WHY ISN’T THIS MAN SMILING? – Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) will force a House vote during its lame-duck session this week, to impeach war/Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth (pictured).
•Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay says Pete Hegseth must go … read his commentary in The Gray Area.
Lame Duck Begins – The post-midterm lame duck session of the 119th Congress begins this week with the Senate working Tuesday through Thursday, and the House working Tuesday and Thursday, with Wednesday off for Veterans Day. Senate Republicans were returning to Capitol Hill Monday “furious with President Trump, whom they blame for last week’s big losses” in both chambers, according to The Hill.
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Short Honeymoon – President Trump told Fox News late last Tuesday he would wield the power of the veto, then Wednesday told White House reporters he would try to work with Democrats, in a sort of Reagan comes to Tip O’Neil manner, then accepted Susie Wiles’ resignation Friday and named Stephen Miller her replacement as his chief of staff.
But first … Reuters reported that if Democrats took control of the House and Senate -- which happens in January -- Trump would hand the reins to Miller and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, chief architect of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, based on the Unified Executive Theory to hand domination over the judicial and legislative branches to the president.
Crossing Miller … House Speaker for the 120th Congress Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) does not expect to work with the White House under new Chief of Staff Stephen Miller the way he sometimes communicated with just-fired Chief of Staff (she’s moving to Trump’s political operations) Susie Wiles.
“It’s not going to happen with this chief of staff, in the sense he lasts,” Jeffries told Jonathan Karl on ABC News This Week with George Stephanopolous.
We’re pretty sure Miller will be White House chief of staff right up to the end of Trump’s second term, January 20, 2029.
Jeffries did duck Karl’s pressing question of how the Democratic controlled House and Senate might pass serious legislation in the face of Trump’s veto threats. The incoming speaker instead referred to his party’s overwhelming wins last Tuesday and its quest to carry out the will of the people.
An ‘oops’ from Trump? … Finally, in a CBS News 60 Minutes interview with former New York Times conservative op-ed columnist Ross Douthat, Trump admitted his war on Iran had much to do with last Tuesday’s GOP drubbing, but added with an “emphatic yes” he would go to war with Iran again.
The “oops” comes in when discussing his immigrant deportation policy.
“I think it was too tough,” he told Douthat. His policy, using an often-unbadged state police force that deported many immigrants to third countries, who often had no criminal record “both helped and hurt” his popularity with the American public.
“I think I got an A+ for closing up the border,” Trump said.
He did not grade himself for myriad shootings by ICE agents, including the fatal shootings of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddleford, Maine and of protesters Renée Good and Alex Preti in Minneapolis.
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Honey Trap? – Artificial Intelligence industry leader Nvidia has begun an investigation into an alleged plot to trap its CEO into reveal intel to a Chinese executive allegedly recruited by her country’s Ministry of State Security and potentially influence the company to make its most advanced chips available to China, people briefed on the intelligence told The New York Times. A memo describing the alleged plot was circulated among Trump administration policymakers last spring that Alice Huang was tapped by China's MSS to collect the intel, according to the report.
The nature of the alleged plot is what John Le Carré’s George Smiley would call a “honey trap.” CEO Huang has issued a public apology to his wife over an intimate relationship with Alice Huang, whose company, Megaspeed, began a multibillion-dollar purchase of advanced AI chips in 2024, about the time the two were photographed together at a Taipei bar.
"To many in the industry, the well-funded push by Megaspeed into AI appeared to come out of nowhere," the NYT reports.
"I was unfaithful to my wife," Huang wrote in a memo to Nvidia employees Sunday (NYT, again). "My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry."
As chief of the industry leading AI developer, CEO Huang has been an influential ally of President Trump, who had been briefed on Huang's relationship with the Chinese executive, "but chose not to do anything about it," according to the NYT.
After the markets opened Monday Nvidia’s shares slid while other tech stocks recovered from last week’s big bear market, The Wall Street Journal reports.
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A Bit More Relief at the Pumps – The national average for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline is just below $4.01 per gallon Monday, or $4.00931, which is down nearly 14¢ -- 13.999¢ to be exact – from Election Day last Tuesday. That’s still $1.04335 more expensive than February 27, the brink of war with Iran. Diesel on Tuesday averages $6.1723, or 11.52¢ less expensive than last Tuesday and $2.4592 more expensive than on March 5.
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CORRECTION: An earlier edition of this page misidentified the state represented by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY). –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa