations, (the number of which is both substantial but unknown) asking him for advice on many things. During the George Floyd demonstrations in front of the White House, a scared shitless Trump called him to ask how he would handle it. Reportedly Putin told him in effect, "you can't let people think that you appear weak." That was roughly when he tried to invoke the 1807 Act and deploy the military, and became the infamous "bunker boy" who descended into his underground lair, just like Hitler in his final days, to scream at his Generals and give out orders to non-existent Army groups.
So these commentators who are cheerleading for GOP moderates and celebrating their factional brawls, in effect watching all of this, both-sidesing most of his nominees, "eating popcorn" and arguing that there should be "no worries," that the moderates and MAGAs will devour each other, that Trump will become envious of Musk and dump him, are absolutely in a delusional fantasy state. None of those things, even to the extent they are real, will succeed in stopping the Trump fascist counterrevolution against democracy.
The Democratic strategy as it now stands is to lay back and let it all happen, because they think Trump will have to own his destruction and carnage and this will propel the Democrats victory in the mid-terms, and after that "on to 2028."
Recent Relevant Headlines
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More On Carter Life, Legacy
Washington Post, Carter to lie in state at Capitol, with state funeral to follow on Jan. 9, Azi Paybarahm, Dec. 30, 2024. Former presidents and other dignitaries are expected to attend the service at Washington National Cathedral where President Joe Biden will deliver the eulogy.
The death of former president Jimmy Carter touched off an American mourning ritual that requires quickly coordinating a sprawling group of federal officials, local partners and law enforcement, as well as elected leaders from across the political spectrum.Get the latest election news and results
Services to honor Carter will begin Jan. 4 in his home state of Georgia and conclude Jan. 9 with a state funeral at Washington National Cathedral, where President Joe Biden will deliver the eulogy. Carter will lie in state in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol for three days, which will give members of Congress and everyday Americans the opportunity to pay their respects.
The events require a complicated choreography of protocol, ceremony and security at which official Washington excels, but the timing of Carter’s funeral presents some particular challenges. The former president died Sunday at the age of 100.
The tributes to Carter come after the New Year’s Day holiday and as Washington is experiencing a political transition, with Biden preparing to hand power to President-elect Donald Trump. Separately, a fractured House Republican majority will try to elect a speaker on Jan. 3, a process that previously took the GOP dozens of rounds of votes spread over several days of public feuding.
New York Times, When Jimmy Carter Turned TV Into a Pulpit, James Poniewozik, Dec. 30, 2024 (print ed.). Other presidents were more celebrated for their on-screen presences, but in 1979 he gave one of the White House’s most astonishing televised speeches.
“This is not a message of happiness or reassurance. But it is the truth.” — President Jimmy Carter, July 15, 1979
Since Americans began buying television sets, several commanders in chief have been given the title “TV president”: Richard Nixon, who faced John F. Kennedy in the first televised presidential debate and announced his resignation on air; Ronald Reagan, the former actor and “General Electric Theater” host; and Donald J. Trump, previously of “The Apprentice.”
Jimmy Carter, who died on Sunday at 100, is not one of the first leaders who come to mind in this way. But Mr. Carter was arguably the first president of TV’s full maturity. He served at the peak of the broadcast network monoculture, just before the spread of cable TV in the 1980s began to gradually split the audience into niche camps.
And he related to TV in a way that captured the 1970s essence of his presidency and his time.
Arriving post-Nixon and post-Vietnam — when Americans’ trust in authority was at a nadir — Mr. Carter offered a different image of national leadership. His was more approachable, humble, in sync with the dressed-down spirit of the ’70s and in tune with a national mood of soul-searching. He was a “Jimmy,” not a “James.”
New York Times, After Jimmy Carter Won the Presidency, Democrats Lost the South, Richard Fausset, Dec. 30, 2024. On the day he was sworn in as governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter, an ambitious white peanut farmer from rural Sumter County, announced that “the time for racial discrimination is over.”
The declaration landed like the carefully calculated bomb it was intended to be in the South of 1971 — and landed Mr. Carter on the cover of Time magazine, along with the blurb, “Dixie whistles a different tune.”
But in his ensuing half-century of public life, Mr. Carter, the one-term Democratic president who died Sunday at 100, would be forced to listen rather helplessly as Republicans mostly called the tune in his native South, supported by white voters who were uncomfortable with the Democrats’ embrace of racial inclusion and abortion rights, and were attracted to the small-government, low-tax promises of the party of Ronald Reagan.
Indeed, after Mr. Carter’s ascension to the White House, the states of the old Confederacy would go on to become, with a few exceptions, a crucial base of support for Republican presidential candidates. Much of that support came from Mr. Carter’s fellow Southern evangelicals, who turned sharply away from him and the Democrats during his presidential term. They became one of the most loyal Republican voting blocs and remain so to this day.
That was part of a shift that had begun in the early 1960s, as Republicans found a way to chip and then blast away at what had been a solidly Democratic South since the end of Reconstruction. Southerners’ fealty to the party had been based on their appreciation for Roosevelt’s New Deal, and their bitterness over the 19th century Republicanism of Lincoln that helped erode the region’s strict racial hierarchies.
Yet Mr. Carter also helped to create a model for Democratic success in a South that has become increasingly Republican‚ a model that remains workable to varying degrees today. The election of 1976 was one of a number of times that a Democratic candidate has emerged with just the right balance of rhetoric and policy promises, uniting just enough white Southern progressives and white moderates in a successful coalition with Black and other minority voters.
More U.S. Political Commentary
New York Times, Guest Essay: What’s the Matter With Chicago? Andrew G. Biggs (senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, serving since 2016 as a presidentially appointed member of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico, which has overseen the Puerto Rico government’s bankruptcy.), Dec. 31, 2024 (print ed.).
The word bankruptcy has been hanging over Chicago like a storm cloud about to burst.
Mayor Brandon Johnson is the latest leader to attempt to close Chicago’s gaping fiscal gap: He proposed a $300 million property tax increase to partly fill Chicago’s $982 million projected budget deficit, only to be unanimously rejected by the City Council. The City Council narrowly passed a budget on Dec. 16, with far less in tax increases than the mayor had initially demanded.
The Windy City’s woes are the product of decades of fiscal profligacy and a cautionary tale to policymakers in every region and at every level of government: Retirement benefits are like free junk food to politicians — everyone loves them, and the bills don’t arrive until later. They can be ruinous for a city’s long-term fiscal health.
At the heart of Chicago’s deficit are decades of increasingly generous retirement benefits offered by Chicago’s leaders to more than 30,000 public employees, a politically powerful constituency. Today, a city employee retiring after 35 years with a final salary of $75,000 would receive combined pension and retiree health benefits of about $77,000.
The City government has failed to fund those pension promises fully and the bill has come due. Retirement benefits and debt service together made up 43 percent of Chicago’s budget in 2022, the highest rate of any U.S. city. Chicago spends more on debt and pensions than it does on the police and infrastructure, according to an analysis from the Illinois Policy Institute, a libertarian-leaning policy group. In other words, Chicago is paying for the past, not investing for the future.your times access
Chicago’s pension actuary warned in a letter to the plan’s leadership last year that “the Fund is still at risk of potential insolvency if an economic recession or investment market downturn were to occur in the near term.” (He wrote it in boldface to get policymakers to take notice.)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.
Chicago owes bondholders almost $29 billion. It also faces $35 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and almost $2 billion in unfunded retiree health benefits. And these figures do not include an additional $14 billion in unfunded benefits owed to Chicago’s teachers. The watchdog group Truth in Accounting gives Chicago a grade of “F” for fiscal responsibility, ranking it 74 out of 75 cities. (New York City is last.)
City leaders may continue to ignore these warnings. If the pension fund does get close to insolvency, Chicago can most likely keep the pension checks flowing by suspending payments to bondholders. Illinois has no legal provision for Chicago to declare bankruptcy, meaning the state would be forced to rush legislation into place to prevent financial chaos.
Judging by the experience of places such as Detroit and Puerto Rico, where I serve on a federally appointed board overseeing the island government’s bankruptcy, pensions would largely be protected in the event of fiscal chaos, followed by core government operations. Nonessential government services would be reduced, and bondholders would receive what remains.
Even if Chicago can contain the political fallout locally, the economic impact would reach far beyond the city limits. Chicago is the largest city in the Midwest and the third largest nationwide. The state of Illinois, which faces vast debts of its own, is not in a position to bail out its largest city, so Congress or the Federal Reserve might have to step in to help.
Policymakers in other big American cities ought to be paying attention. Truth in Accounting gave San Francisco a fiscal grade of D, while New York’s largest-in-the-nation debt burden of $61,800 per taxpayer caused it to share a failing grade with Chicago. New York and San Francisco each already devote more than 22 percent of their total budgets to retirement benefits and debt.
One reason it’s easy to allow pension-fueled deficits to keep growing is that there are very few guardrails. State and local government pensions are unregulated by the federal government, so they operate with much lower funding standards than federal government pensions or those offered by private companies.
Like private pensions, state and local governments should be required to assume conservative returns on pension investments and to address unfunded liabilities quickly, rather than letting funding shortfalls fester over decades.
If, as in Chicago, decades of fiscal recklessness are allowed to go unchecked, changing course can be extremely painful. Chicago has increased its pension contributions significantly. But the city must pay for its $927 million in additional pension contributions by reducing other essential government functions.
