Republicans

Subterms

    More stories

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump’s cabinet picks aren’t just ‘loyalists’. They’re groveling, subservient yes-men | Robert Reich

      by

      The media has it all wrong about Trump’s picks for his administration. The conventional view is they’re “Trump loyalists” whom Trump “recruited”.Rubbish.First, they’re not loyalists; they’re subservient hacks.There’s a crucial difference.All politicians want their underlings to be loyal, but Trump wants them to be more loyal to him than to the nation, and he demands total subservience without regard to right or wrong.For the FBI, Trump has picked Kash Patel, who has pledged to prosecute Trump’s political opponents and “come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig the presidential election”.Trump’s selection for attorney general, Pam Bondi, has said that when Trump returns to power, “the prosecutors will be prosecuted”.Moreover, Trump didn’t recruit these people or anybody else. They recruited him.Every one of his nominees campaigned for these jobs by engaging in conspicuous displays of submission and flattery directed toward Trump.Elise Stefanik, whom Trump has nominated to be US ambassador to the United Nations, repeatedly boasted that she was the first lawmaker to endorse Trump’s re-election bid.Before Trump tapped Kristi Noem to head the Department of Homeland Security, she sent him a 4ft replica of Mount Rushmore with Trump’s face next to those of Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln.Mike Waltz, whom Trump has picked for national security adviser, supported a move in Congress to rename Washington Dulles international airport the “Donald J Trump international airport”.Lee Zeldin, whom Trump has picked for EPA administrator, said publicly that the criminal prosecutions of Trump were akin to Putin’s persecution of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.Stephen Miller, who will be a Trump White House adviser, said during a Fox News interview that Trump is the “most stylish president” in our lifetimes. “Donald Trump is a style icon!”Ten of Trump’s picks so far were Fox News hosts or contributors who repeatedly mouthed Trump’s lies about the 2020 election being stolen, about January 6 being a “peaceful protest” and about Biden being the force behind Trump’s prosecutions.Some of Trump’s picks showed up at his criminal trial in Manhattan, where they verbally attacked members of the presiding judge’s family on behalf of Trump, who was under a rule of silence.Some picks appeared at his campaign rallies, expanding on Trump’s lies and lavishing him with praise.Many made large donations to Trump’s campaign. Five of his picks so far are billionaires.All knew that Trump wanted people who would do whatever he asked of them. So they prostrated themselves to show their deference to him.All knew that Trump liked to be fawned over. So they debased themselves by giving him gushing compliments.They knew that Trump wanted people lacking an independent moral compass. So they went out of their way to demonstrate they have no integrity by retelling Trump’s lies in public with even more verve and intensity than he displayed when telling them.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTime and again they have performed acts of cringeworthy subservience toward Trump, proving themselves reliable conduits for his scheming vindictiveness.This is a rare bunch. How many Americans would eagerly repeat to national audiences baldfaced lies spouted by an authoritarian – lies that undermine our democracy? How many Americans would publicly grovel before Trump, making it clear they’ll do whatever he asks of them regardless of consequence?To be a member of this unique group, one needs to be both colossally ambitious and profoundly insecure, willing to demean oneself to gain Trump’s favor.Trump didn’t find these people; these people found Trump. And to get in his good graces, they saw to it that he noticed their servile deference, fawning adulation and total submission.But these people will also bring about Trump’s downfall, and possibly the downfall of America.That’s because one of the most important things a president needs is accurate and useful feedback. These are in short supply even in the best of administrations.People who work for a president are often reluctant to be bearers of bad news. Presidents are typically surrounded by yes-men and -women afraid to say anything that will ruffle powerful feathers.As a result, presidents can make huge mistakes – invading Iraq and Afghanistan, deregulating Wall Street and then bailing it out when its gambling gets out of hand, pardoning Richard Nixon, waging war in Vietnam.Trump’s toadies are even less likely to cross him. To the contrary, they’ll egg him on.The years ahead would be dangerous enough if Trump sought out unprincipled enablers.The coming years will be even more perilous because unprincipled enablers have sought out Trump.

      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump picks venture capitalist David Sacks as AI and crypto ‘czar’

      by

      Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he was nominating podcaster and former PayPal chief operating officer David Sacks to be his White House artificial intelligence and crypto czar, continuing a pattern of rewarding big donors with political power.Sacks, a venture capitalist and Silicon Valley insider, hosted big spenders at his San Francisco mansion in June to support the Trump campaign, with tickets ranging up to $300,000 a head. The event reportedly raked in more than $12m.A host of the popular podcast All-In, Sacks shares the mic with Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis and David Friedberg in weekly episodes that focus on “all things economic, tech, political, social and poker”.He has also been closely linked with Elon Musk and helped to back his bid to acquire Twitter, the social media platform renamed X. The two tech titans reportedly joined together to push the president-elect to name JD Vance as his running mate.Trump clearly heeded the advice. And now he has welcomed Sacks into the federal government to offer guidance and leadership to bolster the crypto industry and artificial intelligence, “two areas critical to the future of American competitiveness”, according to Trump’s post.Along with this new position as an advisor, Trump has tapped Sacks to head his council of advisors for science and technology, an independent committee of experts historically charged with helping presidents make important decisions and developing evidence-based recommendations on policy.Their work affects a range of specialized areas, from energy and the environment to public health and national security.The committee is currently co-chaired by three esteemed scientists, including Dr Arati Prabhakar, an engineer and applied physicist and former director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.Sacks will take on a specific set of priorities, according to Trump’s post, which did not delve into if science will play a part.“He will safeguard Free Speech online, and steer us away from Big Tech bias and censorship,” Trump continued. “He will work on a legal framework so the Crypto industry has the clarity it has been asking for, and can thrive in the US.”The Sacks announcement came among a slew of posts shared in the evening on Thursday as Trump named other allies of his to the incoming administration.David Perdue, a former Senator and long-time Maga loyalist who faced federal scrutiny over his stock trading while in office, was named as the ambassador to China – a key diplomatic role as Trump stokes trade tensions.Rodney S Scott, the former chief of the US Border Patrol and a border-wall advocate, was picked for US Customs and Border Protection commissioner. Caleb Vitello, who currently serves as assistant director of the Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs was selected as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).Former Border Patrol agent Brandon Judd was named ambassador to Chile. Ice special agent Tony Salisbury was chosen for deputy homeland security adviser. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Former US officials alarmed over Tulsi Gabbard’s alleged ‘sympathy for dictators’

