We’re Solvent -- …to March 14, the date to which the 118^th Congress has kicked the can. Just after the federal government’s budget expired midnight Saturday morning, the Senate passed the “slimmed down” continuing resolution but without a provision to raise the debt ceiling in order to allow another Trump tax cut, by 85-11 vote. The Senate’s vote closely followed 366-34 passage by the House, Roll Call reports, easily surpassing the two-thirds threshold required under the chamber’s suspension of rules procedure. 

The bill is roughly 120 pages versus the first CR, at 1,547 pages, voted down last Wednesday. President Biden was to sign it Saturday. 

“Though this bill does not include everything Democrats fought for, there are major victories in this bill for American families,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), said before the final vote; “provide emergency aid for communities battered by natural disasters, no debt ceiling, and it will keep government open with no draconian cuts.”

The bill includes about $100 billion in disaster aid for victims of hurricanes Milton and Helene, and the 2023 Maui fires in Hawaii and a one-year extension of the farm bill. Removing the debt ceiling increase, which DOGE Czar Elon Musk and President-elect Trump wanted to happen during Biden’s lame-duck period was key for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).

“Everything else” in the bill “is a win for the American people, and the debt limit is out,” Jeffries said.

The CR gives the incoming 119^th Congress, with Republicans’ 53-47 majority, to March 14 before they reach the federal budget can once again.

--TL

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FRIDAY 12/20/24

Uh oh – Yeah, X-Twitter/Tesla/SpaceX/Nueralink-CEO/DOGE Czar/world’s-richest-man/Bond-villian/shadow-president Elon Musk’s sinking of the first of Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) continuing resolutions earlier this week has backfired. Thirty-eight House Republicans Thursday rejected Johnson’s second CR, slimmed-down and containing removal of the debt ceiling through the entire upcoming Trump administration. With all House Democrats joining the dissenting Republicans to vote it down, 174-235, we are headed for likely partial shutdown of the federal government after midnight Friday.

After a “marathon” of meetings in Speaker Johnson’s office Thursday, CQ Roll Call reports, the House suspended rules to push the second CR through with a two-thirds vote requirement. While the first failed CR would have suspended the debt ceiling until January 2 (Happy New Year!), yesterday’s failed CR would have suspended it to January 30, 2027, or 10 days after Trump’s successor is inaugurated. 

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) argued for sticking with the original CR deal.

But President-elect Trump was all over that second, “slimmed-down” CR even if 38 hardline otherwise heavy-MAGA House Republicans were not.

“Speaker Mike Johnson and the House have come to a very good Deal for the American People,” Trump truth socialed on Truth Social. (Though reeking of Trump’s signature superfluous capitalization, perhaps "Deal for the American People" can become the president-elect’s post-Reagan theme, like the “New Deal” or “Morning in America.”)

Democrats opposed the “slimmed down” CR with the four-plus year debt ceiling suspension because they fear the suspension would make it easy for Republicans to run roughshod over Congress with heavy tax cuts. Favoring the rich. Like Elon Musk.

--TL

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THURSDAY 12/19/24

Musk Xes CR – DOGE Czar Elon Musk put the kibosh on House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) bipartisan continuing resolution for the federal budget Wednesday, with a barrage of tweets to threaten a partial shutdown of the government at midnight Friday. President-elect Trump and veep-elect JD Vance issued a lengthy tweet – rather than a Truth Social post, interestingly – Wednesday calling Johnson’s CR deal “a betrayal of our country” and demanding Johnson raise the debt ceiling immediately so it’s under President Biden’s watch and yet ready for “Day One” of the new administration, according to Politico.

“Increasing the debt ceiling is not great but we’d rather do it on Biden’s watch,” Trump-Vance posted on X-Twitter.

It’s a sort of yang to the yin of Trump’s kibosh put on the bipartisan immigration bill earlier this year.

Thursday’s Politico Playbook notes that Trump likely wasn’t paying much attention to the CR, which would keep the federal lights on to March 14, until Musk stepped in.

Warren warns … Prior to the CR shutdown, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) emailed the Trump transition team to warn that Musk, the CEO and major stockholder of Tesla, SpaceX and Neuralink, among companies that have major contracts with the federal government, should sign an ethics pledge, she told NPR’s Morning Edition in a Wednesday interview. Warren told NPR’s Michel Martin that she warned of Musk’s violations of the Trump transition team’s own ethics rule. Trump spokesperson Carolyn Leavitt has responded on several news outlets, referring to Warren as “Pocahontas.”

On the bubble … Is Speaker Johnson still useful to Trump?

--TL

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THURSDAY 12/18/24

The Fed Speaks – And it’s upbeat about today’s economy, which means it likes what the Biden administration has done to try and normalize it since the COVID pandemic, along what it has done to tamper inflation.

To that point, the Fed’s Open Market Committee has “lowered the target range for the federal funds rate by ¼% to 4 ¼- to 4 ½%.” It’s the third cut this year in the Fed’s slow u-turn on steady increases in response to high coronavirus/post-coronavirus inflation. First cut was in September, by half a point, followed by a quarter-point cut in November. 