The consequence is a lower level of public services for everyone. With the city police force down by over 1,600 officers since 2018, the city’s inspector general found that 49 percent of 911 calls appear to go unanswered. Chicago is already seeing the effects of this deterioration. Companies such as Boeing, United Airlines, Tyson Foods and the hedge fund Citadel have all moved operations away from Chicago in recent years, citing the business environment, public safety and governance quality among their reasons.+Andrew G Biggs is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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.
Trump Transition News, Commentary
New York Times, Trump Previews Second Term in Sprawling Speech to Conservative Conference, Michael D. Shear, Dec. 22, 2024. President-elect Trump repeated false claims about immigration and the border and discussed the Panama Canal in the 90-minute address.
President-elect Donald J. Trump delivered a sprawling address on Sunday that he called a “small preview of the common-sense revolution” his administration will bring, pledging to slam shut the nation’s borders, end federal regulations, lower taxes, prosecute his rivals, “stop woke” and “end the transgender lunacy.”
In a 90-minute speech at a conservative conference in Phoenix, Mr. Trump offered a triumphant view of his election victory in which he described his liberal adversaries as “befuddled” and promised that a new “golden age in America” had begun.
“We will end the occupation, and Jan. 20 will truly be liberation day in America,” Mr. Trump told thousands of people at AmericaFest, a four-day conference run by the conservative group Turning Point USA.
The president-elect’s speech was a familiar mash-up of false assertions, self-praise, fierce attacks on his adversaries and promises about how his return to power would change the country for the better.
New York Times, Trump Picks a Former Treasury Official as His Top Economist, Lisa Friedman, Dec. 22, 2024. Stephen Miran, who served during Donald Trump’s first term and now works at a hedge fund, has accused the Biden administration of manipulating markets.
Politico, Transition of Power, Trump names ‘Apprentice’ producer Mark Burnett as special envoy to the UK, Irie Sentner and Eric Bazail-Eimil, Dec. 21, 2024. Burnett is seen as the architect of Trump’s post-bankruptcy image — and is largely responsible for Trump’s rise to the national spotlight as a high-powered Manhattan businessperson as displayed in the show (above), contrasted with more recently images as above.
President-elect Donald Trump (on Saturday tapped Mark Burnett, the producer of “The Apprentice,” to serve as the special envoy to the United Kingdom.
Burnett, shown in a 2009 photo, formerly served as chair of MGM’s television studio and is a multi-Emmy-winning producer of several popular U.S. television shows, including “Survivor,” “Shark Tank” and “The Voice.” With “The Apprentice,” Burnett was the architect of Trump’s post-bankruptcy image — and is largely responsible for Trump’s rise in the national imagination as a high-powered Manhattan businessman.
“With a distinguished career in television production and business, Mark brings a unique blend of diplomatic acumen and international recognition to this important role,” Trump said Saturday in a post on Truth Social.
Burnett, who was born in the U.K., “will work to enhance diplomatic relations, focusing on areas of mutual interest, including trade, investment opportunities, and cultural exchanges,” Trump said. He has never held a diplomatic post.
It is unclear how Burnett’s responsibilities would differ from those of Trump’s pick to be ambassador to the court of St. James, banker and donor Warren Stephens, who would be the main U.S. diplomat based in London representing Washington in front of the U.K. government. Typically, the position is a sleepy one, as most contact between both countries’ governments occurs at the direct official level. The U.K. and U.S. also directly and fully collaborate on all matters of espionage and intelligence collection.
But the allusion to trade and investment suggests a possibility that Burnett could be tasked with promoting bilateral commercial ties between the U.S. and the U.K., which has long been a goal for Westminster since the U.K. left the European Union in 2020.
Successive British governments have pushed for a free trade agreement between the United States and United Kingdom to make up for the economic losses experienced after the U.K. left the European Union’s common market. Yet both the Trump and Biden administrations have slow-walked any discussion of a trade deal.
Most recently, President Joe Biden quashed hopes that his administration would broker a trade deal with the U.K. before the election, disappointing the government of then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, after encountering resistance from some Senate Democrats.
Trump advisers, however, telegraphed in 2024 that a trade deal between the U.S. and U.K. would be a key priority for the administration.
Trump’s post did not specify whether Burnett would face a Senate confirmation process. Special envoys, by law, must receive Senate confirmation, but the Biden administration has, at times, gotten around that by tweaking job descriptions. Burnett, however, would likely face little resistance from Senate Republicans as he is not seen as a polarizing figure.
Politico, Trump taps critic of Pope Francis for Vatican ambassadorship, Eric Bazail-Eimil, Dec. 20, 2024. President-elect Donald Trump said Friday that he is picking the head of a right-wing Catholic advocacy group and critic of Pope Francis to serve as ambassador to the Holy See, potentially teeing up tensions with the Vatican.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that Brian Burch, head of the group Catholic Vote, “loves his Church and the United States — He will make us all proud.” Trump also praised Burch for advocating for him and encouraging Catholics to vote for him in 2024.
Burch will face a Senate confirmation process, but it is unlikely he will encounter stiff resistance from Republicans, as his views aren’t considered controversial in the party.
Burch would be far from the first ambassador to the Holy See with a political background. Presidents from both parties have selected former elected officials who are practicing Catholics such as President Joe Biden picking Sen. Joe Donnelly of Indiana. Trump picked political activist Callista Gingrich in his first term. He also wouldn't be the first to have ideological or theological disagreements with the church.
But none of the picks to helm the Vatican to date would come into the role with as much a digital record of criticizing church leadership. On social media, Burch has criticized Francis’ leadership and shared the writings of some right-wing clerics who are critical of him. In 2023, he insinuated that church leaders were collaborating with controversial U.S. law enforcement probes into parishes that celebrated the Catholic Mass in Latin, a practice that was phased out decades ago for liturgy in local languages.
Writing on X, Burch said he is “committed to working with leaders inside the Vatican and the new Administration to promote the dignity of all people and the common good.”
Catholic Vote has engaged in tactics that have prompted criticism from more progressive factions of the U.S. church. In 2020, the organization used “geofencing” to identify Catholic voters who attended Mass in swing states and target them with ads boosting Trump.
At the time, Burch defended geofencing as needed to “reach our fellow Catholics in the pews” and “ensure that our fellow Catholic voters get the facts and hear the truth — not the latest lies peddled by the media.”
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Everyone's Entitled To My Own Opinion, Commentary: Oh look, Elderly Golfer is a geopolitical madman, Jeff TiedrichPolitico, Lara Trump removes herself from Florida Senate sweepstakes
Trump's Cases, Allies, Vengence, Threats
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. 30, 2024. 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.
The ruling came as Mr. Trump prepares to take the presidency next month amid unceasing legal entanglements. This month, he accused a juror of misconduct that he said should void a 34-count felony conviction in Manhattan. He also sued The Des Moines Register for running a poll that showed him trailing Vice President Kamala Harris. ABC News this month settled a defamation lawsuit brought by Mr. Trump, agreeing to pay $15 million.
During the trial last year, Ms. Carroll testified that she had run into Mr. Trump at Bergdorf’s on Fifth Avenue and he asked her to help him buy a present for a female friend. Ms. Carroll testified that they wound up in the lingerie department, where he pulled her into a dressing room, shut the door and began assaulting her.
Ms. Carroll said he shoved her against a wall, pulled down her tights and inserted his fingers and then his penis into her vagina. She said she pushed him away and fled. Other than telling two friends, she kept the encounter secret until disclosing it in a 2019 book excerpt in New York magazine.
Mr. Trump did not testify at the trial but denied wrongdoing and claimed he had never met Ms. Carroll. He earned a rebuke from the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, when he posted on Truth Social that Ms. Carroll’s lawsuit was a scam and wrote that Ms. Carroll’s lawyer was a “political operative.” He also said that the dress Ms. Carroll wore at Bergdorf’s that day should be “allowed to be part of the case.”Editors’ PicksThe Timeless Spell of Rome’s Oldest ChurchesHow to Pack Formal Clothing12 Ways to Get Fitter in 2025
The jury of six men and three women found that Mr. Trump had sexually abused Ms. Carroll but did not find that he raped her. It was unclear why jurors chose the lesser offense of abuse over rape, which is defined under state law as sexual intercourse without consent that involves any penetration of the penis in the vaginal opening.
The federal jury also found that Mr. Trump defamed Ms. Carroll when he wrote on Truth Social in 2022 that her case was “a complete con job” and “a Hoax and a lie.” The jury ordered him to pay Ms. Carroll $5 million in damages.
This year, another Manhattan jury ordered Mr. Trump to pay Ms. Carroll $83.3 million for defaming her in 2019 after she accused him of rape, and continuing to do so in social media posts at news conferences and even during the trial. Ms. Carroll’s lawyers argued that a large award was necessary to stop Mr. Trump from continuing to deride her.
America has a serious oligarch problem and it’s getting worse by the day. If Citizens United isn’t reversed, the voices of average Americans will be totally drowned out by billionaire cash in our upcoming elections…
America has a serious oligarch problem and it’s getting worse by the day. If Citizens United isn’t reversed, the voices of average Americans will be totally drowned out by billionaire cash in our upcoming elections…
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.
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
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).
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.
When President-elect Donald J. Trump mused in a recent television interview about whether vaccines cause autism — a theory that has been discredited by dozens of scientific studies — autism researchers across the country collectively sighed in frustration.
But during the interview, on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Mr. Trump made one passing comment with which they could agree: “I mean, something is going on,” he said, referring to skyrocketing rates of autism. “I think somebody has to find out.”
