Music: Marutyri — ‘The First One’
Team Trump debates ‘how much should we invade Mexico?’
Rolling Stone reports: Within Donald Trump’s government-in-waiting, there is a fresh debate over whether and how thoroughly the president-elect should follow through on his campaign promise to attack or even invade Mexico, as part of the “war” he’s pledged to wage against powerful drug cartels. “How much should we invade Mexico?” says a senior Trump transition member. “That is the question.” It is a question that would have seemed batty for the GOP elite to consider before, even during Trump’s…
Elon Musk wants to ‘delete’ federal financial watchdog as ‘DOGE’ begins work
The Washington Post reports: Elon Musk on Wednesday called for the elimination of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, one of the nation’s most powerful watchdog agencies, signaling it could be scrapped as part of a planned review of government spending ordered by President-elect Donald Trump. “Delete CFPB,” Musk said in an early-morning post on X, the social media site he owns, categorizing the bureau as an example of “too many duplicative regulatory agencies” in Washington. Formed in the wake of…
Musk uses X to intimidate federal workers
CNN reports: When President-elect Donald Trump said Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would recommend major cuts to the federal government in his administration, many public employees knew that their jobs could be on the line. Now they have a new fear: becoming the personal targets of the world’s richest man – and his legions of followers. Last week, in the midst of the flurry of his daily missives, Musk reposted two X posts that revealed the names and titles of…
When will Democrats finally realize that big tech is not an ally?
Zephyr Teachout writes: As Democrats think about how to counter the Trump administration, they need to accept a very simple lesson from the last eight years. Big tech and big business are part of the political opposition working on behalf of Donald Trump, not the Democrats’ allies working against Trump and Trumpism. It shouldn’t seem necessary to point out what seems to be an obvious fact. Nonetheless, there are some Democrats trying to stay close to big tech, or downplaying…
In Lebanon, a ceasefire is cause for celebration. Not in Israel
Orly Noy writes: The international media was awash yesterday with clips of people in Lebanon celebrating news of the looming ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, which came into force early this morning. As one report explained alongside a video, “The news has brought a moment of hope and relief to those affected by the ongoing conflict.” The same video was shared by the Hebrew Instagram page “Push – Real-Time Reports,” which has more than 860,000 followers. They captioned it rather…
Gisele Pelicot: Finding sisterhood at France’s mass rape trial
Diane de Vignemont writes: On my train back to Paris that evening, I sit next to a group of undergraduate students who, like me, traveled to Avignon to watch the trial. They take a break from their homework to talk to me. They tell me they’ve been following the case through reporters’ “live tweets” from the start. On social media, her supporters petition for Gisele to be made Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, or be given the Nobel Peace…
Reality check on technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the air
MIT News reports: In 2015, 195 nations plus the European Union signed the Paris Agreement and pledged to undertake plans designed to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Yet in 2023, the world exceeded that target for most, if not all of, the year — calling into question the long-term feasibility of achieving that target. To do so, the world must reduce the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and strategies for achieving levels that will…
Music: Marutyri — ‘Gaudi’
How Trump plans to seize the power of the purse from Congress
By Molly Redden This story was originally published by ProPublica Donald Trump is entering his second term with vows to cut a vast array of government services and a radical plan to do so. Rather than relying on his party’s control of Congress to trim the budget, Trump and his advisers intend to test an obscure legal theory holding that presidents have sweeping power to withhold funding from programs they dislike. “We can simply choke off the money,” Trump said…
Top Trump aide, Boris Epshteyn, accused of asking for money to ‘promote’ potential appointees
The New York Times reports: President-elect Donald J. Trump’s legal team found evidence that a top adviser asked for retainer fees from potential appointees in order to promote them for jobs in the new administration, five people briefed on the matter said on Monday. Mr. Trump directed his team to carry out the review of the adviser, Boris Epshteyn, who coordinated the legal defenses in Mr. Trump’s criminal cases and is a powerful figure in the transition. Several people whom…
Mexican president challenges Trump over tariffs and illegal weapons coming from the U.S.
Rolling Stone reports: Mexico’s recently elected President Claudia Sheinbaum has responded forcefully to Donald Trump’s plans to levy 25 percent tariffs on goods imported from Mexico if the nation doesn’t stem the flow of undocumented immigrants and drugs across the southern border. Sheinbaum promised during a morning news conference on Tuesday that Mexico will retaliate with tax penalties of their own if the president-elect goes through with his tariff plan. “President Trump, it isn’t with threats or tariffs that we…
Trump’s promises of mass deportation and high tariffs are now facing some corporate headwinds
Jay Kuo writes: Texas relies heavily on undocumented labor, especially in the construction sector. According to a report by the American Immigration Council and Texans for Economic Growth, around 60 percent of the immigrant workforce in the state is undocumented. That’s a quarter of a million workers. Deporting them would devastate the industry and drive up housing prices in the state. Marek, a big Houston-based residential and commercial construction company, warned NPR of the consequences. “It would devastate our industry,…
In Trump’s mass deportation plan, the private prison industry sees a lucrative opportunity
ABC News reports: As the government and law enforcement brace for the sweeping ramifications of President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to deport what could be millions of undocumented immigrants from the United States, another stakeholder appears poised to cash in on the complex logistics that would be required: the powerful private prison industry. On corporate earnings calls since Election Day, executives at the country’s top private prison firms have embraced Trump’s immigration agenda as a potential windfall if the federal government…
The entire history of Zionism’s injustices, in one Bedouin village
Orly Noy writes: Last week, the State of Israel hung the scalp of another Palestinian community on its belt after completing the demolition of Umm Al-Hiran. On the morning of Nov. 14, hundreds of police stormed the Bedouin village — which is located in the Negev/Naqab desert, in southern Israel — accompanied by special forces officers and helicopters. The residents, Israeli citizens who had long feared that this day would come, had already self-demolished most of the structures in the…
As climate change melts permafrost, microbes that we have never been exposed to will emerge
Valerie Brown writes: The popular image of the Arctic is as a “frozen North,” which it was for all of human history until a couple of centuries ago. In that view, intrepid explorers and scientists clatter over tundra and ice roads in dogsleds and decrepit trucks, risking everything to bring back important samples and wild tales of howling winds. But this vision is growing passé. The Arctic is warming four times as fast as the global average. While there are…