Chairman Jerome Powell signaled that as the Consumer Price Index has hovered closer to 3% than the Fed’s target of 2%, next year’s cuts will be more modest and less frequent than previously hinted at; maybe two in all of 2025. He said Wednesday’s quarter-point cut was far from a slam-dunk.

“Today was a close call, but we decided it was the right call. From here, it’s a new phase, and we’re going to be cautious about further cuts,” Powell said (per The Wall Street Journal). 

Indeed, 11 of the 12 FOMC members, including Powell and his vice chair John Williams voted for the cut, while member Beth Hammack preferred to maintain the 4 ½% to 4 ¾% rate range. 

Next year’s tepid outlook and conservatism over rate cuts sent the stock market to a major fall Wednesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average off 1,123 points, or -2.58%, to 42,326,87. 

How will Trump respond? … Citing high employment and strong GDP growth, Powell said, “again, the US economy has been just remarkable.” It is all but guaranteed the president-elect will take credit for the current economy. But what about next year’s economy, especially if the FOMC curbs interest rate cuts due to a return to rising inflation? 

Powell says he will not step down as Fed chair before his current term is up in 2026, just in time for the midterm elections. Perhaps this year’s rate cuts under Powell could be blamed for any rise in inflation next year?

As crypto creeps up … Then there is the question of crypto currency. Thanks to a push by the nation’s tech oligarchs and to his family’s establishment of its own crypto coin, Trump has flipped on the issue and now apparently wants to fill a virtual Fort Knox with the stuff. 

Asked by an Axios reporter at Wednesday’s FOMC press conference whether the Fed will look into buying up some of the coins for itself, Powell responded that it is not allowed.

“We’re not looking for a law change,” he said.

--TL

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WEDNESDAY 12/18/24

Hammer Time – Congress hammers out a kick-the-can plan to keep the federal lights on. Choose your continuing resolution cliché. Lawmakers have released a 1,547-page spending bill to fund the government past December 20 – that’s Friday, when Congress is scheduled to go home for the holidays – and on to March 14, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. 

The CR includes about $100 billion for federal funding to mitigate natural disasters, including the aftermath of hurricanes Milton and Helene, and the 2023 Maui fires in Hawaii. It would extend the five-year farm bill by one more year, rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore and allow Washington, D.C., to redevelop the 174-acre RFK Stadium site that has been fallow since 2019.

Prospects … The House Freedom Caucus objects to the CR’s “reckless spending,” but when push comes to shove, to utilize another cliché, the House and Senate will pass it this weekend in order to avoid a government shutdown. Then it will become freshly inaugurated President Trump’s problem, though of course he will have help from Republican majorities in both chambers for the 119^th Congress.

--TL

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TUESDAY 12/17/24

Russian Chemical Weapons Chief Killed – Ukrainian prosecutors have previously charged Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, head of the Russian Armed Forces’ radiation, chemical and biological defense troops with using banned chemical weapons in its war against Ukraine. On Tuesday, explosives attached to a scooter near a house in Moscow’s Ryazanky Prospect blew up, killing Kirillov and his aide, The Kyiv Independent reports, citing a source with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). 

The news outlet has not independently verified the report.

Question is … Will this sort of thing give Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy better leverage when he is forced to sit down with Donald J. Trump and Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the war?

•••

Got $200b? – There are questions of how SoftBank’s Mayoshi Son will raise the $100 billion over four years he has pledged to artificial intelligence and emerging technologies projects that will create 100,000 jobs in the US, in a joint announcement Monday with President-elect Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Mayoshi will either have to sell off some holdings or raise some two-thirds of that in new venture capital. Mayoshi has about $30 billion cash to invest, according to The Wall Street Journal. That didn’t stop Trump from negotiating upward.

“Would you make it $200 billion?” Trump said to Mayoshi. Art of the Deal-style negotiations, after all.

“I will try to make it happen,” Mayoshi replied, fighting the president-elect for the room’s oxygen.

“Alright, 200,” Trump dealt back. 

“He’s a great negotiator,” Mayoshi replied. Mission accomplished; Trump has captured the nation with the promise of job growth by a wily entrepreneur from Japan.

Second chance … Repeating history, not so much. Mayoshi pledged $50 billion to the nation for Trump’s first term, in December 2016 after securing the $100 billion from Middle Eastern countries for the SoftBank vision Fund. Mayoshi invested that in such high-profile flops as WeWork, the construction-focused company Katerra and a robot pizza-delivery company. 

The WSJ helpfully notes that such private backing of a new administration often fails to work out, pointing to a high-profile Trump announcement of a $10 billion, 13,000-job investment by FoxConn in a liquid crystal plant in Wisconsin in 2018. Despite heavy tax incentives from the state, it never happened.

--TL

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MONDAY 12/16/24

Trump 47, So Far – President-elect Trump and his team have sucked so much air out of the lame-duck Biden White House that it seems fair to ask; How is Trump 47 doing, so far? 

Trump was accompanied by both his choice for Defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and by his back-up for that cabinet post, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, at the Army-Navy game in Landover, Maryland, last Saturday. In the days leading up to the game, which Navy won 31-13, Team Trump clawed back so much support from skeptical Senate Republicans that it would be a wonder that DeSantis bothered to show up.