What is going on? Autism diagnoses are undeniably on the rise in the United States — about 1 in 36 children have one, according to data the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collected from 11 states, compared with 1 in 150 children in 2000 — and researchers have not yet arrived at a clear explanation. They attribute most of the surge to increased awareness of the disorder and changes in how it is classified by medical professionals. But scientists say there are other factors, genetic and environmental, that could be playing a role too.
Autism spectrum disorder, as it is officially called, is inherently wide-ranging, marked by a blend of social and communication issues, repetitive behaviors and thinking patterns that vary in severity. A mildly autistic child could simply struggle with social cues, while a child with a severe case could be nonverbal. There is no blood test or brain scan to determine who has autism, just a clinician’s observations.
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
Letters from an American, Commentary: December 5, 2024 [Health Care CEO's Murder], Heather Cox RichardsonWashington Post, Trump’s CDC pick wouldn’t let go of false theory that vaccines cause autism
U.S. Law, Cases, Courts
The Hartmann Report, Commentary: Weiner went to prison but Gaetz won’t? Thom Hartmann, Dec. 28, 2024. Remember when Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner 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…
Politico, How prosecutors’ evidence mistakes could let Menendez walk away from corruption charges, Ry Rivard, Dec. 25, 2024. Five months after a jury convicted Sen. Bob Menendez of corruption-related charges that ended his political career, federal prosecutors have admitted to a series of errors that could upend the verdicts.
The missteps have handed Menendez’s attorneys just the kind of opening they’d been looking for, and they have already requested a new trial. If they get their way, Menendez could beat federal charges once again — a remarkable prospect given the stash of gold bars and piles of cash used as evidence against him.
“The prosecution gift-wrapped them one here,” said Jonathan Kravis, a former federal prosecutor who is now a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson.
Menendez’s conviction on 16 counts this summer led to his resignation from the Senate, and he is expected to be sentenced in January.
In several surprise legal filings since mid-November, prosecutors from the Southern District of New York revealed they had inadvertently given the jury access to evidence a judge ruled jurors should not see.
The evidence at issue was loaded onto a laptop the jury was given during its deliberations. Prosecutors have said it’s “vanishingly unlikely” and unreasonable to think any juror actually poured through all the documents on the laptop and came across the tainted material, which amounts to scraps of unredacted text messages amid 3,000 often lengthy documents.
Recent Relevant Headlines
Jose Ibarra listens through an interpreter during his trial at Athens-Clarke County Superior Court, Nov. 20, 2024, in Athens, Ga. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution pool photo by Hyosub Shin via Associated Press).
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, Syria’s New Leaders Try to Unite Rebel Factions Under a Single Government, Adam Rasgon, Dec. 25, 2024. The fighters who ousted Bashar al-Assad are aiming to transform their revolutionary movement and assert control over the country.
Syria’s new leadership has taken steps to unite disparate rebel factions under a single government in the wake of Bashar al-Assad’s ouster.
Under a new accord, a number of rebel factions agreed to dissolve themselves, Sana, the Syrian state-run news service, reported on Tuesday. The agreement suggested that the new Syrian administration was making progress in asserting its authority over the country.
The rebel groups agreed to be integrated under the defense ministry, the Sana report said. Pictures posted on social media showed Ahmad al-Shara, the rebel who led the offensive that overthrew the Assad dictatorship, meeting on Tuesday with dozens of rebels, many of them clad in military uniforms.
Recent Relevant Headlines
Washington Post, Israeli government approves plan to expand settlements on occupied Golan
More Global News
New York Times, 179 Dead in Plane Crash in South Korea, Choe Sang-Hun, John Yoon and Jin Yu Young, Dec. 29, 2024. The passenger plane was landing when it went off the runway in Muan, in the country’s southwest. The flight came from Bangkok; only two people survived the crash.
Only two people survived the crash, which happened as the plane was landing at an airport in the southwest. Officials said they were investigating the cause.
New York Times, Investigation: ‘This Is What Makes Us Rich’: Inside a Sinaloa Cartel Fentanyl Lab, Natalie Kitroeff and Paulina Villegas, Photographs and Video by Meridith Kohut, Dec. 29, 2024. Our reporters witnessed the dangerous fentanyl production process inside a secret lab in Culiacán run by Mexico’s most powerful criminal syndicate.
We had just walked into the fentanyl lab when the cook poured a white powder into a stockpot full of liquid. He began mixing it with an immersion blender and fumes rose from the pot, filling the small kitchen.
We wore gas masks and hazmat suits, but the cook had on only a surgical mask. He and his partner had rushed here to fulfill an order for 10 kilograms of fentanyl. While one sniff of the toxic chemicals could kill us, they explained, they had built up a tolerance to the lethal drug.
But then, the cook jerked back.
“It really hit me,” he said, looking dazed. “I need to take a breather.”
The young man rushed out of the room.
In September, a war broke out within Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel. Fighting between the rival factions has terrorized the northwestern state of Sinaloa in the months since, leaving hundreds dead and causing a billion dollars in economic damage, business leaders say. The Mexican government responded by sending in a swarm of soldiers and making a slew of arrests.
ground. Fearing law enforcement raids or attacks by their rivals, they say they’re moving their labs around more often than usual and producing drugs in new locations.
And yet, even in the middle of all-out war and intense government pressure, Mexico’s cartels are still doing a swift business. In the last five years, illicit fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, became the leading cause of death for young adults in the United States.
We — two New York Times reporters and one photographer — had been trying for months to get access to a fentanyl lab run by the Sinaloa cartel, which the U.S. government says is responsible for much of the product flooding into the United States. But every time we thought we were getting close, some unforeseen outburst of violence derailed our plans.
New York Times, Ignoring Warnings, a Growing Band of Tourists Venture to Afghanistan, David Zucchino, Photographs by Elise Blanchard, Dec. 29, 2024. With the war now over, the Taliban are welcoming foreign travelers, even as governments advise their citizens to stay away.
Yi-Pin Lin, an associate professor at Tufts University, proudly says he has vacationed in 120 nations over the past decade.
But there was one country he had always dreamed of visiting, only to be frightened off by decades of war, kidnappings and terrorism: Afghanistan.
With the end of the Afghan war in 2021, the country’s new Taliban rulers began encouraging tourists to visit. So last month, Mr. Lin packed his bags, paid $130 for a visa and boarded a flight to Kabul, the Afghan capital.
“When I told my friends where I was going, they all thought I was crazy,” he said. “They said it was too dangerous.”
Mr. Lin, 43, is part of a small but growing vanguard of venturesome tourists making their way to Afghanistan, disregarding dire warnings issued by their governments. The State Department advises Americans not to travel to Afghanistan “due to terrorism, risk of wrongful detention, civil unrest, kidnapping and crime.”
Over the past three years, Taliban officials say, 14,500 foreign tourists have visited the isolated, poverty-stricken nation. They have arrived with hard currency that Afghanistan desperately needs.
New York Times, U.S. Designates American Teacher Held in Russia as ‘Wrongfully Detained,’ Helene Cooper, Dec. 29, 2024 (print ed.). Marc Fogel, an American teacher serving a 14-year prison sentence in Russia, has been designated by the U.S. government as wrongfully detained, the State Department said on Friday.
Mr. Fogel, a former worker at the United States Embassy in Moscow, was arrested in Russia in August 2021 and convicted of drug smuggling. He was sentenced in June 2022 by the same court that handled the case of Brittney Griner, the American basketball star who was also sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to drug charges. The White House negotiated on behalf of Ms. Griner and eventually struck a prisoner swap deal in which she was released in December 2022 in exchange for the convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout.
Mr. Fogel, by contrast, has remained imprisoned in Russia, serving his sentence in a high-security penal colony. A State Department statement on Friday said that “the United States has been working to secure Marc Fogel’s release for some time.” But Mr. Fogel was not included in the prisoner swap in August that secured the release of the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.
“We have long called for his humanitarian release and tried to include him in the Aug. 1 deal, but were unable to,” the statement said. It added that Mr. Fogel had been designated in October as “wrongfully detained.” It was unclear why the department had waited until this week to announce the change in classification.
The designation moves Mr. Fogel’s case to the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs within the State Department. The office focuses on the release of hostages who are found to have been wrongfully detained. The designation means that the State Department has credible information that the person is innocent, or possibly was detained for the primary purpose of influencing U.S. policy.
Associated Press via Politico, Taliban say Pakistani airstrikes killed 46 people in eastern Afghanistan, mostly women and children, Staff Report, Dec. 25, 2024. Taliban say Pakistani airstrikes killed 46 people in eastern Afghanistan, mostly women and children
Pakistan’s airstrikes on eastern Afghanistan killed 46 people, mostly women and children, a Taliban government official said Wednesday, raising fears of further straining the relations between the two neighbors.
Hamdullah Fitrat, the deputy spokesman for the Afghan government, said those killed in the strikes that targeted four locations in Barmal, a district in the province of Paktika, were refugees, adding that six others were also wounded.
This comes a day after Pakistani security officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with regulations, told The Associated Press that Tuesday’s operation was to dismantle a training facility and kill insurgents in Paktika in Afghanistan.
Earlier Wednesday, Mohammad Khurasani, the spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, claimed in a statement that 50 people, including 27 women and children, have died in the strikes. He said they were “unarmed refugees” who fled to Afghanistan because of Pakistan’s offensive in the northwest.
The TTP — a separate group but also a close ally of the Afghan Taliban — also shared photos, alleging they were of children killed during the Pakistani operation.
New York Times, Dozens Feared Dead After Jet Crashes in Kazakhstan With 67 Onboard, Ivan Nechepurenko, Dec. 25, 2024. Dozens of people were feared dead after a jet carrying 62 passengers and five crew members crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, the country’s authorities said.
