Tuesday, January 7, 2025
■ Today's Top News
Trump claimed both the canal and the Danish territory are needed for U.S. "economic security."
By Julia Conley
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has been rebuked in recent days by the leaders of both Panama and Denmark for his insistence that the Panama Canal and Danish territory Greenland must be under American control, and his latest comments on Tuesday were expected to garner more anger—and eye-rolling—from abroad.
At a press conference at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, the Republican leader refused to rule out using military force to take over the canal and Greenland.
"It might be that you'll have to do something. The Panama Canal is vital to our country," said Trump. "We need Greenland for national security purposes."
He added that both the canal and Greenland, the world's largest island and home to a U.S. military base, are needed for U.S. "economic security."
Under President Jimmy Carter, who died late last month, the U.S. signed a treaty returning the Panama Canal Zone to Panama in 1979, and the waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans has been solely controlled by the Panamanian government since 1999.
Trump repeated a false claim that the canal is being "operated by China."
Last month, after the president-elect demanded "that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America in full, quickly and without question," Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino posted a video to social media in response.
"As president, I want to clearly state that every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjoining zone is Panama's and will remain so," Mulino said. "The sovereignty and independence of our country is non-negotiable."
Trump's comments came as his son, Donald Trump Jr., joined right-wing activist Charlie Kirk and other Trump allies on a visit to Greenland.
The president-elect suggested in a social media post that the trip was made in an official capacity, writing: "The reception has been great. They, and the Free World, need safety, security, strength, and PEACE! This is a deal that must happen. MAGA. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!"
But Greenland officials clarified that Trump Jr. was visiting only as a "private individual" and said no representatives would be meeting with him.
Trump said at his press conference that "people really don't even know if Denmark has any legal right to [Greenland], but if they do they should give it up because we need it for national security."
Greenland is home to 60,000 people, and is self-ruling with its own legislature while its foreign and defense policy are controlled by Denmark. The Arctic island lies in a region where global powers are vying for military and economic control.
Trump also expressed a desire to purchase Greenland during his first term, a goal that was dismissed at the time as "absurd" by Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.
"Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders," Frederiksen reiterated on Tuesday.
"Delay is the name of the game here," said one legal analyst. "If they can just stop the clock until January 20th, then... the attorney general will be a Trump appointee and they can kill the whole thing."
By Jake Johnson
Aileen Cannon, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Florida, ordered the Justice Department on Tuesday to temporarily withhold from the American public special counsel Jack Smith's final report on his investigations into the president-elect, despite questions about her authority to do so.
Cannon's order came in response to a Monday request by President-elect Donald Trump's longtime valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, who are facing charges in a classified documents case brought by Smith. Trump was also charged in the classified documents probe, but Smith dropped the case against the Republican leader after he won the 2024 presidential election.
In their filing on Monday, Nauta and De Oliveira's attorneys called on Cannon to bar the release of Smith's final report, even though the classified documents case is currently before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta—not Cannon's court. The Justice Department is appealing Cannon's decision last summer to dismiss the classified documents case as the agency pursues charges against Nauta and De Oliveira.
Cannon wrote in her order Tuesday that Attorney General Merrick Garland, Smith, and other Justice Department employees are enjoined from "releasing, sharing, or transmitting" Smith's final report or "any drafts of such report" outside the DOJ. The judge said her order would remain in effect until the 11th Circuit rules on Nauta and De Oliveira's motion to prohibit the release of Smith's report.
Barbara McQuade, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, said in an appearance on MSNBC that she doesn't believe Cannon has "any jurisdiction" over decisions surrounding Smith's report.
"But delay is the name of the game here," she added. "If they can just stop the clock until January 20th, then... the attorney general will be a Trump appointee and they can kill the whole thing and say, 'There's no report to disclose.' So that's the goal here."
Speaking to reporters Tuesday just ahead of Cannon's order, Trump claimed he didn't "know" the Florida judge—despite appointing her—but praised her as "brilliant."
Smith said in a filing earlier Tuesday that his office is still "working to finalize" the report on his investigations into Trump's hoarding of classified documents and efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election. By law, special counsels are required to submit a final report to the attorney general, who has the authority to decide whether to make the findings available to the public.