Except … in showing up, DeSantis seems to be taking a page from former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) who kissed Trump’s ring at Mar-a-Lago just one month after his second impeachment, for his (“alleged”) leadership of the mob at the Capitol on January 6,^, 2021. Trump has his reason for inviting the governor formerly known as Ron DeSanctimonius to the football game: The next president wants daughter-in-law Laura Trump to be appointed senator from Florida after Marco Rubio inevitably is confirmed to be the next secretary of state, according to The Washington Post, citing people familiar with the matter.

The price of eggs … Then there’s inflation, for which Trump apparently has lost confidence within himself in being able to turn into deflation with a wave of the executive order drill-baby-drill wand, in this case to make the US the world’s biggest oil producer, up from its current position as world’s largest oil producer. 

“It’s hard to bring things down once they are up,” Trump told Time magazine in its cover story naming him Person of the Year. “You know, it’s very hard.”

This raises a couple of points:

1. No matter what you think of Trump’s snagging of Time’s once-vaunted Person of the Year award, it was rather brilliant of the magazine’s editors to get a comprehensive interview with the president-elect out of it.
2. Biden, as well as the Harris/Walz campaign had tried in vain to convince voters that the inflation rate is coming down – that is, prices still go up, but closer to the ideal rate of 2% per year – and that it rose past 9% a couple of years ago because of the COVID-19 pandemic and Trump 45’s weak response. Not to mention bird flu affecting chickens’ egg production (coffee is next, thanks to the way climate change has affected beans in Brazil and Vietnam).

Meanwhile … Next up as Team Trump continues to push for Senate Republican support for Hegseth as Defense secretary, the president-elect’s pick for Health and Human Service secretary, anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., meets with 20 GOP senators this week to argue for his cause, NPR reports.

•••

Another Win for Trump – How bad, how ominous, is ABC News’ $15 million settlement with Donald J. Trump over the differences in New York state law between the words “rape” and “sexual abuse”? 

ABC’s George Stephanopoulos used the word “rape” in referring to E. Jean Carroll’s successful libel suit against the former and future president, in a contentious interview on This Week with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), a former Trump critic-turned-supporter who had earlier revealed she had been raped as a teenager. The judge in the case had said “pointedly” that Trump was found liable for what he did for what Americans would commonly call “rape” but was technically considered sexual abuse under New York State law according to NPR media reporter David Folkenflik, speaking on Morning Edition. 

In addition, Folkenflik noted, ABC News and Stephanopoulos should have been given wide latitude in Trump’s defamation suit had they let it go to court, because Trump is a public figure. ABC News will contribute $15 million to Trump’s presidential library and post a “statement of regret.”

In The Bulwark, a never-Trumper center-right publication, William Kristol warns that ABC News’ – or perhaps more pointedly, its owner Disney’s – easy capitulation is a clear sign that the president-elect, and such Trump acolytes as his planned appointment for FBI director, Kash Patel will aggressively go after media outlets whom they feel have aggrieved Trump.

“I really shouldn’t be the one to do it,” Trump said at a Mar-a-Lago presser Monday. “It should be the Justice Department … or someone else. But I have to do it.”

In the wide-ranging press conference, Trump repeated his vow to sue pollster Ann Selzer for a “bombshell” report in the Des Moines Register showing him behind Vice President Kamala Harris in Iowa, and said he would sue CBS News’ 60 Minutes for its alleged edit of an interview with Harris ahead of the election, and the Pulitzer Prizes for awarding The Washington Post and The New York Times for their coverage of what he calls the 2016 Russian election interference “hoax” (per Mediaite).  

In other words, regarding that threatened suit against the Pulitzers, “Russia, Russia, Russia.” … Which, after all, Vladimir Putin assured Trump was not Russia, at their 2018 meeting in Helsinki.

•••

The Next Joe Manchin? – Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) joined Donald J. Trump’s Truth Social last Tuesday, and promptly used the social media platform to call for a pardon for the president-elect over his conviction in a New York State court on charges he falsified business records.

“The Trump hush money and Hunter Biden cases were both ******** and pardons are appropriate,” Fetterman said on Truth Social Tuesday evening, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Since November 5^th, Fetterman has expressed support for some of the president-elect’s cabinet and department-head choices, and says he admires Trump’s new right-hand man, Tesla/SpaceX/X-Twitter CEO Elon Musk.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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MONDAY 12/16/24

Prices rose 0.3% month-over-month in November after 0.2% increases each month from July to October, the Labor Department reports, for an annual Consumer Price Index of 2.7%, up from a 2.6% rate in October. Shelter was up 0.3% in November, to account for nearly 40% of increases, and food was up 0.4%. [Bureau of Labor Statistics chart]

FRIDAY 12/13/24

Give America Polio Again? – As much fear as there is in many political corners of the potential effect on the nation of mass immigrant deportation, or across-the-board tariffs under the incoming Trump administration, the appointment of two ex-Democrats maybe triggering the most angst. 