New York Times, Released From a Russian Prison, This Activist Got Right to Work, Valerie Hopkins, Dec. 25, 2024. Vladimir Kara-Murza, a vehement critic of President Vladimir Putin, didn’t want to be part of a prisoner exchange. But he says more exchanges are needed.
New York Times, Gunmen Attack Haiti’s Largest Public Hospital, Killing at Least 3, David C. Adams and André Paultre, Dec. 25, 2024 (print ed.). Two journalists and a police officer died and at least seven others were wounded in the shooting before the reopening of a hospital wing in Port-au-Prince.
New York Times, After the Military Took Power in Niger, Terrorist Attacks Increased, Elian Peltier, Dec. 22, 2024. Killings by insurgents have surged since the military staged a coup, expelled U.S. and European troops, and stopped negotiations with Islamist groups.
New York Times, Detention Is Ordered for Suspect in Christmas Market Killings in Germany, Christopher F. Schuetze and Melissa Eddy, Dec. 22, 2024. The authorities said they were struggling to understand the motives for the attack with a car in the eastern city of Magdeburg, in which a 9-year-old boy was among the five victims.
Washington Post, German Christmas market attack toll rises to five dead, over 200 injured, Victoria Bisset, Kelsey Ables and Souad Mekhennet, Dec. 21, 2024. The suspect Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a 50-year-old doctor from Saudi Arabia, had expressed anti-Islam views and described himself as a Saudi dissident, an official said.
New York Times, German Government Collapses at a Perilous Time for Europe, Christopher F. Schuetze and Jim Tankersley, Dec. 17, 2024 (print ed.). Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence vote, deepening the political turbulence in one of the continent’s most powerful country.
The Bulwark, Political Opinion: WTF Is Happening In Canada? 51st State? Trudeau on the Outs? Bowing to Trump? Dec. 16, 2024. 
Tim Miller is joined by JJMcCullough to breakdown what's going on in Canada, from Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland resigning to Donald Trump's tariff plans, and Trump's taunts at Justin Trudeau about making Canada an America
New York Times, Trump Hails a SoftBank Investment That Echoes 2016, Maureen Farrell and Michael J. de la Merced, /Dec. 16, 2024. President-elect Trump announced that the Japanese technology company SoftBank had pledged to invest $100 billion in U.S. projects.
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More On U.S. Foreign Policy, National Security, Tariffs
Washington Post, Trump team says Canada, Greenland, Panama comments are part of a broader plan, Jacqueline Alemany and Cat Zakrzewski ,Dec. 29, 2024 (print ed.). Not everyone is convinced.
In the past several weeks — and before he has been sworn in for his second term — President-elect Donald Trump has threatened trade wars with both of the United States’ closest neighbors, mused about taking over Greenland, blustered about bringing the Panama Canal back under American control and suggested making Canada the 51st state.Get the latest election news and results
Less than a month before his inauguration, Trump — who vowed to end foreign wars and made “peace through strength” a rallying cry of his 2024 presidential campaign — is crafting an “America First” foreign policy defined by antagonism toward U.S. allies and adversaries alike, centered around dreams of territorial expansionism, and channeled through the president-elect’s braggadocio.
Trump’s pre-presidency tactics regarding Greenland, the Panama Canal and the United States’ closest neighbors aren’t likely to result in massive change. Canadians and their political leaders are unlikely to prove receptive to dissolving their country, and U.S. lawmakers have not broadly expressed willingness to absorb Canada as a new state. Greenland’s prime minister has said the island is not for sale, and Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino has said that “every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zone belongs to Panama and will remain so.”
White House Chronicle, Commentary: Trump, Who Thinks He Bought the Nation, Now Eyes the World Llewellyn King, Dec. 28, 2024. When Donald Trump began his first term as president in 2017, I wrote that he came to office not as a politician who had won an election, but rather as a businessman who had won a takeover battle and was ready to hire, fire, sell-off, and generally to reshape the property he had bought.
On Christmas Day, Trump – with a series of posts on social media — revealed himself as a businessman who believes not that he has won the nation in a takeover battle, but rather that he has won the whole world and that he is ready to hire, fire and sell-off.
Also, like a canny takeover artist, he didn’t reveal his hand during the takeover struggle. During the election, there was no hint that Canada should become the U.S. 51st state, that Panama was overcharging U.S. shipping nor that ownership of Greenland was essential over and above the key role it already plays with a vital U.S. base, happily provided for by treaty with Denmark.
Like a businessman, Trump offered to buy Greenland during his first presidential term. His offer was soundly and summarily rejected. Now he is back and the answer hasn’t changed.
Canada, Trump believes, takes unfair advantage of the United States in trade, although the regime of the flourishing cross-border trading is the selfsame one: the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, signed in July 2020 by Trump himself as a vast improvement over its predecessor, the North American Free Trade Agreement, although in substance and spirit it is very similar.
When it comes to Panama, Trump has a double accusation. Beyond the belief that Panama is ripping us off, this kind of national business paranoia is part of the Trump manual of expectations in foreign policy: All foreign governments are scalawags bent on cheating America.
It is part of a kind of permanent, low-grade C-Suite paranoia that is present in many companies: Who is stealing an advantage, who is going to concede to the unions, who is angling for more shelf space, etc. You might call it corporate situational awareness paranoia.
Statesmanship is learned; good instincts help, but it isn't intuitive for most leaders. It is learned through studying history, meeting, talking, traveling, and moving in foreign policy circles. It is learned best on the job, if the job is in the House or the Senate.
Trump has learned not in that world, but in the world of New York real estate with its own jungle law — deals are done, undone, litigated, and political influence is brought to bear. Ultimately, there is victory for one side.
Trump correctly — and it could be said belatedly because he took no action during his first administration — has cast a penetrating light on China in the Americas. China, as Trump has said, doesn’t operate the Panama Canal. Panama does. A subsidiary of Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings manages two ports at the canal's entrances, with Chinese firms providing more than $1 billion for the construction of a new bridge over the canal.
Panama’s revenues are up as a result of congestion charging, but fewer ships are transiting the canal due to drought. The vast Lake Gatun, which feeds the canal and keeps the lock system viable, is only partially full. The less water available, the fewer transits are possible. These dipped from 38 large ships to just 22 but rains have improved the situation and transits have risen.
Seizing canals is a fraught business, witness the disaster of France and Britain trying to seize the Suez Canal in 1956. Major damage to the Panama Canal would cost the United States for decades. It is a masterpiece of big, intricate engineering. I took a cruise through it for the purpose of understanding it better.
The British word “gobsmacked” is easily understood: smacked in the mouth. That is what happened to the commentariat — those who comment on national affairs. Trump’s Christmas Day declarations on Truth Social, his social media network, went almost unmentioned. The reporting was there, the networks and newspapers turned up the volume, but the commentators were silent,
That, in its way, is as notable as Trump’s implication that he has bought the world and plans to take possession. The enormity of the thing has been quieting. We, the opinion writers, have been struck dumb, you might say. That is news in itself.
New York Times, Trump’s Wish to Control Greenland and Panama Canal: Not a Joke This Time, David E. Sanger and Lisa Friedman, Dec. 24, 2024 (print ed.). In recent days the president-elect has called for asserting U.S. control over the Panama Canal and Greenland, showing that his “America First” philosophy has an expansionist dimension.
Over the past two days, President-elect Donald J. Trump has made clear that he has designs for American territorial expansion, declaring that the United States has both security concerns and commercial interests that can best be addressed by bringing the Panama Canal and Greenland under American control or outright ownership.
Mr. Trump’s tone has had none of the trolling jocularity that surrounded his repeated suggestions in recent weeks that Canada should become America’s “51st state,” including his social media references to the country’s beleaguered prime minister as “Governor Justin Trudeau.”
Instead, while naming a new ambassador to Denmark — which controls Greenland’s foreign and defense affairs — Mr. Trump made clear on Sunday that his first-term offer to buy the landmass could, in the coming term, become a deal the Danes cannot refuse.
He appears to covet Greenland both for its strategic location at a time when the melting of Arctic ice is opening new commercial and naval competition and for its reserves of rare earth minerals needed for advanced technology.
“For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media, “the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”
On Saturday evening, he had accused Panama of price-gouging American ships traversing the canal, and suggested that unless that changed, he would abandon the Jimmy Carter-era treaty that returned all control of the canal zone to Panama.
“The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,” he wrote, just ahead of an increase in the charges scheduled for Jan. 1. “This complete ‘rip-off’ of our country will immediately stop.”
He went on to express worry that the canal could fall into the “wrong hands,’' an apparent reference to China, the second-largest user of the canal. A Hong Kong-based firm controls two ports near the canal, but China has no control over the canal itself.
Not surprisingly, the government of Greenland immediately rejected Mr. Trump’s demands, as it did in 2019, when he first floated the idea. “Greenland is ours,” Prime Minister Mute B. Egede said in a statement. “We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.”Editors’ Picks7 New Movies Our Critics Are Talking About This WeekA Hanukkah-Ready Recipe That Does Everything RightStaffers at The Times on the Books They Enjoyed in 2024
The Danish prime minister’s office was more circumspect, writing in a statement that the government was “looking forward to working with the new administration” and offering no further comment on Mr. Trump’s remarks.
After Mr. Trump brought up the Panama Canal again in a speech on Sunday, Panama’s president, José Raúl Mulino, said in a video that “every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zones is part of Panama, and it will continue to be.” He added: “Our country’s sovereignty and independence are not negotiable.”
