2025 Is Off To A Rocky Start

1.2.25

Ally Sammarco Jan 3

Happy New Year and welcome back to Today’s American News, your source of news and analysis for the circus that is American politics and entertainment. Let’s get started.

New Orleans attack shocks nation, delays Sugar Bowl… The devastating New Years Day attack in the Big Easy is a fast developing story. Follow CNN’s live updates here. We stand with New Orleans.

Republicans already looking past Johnson as Speaker vote looms… By all accounts, Speaker Mike Johnson still has the votes to maintain speakership in his increasingly narrow Republican House majority. But his party’s speaker votes are always full of drama and the Louisianan has already lost the vote of one fellow Republican. As Johnson is set to navigate difficult terrain of keeping the government open and maintaining the full faith and credit of the United States, trouble looms. Politico names three potential replacements, none of whom have the votes to replace Johnson: Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio and GOP Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota.

Liz Cheney, Bennie Johnson receive Presidential Citizens Medal… Congressional odd couple Liz Cheney and Bennie Johnson, who led the January 6 Committee and formed an unlikely friendship, were reunited today at the White House as they received the Congressional Citizens Medal from President Biden. It marked Cheney’s first appearance since campaigning for Vice President Harris. Cheney is a frequent and continuing recipient of MAGA’s wrath, and plans are in motion by Donald Trump’s minions to exact retribution on the former Republican member from Wyoming. This won’t help.

Ukraine cuts off Russian pipeline to Europe… If you didn’t realize that Ukraine has continued to allow Russia to pipe oil across its territory throughout the three years of Putin’s so-called “special military operation”, you’re not alone. But that has been the case as the war-torn but heroically standing country has walked a delicate balance with its European neighbors who have supported their country against Russia. The pipeline lease expired yesterday and was not renewed. Russian puppets in Hungary and Slovakia condemned the move, with the latter threatening to cut off electricity supply to Ukraine in retaliation. Poland stepped up immediately and promised to fill in any gap in supply.

Today’s Buzz

Entertainment Weekly previews 2025 show premier dates…Writes the publication, “January alone sees the return of reality TV gem The Traitors, Apple TV+'s hit series Severance, and Netflix's To All The Boys I've Loved Before spinoff series XO, Kitty. If those aren't your jam, there's also The Bachelor, The Night Agent, and a slew of new shows, including Prime Video's take on the cop show, On Call, starring Pretty Little Liars star Troian Bellisario.” View the full list here.

Thanks for reading Today’s American News in the new year. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s edition!

 

Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more

Today in Politics Bulletin 36, 12/30/24

Ron Filipkowski Dec 31 ∙ Preview

… Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says that Russia is rejecting the peace deal being proposed by Trump: “We are not happy with the proposals made by members of the Trump team.”

… Trump promised repeatedly to have a peace deal done within 24 hours of taking office and “everyone will be happy.” Tick Tock.

… Oathkeepers leader Stewart Rhodes said he is preparing to sue DOJ after Trump pardons him. Rhodes is currently serving an 18 year sentence for seditious conspiracy as one of the leading organizers of the insurrection on J6. Although Trump has not commented on Rhodes’s case specifically, he has promised to pardon J6ers as soon as he takes office.

… Rhodes told the Washington Times: “If Trump pardons me, I would love to sue DOJ for a 1983 claim. That’s a potential violation of civil rights. That’s false imprisonment. I was sent a letter by the VA letting me know from now on all my veteran’s benefits have been stripped and I’m no longer eligible to be buried in a veteran’s graveyard. That’s a horrific insult to me as a veteran. The harm done to us is next level. This conspiracy was all because of who we were, not because of what we did.”

… A unanimous jury and a judge disagreed with the former Yale Law School graduate.

… Matthew Graves, the US Attorney for DC who prosecuted the vast majority of J6 defendants, announced his resignation effective January 16. Graves is very high on the list of people MAGA has singled out for their Vengeance and Retribution Tour.

… Rep. Andy Biggs on Graves’s resignation: “The Swamp knows that justice is coming.”

… Trump’s Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, the Den Mother of the Deplorables, has put a gag order on Trump nominees, saying that she doesn’t want to see much of them on TV or social media from now until they are confirmed: “While this instruction has been delivered previously, I am reiterating that no member of the incoming administration or Transition speaks for the United States or the President-elect himself. Accordingly, all intended nominees should refrain from any public social media posts without prior approval of the incoming White House counsel.”

… They have been pretty quiet the last few days.

… I also think Team Trump doesn’t want any of them asked about the recent H-1B controversy between MAGA and Musk.