Smith said in his filing that he would not transmit his report to Garland before 1:00 pm on Tuesday, and that the attorney general would not release the findings before the morning of January 10—if at all. It's unclear how Cannon's order will impact Smith's timeline.
Trump's lawyers have demanded that Garland withhold Smith's report entirely, claiming in a letter to the attorney general on Monday that making it public would "violate the Presidential Transition Act and the presidential immunity doctrine."
In their letter to Garland, Trump's attorneys—who have reviewed Smith's confidential report in recent days—revealed that the first volume of the document states that the president-elect "engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort" and was "the head of the criminal conspiracies" surrounding the 2020 election.
The agency "effectively dared the incoming Trump administration and its Republican allies in Congress to undue rules that are broadly popular," wrote one healthcare reporter.
By Julia Conley
Months after more than half of respondents to an Associated Press poll said it was "extremely or very important" for the federal government to take action to help people with medical debt, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday finalized a rule to keep such debt off credit reports.
With broad public support, the rule appeared to be an uncontroversial slam dunk for the Biden administration in the last days of President Joe Biden's presidency—but Republicans, who now have majorities in Congress and are poised to take over the White House in less than two weeks, have signaled that they would take action to undo the CFPB's regulations, including the medical debt rule.
U.S. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the new chair of the Senate Banking Committee, said last month that the CFPB should halt all rulemaking until President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
"It is paramount that President Trump can begin his administration on January 20 with a fresh slate to implement the economic agenda that the American people resoundingly voted for," Scott said.
The senator's comments suggested that Americans who voted for Trump did so in order to continue paying overdraft fees, having their personal information sold by predatory data brokers, and being penalized for owing medical bills—all of which the CFPB has taken action on since the November elections.
As Noam N. Levey wrote at KFF Health News, the CFPB on Tuesday "effectively dared the incoming Trump administration and its Republican allies in Congress to undo rules that are broadly popular and could help millions of people who are burdened by medical debt."
"People who get sick shouldn't have their financial future upended."
The new rule would remove $49 billion in unpaid medical debt from credit reports by amending Regulation V, which implements the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
Lenders are restricted from obtaining or using medical information to make lending decisions. But federal regulators have created an exception to that restriction, allowing companies to consider medical debt. The new rule ends that exception by banning medical bills on credit reports, which the CFPB said has led to a practice of using the credit reporting system to coerce payments even if bills are inaccurate, as they frequently are, according to the agency.
About 15 million people will be helped by the new regulation, said the CFPB, with credit scores of people with medical debt boosted by an average of 20 points.
An estimated 100 million Americans owe debt for healthcare they've obtained, forcing many to cut spending on groceries, housing, and other essentials.
An informal KFF Health News poll of people facing eviction or foreclosure in the Denver area in 2023 found that nearly half of people surveyed said medical debt played a role in their housing insecurity.
The inclusion of medical debt on credit reports by companies like Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion can harm Americans' ability to obtain jobs, mortgages, and rental apartments, even as CFPB research shows that medical debt is a poor predictor of whether a consumer will repay a loan.
"People who get sick shouldn't have their financial future upended," said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra. "The CFPB's final rule will close a special carveout that has allowed debt collectors to abuse the credit reporting system to coerce people into paying medical bills they may not even owe."
Billionaire Trump megadonor Elon Musk, who has become a top adviser to the president-elect and was picked to co-lead the proposed Department of Government Efficiency, has made clear that the CFPB would be a key target of the advisory body, calling for the agency to be "deleted" in November.
Despite Republicans' repeated claims that Trump will lead the party in securing an agenda that serves working families, lobbying by the credit reporting industry over the medical debt rule has made clear whose side the GOP is on.
Equifax said in August, two months after the CFPB proposed the rule, that the government is "not permitted" to regulate the industry in such a way.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) also called the proposal "regulatory overreach."
Chopra said last month that despite Republicans' objections, the CFPB would not "be a dead fish" ahead of Trump's term.
"We will continue to defend consumers' rights," he said, "and to hold companies accountable."
"Zuck isn't just kissing the ring, he's slobbering all over it," said one media reporter.