But the president-elect’s statements — and the not-so-subtle threats behind them — were another reminder that his version of “America First” is not an isolationist creed.
His aggressive interpretation of the phrase evokes the expansionism, or colonialism, of President Theodore Roosevelt, who took control of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. And it reflects the instincts of a real estate developer who suddenly has the power of the world’s largest military to back up his negotiating strategy.
Mr. Trump has often suggested that he does not always see the sovereignty of other nations’ borders as sacrosanct. When Russia invaded Ukraine, his first response was not a condemnation of the blatant land grab, but rather the observation that President Vladimir V. Putin’s move was an act of “genius.”
Even now, as Mr. Trump seeks a deal to end the war in Ukraine, he has never said that the country’s borders must be restored, a key demand of the United States and NATO — he has only promised a “deal” to end the fighting.
Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Liquor Stash Photos Bolster NBC Report on Pete Hegseth Drinking Allegations, J.D. Wolf, Dec. 20, 2024. Social media posts reveal Trump's Defense nominee stored bottles of alcohol in his office at work (as shown above via Instagram).
Multiple social media posts reviewed by MeidasTouch reveal that Pete Hegseth had a liquor stash in his office for years. NBC News reported that "Pete Hegseth's drinking worried colleagues at Fox News" citing 10 current and former Fox News employees as sources. Hegseth drinking“Bottoms Up”— Pete Hegseth Took Swigs from Champagne Bottle, Plunged Into the Alcoholic Beverage During Fox News BroadcastRead More
New York Times, As Ambassador, Rahm Emanuel Says His Impatience Nudged Japan Forward, Motoko Rich, Dec. 15, 2024. Patience, Rahm Emanuel likes to say, is a waste of time.
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Trump Legal Cases, Strategies, Allies
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.
New York Times, How Will the Rebels Rule Syria? Their Past Offers Clues, Neil MacFarquhar and Justin Scheck, Dec. 15, 2024. The Islamist rebels who ousted Syria’s dictator ran a pragmatic and disciplined administration in the territory they controlled. They also jailed their critics.
Since 2017, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its affiliated organizations, driven by a hunger for broader power, created a certain level of stability in Idlib, governing with pragmatism and discipline. While the group retained overall control, it governed through a civilian authority with 11 ministries, which allowed it to concentrate on rebuilding its militia as a more structured force.
In Idlib, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham maintained a robust internal security force to confront other military factions and domestic critics, prompting regular protests against what were seen as authoritarian methods and against harsh jail conditions.
The primary question is whether these rebels, who are now trying to form a national government, can scale up what they achieved in Idlib, a poor, agrarian region with a relatively small population.
In Idlib, ministers who dealt with outside aid organizations could never make a decision on the spot, they always had to consult first with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leaders, according to one representative of a humanitarian organization who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of aid operations in the area. Such tight control might work in a small governorate, but could prove unwieldy in a large country.
With its roots in the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham modified and moderated its own jihadist orientation starting around 2016. While it enforced some conservative Islamic practices, they did not resort to the strictures imposed by the Islamic State terrorist group when it ruled parts of Syria.
Still, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham remains designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the United Nations, Turkey and others. Because that designation blocked overt outside support, the group found new ways to sustain itself financially and militarily.
It levied fees on all kinds of goods and enterprises, including crops, border crossings, construction, trade, shopkeeping and craftwork. In addition, companies linked to the group enjoyed a monopoly on providing fuel, electricity, water and garbage collection.
“H.T.S. exemplifies adaptability in conflict economics,” said Mark Nakhla, the chief research officer at Kharon, an open-source analytics firm that advises companies on complying with sanctions against armed groups and other hostile actors.
He has been tracking Hayat Tahrir al-Sham since its jihadist days, and has watched it go through what he called a “strategic rebranding” and a shift from relying financially on wealthy foreign donors to sustaining military and civilian operations through local taxation and governance.
New York Times, After Impeachment, South Korea Is Left With No Elected Leader, Choe Sang-Hun, Dec. 15, 2024. The suspension of President Yoon Suk Yeol’s powers left a seasoned but unelected prime minister in charge of a country facing challenges at home and abroad.
President Yoon Suk Yeol’s impeachment and suspension from office has left South Korea, one of the United States’ most important allies, without a strong elected leader to tackle challenges like a belligerent North Korea and a deepening political polarization at home.
By voting to impeach Mr. Yoon on Saturday, the National Assembly delivered a crushing vote of no confidence in a leader who had been unpopular through his term. Outside the legislature, people danced in the streets, celebrating Mr. Yoon’s peaceful removal from office less than two weeks after his declaration of martial law as proof of the resilience of the country’s democracy.
Yet, despite their euphoria, the political turmoil and uncertainty unleashed by Mr. Yoon’s botched attempt on Dec. 3 to place his country under military rule for the first time in 45 years remained unresolved.
His impeachment has created a political vacuum at the top. Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, the No. 2 official in the government hierarchy, has stepped in as the interim leader, but he has no electoral mandate. A new government cannot be born until the Constitutional Court decides whether to reinstate or formally oust Mr. Yoon.
New York Times, As Ambassador, Rahm Emanuel Says His Impatience Nudged Japan Forward, Motoko Rich, Dec. 15, 2024. Patience, Rahm Emanuel likes to say, is a waste of time.
The former congressman, chief of staff to President Barack Obama and mayor of Chicago is brash, a touch cocky and frequently profane. Above all, he wants to get things done. Yesterday.
As the United States ambassador to Japan, a country where change typically follows a long process of quiet consensus-building referred to as “nemawashi,” Mr. Emanuel, 65, was initially seen as an unorthodox appointment. But maybe, he suggests, he was just what Japan needed.
“I think on a lot of things, Japan was ready to go,” said Mr. Emanuel, referring to a recent cascade of bold revisions to the country’s defense policy. In the past three years, Japan has doubled the amount earmarked for military spending, acquired Tomahawk missiles from the United States and, in a reversal of postwar restrictions on weapons exports, agreed to manufacture American-designed Patriot missiles to sell to the U.S. government.
Although he acknowledged the groundwork was laid before he arrived, Mr. Emanuel said these changes didn’t simply coincide with his term as American envoy to Tokyo.
“While I was here, they did more, went faster and farther and deeper than I think they themselves originally thought,” he said during an interview late last month in the library of his residence in Tokyo. “Did I contribute to that?” Mr. Emanuel said. “Uh, yeah.”
Just how much credit should go to Mr. Emanuel is a matter of perspective.
“Ambassador Emanuel shared various ideas with me and offered advice,” the former prime minister, Fumio Kishida, who left office in early October, said in an interview late last month in his parliamentary office in Tokyo. But “it was the Japanese government that made the decisions.”
New York Times, Security Strategy of Recruiting Cheap Militiamen Backfires in Burkina Faso, Elian Peltier, Photographs by Arlette Bashizi, Dec. 15, 2024. By arming civilians who are poorly trained and have little respect for human rights, the military has brought the nation to the brink of civil war.
Burkina Faso, a nation that once prided itself on tolerance and peaceful interethnic relations, is now home to one of the deadliest conflicts in West Africa. Since the current military leader, Capt. Ibrahim Traoré, seized power in a coup in 2022, he has escalated a war against Islamist insurgents that has now killed tens of thousands of people and displaced nearly three million others.
To beef up the ranks of his embattled military, Captain Traoré’s government recruited tens of thousands of men into a civilian militia, known as the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland. The militia was created by a previous leader to protect communities against the insurgents. But under Captain Traoré, it has spread unchecked violence and pitted local populations against each other, with minority ethic groups being brutally targeted in what some analysts fear will lead to a civil war.
Acts of violence against local populations involving militiamen have more than doubled since Captain Traoré’s coup, according to data compiled by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. The militiamen have carried out executions, forced disappearances or looting every six days on average, the data shows.
Arming civilians who have poor training and little respect for human rights and then giving them near total impunity is not unique to Burkina Faso.
In northeast Nigeria, members of a civilian militia assisting the country’s fight against Boko Haram have been accused of sexual violence, child recruitment and summary executions. In Sudan, the militia known as the Rapid Support Forces triggered a war that has caused the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
New York Times, How Will the Rebels Rule Syria? Their Past Offers Clues, Neil MacFarquhar and Justin Scheck, Dec. 15, 2024. The Islamist rebels who ousted Syria’s dictator ran a pragmatic and disciplined administration in the territory they controlled. They also jailed their critics.
Since 2017, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its affiliated organizations, driven by a hunger for broader power, created a certain level of stability in Idlib, governing with pragmatism and discipline. While the group retained overall control, it governed through a civilian authority with 11 ministries, which allowed it to concentrate on rebuilding its militia as a more structured force.
In Idlib, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham maintained a robust internal security force to confront other military factions and domestic critics, prompting regular protests against what were seen as authoritarian methods and against harsh jail conditions.
The primary question is whether these rebels, who are now trying to form a national government, can scale up what they achieved in Idlib, a poor, agrarian region with a relatively small population.
In Idlib, ministers who dealt with outside aid organizations could never make a decision on the spot, they always had to consult first with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leaders, according to one representative of a humanitarian organization who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of aid operations in the area. Such tight control might work in a small governorate, but could prove unwieldy in a large country.
With its roots in the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham modified and moderated its own jihadist orientation starting around 2016. While it enforced some conservative Islamic practices, they did not resort to the strictures imposed by the Islamic State terrorist group when it ruled parts of Syria.