… Team Trump would be lost without Wiles. She used to work for Desantis but he fired her right before he announced he was running for president because his wife Casey reportedly didn’t like Wiles. Trump hired her 5 minutes later. BIG mistake by Desantis.

… The NYT is reporting that Elon Musk has been renting a “cottage” at Mar-a-Lago for $2,000 a night so he can be close to Trump at all times.

… After letting Mike Johnson twist in the wind for weeks after the CR fiasco, Trump finally endorsed him for Speaker today after trashing previous Speaker Kevin McCarthy yesterday and making it clear that he wasn’t entirely happy with the job MAGA Mike has been doing up to this point.

… Trump: “LETS NOT BLOW THIS GREAT OPPORTUNITY WHICH WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN. 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. MAGA!!!”

… It is pretty clear right now that Trump’s main priority is having people in key spots who are 100% loyal, will do whatever he wants, and will never complain about anything he does. Despite Johnson’s fecklessness, Trump likely figures that he owns him and owning a Speaker is very useful to him heading into 2025.

… Of course, the only problem for Johnson and Trump is, will all the House Republicans go along with his endorsement? The majority is so slim that if only 3 Republicans vote against Johnson, Democrats could end up electing a Speaker. And there has been more than 3 who have consistently said that they have had enough of MAGA Mike.

… House Reps who have trashed Johnson recently include: Andy Biggs, Andy Harris, Ralph Norman, Scott Perry, Lauren Boebert, Michael Cloud, Victoria Spartz, Greg Steube, Eli Crane, Andrew Clyde, Eric Burlison, Tim Burchett, Kevin Hern, Andy Ogles, Thomas Massie, Chip Roy.

… The big question is, how many of them will fall in line and back Johnson after Trump’s endorsement? I’ve been watching that group throughout the day since Trump made his announcement this morning. Here’s what we have so far:

MASSIE - “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. We’ve seen Johnson partner with the democrats to send money to Ukraine, authorize spying on Americans, and blow the budget.”

More Massie: “For months Democrats ignored the fact that Joe Biden was a potato. They convinced themselves that keeping him around was the pragmatic way to win the day. Too late did they admit the emperor had no clothes. Republicans are doing the same thing by keeping Speaker Johnson.”

BIGGS - “I haven’t publicly or privately committed yet. I do want to speak with the Speaker just to see what his plans are, because there are some issues that I think we need to work out.”

HARRIS - He said that he has been assured that Johnson had been put on notice to “stop making backroom deals with Hakeem Jeffries’ or he will be removed after he is elected.

PERRY - Perry has been silent today. This is what he said yesterday before Trump’s announcement: “What members are seeking is what they think is best for the country, and they don’t see, in some cases, where Speaker Johnson has led us to a place where we can claim we have achieved that.”

HERN - “We’ll see what transpires.”

BOEBERT - “There has been a lot of conversation going on and that’s fine - MAGA are the winners and we need to set our governing agenda. Nothing wrong with healthy debate, but I sure hope we’re all ready to WIN now!”

SPARTZ - “I understand why President Trump is endorsing Speaker Johnson as he did Speaker Ryan. However, we still need to get assurances that Speaker Johnson won’t sell us out to the swamp. Donald Trump endorsed Paul Ryan and John McCain. Trump will be able to save America only if we have a speaker with courage, vision and a plan, which I have not seen from our current Speaker despite countless discussions and public promises.”

STEUBE - He emailed a poll to his constituents: “Dear Floridian, Do you think Mike Johnson should remain House Speaker?”

CLOUD - “We have no comment on the Speaker’s race at this time.”

CLYDE - Nothing from Clyde.

BURCHETT - “Mike Johnson is a fine Christian man. And he doesn’t cheat on his wife. And I find that very appealing.” But then he said he hadn’t made up his mind yet still. He also loves Trump.

ROY - From Politico: “CHIP ROY is conducting a temperature check to determine the viability of Rep. JIM JORDAN and other possible candidates if MIKE JOHNSON is unable to secure another term with the speaker’s gavel.” (Jordan already said he won’t do it. He would never cross Trump).

… James Comer: “We have 5 Republicans that won’t commit to voting for Mike Johnson - and he can only lose one or two votes. It’s terrible. I strongly encourage Trump to get on the phone with those 5-6 members.”

… Rep. Mike Lawler: “The fact is these folks are playing with fire. And if they think they’re somehow going to get a more conservative Speaker, they’re kidding themselves.”

… Elon Musk to Johnson: “You have my full support!”

