Attention to the Unseen

Gábor Scheiring writes: Many believed that after his first term as president, Donald Trump would end up in the dustbin of history. Now Trump is back, and the United States is about to be ruled for the second time by a right-wing populist. Trump’s goal this time is to remake the American government to enhance his power. He isn’t the first modern right-wing populist to attempt this — he is following a playbook pioneered by Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. I lived…

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The Washington Post reports: Sebastian Gorka, the pugilistic commentator who leveraged fears about Islam as a threat to Western civilization into a short-lived role in the first Trump administration, is poised for a second run inside the White House. Gorka was tapped to serve as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism, president-elect Donald Trump said Friday night. Previously, Gorka was an adviser on national security matters for Trump for seven months until his abrupt exit. The…

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CNN reports: Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump’s pick to lead the intelligence community, was briefly placed on a Transportation Security Administration list that prompts additional security screening before flights after her overseas travel patterns and foreign connections triggered a government algorithm earlier this year, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Gabbard was quickly removed from the list, a little-known program called “Quiet Skies,” after going public with claims she had been added to a “secret terror watchlist.” A federal…

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Rolling Stone reports: Matt Gaetz may have withdrawn his name from consideration to become Donald Trump’s attorney general over sexual misconduct accusations — but alleged sexual abuser Pete Hegseth is still fighting to persuade Republican senators to confirm him to one of the most powerful positions in government. Hegseth was already facing an uphill confirmation battle to become the Secretary of Defense given that he is best known as a Fox News host with no government experience. The emergence of…

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The Associated Press reports: President-elect Donald Trump on Friday named Oregon Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer to lead the Department of Labor in his second administration, elevating a Republican congresswoman who has strong support from unions in her district but lost reelection in November. Chavez-DeRemer will have to be confirmed by the Senate, which will be under Republican control when Trump takes office on Jan. 20, 2025, and can formally send nominations to Capitol Hill. Here are things to know about the…

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The Guardian reports: Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, has written in a book that he could imagine a scenario in which the US armed forces would be used violently in American domestic politics. Hegseth, a former elite soldier turned rightwing Fox television personality, is Trump’s choice to lead the Pentagon which controls the gigantic American military – by far the largest armed force in the world. In one of his five published books he wrote that in…

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Michael Schaffer writes: Is it newsworthy that Donald Trump’s share of the 2024 presidential vote has fallen below 50 percent? You wouldn’t think it’s a big deal based on the relatively few headlines triggered by the milestone, which passed quietly last weekend as California and other states continued their glacially slow vote counts. And maybe that’s as it should be. After all, Trump’s 49.9 percent (for now) is still more than Kamala Harris’ 48.3 percent. When the counting is done,…

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HuffPost reports: House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-Ky.) announced Thursday that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) will chair a new subcommittee named after an internet meme from the early 2010s. President-elect Donald Trump tapped entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head an advisory panel called the “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, that’s tasked with identifying trillions in government waste. Not wanting to be left out, Republicans on Capitol Hill this week created a caucus (an informal group…

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The Associated Press reports: While Matt Gaetz has withdrawn from the nomination process for attorney general, President-elect Donald Trump has picked several other people for his Cabinet and key staff positions who have been accused of some form of sexual misconduct. Trump himself has long been accused of abusing or mistreating women and once was caught bragging about grabbing women by the genitals. He was found liable by a New York City jury for sexual abuse and defamation and eventually…

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CNN reports: A recent lawsuit alleges Linda McMahon, who President-elect Donald Trump tapped to lead the Department of Education, knowingly enabled the sexual exploitation of children by a World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) employee as early as the 1980s — allegations she denies. McMahon is the former CEO of the WWE, which she co-founded with her husband, Vince. As head of the WWE, Linda McMahon oversaw its transformation from a wrestling entertainment company into a publicly traded media empire. She stepped…

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