Still, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham remains designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the United Nations, Turkey and others. Because that designation blocked overt outside support, the group found new ways to sustain itself financially and militarily.
It levied fees on all kinds of goods and enterprises, including crops, border crossings, construction, trade, shopkeeping and craftwork. In addition, companies linked to the group enjoyed a monopoly on providing fuel, electricity, water and garbage collection.
“H.T.S. exemplifies adaptability in conflict economics,” said Mark Nakhla, the chief research officer at Kharon, an open-source analytics firm that advises companies on complying with sanctions against armed groups and other hostile actors.
He has been tracking Hayat Tahrir al-Sham since its jihadist days, and has watched it go through what he called a “strategic rebranding” and a shift from relying financially on wealthy foreign donors to sustaining military and civilian operations through local taxation and governance.
New York Times, Man Found in Syria Appears to Be a Missing American, Ben Hubbard and Amelia Nierenberg, Dec. 12, 2024. The man told reporters that his name was Travis Timmerman and that he had entered Syria on a religious pilgrimage. He said that he had been detained for months.
The Syrian authorities said on Thursday that a foreign man who had been imprisoned while Bashar al-Assad was in power had been found outside Damascus and handed over to the rebel group that now controls the capital.
In interviews with international news media, the man appeared to identify himself as Travis Timmerman, an American who is believed to have gone missing from Budapest, Hungary, this year. In a video aired on Thursday by the news channel Al Arabiya, someone is heard asking the man if his name is Travis Timmerman. The man says, “That’s right.”
Hisham al-Eid, the mayor of Al-Thihabiyeh, a poor, partly rural town east of Damascus, said that the man had been found on Thursday morning on a main road. He was barefoot and cold but otherwise seemed to be in good health, Mr. al-Eid said.
The man told reporters that he had entered Syria from Lebanon on a Christian pilgrimage, and had been detained for several months. He said he had received food and water while in detention, and was allowed to go to the bathroom three times a day.
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.
Russian War Against Ukraine
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.
New York Times, Texas Attorney General Sues New York Doctor for Mailing Abortion Pills, J. David Goodman and Pam Belluck, Dec. 14, 2024 (print ed.). The lawsuit appeared to be among the first attempts to stop doctors from mailing the medication to states that ban abortions.
The Texas attorney general opened a new front in the contentious battle over access to abortion this week by suing a New York doctor for sending abortion pills into Texas. It appeared to be among the first attempts to stop the mailing of such medication into states that ban abortion.
The lawsuit from Attorney General Ken Paxton — filed on Thursday in state court in Collin County, north of Dallas — pits the laws of Texas, which has a near-total ban on abortion, against those of New York, where lawmakers have taken steps to shield doctors from out-of-state prosecution.
Under shield laws, states like New York will refuse to cooperate with attempts by other states to prosecute or sue abortion providers who prescribe and send pills across state lines. Such laws exist in eight states and have allowed doctors there to send more than 10,000 abortion pills per month to women in states with bans.
But legal experts say they expect Texas to try to pursue its case even if it is rebuffed by New York’s law. Such an effort could wind up in federal court, potentially imperiling the ability of women in other states with bans to receive abortion pills by mail, and becoming a major test of whether states can enforce contradictory laws across state lines.
“It’s a huge deal,” said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis. “Shield doctors mailing pills into ban states was always going to be, I think, both the most consequential in terms of access to abortion and the highest risk.”
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U.S. Immigration
Washington Post, Trump says he backs H-1B visas, aligning with Musk on immigration, Will Oremus, Dec. 29, 2024 (print ed.). President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday threw his weight behind H-1B visas, taking the side of Elon Musk in the squabble among conservatives over the program that allows foreigners with technical skills to temporarily work in the United States.Get concise answers to your questions.
“I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas,” Trump told the New York Post in a phone interview. He added: “I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program.”
The comments come amid an online clash that has revealed a rift in Trump’s coalition ahead of his January inauguration. Musk and other business leaders see the visa program as essential for the U.S. tech industry, but anti-immigrant hard-liners such as right-wing activist Laura Loomer and former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon say the system lets companies exploit cheap foreign labor at the expense of Americans.
While Trump said he employs H-1B workers, past reporting has found he employs workers under the H-2A program, which covers temporary visas for agricultural workers, and the H-2B program, for seasonal workers in sectors such as tourism, hospitality and landscaping. The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
Still, Trump’s words send an important signal, said Sophie Alcorn, an attorney in Silicon Valley who specializes in business immigration.
“The president’s statement that he supports immigration and visas for highly skilled workers allows tech workers in Silicon Valley and the companies that employ them to breathe a huge sigh of relief in what has been a tumultuous several months,” Alcorn said.
Washington Post, Trump’s top border adviser says he will bring back family detention, Nick Miroff, Dec. 27, 2024 (print ed.)..Tom Homan oversaw implementation of the “zero tolerance” policy that separated more than 4,000 children from their parents during the president-elect’s first term.
U.S. immigration authorities will once more put families with children in detention centers when President-elect Donald Trump returns to office next month, according to incoming White House “border czar” Tom Homan.You are what you read. Reveal your 2024 reader type with Newsprint.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will look to hold parents with children in “soft-sided” tent structures similar to those used by U.S. border officials to handle immigration surges, Homan said. The government will not hesitate to deport parents who are in the country illegally, even if they have young U.S.-born children, he added, leaving it to those families to decide whether to exit together or be split up.
“Here’s the issue,” Homan said in a wide-ranging interview that included some of his most extensive comments to date on Trump’s plans for mass deportations. “You knew you were in the country illegally and chose to have a child. So you put your family in that position.”
President Joe Biden ended family detention in 2021, closing three facilities ICE called “residential centers” that offered about 3,000 beds. The facilities had a dorm-like design with recreational and educational programming. They were criticized by immigration advocates and pediatricians who said detention was harmful for children.
The federal judge who oversees immigration detention programs involving minors has set 20 days as the maximum amount of time children can be held at the family facilities. The deportation process often requires more time, so ICE has generally preferred to prioritize easier-to-remove adults. But Homan said that may change once Trump takes office.
“We’re going to need to construct family facilities,” he said. “How many beds we’re going to need will depend on what the data says.”
Washington Post, For some Latinos, ‘prosperity gospel’ led them to Trump, Michelle Boorstein, Dec. 27, 2024 (print ed.). The belief system has overtaken traditional theologies centered on the poor. Some experts say that helps explain a shift among Latino Christians to Donald Trump.
The mix of hope, drive for success and belief in a God who rewards faith, sometimes with financial accomplishments, has become dominant across the United States and Latin America, experts on Latino religion say. The belief system is sometimes called “seed faith,” “health and wealth gospel,” or “prosperity gospel.”
In the past half-century, driven by larger-than-life pastors, it has overtaken other more traditional theologies centered on God’s priority being poor and disenfranchised people, some experts said. This belief system, they said, helps explain what exit polls showed was a significant shift among Latino Christian voters to Trump, who they see as an uber-successful, strong and God-focused striver.
“If you take Trump and all his characteristics, it’s almost exactly as any prosperity gospel preacher,” said Tony Tian-Ren Lin, an Asian-Latino pastor in New York who wrote a book on Latino Americans and the prosperity gospel. “The big personality, talking a big game, saying things like ‘no one can do it’ but him … If for years you’ve been listening to someone like that, you’re not surprised when a political leader says those things.”
Washington Post, Immigration: Hundreds more migrants have died in Rio Grande crossings than U.S., Mexico reported, Arelis R. Hernández, Melissa del Bosque, Charles Boutaud, Monica Camacho, Sarah Cahlan, Jack Sapoch and Miriam Ramirez, Dec. 8, 2024. An investigation by The Washington Post; Lighthouse Reports, an investigative news organization, and the El Universal newspaper in Mexico found that hundreds more people have drowned than the U.S. and Mexican governments have reported.
And nowhere in Texas have more people died than in Eagle Pass, where Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s $11 billion border security initiative, Operation Lone Star, is concentrated.
Washington Post, Many targeted for removal by Trump can’t be deported, ICE data shows, Nick Miro, Dec. 8, 2024. Nearly half of the 1.4 million people in the U.S. immigration system who have pending deportation orders cannot be sent back to their home countries, according to internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement data, posing one of several looming obstacles to President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge for a mass removal campaign.
Some orders can’t be carried out because the would-be deportee’s home country won’t take them or limits cooperation with ICE. Others identified for deportation are serving prison terms, or have received a reprieve or deferral from an immigration judge, due to a medical condition, a credible persecution threat or another extenuating factor.
An array of other logistical and legal impediments also could constrain mass deportations, according to current and former ICE officials.
Trump promises to brush aside hurdles and mount a campaign modeled after the harsh roundups of the Eisenhower administration, when the U.S. government expelled hundreds of thousands of migrant workers to Mexico.
“We will begin — and we have no choice — the largest deportation operation in American history,” he said on the campaign trail.
Trump’s aides describe the anticipated campaign as an enforcement blitz that will leverage the power and resources of the U.S. military to roll back the effect of record numbers of illegal border crossings under President Joe Biden. Criminals and those with outstanding deportation orders will be the administration’s priority as of Trump’s inauguration, Jan. 20, aides say.
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U.S. Jobs, Investment, Economy, Pensions
New York Times, Richard Parsons, Serial Fixer of Media and Finance Giants, Dies at 76, Benjamin Mullin, Dec. 27, 2024 (print ed.). Mr. Parsons’s lengthy résumé is a catalog of corporate emergencies at Time Warner, Citigroup and the Los Angeles Clippers.