There’s Tulsi Gabbard, with whom Senate Democrats refused to meet earlier this week to discuss her nomination to be Trump’s director of national intelligence, according to Real Clear Politics. Gabbard quit her House seat as a Democrat from Hawaii in 2022 and called her former party “an elitist cabal of warmongers.” She previously had met twice with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2017, three years before her unsuccessful run for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Then there’s Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s attorney, Aaron Siri, who is helping the Health and Human Services secretary nominee to choose federal officers. The New York Times reports that Siri has petitioned the government to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine, which has been saving lives since 1955, as well as 13 other vaccines. Siri has also challenged, and in some cases killed COVID mandates across the US, sued federal agencies to disclose vaccine approval research and subjected prominent vaccine scientists to “grueling” videotaped depositions.

•••

Dem Antipathy for Sinema, Manchin – Senate Democrats are “livid” over the votes of Krysten Sinema (I-AZ) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) that sunk President Biden’s renomination of Lauren McFarren to the National Relations Labor Board, The Hill reports. Blocking McFarren’s re-appointment and handing Republicans the five-member NLRB’s majority was described by Democrats as “pathetic” and “disappointing.” Had either senator, who had regularly caucused with the Democrats, voted “yes” to McFarren, her re-appointment would have likely passed 50 to 49. 

“I think people are not sorry to see them go,” one anonymous Democratic senator told The Hill, of Sinema and Manchin.

“Millions of working people across the country will pay the price for their actions,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

•••

Sixty-Three More Fed Judges – President Biden is threatening to veto a bill the House passed Wednesday that would create 63 new federal judgeships, the first expansion in decades, between 2025 and 2035, in order to ease a backlog in the federal court system, CQ Roll Call reports. The House passed the bill 236-173, with 29 Democrats joining 209 Republicans this week, after the Senate approved the measure by unanimous consent in August. 

Obviously, the incoming Trump administration would get the first serious shot at nominating new federal judges, with at least two-years support from the GOP Senate majority.

•••

Lake for VoA? – President-elect Trump’s naming on Truth Social of twice-failed Arizona MAGA candidate Kari Lake to lead the Voice of America may not go very far. Lake, a former television news anchor herself, has vowed to be reporters’ “worst nightmare,” according to Vanity Fair. But the incoming Trump administration’s apparent plan to turn VoA into its own international propaganda arm runs into a 2020 rule issued to prevent the head of the US Agency for Global Media from hiring or firing a VoA chief without approval by the International Broadcasting Advisory Board, according to The New Republic.

--TL

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THURSDAY 12/12/24

Timing is Key – President-elect Trump rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange Thursday morning (per NPR), something he never got to do when he was 45^th president. Seems to be a sign of how the business and finance world has eased into an obvious embrace of Donald J. Trump’s specific brand of anti-regulation, populist Republicanism. 

Meanwhile … Trump is Time’s 2024 Person of the Year; “For marshalling a comeback of historic proportions, for driving a once-in-a-generation political realignment, for reshaping the American presidency and altering America’s role in the world… ” 

•••

Biden Clemencies – Described as the largest-single act of clemency in modern history, President Biden has commuted about 1,500 people while also issuing 39 more presidential pardons. The commutations release US citizens convicted of non-violent crimes, mostly drug charges who have shown “successful rehabilitation,” according to The Independent.

The Biden White House promised to continue reviewing clemency petitions to “advance equal justice” and “provide meaningful second chances” before January 20. 

“America was built on the promise of possibility of second chances,” Biden said in a White House statement. 

•••

Wray Down and Out – He certainly is no J. Edgar Hoover, who founded the FBI in 1935 and served as its director up to his death in 1972. Christopher Wray will even fall short as director of the FBI, of matching the life of Quinn Martin’s original, The FBI, which brought real cases to television from 1965 to 1974. 

Christopher Wray announced he is stepping down as FBI director ahead of President-elect Trump’s inauguration next month, seven years into his 10-year term, to make way for Kash Patel.

“After weeks of careful thought, I’ve decided the right thing for the bureau is for me to serve until the end of the current administration in January and then step down,” Wray told colleagues Wednesday at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. (per Politico). 

Then-first term President Trump appointed Wray to be FBI director in 2017, but the two quickly got sideways. That culminated in the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago for classified documents Trump kept after he left office. (The search, on August 8, 2022, coincidentally was the 48^th anniversary of President Nixon’s resignation over Watergate.)

“The resignation of Christopher Wray is a great day for America,” Trump wrote on Truth Social with his signature capitalization, “as it will end the Weaponization of what has become known as the United States Department of Injustice. I just don’t know what happened to him.”

•••

Meta Million for Trump – Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago after the November 5 election almost recalls the visit in February 2021 by then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), which began to flip then-ex-President Trump’s post-January 6^th political fortunes. Zuckerberg and Meta’s Facebook had never been connected with the Trump camp – until now. With Elon Musk leading a cadre of Silicon Valley billionaires toward MAGA, Zuckerberg’s Meta confirmed to various news outlets Wednesday it has donated $1 million to President-elect Trump’s inaugural fund, Forbes reports. 