… The 43-year-old son of GOP Sen. Kevin Cramer was sentenced to 28 years for killing an officer in a 100mph meth-fueled chase after escaping a hospital and stealing his mom's car. Cramer has frequently attacked President Biden by invoking his son, Hunter.

… Laura Loomer was back on Steve Bannon’s show today and was on fire, laying out the case for MAGA on the many reasons why they shouldn’t trust Musk, Vivek, Sacks, or their Tech Bro friends: “Techno feudalism is the greatest threat to humanity. I really hope MAGA wakes up to this before it’s too late.”

… Loomer: “What’s it going to mean for the incoming Trump Admin if we have a bunch of technocrats, who are also essentially welfare queens because their companies are receiving government subsidies, and they want to take over our defense industry. You have a bunch of tech bros with billions of dollars and direct unfettered access to the president and VP, who are also very cordial with our adversaries - China, Iran. Musk is having meetings off the books with Iranian and Chinese officials. What does that mean for us and the future of our constitutional republic?

… Call me crazy, but Loomer is making a lot of sense.

… Bannon: “Elon, instead of calling us racist and claiming you’ll root us out of the Republican party - we’re getting H1B visas out, root and stem, and deporting the workers you brought in. Those jobs belong to American citizens, and we demand reparations. You stole their lives.”

… Reparations!

… More Bannon: “Here’s our position - you’re not going to reform the H1B visa program—we’re shutting it down. If Musk’s priority was DOGE for America First/American citizens first, this would top of his list. But it’s not, because I believe his agenda is to become the first trillionaire.”

… The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the judgment that E. Jean Carroll got against Trump after trial. From the decision: “The jury could reasonably infer from the testimony and the Access Hollywood tape that Trump engaged in similar conduct with other women - a pattern of abrupt, nonconsensual, and physical advances on women he barely knew.”

… But ABC settled the Stephanopolous case.

… Matt Gaetz: “I cannot believe the appeals court didn’t throw out this E. Jean Carroll verdict. OUTRAGEOUS! They allowed illegitimate witnesses to testify to prejudice the jury. HORRIBLE!”

… Trump’s former NSA Robert O’Brien went on Fox and argued that we should take over Greenland because of climate change, which Trump and MAGA say is a hoax: “Greenland is a highway from the Arctic all the way to North America, to the United States. It's strategically very important to the Arctic which is going to be the critical battleground of the future because as the climate gets warmer it is going to be a pathway. Maybe it cuts down on the use of the Panama Canal.”

Meidas+ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

… Unhinged O’Brien then said if Denmark won’t put more troops and weapons systems into Greenland “then they can pay us to do it. Or if they don’t want to do either of those things they can let us buy Greenland from them and let them become part of Alaska. The native people of Greenland are very closely related to the people ...

 

Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more

The Week Ahead

December 29, 2024

Joyce Vance Dec 30

Jimmy Carter passed away today at age 100. He was an imperfectly perfect human being who loved and served his country and was devoted to his wife and family. His service included being a naval officer, a senator in Georgia’s legislature, the governor of Georgia, and President of the United States, but he remained true to his roots as a peanut farmer and Sunday School teacher. The quiet humility of his post-presidential service, which included working to build houses for people who wouldn’t have them otherwise and on international public health is a lesson in service and public modesty that many of our leaders would do well to learn from. Although the country wasn’t quite ready for his leadership—his pro-environmentalist policies on energy were far ahead of the times—he was a good man and a solid leader, who I hope history will remember more kindly than his peers often have. I have a short personal reminiscence about President Carter at the bottom of this post.

On Friday, House Republicans will hold a vote to decide the next Speaker. If it was the Democrats, the media would be trotting out the “Democrats in disarray” headlines already. Perhaps there is no word that is sufficiently alliterative for Republicans—Republicans in riot is already taken from 2021. But there is chaos in the Republican Party as the infighting between the Musk/Ramaswamy branch (pro-H-1B visas that allow U.S. employers to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations) and the Loomer/Bannon faction (strict anti-immigrationists), makes it feel like the Biden presidency has evaporated and Trump is already back in power.

This alone should be a warning sign to anyone who still needs one. It's going to be a difficult four years for democracy.

There is good news, although it may be temporary, from Arkansas, where, on Christmas Eve, a federal judge struck down a law that put booksellers and librarians at risk of imprisonment if they provided minors with “harmful” material. That includes themes about race and being LGBTQ. The Judge wrote that the law tried to deputize “librarians and booksellers as the agents of censorship” and that if their decision were made in the shadow of “fear of jail time, it is likely they will shelve only books fit for young children and segregate or discard the rest.”