Richard D. Parsons, whose humane approach to business made him a serial troubleshooter at distressed companies such as Time Warner, CBS and Citigroup and a sought-after adviser at the highest echelons of American industry, died on Thursday at his Manhattan home. He was 76.
The cause was cancer, said Ronald S. Lauder, a member of the Estée Lauder board and one of Mr. Parsons’s oldest friends.
Mr. Parsons’s winding career tracked the biggest companies in American media and finance — and the biggest problems. Time and again, he stepped in when things looked catastrophic and put his smooth leadership style to work, disentangling Gordian knots and assuaging discontented shareholders.
Mr. Parsons, a jazz-loving oenophile who served on the board of the Apollo Theater and owned a Tuscan winery, rose to the top of the business world in an era when he was frequently the only Black executive in the boardroom. A self-described “Rockefeller Republican,” Mr. Parsons spoke out on social justice issues in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020, signed a letter protesting a 2021 law that imposed restrictions on Georgia voters and co-founded the Equity Alliance, a fund that backs early-stage ventures led by women and people of color.your times accessHave a moment? Play these games.
Mr. Parsons’s lengthy résumé is a catalog of corporate emergencies: He stanched losses at Dime Bancorp during the savings-and-loan crisis in the 1980s; cleaned up the disastrous merger of AOL and Time Warner after the dot-com bust at the turn of the century; stepped in at Citigroup as the banking colossus teetered after the 2007-8 financial crisis; served as CBS’s board chairman after its disgraced chief executive, Leslie Moonves, went to war with its controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone; and came out of semiretirement to steady the Los Angeles Clippers after their owner at the time, Donald Sterling, made racist remarks.
Throughout it all, Mr. Parsons deployed his easy manner and extensive Rolodex — he was an aide to Nelson A. Rockefeller, the former vice president and New York governor — to lead, charm and cajole his way out of tight corporate corners. In 2007, as Time Warner was crawling back from the brink of disaster, Mr. Parsons summed up his career during a steakhouse interview with The New York Times before ordering a second bottle of wine.
“I want my legacy to be simple: I left the place in good shape and in good hands,” he said.
His survivors include his wife, Laura (Bush), and their three children, Gregory, Leslie and Rebecca.
Richard Dean Parsons was born on April 4, 1948, in Brooklyn, N.Y., one of five children of Lorenzo, an electrical technician, and Isabelle. A huge fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Mr. Parsons soon moved reluctantly with his family to the Ozone Park neighborhood in Queens, where he was a precocious but somewhat indifferent student. An astronomy and physics enthusiast, he nearly blew up a friend’s house trying to make rocket fuel on the stove. He skipped two grades and graduated from high school at 16 before enrolling at the University of Hawaii on a whim.
“I put down University of Hawaii, not actually really knowing if there was one,” Mr. Parsons said in a 2008 interview with the Brooklyn Historical Society. “I just assumed there was. I had sat next to this girl in physics class who was from Hawaii who was just gorgeous.”
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Mr. Parsons was somewhat unprepared for college life when he arrived in Hawaii — he hadn’t made any lodging plans — but things fell into place quickly. After going broke within weeks, he learned to manage his money, settled on a major (history) and joined a fraternity.
Later in life, he would recall a conversation with one of his white fraternity brothers, who told Mr. Parsons that although he hadn’t had any Black friends growing up outside Detroit, he was able to bond with Mr. Parsons “because you’re different.”
“On reflection, I’ve thought, different than what, or different than whom?” Mr. Parsons said in an interview with Citigroup in 2021. “Was I different than his other Black friends? No, because he didn’t have any other Black friends. In fact, I was different from an image he had in his head of what Black people were supposed to be like.”
Mr. Parsons met Ms. Bush during his sophomore year at the university. She had come to his rescue during an English class for which he hadn’t done the reading. She eventually let him see the paper she was working on, Mr. Parsons said in a 2008 interview with PBS. They were soon married.ImageMr. Parsons stands behind Laura Parsons, resting his left hand on her left shoulder, at a formal gala.Mr. Parsons with his wife, Laura, in 2008. They met while students at the University of Hawaii. Credit...Joe Corrigan/Getty Images
Laura Parsons helped focus her husband. She dragged him out of bed the morning he was supposed to take his law school admission exams and guided him toward Albany Law School. He was admitted despite being several credits short of his undergraduate degree, and finished at the top of his class.
When he landed a job on Governor Rockefeller’s staff, it was a full-circle moment for the Parsons clan: Decades earlier, his grandfather had worked as the head groundskeeper at Kykuit, the Rockefeller estate in Pocantico Hills, N.Y. Mr. Parsons would go on to serve as the chair of the Rockefeller Foundation’s board of trustees.
When Mr. Rockefeller became vice president under President Gerald R. Ford, Mr. Parsons decamped to Washington, serving on Mr. Rockefeller’s legal team and on Mr. Ford’s Domestic Council. After his stint in the White House, Mr. Parsons moved back to New York and joined a prestigious law firm, Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler.
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New York Times, Opinion: Crony Capitalism Is Coming to America, Paul KrugmanThe Hartmann Report, The Great Dismantling: Trump’s Coming Attack on America’s Economic Backbone, Thom HartmannPolitico, DNC chair hits back at Sanders over party criticism: 'Straight up BS'
Energy, Transportation, Climate Change, Environment, Space
New York Times, Flood-Soaked Homeowners Face a Costly Choice: Raise or Raze, Gregory Barber, Dec. 29, 2024. As climate change intensifies, flooding is emerging as a threat for some homes. Some people are responding by lifting up their houses.
Hydraulic lifts, set in trenches dug under the foundation, push the house upward, a process so smooth that lifters are known to leave a vase standing in a window for dramatic effect. A new foundation is installed, along with elongated staircases and reworked wires and plumbing.
On a recent weekend, Albert Jasuwan, owner of JAS Builders, one of a few house-raising specialists in the Tampa Bay area, had three houses “in the air” and 22 more awaiting permits. “Mother Nature is giving us more than the ground can take,” Mr. Jasuwan said. Prices can range from $75 to $200 per square foot, depending on the home’s design. A typical Florida home built on a concrete slab may cost $400,000 to raise, though larger houses can exceed $1 million.
New York Times, A.I., the Electricians and the Boom Towns of Central Washington, Karen Weise, Photographs by Jovelle Tamayo, Dec. 25, 2024. The rural region is changing fast as electricians from around the U.S. plug the tech industry’s new, giant data centers into its ample power supply.
Washington Post, In the shadows of Arizona’s data center boom, thousands live without power, Pranshu Verma, Dec. 24, 2024 (print ed.). As data centers drain America’s power grids, a fierce battle is being waged for electricity. On Navajo Nation land, many are on the losing end.
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Media, High Tech, Culture, Education
New York Times, Investigation: The Men Who Use Instagram to Groom Child Influencers, Jennifer Valentino-DeVries and Michael H. Keller, Dec. 30, 2024. Photographers and other men offer to build online followings for young girls, but some are pedophiles who work with parents to sexualize them.Everyone had an idea about how the 12-year-old girl should pose in a G-string bikini as they assembled in an Airbnb rental home in a small Louisiana town.
The photographer was new to the business of shooting child influencers, so he welcomed suggestions, he later explained in an interview.
The girl’s mother, swiping through images of women from men's magazines on her phone, recommended that she stand with one leg raised provocatively on a bed, he recalled. The girl, he said, proposed imitating a scene from an erotic film she had watched — she would lie on her back with her hands grasping for the bedposts.
In the end, several shots positioned her “head on a pillow and her buttocks raised in the air,” and in one, the camera focused on her “barely covered” genitals. That was the description in court documents, written by federal authorities who charged the photographer and mother with crimes related to child sexual abuse material.
“We just provided what we knew that men wanted to purchase,” the photographer, Grant Durtschi, said by telephone from a jail outside Baton Rouge.
For the past year, The New York Times has been investigating how a drive for online fame has created a marketplace on Instagram of girl influencers who are managed by their parents — Instagram does not allow children under 13 to have their own accounts — and frequently draw an audience of men.
Some of the parents, like the Louisiana mother, develop monetary relationships with the men, selling them images of the girls. Others also offer chat sessions with them and even their worn leotards.
Those looking to supercharge their daughters’ online presence sometimes tap into an established network of men, The Times found, many of them convicted of sex crimes or accused of pedophilia, who participate in the grooming of children under the guise of working as social media professionals.
Among them was Mr. Durtschi, who pleaded guilty in March 2023 to producing child sexual abuse imagery, sometimes legally known as child pornography, during the photo shoot with the 12-year-old. He had been arrested a year earlier in San Francisco.
The men present themselves to parents — almost always mothers — as photographers, social media experts or web technicians who can create photo-selling sites for them. Some go even further, working with mothers to produce ever more sexualized content as they cultivate inappropriate relationships of their own with the daughters.
In rare cases, people like Mr. Durtschi and the 12-year-old’s mother are prosecuted. But The Times found multiple instances in which allegations of pedophilia and possible criminal conduct circulated widely in the child-influencer world or had been reported to law enforcement with no known consequences.
New York Times, Social Media Companies Face Global Tug-of-War Over Free Speech, Cecilia Kang and Adam Satariano, Dec. 30, 2024. Donald Trump’s picks for the F.C.C. and F.T.C. have vowed to remove censorship online. That conflicts with European regulators pushing for stricter moderation.
President-elect Donald J. Trump and his allies have vowed to squash an online “censorship cartel” of social media firms that they say targets conservatives.