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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THURSDAY 12/12/24

Kristen Welker interviewed President-elect Trump at Trump Tower Friday for Sunday's Meet the Press. (Scroll down with the center trackbar for details.) [NBC News]

WEDNESDAY 12/11/24

Trump’s Laissez-Faire FTC Pick – President-elect Trump Tuesday selected Andrew Ferguson to lead the Federal Trade Commission, The Wall Street Journal reports, noting he “is likely to abandon the Biden administration’s liberal approach to policing mergers while keeping the heat on big technology companies.” Ferguson is one of two Republicans on the five-member commission and will replace Lina Kahn, described in the WSJ report as a “progressive hero who sought to flex the FTC’s enforcement muscle in ways not seen in decades.”

The one issue we have with the WSJ’s report is the assertion Ferguson will keep “the heat” on Big Tech, which is ready to move into the White House with Trump – while he frees the reins of bitcoin -- and is led by Department of Government Efficiency chiefs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

Food fight … Speaking of FTC chair Kahn, she may count as a departing victory denial of the $24.6 billion merger of the Kroger and the Albertsons grocery store chains by a federal judge and a King County, Washington, judge. The FTC argued the merger would have raised prices by eliminating competition, and weaken union bargaining power, Forbes reports. 

The two grocery chains had argued their bigger competition comes from Walmart, Costco and Amazon. Merger plans would have sold off a combined 579 stores nationwide to “preserve competition.”

The two had spent $1 billion on the merger, which could have been used to lower food prices, Capitalist Tool Forbes notes.

Meanwhile … Albertsons now is suing Kroger for failing to do enough to secure regulatory approval, The Associated Press reports.

•••

Prosaic Injustice – A federal bankruptcy judge late Tuesday rejected The Onion owner Global Tetrahedron’s winning bid for Alex Jones’ Infowars, NPR reports, saying the sealed-bid auction lacked transparency and left money on the table for Sandy Hook shooting victims who are owed $1.4 billion from their defamation case against Jones. Judge Christopher Lopez’s ruling came just four days before the 12^th anniversary of the Sandy Hook, which took the lives 26 children and educators in Newtown, Connecticut.

Far-right conspiracy theorist Jones made claims the shooting was a “staged” TV event, which resulted in harassment of the victims’ families by Infowars followers. Global Tetrahedron had plans to re-establish Infowars in January as a sort of Colbert Report-style parody of right-wing conspiracies. 

Global Tetrahedron CEO Ben Collins said in a message to NPR’s Morning Edition that The Onion’s parent “will continue to work to purchase Infowars.”

Global Tetrahedron’s $1.75-million bid had the backing of Everytown for Gun Safety, and was valued at $7 million, including Sandy Hook victims’ families who backed Global Tetrahedron’s bid with potential earnings from the defamation judgment against Jones toward the purchase. 

The losing bid of $3.5 million was by First United American Companies, which is connected to Alex Jones. 

“We can celebrate the judge doing the right thing,” Jones said late Tuesday on Infowars.

--TL

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TUESDAY 12/10/24

Netanyahu on Trial – Eight years after police began investigating Israel’s longest-serving prime minister and four year after his trial began, Benjamin Netanyahu took to the stand Tuesday in Tel Aviv facing charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Meanwhile, Netanyahu continues to oversee Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, occupation of Southern Lebanon and recent air strikes against Syria, The New York Times notes. 

On the stand, Netanyahu minimized cases against him and focused on his legacy as Israel’s protector, according to Haaretz. The prime minister has claimed the trial is a “deep state witch hunt” designed to topple Israel’s right-wing rule. 

•••

Hegseth Rising – President-elect Trump’s allies in the Senate appear more amenable to confirming Pete Hegseth as Defense secretary, Politico reports, including Sen. Joni Ernst, who appeared “more open” to the nominee after meeting with Hegseth a second time Monday, though the Iowa Republican did not explicitly say she’s support him. The notion of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as a backup nominee apparently is off, as Trump has employed his signature modus operandi of making life “extremely uncomfortable” for “anyone who dares oppose him,” according to Politico’s report.

•••

Bad News for Ukraine – The House Republican Steering Committee Monday recommended Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), an opponent of US aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia, to be the next chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, CQ Roll Call reports. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) made the surprise announcement. Roll Call describes Mast as an Army veteran “with a sharp tongue and grievance politics.”

--TL

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MONDAY 12/9/24

Syria Frees Itself – … with help. The US maintains about 900 troops in Syria and struck Islamic State targets there, after the mostly peaceful and orderly ouster of brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad Saturday, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. President Biden said the US will maintain its presence to protect Syrian citizens as they try to put together a new government. That leaves open the question of whether the US will continue that in-country support after January 20.

The issue here is that the liberating force that first took over Aleppo last week, then moved on to the capital, Damascus, from where Assad has since escaped to Moscow, was Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which the US still considers a terrorist group. HTS disavowed ties to al-Qaida in 2016. 