Holly Dickson, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, called the law “an attempt to ‘thought police,’” and said the Judge’s decision was a “victory over totalitarianism” and “a testament to the courage of librarians, booksellers and readers who refused to bow to intimidation.” Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “Schools and libraries shouldn’t put obscene material in front of our kids.”

It’s likely we will see an appeal to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals from the state as early as this week.

Book bans are up as conservatives push on these issues. Like so many other laws that aim to restrict individual liberty, book bans operate in a zone of confusion and fear that encourages people to exceed the bounds of what the law strictly requires them to do in order to protect themselves from punishment. The Arkansas law, for instance, isn’t specific about how, or to what extent librarians must go, to keep children from accessing prohibited books. So, it’s safer for a librarian to toss them out than it is to put them in an adult section because, given the vagueness of the law, they could face liability if a child wandered out of the children’s section and found the “objectionable” material elsewhere. It’s the same approach taken to create compliance with laws banning abortion where doctors and hospitals, uncertain about when they are permitted to provide care, err on the side of excessive caution. In all too many cases, these laws have the desired effect.

Then, there are people who seem unaffected by the law, even when a judge rules against them. On Friday, Rudy Giuliani will be back in court. He’s still trying to avoid paying the $148 million judgment he owes Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the Georgia poll workers whose lives he disrupted by defaming them in connection with the 2020 vote count in Fulton County. Moss and Freeman’s lawyers are asking the Judge to hold Giuliani in civil contempt because he hasn’t turned over valuable items including the lease to his Manhattan apartment, a Mercedes, watches and jewelry, and baseball memorabilia that the Judge ordered him to turn over last October. In advance of the hearing, the Judge was giving off “I’ve had enough of this” vibes, so Friday’s hearing in federal court in New York could be interesting.

Giuliani’s brief is cringey: “Every human being has political beliefs, and no matter what the Court’s personal beliefs are, the Court should recognize that you have a Defendant here with an enormous judgment against him as the Plaintiffs were awarded a judgment now in excess of $145,969,000 which includes $75,000,000 in punitive damages, and this Court should recognize that Plaintiffs’ counsels are political and apparently are swayed toward the democratic party, and you have the Defendant who was a Republic Mayor and who was an attorney for former and future President Donald J. Trump, who was and is deeply rooted in republican beliefs.” It dredges up an incomprehensible reference to Hunter Biden and Burisma, before suggesting that “Plaintiffs and their counsel are seeking to take every asset of the Defendant before there is a change in administration from President Biden to President Trump.”

That, of course, is what every plaintiff who obtains a judgment tries to do, although taking the defendant’s assets has nothing to do with changes in presidential administration. Donald Trump may hold the criminal pardon power soon, but he can do nothing about a jury’s verdict in a defamation case, whether that case involves Rudy Giuliani, or even, himself.

Meanwhile, as the date for the TikTok ban in the U.S., January 19, draws closer, Donald Trump was among a number of litigants filing Amicus briefs with the Supreme Court last week. His was a little bit different than the others. It wasn’t about the law. Or even about the facts. Instead, it was about…Donald Trump.

Trump is represented by his nominee to be Solicitor General, John Sauer, who obsequiously described the president-elect in the glowing sort of terms Trump likes to see himself described with. The case is ultimately about whether U.S. companies that platform TikTok can continue to do so after the date of the ban, but apparently, Trump just wants to jump in and make a deal. There’s more than a smidge of kleptocracy underlying the idea—one wonders if even the Supreme Court will have the stomach for it.

Finally, we enter this last week of the year with real concerns about one of the essential institutions of democracy, the press. In an era of anything-goes-rampant-disinformation on social media, we need a solid backstop. When Time Magazine named Trump its “Person of the Year,” Trump vowed that he would “take on” the media again, but followed up, saying, “The media’s tamed down a little bit; they’re liking us much better now, I think.”

Let’s hope not.

The press’s job isn’t to like or dislike a president. It’s to report on what he says and does and to educate the public about what it means. Over the last few weeks, I’ve heard from so many new readers of Civil Discourse who say they’ve turned to the newsletter in their search for a reliable source for news and analysis. I want you to know I take that responsibility seriously and will always do my best for you. I’m honored by your confidence in me and committed to helping all of us navigate the difficult times ahead. If you aren’t already, I hope you’ll consider adding a paid subscription to Civil Discourse and that you’ll also share the publication with friends and family.

We’re in this together,

Joyce