By Eloise Goldsmith
In a move that some viewed as a means of currying favor with the incoming Trump administration, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in a video Tuesday that the company is moving to end its third party fact-checking program.
Instead, the company will use a community notes approach, inspired by the Elon Musk's platform X—where Musk's misleading claims about the 2024 presidential election racked up billions of views.
Zuckerberg's announcement was accompanied by a post authored by Meta's new, "Trump-friendly" chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, who
"Too much harmless content gets censored, too many people find themselves wrongly locked up in 'Facebook jail,' and we are often too slow to respond when they do," wrote Kaplan in his post. Kaplan and Zuckerberg also noted that Meta plans to phase back in more civic content, as in posts about elections, politics, or social issues.
Real Facebook Oversight Board (RFOB), a group established to counter the perceived failures of Meta's own oversight board, blasted the move, saying, "'censorship' is a manufactured crisis, political pandering to signal that Meta's platforms are open for business to far-right propaganda."
"Twitter's shift from fact checking has turned the platform into a cesspool; Zuck is joining them in a race to the bottom," the group wrote Tuesday.
The move generated other negative reactions.
"Meta went to Fox News to announce it's ending its third-party fact checking program. Zuck isn't just kissing the ring, he's slobbering all over it," wrote media reporter Oliver Darcy on Tuesday.
Also on Tuesday, Kara Swisher, a tech journalist, wrote "toxic floods of lies on social media platforms like Facebook have destroyed trust not fact checkers. Let me reiterate: Mark Zuckerberg has never cared about that and never will."
Co-president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, Lisa Gilbert, weighed in, saying that "misinformation will flow more freely with this policy change, as we cannot assume that corrections will be made when false information proliferates. The American people deserve accurate information about our elections, health risks, the environment, and much more. We condemn this irresponsible move and the harm it will likely contribute to our discourse."
"Meta's new promise to scale back fact checking isn't surprising—Zuckerberg is one of many billionaires who are cozying up to dangerous demagogues like Trump and pushing initiatives that favor their bottom lines at the expense of everything and everyone else," wrote Nora Benavidez, senior counsel and director of digital justice and civil rights for the organization Free Press in a Tuesday statement.
Meta, which is angling for the U.S. government to use its AI and is facing an federal antitrust trial this spring, has made other bids to enter Trump's good graces and thaw once frosty relations (Meta temporarily booted Trump from its platforms following his comments regarding the January 6 insurrection). Meta donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund recently and Zuckerberg flew down to Trump's Mar-A-Lago Club to meet with him this past fall.
"We must replace the Prius economy with one focused on affordable green housing, higher wages, cheap clean energy, lower commuting costs, and expanded mass transit. States, cities, and towns can get the ball rolling."
By Jessica Corbett
Amid reflections on Democrats' November losses and fears of what the Republican-controlled federal government will mean for economic justice and climate chaos, a pair of professors on Tuesday published a New York Times opinion piece connecting future U.S. elections, the transition away from fossil fuels, and working people's priorities.
"If Democrats want to win voters with policies that avert catastrophic climate change, they need to bring immediate, material benefits to the working class," Daniel Aldana Cohen and Thea Riofrancos wrote in the Times. "That means folding climate policies into an agenda that tackles the cost-of-living crisis. This is green economic populism."
Cohen, an assistant professor of sociology and director of the Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative at the University of California, Berkeley, explained on social media that the piece with Riofrancos, an associate professor of political science at Providence College, emerged from a project with Climate & Community Institute "articulating the links between climate crisis, economic struggles, and the imperative to end genocide and forever wars."
Their essay followed Republicans taking control of both chambers of Congress on Friday and came less than two weeks before President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House. Cohen and Riofrancos made the case that "even under Mr. Trump, progressives can build momentum around this agenda" at the local level while planning for the future.
Biden campaigned as a "climate president" during the 2020 cycle. His major legislative achievements on that front—the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—were watered down due to narrow congressional majorities and obstructionist right-wing Democrats who later left the party.
"The problem with the Inflation Reduction Act was that it was an awkward compromise between neoliberal, market-based policy and government intervention. By mobilizing public investment through tax credits and other incentives, it effectively asked companies and affluent consumers to lead the transition," Cohen and Riofrancos wrote, citing statistics on electric vehicle purchases, job creation, and rooftop solar.