Already, the president-elect’s newly chosen regulators at the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission have outlined plans to stop social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube from removing content the companies deem offensive — and punish advertisers that leave less restrictive platforms like X in protest of the lack of moderation.
“The censorship and advertising boycott cartel must end now!” Elon Musk, the owner of X, whom Mr. Trump has appointed to cut the federal budget, posted on his site last month.
In Europe, social media companies face the opposite problem. There, regulators accuse the platforms of being too lax about the information they host, including allowing posts that stoked political violence in Britain and spread hate in Germany and France.
Mr. Trump’s return to the White House is expected to widen the speech divide that has long existed between the United States and Europe, setting up parallel regulatory systems that tech policy experts say could influence elections, public health and public discourse. That’s putting social media companies in the middle of a global tug of war over how to police content on their sites.
“What you are seeing is conflicting laws emerging from the world’s democracies, and consumers in the end suffer,” said Kate Klonick, an associate professor of property and internet law at St. John’s University School of Law. The result could be a fractured internet experience where people see different content based on the laws where they live, she said.
Free speech is core to making America great, said Morgan Ackley, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump. “President Trump is committed to protecting this right for all Americans,” she added.
The cross-Atlantic regulatory clash stems from distinctly different global views on free speech. The United States, which has the First Amendment, also passed a law in 1996, known as Section 230, that shields companies from liability for content posted online — meaning it is largely up to social media sites to decide what to remove.
New York Times, Charles Dolan, Cablevision Founder Who Sat Atop a Media Empire, Dies at 98, Richard Goldstein, Dec. 29, 2024. His business choices were diverse and prolific: He founded HBO, bought Madison Square Garden and the New York Knicks, and took over a Long Island newspaper.
Charles F. Dolan, who bought a group of small cable TV systems on Long Island in 1973, merged them into a network he called Cablevision and amassed a fortune building an innovative communications, entertainment and sports empire that included HBO and Madison Square Garden and its professional teams, died on Saturday. He was 98.
A representative for Mr. Dolan’s family confirmed the death on Sunday in a statement, which did not say where he died.
Cablevision Systems Corporation had 1,500 customers when Mr. Dolan founded it. It was serving three million cable TV households in the New York metropolitan area and providing internet and digital telephone service when he reached a deal in September 2015 to sell it to Altice, a European media company, for $17.7 billion. Altice USA now runs it under the Optimum brand.
Mr. Dolan “helped establish cable television as an economic, social and cultural force in the United States during the final quarter of the 20th century,” Douglas Gomery, a mass communications scholar, wrote in the 2004 edition of “Encyclopedia of Television,” a publication of the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago.
The deal with Altice, completed in June 2016, included the Long Island-based Newsday and Mr. Dolan’s News 12 cable stations providing news from the New York metropolitan area. But the Dolan family regained control of Newsday two weeks later, buying back a 75 percent interest for an undisclosed sum.
In August 2018, Newsday announced that Mr. Dolan’s son Patrick, who had been the president and majority owner of the Newsday Media Group, had acquired the remaining shares to become the sole owner of Newsday. (Patrick Dolan continued as president of the News 12 stations when Altice obtained them from Cablevision, but later stepped down and was named a senior adviser of the network.)
The Dolan family also remains a powerful presence on the New York sports and entertainment scenes. It owns the Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corporation, which operates the arena; the Madison Square Garden Sports Corporation, whose properties include the arena’s teams, the Knicks and the Rangers; and the MSG sports-programming cable TV stations. All are run by Charles Dolan’s son James.
The Guardian, Trump’s threat to defund all US public media has NPR and PBS on the back foot, Cecilia Nowell, Dec. 28, 2024. President-elect’s agenda and Project 2025 playbook align in stripping Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s license.
On the campaign trail this year, Donald Trump routinely criticized US media. The president-elect called for CBS to be stripped of its broadcast license after it aired an interview with Kamala Harris, refused to participate in an interview with 60 Minutes and routinely called journalists the “enemy of the people”.
But perhaps no American media has attracted as much ire from the president-elect as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting – a non-profit corporation created by federal law in 1967 to distribute funding to public media organizations like PBS and NPR.
“NO MORE FUNDING FOR NPR, A TOTAL SCAM!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social in April. “THEY ARE A LIBERAL DISINFORMATION MACHINE. NOT ONE DOLLAR!!!”
As the Trump prepares to take office next month, public media organizations – such as NPR and PBS, which have aired longtime favorites such as Curious George and All Things Considered – are readying themselves for funding cuts and other attacks against their programming. After Trump was re-elected in November, NPR member stations circulated a report warning that “it would be unwise to assume that events will play out as they have in the past” where funding is concerned, the New York Times reported Friday, and PBS board members received an update from political consultants earlier this month.
Trump and his allies have repeatedly called for the federal government to cut all funding to public media. In March 2017, Trump called for Congress to cut all funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in the first proposed budget of his presidency – a call he repeated throughout his presidency.
In response to a 2020 effort to defund public media, the PBS president and CEO, Paula Kerger, issued a statement noting that “PBS and our member stations have earned bipartisan Congressional support because of the vital role that public television plays in homes and communities across the country. For 50 years, PBS has served as a trusted source for educational and thought-provoking programming, including school readiness initiatives for children, support for teachers and caregivers, public safety communications and lifelong learning across broadcast and digital platforms.”
But the conservative playbook Project 2025 has continued echoing conservative calls to cut funding to PBS and NPR, stating that the new Trump administration should strip public media of federal funding and licenses for noncommercial education stations.
“Not only is the federal government trillions of dollars in debt and unable to afford the more than half a billion dollars squandered on leftist opinion each year, but the government should not be compelling the conservative half of the country to pay for the suppression of its own views,” Mike Gonzalez, a Heritage Foundation senior fellow, wrote in the document, repeating a common conservative refrain that public media leans to the left.
In recent months, Trump allies such as Elon Musk have taken up the call to defund public media. In April 2023, NPR moved off Twitter after Musk labeled the news organization “state-affiliated media”, the same term it uses for propaganda outlets in Russia and China. After NPR quit the platform, Musk posted a tweet saying “Defund @NPR”.
In November, shortly after Trump won the 2024 presidential election, Musk coauthored an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal with Vivek Ramaswamy (the two have been tasked with leading a “department of government efficiency”, an agency Trump claims he will create). In it, the pair identified the $535m Congress allocates each year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as one line item they would cut to reduce federal expenditures. As recently as this week, Musk posted on X that “legacy media must die”.
Although these attacks against public media are growing more concerted, they’re not new. Every Republican administration has aimed to defund public media since the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was founded.
American public media traces its origins to the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, passed under Lyndon B Johnson’s administration. A public-private partnership, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting connects 1,190 public radio stations and 356 public television stations with federal grants, allowing those stations to maintain editorial independence and also raise funds from members and sponsorships. Today, 99% of the US population lives within listening range of at least one public media station.
Yet, the US spends considerably less on public media than its peer nations. A 2021 study from the University of Pennsylvania found that Germany spends $142.42 a person on its public media, Norway spends $110.73, the UK $81.30, and Spain $58.25, while the US spends just $3.16.
In 2005, while defending against a Bush administration attempt to defund public media, then representative Ed Markey said: “What parents and kids get from public TV is an incredible bargain. The question is not: ‘Can we afford it?’ but rather: ‘Can we afford to lose it?’”
Although Republican-sponsored bills to eliminate federal funding of public media are already before Congress (including the No Propaganda act and the Defund NPR act), two details may slow those efforts: the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is funded two years in advance and many local public media stations run emergency alerts, a crucial system that would have to be transferred elsewhere.
Efforts to defund public media are likely to affect local newsrooms the most in rural areas where Trump was the favored candidate, as federal grants can make up a significant portion of a member station’s budget.
“The most vulnerable stations serving the most vulnerable people are going to be the ones that are hurt the hardest,” Eric Nuzum, a former NPR executive and a co-founder of the audio consulting and production company Magnificent Noise, told the New York Times. “We’re talking about very rural parts of the United States.”
New York Times, Trump Urges Supreme Court to Pause TikTok Ban So He Can Weigh In, Adam Liptak, Dec. 27, 2024. President-elect Trump took no position on the app’s First Amendment challenge to the law, which sets a Jan. 19 deadline to sell or close the popular platform. President-elect Donald J. Trump filed an unusual brief on Friday asking the Supreme Court to block a law that requires TikTok to be sold or shut down by Jan. 19.
The deadline falls a day before Mr. Trump is to be inaugurated, and the brief asks the justices for the delay so that he may address the matter.
“President Trump opposes banning TikTok in the United States at this juncture,” the brief said, “and seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office.”
The brief took no position on the legal question that the justices are set to consider when they hear arguments in the case next month: whether Congress violated the First Amendment by effectively banning TikTok. Adopting a distinctive tone at odds with the sober and measured arguments more typical in Supreme Court advocacy, the brief instead touted Mr. Trump’s expertise.
“President Trump alone possesses the consummate deal-making expertise, the electoral mandate and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the government — concerns which President Trump himself has acknowledged,” the brief said.
Mr. Trump, the brief added, is particularly knowledgeable about social media in general and TikTok in particular.
“President Trump is one of the most powerful, prolific and influential users of social media in history,” the brief said. “Consistent with his commanding presence in this area, President Trump currently has 14.7 million followers on TikTok with whom he actively communicates, allowing him to evaluate TikTok’s importance as a unique medium for freedom of expression, including core political speech.” READ IN APP
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Andrew Kreig
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The Justice Integrity Project (JIP) researches official misconduct
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