Assad’s brutal regime, which turned back the Arab Spring attempted peaceful revolution of 2011 and whose army killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in 2013 according to the UN, was propped up by Iran and Russia and lost much of that support in recent months as Iran fought Israel via Hezbollah and Russia invaded Ukraine.

•••

Habba to White House – President-elect Trump Sunday named his personal attorney and “fierce media surrogate,” Alina Habba to be White House counsel, The Hill reports. No doubt her many television appearances in defense of Trump over the summer did not hurt. Habba represented Trump in New York Attorney Gen. Letitia James’ civil fraud trial, which resulted in a nearly half-billion-dollar judgment against Trump (which now may be reversed) and in former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll’s defamation and sexual assault lawsuit.

•••

Trump’s Retribution Coming? – That, apparently, is up to President-elect Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, and his nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel. Asked by NBC News’ Kristen Felker in her exclusive interview on Meet the Press whether Trump would direct the Justice Department and FBI to punish members of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^th Attack on the United States Capitol (a long title we may never forget), the once and future president said; “No, not at all. I think they’ll have to look at that, but I’m not going to -- I’m going to focus on drill, baby, drill.”

So, there’s that oil production promise in the name of lower fuel prices. Trump told Welker he planned to make a lot of economic moves on day one, and that he still finds “tariff” the most beautiful English word, though he is uncertain whether he could “guarantee American families won’t pay more” as a result of them. 

Trump followed that up by getting all existential about it, adding “I can’t guarantee anything. I can’t guarantee tomorrow.” 

He said he intends to end birthright citizenship and that he may deport legal US citizens who have illegal family members. Also, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary-elect will investigate the discredited association between vaccines and autism.

Trump will “most likely pardon” 1/6 Capitol rioters. He won’t fire Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell (whose term is up in 2026, so this is simply not an economic priority so long as the Fed doesn’t significantly increase interest rates). And Trump believes Pete Hegseth can be confirmed as Defense secretary.

Kinzinger responds … “If Donald wants to pursue this vindictive fantasy, I say bring it on,” ex-Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), one of two members of the House Select Committee on the January 6^th Capitol Attack writes in his Substack newsletter. “I’m not intimidated by a man whose actions on January 6^th showed a cowardly disregard for democracy and the rule of law.”

--Contributed and edited by Todd Lassa

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MONDAY 12/9/24

No false equivalencies. No echo chambers. A fact-based center column with civil discussion from the left, liberals and progressives in the left column and anti- and pro-Trump conservatives in the right column. 

Help us make The Hustings a space to escape the misinformation, disinformation and outright conspiracy theories that infest such social media sites as X/Twitter and Facebook. 

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Questions for This Week

•The Hill counts 11 times that President Biden said publicly he would not pardon his son, Hunter, before announcing Sunday that he would pardon his son, Hunter. What are your thoughts about Biden’s about-face? (In his first administration, President Trump pardoned his daughter's father-in-law, Charles Kushner, who now is the president-elect's choice for US ambassador to France.)

•After coordinating a 60-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, which Israel has been fighting in southern Lebanon, what are the chances the Biden administration can reach a similar agreement between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, before President-elect Trump’s January 20 inauguration?

•Your thoughts on President-elect Trump’s naming uber-MAGAist Kash Patel to replace Christopher Wray as FBI director?

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MONDAY 12/2/24

The economy added a healthy 227,000 jobs in November, the Labor Department reports, with an unemployment rate of 4.2%. That’s up slightly from 4.1% in September and October, though new jobs in October were stifled by hurricanes Helene and Milton, and by a strike at aircraft manufacturer Boeing. November job growth was strongest in health care, leisure and hospitality, government and social assistance, while the retail trade lost jobs. CHART: Bureau of Labor Statistics.

FRIDAY 12/6/24

Notre Dame Reopens – President-elect Trump will attend opening ceremonies for Notre Dame in Paris, The Guardian reports, as well as President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Trump has found a European ally in French President Emmanuel Macron, who has taken credit for Notre Dame’s deadline-beating five-year reconstruction following a severe fire at the cathedral. 

Macron is on the political ropes, however, for a looming budget crisis. Earlier this week, an unlikely coalition of hard-left and hard-right lawmakers removed Macron’s hand-picked prime minister, Michel Barnier, in the nation’s first successful vote of no-confidence since 1962.

•••

CBP Director Named – President-elect Trump named in a statement released Thursday former US Border Patrol chief Rodney Scott to lead Customs and Border Protection, according to NPR’s Morning Edition. Scott served the Trump 45 and Biden administrations for 19 months as Border Patrol head, implementing key border enforcement policies Title 42 and the Migrant Protection Protocol, a.k.a. “Remain in Mexico.” 

CPB has more than 600,000 employees covering more than 300 airport, seaport and land border points of entry.

•••

Buying With Crypto – Venture capitalist David Sacks, who worked with Elon Musk more than two decades ago at PayPal, is the president-elect’s choice for White House AI & Crypto czar, Donald J. Trump announced on his Truth Social, according to The Wall Street Journal, which notes that Sacks hosted a June fundraiser in San Francisco for the Trump campaign, raising more than $12 million. Musk and Vice President-elect JD Vance congratulated Sacks on Musk’s X-Twitter.