Gustavo Gordillo of the Democratic Socialist of America's New York City chapter called that an "excellent description of the IRA, and by extension current Democratic Party orthodoxy."
The professors continued:
The law's all-of-the-above approach also supports oil and gas extraction. Under Mr. Biden, the United States cemented its status as the world's largest oil producer.
All told, this looks less like an equitable green transition than what we call a Prius economy—a hybrid model of green energy and fossil fuels, wedged together side by side. Like hybrid cars, which can't run on electricity alone, the Prius economy yields some climate progress while holding back more ambitious change. And it puts the burden of transforming sprawling energy infrastructures onto companies' balance sheets and consumers' bank accounts.
While acknowledging the long-term benefits of the IRA's investments, Cohen and Riofrancos stressed that securing the political support needed to achieve the swift, sweeping reforms that scientists say are necessary for a livable future will require "a green economic populism that helps voters more easily get from one paycheck to the next."
Working people, held back by limited wage growth, face high prices for food, housing, transportation, and utilities—and fossil fuel-driven climate breakdown exacerbates those costs. According to the professors: "We must replace the Prius economy with one focused on affordable green housing, higher wages, cheap clean energy, lower commuting costs, and expanded mass transit. States, cities, and towns can get the ball rolling."
The pair highlighted recent examples at the local and state level, including: tribe-owned companies' development of renewable energy; New York City's rezoning policy and rent regulations; New York state's Build Public Renewables Act; Pennsylvania's Whole Homes Repair program; Illinois' restrictions on utility shutoffs during extreme heat; and California's funding for electric vehicle chargers.
"To be sure, local governments' role is relatively limited. Some of their best policies depend on federal funds, which may be cut under the Trump administration," they noted. "Still, local governments can help fold green economic populism into a broader agenda for economic security—from a $17 minimum wage floor to universal health insurance to universal prekindergarten and affordable childcare. Ideally, governments would coordinate countrywide, as some have done around protecting undocumented migrants and abortion access. If progressives win a national governing coalition for these ideas in 2028, they can hit the ground running."
Tying the climate emergency to the economic concerns of working people is not new—for example, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) first introduced a Green New Deal resolution in Congress in 2019 and the Green Party was campaigning on the concept years earlier—but there is an urgency in the current moment, in the wake of the hottest year on record and the November victory of Big Oil-backed Trump.
The essay came as political observers as well as critics and members of the Democratic Party—including Ocasio-Cortez—are urging leadership to learn from losses in the last cycle. Based on dozens of national surveys of likely voters, the left-leaning think tank Data for Progress concluded in December that "by branding itself as an active party of economic populism that fights for needed changes for the working class the Democratic Party can put itself in a position to regain the support of the voters it lost in 2024."
CHINA IS LEADING THE WORLD WITH CHEAP CLEAN SOLAR & THEIR ECONOMY IS PROSPERING! THE REST OF THE WORLD IS REDUCING THEIR FOSSIL FUEL CONSUMPTION, BUT HERITAGE IS ALWAYS OUT OF STEP!
That potential path has some right-wingers scared. Victoria Coates, a former Trump adviser who is now a vice president at the Heritage Foundation, shared Cohen and Riofrancos' essay on social media Tuesday and said, "Thank heavens the hands of the radical environmentalists have been removed from the levers of power but this should serve as a cautionary tale of what they intend to do if reelected."
"The U.S. must not send more bombs to Netanyahu's extremist government," said U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.
By Jake Johnson
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders vowed late Monday to do everything in his power to block the Biden administration's newly proposed $8 billion arms sale to the far-right Israeli government, which has used American weaponry to commit atrocities across the Gaza Strip over the past 15 months.
"The U.S. must not send more bombs to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's extremist government, which has already killed 45,000 people; destroyed Gaza's housing, healthcare, and educational systems; and caused starvation by blocking humanitarian aid," Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote on social media. "I will do all that I can to block these arms sales."
The State Department formally notified Congress of the proposed sale late last week, and reports indicate that the latest weapons package Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs), missiles for attack helicopters, and 500-pound bombs.
