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Biden Has Presidential Immunity. He Should Use It.
Jack Smith’s report should be public. As a matter of tradition (all previous special counsel reports were published) and also as a matter of morality. The country should have a permanent record of Trump’s once-allegedly-criminal actions.
But also as a matter of politics. Remember: 2025 is the year of maximum peril. Every day that can be chewed up forcing the administration to fight on a topic they fear is a day they lose in pursuit of their authoritarian agenda. You would not know it from their current posture, but the Democrats are actually the opposition party. They have a duty to oppose Trump, on all fronts, and inflict political pain wherever they can.
It is not clear that the Democratic party, as an organism, understands this reality. And so the final reason for making Smith’s report public by any means necessary is to force Democrats to come to terms with the new rules of American government.
The Political Logic of Trump’s International Threats
An easier question to answer is why Trump keeps uttering these threats. One reason is that he seems to sincerely believe that strong countries have the right to bully weaker ones. Trump has long insisted that the United States should seize smaller countries’ natural resources, and that American allies should be paying us protection money, as if they were shopkeepers and America were a mob boss.
A second reason is that Trump uses his international bullying as fan service for his base. The actual, concrete policy agenda of Trump’s presidency consists largely of boring regulatory and tax favors to wealthy donors and business interests—priorities that most of his voters don’t care about. Trump seems to grasp the need for public dramas to entertain the MAGA base.
Spectacles of domination play an important role in Trump’s political style. ‘Build the wall’ is the classic example: Trump never did build his ‘big, beautiful wall’ along the length of the southern border, yet his fans don’t hold that against him, because the physical manifestation of a barrier on the southern border was beside the point. They thrilled instead to the idea of a wall as an expression of strength and defiance.
Trump Plans High Profile Immigrant Raid
The incoming Trump administration is considering conducting a high-profile raid targeting undocumented immigrants in its initial days.
The raid could target immigrants allegedly living in the U.S. illegally at a workplace in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.
Elon Musk Has Discussed Removing U.K. Leader
Elon Musk has privately discussed with allies how Sir Keir Starmer could be removed as UK prime minister before the next general election.
Musk, the world’s richest man and key confidant of US president-elect Donald Trump, is probing how he and his rightwing allies can destabilise the UK Labour government beyond the aggressive posts he has issued on his social media platform X.
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This will not end well: Trump May Declare National Economic Emergency
President-elect Donald Trump is considering declaring a national economic emergency to provide legal justification for a large swath of universal tariffs on allies and adversaries, as Trump seeks to reset the global balance of trade in his second term.
The declaration would allow Trump to construct a new tariff program by using the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, known as ‘IEEPA,’ which unilaterally authorizes a president to manage imports during a national emergency.
Justice Department Officials May Have Tried to Sway Election
Three senior U.S. Justice Department officials committed misconduct in the final months of Donald Trump’s first presidency by leaking details about a non-public investigation, a move that may have been intended to sway the 2020 election, the department’s internal watchdog concluded in a new report.
Mexican president says U.S. should be called "América Mexicana" in Trump clapback
Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum clapped back at President-elect Trump on Wednesday and said parts of the U.S. should be called "América Mexicana," in response to Trump's proposal to rename the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America" at a press conference on Tuesday.
… The response, using a troubled history of the U.S.-Mexican War in 1846-8, signaled that the Sheinbaum administration would not be intimidated by Trump's antics and threats.
Trump Is Poised to Turn the DOJ Into His Law Firm
No president has ever attempted to do what Donald Trump now proposes to do—assemble a small team of former personal attorneys and install it at the highest levels of the Department of Justice…
The Justice Department’s responsibilities have always been subject to competing expectations: that it would keep politics out of law enforcement but, like other departments, would loyally serve the president in the implementation of his governing program. The results have been uneven, and at times disastrous, as with Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal. But when problems arose, they were relatively localized: the product of poor appointments, or the failure of particular presidents in particular situations to respect institutional values and norms.
What the DOJ faces now is different in kind: a vision of White House control achieved through the appointments of individuals the president has chosen because they have worked for him and demonstrated their loyalty. The pressing question now is whether these lawyers may be, as the president-elect likely hopes, the “president’s lawyers” in more than one sense.
Obamacare Enrollment Hits Record
The number of Americans enrolled in the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplaces has roughly doubled since President Biden took office, but White House officials warned Wednesday that the surge in Americans taking advantage of increased government health care subsidies could face risks as President-elect Donald Trump returns to office.
Nearly 24 million Americans, a record, have already signed up for plans under the program, popularly known as Obamacare, during the current enrollment period, according to the White House.
The Media Isn’t Ready for Trump’s Mass Deportation
In private conversations with The Bulwark, employees within major newsrooms from ABC News to NBC News, Univision, and the Washington Post expressed doubts as to whether the media is ready to meet this moment.
One veteran NBC News journalist described concerns that the network’s mass deportation coverage would focus on b-roll of immigrants at the border, when the story will largely unfold in the interior of the country: from meatpacking plants to the cities and communities where they live.
A politician was shot dead in Bangkok. Did another country do it?
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Wow your updates are going to have a lot of content in the coming month! North America is holding on to its collective ass as if someone handed a 6-year old a chainsaw in a crowd.
“As if”? 😅