--TL

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...meanwhile...

THURSDAY 12/5/24

Pre-Emptive Pardons Pondered – The Biden White House is said to be considering pardons for President-elect Trump’s known enemies, “senior Democrats familiar with discussions” have told Politico. The list includes Sen.-elect Adam Schiff (D-CA), former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases chief Anthony Fauci and, of course, former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), who was lead Republican on the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^th Attack on the United States Capitol. 

And yes, in case you were wondering, if Trump’s choice for FBI director, Kash Patel, and/or his choice for attorney general, Pam Bondi, were to target any of these individuals, it would be a sign our democracy indeed is faltering. 

•••

Hegseth Won’t Back Down – Allegations of serious misogyny and an excessive drinking problem aren’t affecting former Fox & Friends Weekend host Pete Hegseth’s resolve in becoming the next Trump administration’s Defense secretary. 

“I spoke to the president this morning, he supports me fully,” Hegseth said Wednesday after meeting with incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), according to The Wall Street Journal, which earlier this week broke the story that Team Trump is now in negotiations with Ron DeSantis to make the Florida governor the president-elect’s nominee, instead. “We’re not going anywhere.”

•••

Two More Named – Per Politico, President-elect Trump Wednesday named former senator from Georgia Kelly Loeffler – who lost to Democrat Raphael Warnock in 2020 – to head the Small Business Administration. Loeffler serves as co-chair of Trump’s second inaugural committee. More intriguingly, Loeffler is former CEO of Bakkt, a commodity and cryptocurrency platform in talks to be purchased by Trump’s Truth Social platform. 

Trump also named to run the Social Security Administration Frank Bisignano, CEO of fintech and payments company Fiserv.

--TL

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Florida Men (and Women) – Donald J. Trump is looking at replacing ex-Fox News personality Pete Hegseth with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as his choice for Defense secretary, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing “people familiar with the discussions.” Hegseth has been the subject of deep scrutiny over his personal life -- including reports of a 2017 sexual assault allegation which he paid for to keep secret -- since Trump named him as the man he wants to lead the Pentagon.

Trump and DeSantis visited a memorial service together in Palm Beach, Florida, Tuesday, for fallen law enforcement, according to the report. 

DeSantis, aka “DeSanctimonious,” drew Trump’s ire when he challenged the former and future president for the GOP nomination early this year. Some of the closest members of Trump’s inner-circle are said to oppose making the Florida governor Hegseth’s replacement-nominee. DeSantis is a former US Navy attorney who served at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

If Trump chooses DeSantis, which would happen within a couple of days as Hegseth’s personal life remains pinned under a microscope, it would accelerate the game of musical chairs being played by the Florida GOP. DeSantis already has the task of replacing Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who faces near-certain Senate confirmation as Trump’s choice for secretary of state. Trump’s closest loyalists want DeSantis to name the president-elect’s daughter-in-law and co-chair of the Republican National Convention, Lara Trump, as Rubio’s replacement, the WSJ says. 

Then there’s Florida’s governor’s office, which presumably would go to Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez (R). DeSantis is term-limited from running for governor again in 2026, and there has been speculation that former Trump attorney general nominee and former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) will run after next year.

•••

Briefing Room Shuffle? – The incoming Trump administration is looking at clearing out the White House James Brady Briefing Room of news outlets that are not loyal to the president-elect, The Hill reports. Outlets including NBC News, CBS News, ABC News and Reuters, which traditionally have seats in the front row along with Fox News, and in the second row The Wall Street Journal, CBS News Radio, NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Bloomberg News would be replaced by podcasters, internet personalities and media “deemed more friendly” to Trump, according to The Hill, which traditionally is in the fourth row. 

“It would be a total mess,” a White House reporter told The Hill. “I would expect people would probably boycott the briefings, though that would put certain outlets in a tough spot deciding if they want to go along with what the people are trying to pull.”

--TL

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...meanwhile...

TUESDAY 12/3/24

Martial Law in South Korea – Yoon Suk Yeol, president of South Korea declared an “emergency martial law” on TV overnight, accusing opposition forces of an “insurgency” and of trying to control parliament, sympathizing with North Korea and paralyzing his government with “anti-state activities” (per BBC, AP and The New York Times). It’s the first declaration of martial law in South Korea since 1980, the BBC reports. One source told the BBC the streets of Seoul are quiet, but “The people here certainly look bewildered.”

Netanyahu’s playbook? … In his television address, Yoon accused those government opposition forces of “trying to overthrow the free democracy.” President since 2022, Yoon has been facing potential impeachment amid calls for independent investigations of scandals involving his wife and top officials.

•••

Advances Against Assad – Rebel group Haý at Tahrir al-Sham has taken over Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, and are advancing on the capital of Damascus in an uprising that began last week after nearly 14 years of civil war, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. Fighting between rebels and President Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian Armed Forces had been halted by a 2020 cease-fire. Assad’s allies Iran and Russia have had to divert military assistance to the Hezbollah-Israeli conflict and war in Ukraine, respectively, the last US ambassador to Syria (2011-14), Robert Ford, told NPR’s Leila Fadel.

So the Russian-Syrian connection could have implications for Ukraine after President-elect Trump takes office next month.

But Atlantic Council non-resident fellow Omer Ozkizilcik believes Russia will make Ukraine, and not Syria, its priority.

“I do highly doubt that Russia will accept to stall its advance in Ukraine, in the battlefield, for protecting the Assad regime in Syria,” Ozkizilcik told Al Jazeera. “And it’s very unlikely for the Russians to step up and rescue the Assad regime.”

•••

No Payout, Yet, for Musk – Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, the Delaware judge who negated Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s multi-billion-dollar pay package last January, Monday ordered the package to be rescinded after shareholders voted its approval, The Wall Street Journal reports. McCormick said she was not swayed by shareholder approval coming after her January ruling, saying directors were beholden to Musk, and that the approval was “tainted” and lacks transparency.

Jumping for Trump … Musk’s stock-option pay package was valued at roughly $44-45 billion early this year. But Tesla shares have rallied since Donald J. Trump’s presidential election victory November 5 and Musk’s package is currently valued at $55.8 billion, according to the WSJ.

•••

Oxford Word of the Year – Is “brain rot” (though we count two words). Sure. Why not?

--TL

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While We've Been Feasting

MONDAY 12/2/24

Art of Ukraine’s NATO Deal – With the threat of President-elect Trump’s plan to end the Russian-Ukraine war on Day One looming over the invaded country, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week suggested that perhaps it’s time to fast-track Ukraine into NATO membership, at the alliance’s Foreign Ministerial meeting Tuesday and Wednesday. The plan outlined by Zelenskyy would end the “hot phase” of the war in exchange for NATO membership. It would not immediately include territories already occupied by Russia. 

“We understand that Article 5, when you’re a member of NATO, cannot apply to the entire territory of Ukraine during wartime, as countries are against the risks of being drawn into war,” Zelenskyy said at a news conference with Antonio Costa, the new president of the European Council, The Kyiv Independent reports.

•••

Biden’s Last Victory? – Israel signed a 60-day cease-fire with Hezbollah, in which it will gradually withdraw its forces from Lebanon, and Hezbollah will not entrench itself near the Israeli border, according to The New York Times. More to come … and as always, your opinions and perspectives are welcome. Email editors@thehustings.news and please indicate your political leanings in the subject line.

•••

He Is Trump’s Retribution – While noise from the opposition to Trump nominees ex-Rep. Matt Gaetz (withdrawn) for attorney general, Peter Hegseth for Defense secretary and Orbánophile Sebastian Gorka as administrative assistant to the president nearly drowns each other out, controversy is hitting new heights with the president-elect’s choice for FBI director. Donald J. Trump has named one of his most loyal followers, Kash Patel, to replace Christopher Wray as FBI director. Trump appointed Wray seven years ago, which means the incoming president wants him removed with three years left in his term.

What would happen to the FBI under Patel? It seems the entire Trump administration will be quite busy on “day one.”

“I’d shut down the FBI Hoover building on day one and then reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state,” he said, according to NBC News. 

Short-lived Trump administration National Security Advisor John Bolton reacted in this statement to NBC News’ Meet the Press: “Trump has nominated Kash Patel to be his Lavrentiy Beria,” a reference to Stalin’s much-feared secret police chief. “Fortunately, the FBI is not the NKVD. The Senate should reject the nomination 100-0.”

Nepo in-laws … Last Saturday, Trump appointed Charles Kushner, father of son-in-law Jared, to be US ambassador to France, and Massad Boulos, the Lebanese-American father-in-law of Tiffany Trump, to be senior advisor of Arab and Middle-Eastern affairs (per The Forward). 

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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MONDAY 12/2/24

Before we take a week off for Thanksgiving, let’s get you caught up with President-elect Trump’s picks for his cabinet, and other key appointments. Trump named the following on Friday …

Requires Senate Confirmation

•Labor secretary – Lori Chavez-DeRemer

•CIA director – John Ratcliffe

•Environmental Protection Agency director – Lee Zeldin 

•Treasury secretary – Scott Bessent

•Agriculture secretary – Brooke Rollins

•Commerce – Howard Lutnick

•Food and Drug Administration director – Martin A. Makary

•North Atlantic Treaty Organization ambassador – Matthew G. Whitaker

•Housing secretary – Scott Turner

•Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director – Dave Welden

•Surgeon General – Janette Nesheiwat

•Office of Management and Budget director – Russell T. Vought

No Senate Confirmation

•Deputy Chiefs of Staff --  James Blair, Taylor Budowich, Stephen Miller, Dan Scavino

•Border czar – Thomas Homan

•National Security Advisor – Michael Waltz

•White House Council – Bill McGinley

•Communication director – Steven Cheung

•Press secretary – Karoline Leavitt

•Staff secretary – Will Scharf

•Personnel – Sergio Gor

•Federal Communications Commission chair – Brendan Carr

•Deputy National Security advisor – Alex Wong

•Deputy assistant to the president – Sebastian Gorka

--TL

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Thanksgiving Wk 2024