The new sale adds to the tens of billions of dollars worth of arms and other military assistance the U.S. has provided Israel since its large-scale assault on the Gaza Strip began in the wake of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack. In at least two cases, the Biden administration bypassed Congress to deliver the weapons to Israel.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is seen at a press conference on his effort to block U.S. arms sales to Israel on November 19, 2024. (Photo: Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Sanders is one of the few members of Congress who has vocally opposed continued offensive weapons sales to Israel and attempted to block the transactions, arguing that they violate U.S. laws prohibiting arms transfers to countries blocking American humanitarian aid.
Late last year, the U.S. Senate rejected a Sanders-led effort to thwart a sale of JDAMs, tank rounds, and other weaponry.
The newly proposed $8 billion weapons sale comes just days before U.S. President Joe Biden is set to leave office, which Haaretz correspondent Ben Samuels called "a fitting end to four years of policy that seemed to please no one and antagonize anyone unhappy with the status quo."
"The proposed arms sale is yet another wrinkle after a series of missed opportunities to press the Israeli government as hostages remain captive and Gaza's humanitarian crisis worsens," Samuels wrote.
In a statement on Monday, a top United Nations humanitarian relief official said that "despite our determination to deliver food, water, and medicine to survivors, our efforts to save lives are at breaking point."
Tom Fletcher, the U.N.'s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, pointed to several recent Israeli attacks on aid operations in Gaza, including a strike "at a known food distribution point where a partner of the World Food Program was operating" and an attack on a clearly marked WFP convoy.
"These incidents are part of a dangerous pattern of sabotage and deliberate disruption," said Fletcher. "Israeli forces are unable or unwilling to ensure the safety of our convoys. Statements by Israeli authorities vilify our aid workers even as the military attacks them. Community volunteers who accompany our convoys are being targeted."
"I call on U.N. member states to insist that all civilians, and all humanitarian operations, are protected," Fletcher added. "This should not need to be said."
"This is his last chance to do something right," said one activist.
By Jake Johnson
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland faced calls Monday to release special counsel Jack Smith's final report on his investigations into Donald Trump as quickly as possible after the president-elect's legal team demanded that the Justice Department withhold the findings from the public.
In an emailed letter to Garland—sent on the fourth anniversary of the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol that Trump incited—the president-elect's attorneys demanded that Smith "terminate all efforts toward the preparation and release of this report," claiming its disclosure would "violate the Presidential Transition Act and the presidential immunity doctrine."
"If Smith is not removed, then the handling of his report should be deferred to President Trump's incoming attorney general, consistent with the expressed will of the people," wrote Trump's lawyers, who were permitted to review the two-volume report in recent days.
One of the authors of the letter to Garland, Todd Blanche, is Trump's nominee to serve as deputy attorney general in the incoming administration.
The demand from Trump's lawyers intensified calls for Garland to make Smith's findings available to the public.
"Merrick Garland has exactly one more chance to show any smattering of spine—he has two weeks to release Jack Smith's report," wrote activist Jon Bauman, president of the Social Security Works PAC. "This is his last chance to do something right."
Smith was tasked with investigating Trump's unlawful hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and his efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election. The special counsel dropped both federal cases shortly after Trump won the 2024 election, arguing that "the Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated."
But Smith stressed that the decision was "not based on the merits or strength of the case against the defendant."
Under federal regulations, special counsels are required to submit reports on their findings to the attorney general, who can decide whether to publicize the findings.
In addition to Trump's pressure campaign against Garland, two of the president-elect's former co-defendants in the classified documents case are pushing Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to bar the Justice Department from releasing Smith's report.
Politico noted that it's not clear whether Cannon has the authority to grant that request.
"After she dismissed the case—ruling that Smith's appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional—the Justice Department appealed to the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals," the outlet observed. "That court, not Cannon, currently has control of the case."
Smith said in a filing on Tuesday that his office is "working to finalize a two-volume confidential report to the attorney general explaining the special counsel's prosecution decisions."
"The attorney general will decide whether any portion of the report should be released to the public," the new filing continues. "The attorney general has not yet determined how to handle the report volume pertaining to [the classified documents case]... but the department can commit that the attorney general will not release that volume to the public, if he does at all, before Friday, January 10, 2025 at 10:00 am."
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