      by

      Nearly 100 former US diplomats and intelligence and national security officials have called for the Senate to hold closed-door briefings on Donald Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence for her alleged “sympathy for dictators like Vladimir Putin and [Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad]” and other concerns.In an open letter, the officials blasted Tulsi Gabbard, a former presidential candidate and representative from Hawaii, for her lack of experience in the field of intelligence, embracing conspiracy theories regarding the 2022 full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, and “aligning herself with Russian and Syrian officials” after an “uncoordinated” meeting with Assad in Damascus in 2017.The letter was signed by the former deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman, the former Nato deputy secretary general Rose Gottemoeller, the former national security adviser Anthony Lake, as well as a number of other former ambassadors, intelligence and military officers, and other high-ranking members of the national security apparatus.It was addressed to the current Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, and to the incoming majority leader John Thune, a Republican.In the letter, the officials called on the Senate to “fully exercise its constitutional advice and consent role … including through appropriate vetting, hearings, and regular order”. It called for Senate committees to consider “all information available” in closed sessions to review Gabbard’s qualifications to manage “the protection of our intelligence sources and methods”.Gabbard and her supporters have denounced similar attacks as a smear campaign, saying that her record of anti-interventionism in Syria and Ukraine has been misrepresented by her political enemies.In Washington, she has staked out a unique foreign policy position as a strong supporter of Israel and the “war on terror” – but also as a critic of US rivalries with countries like Russia and Iran (she strongly criticised Trump’s decision to assassinate the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani as an “illegal and unconstitutional act of war”).“When it comes to the war against terrorists, I’m a hawk,” she told a Hawaiian newspaper in 2016. “When it comes to counterproductive wars of regime change, I’m a dove.”But many in Washington’s tightly knit foreign policy and intelligence community see Gabbard as dangerous. The concerns listed in the open letter included Gabbard’s public doubts of Assad’s use of chemical weapons against civilians in spite of “US intelligence reports and overwhelming public reporting” corroborating the attacks.They also noted her online posts after the Russian invasion “insinuating that US-funded labs in Ukraine were developing biological weapons and that Ukraine’s engagement with Nato posed a threat to Russian sovereignty”.Her public sympathy for Putin and Assad, the letter said, “raises questions about her judgement and fitness”.“These unfounded attacks are from the same geniuses who have blood on their hands from decades of faulty ‘intelligence’,” and who use classified government information as a “partisan weapon to smear and imply things about their political enemy”, Alexa Henning, a spokesperson for Gabbard with the Trump team, told ABC News in response to the letter.Activists have told the Guardian that staffers from both parties had expressed concern during a 2018 hearing with a Syrian ex-military whistleblower that Gabbard could leak details of the person’s identity. A person with knowledge of high-level intelligence discussions said that there were concerns over Gabbard’s other contacts in the region as well. More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      House ethics committee to vote on publication of Matt Gaetz report

      by

      The House ethics committee will on Thursday vote on whether its long-awaited report investigating allegations of sexual misconduct and potential illegal activities involving former Florida Republican congressman Matt Gaetz will be made public.The report in question details allegations that Gaetz engaged in illicit drug use, misuse of campaign funds and sexual misconduct with a 17-year-old girl, and allegations of obstructing the House investigation. Gaetz has consistently denied the claims.The move comes weeks after Gaetz’s resignation from Congress and his withdrawal as a potential Trump administration nominee when it became clear he did not have enough support from senators to survive a confirmation hearing. Democrats, led by Representatives Sean Casten and Steve Cohen, attempted to force the report’s release through privileged resolutions, arguing that transparency is crucial.Casten’s resolution, sent to the House two days before the vote, said that withholding the report would “undermine the committee’s credibility and impede the safety, dignity, and integrity of legislative proceedings”.But should the committee side with chair and Mississippi Republican Michael Guest, the vote would fall flat, following the argument that the panel’s investigative jurisdiction ends when a member leaves Congress.“He’s no longer a member,” Guest told reporters on Thursday. “He is no longer going to be confirmed by the Senate because he withdrew his nomination to be the attorney general.”But if the committee vote comes to an impasse – a possibility due to the 50-50 ideological split – a full floor vote would be brought to the House on Thursday night, putting all lawmakers on record.The decision would either grant or hide public access to a report that has been years in the making, and which allegedly contains detailed findings about claims of sexual misconduct involving an underage girl and potential drug use.The report’s potential revelations could have significant political implications, particularly as Gaetz is rumored to be considering a bid for Florida governor in 2026 or seeking another role in the incoming Trump administration.The investigation, which has gone on for years, gained additional scrutiny after Gaetz’s associate Joel Greenberg pleaded guilty in 2021 to paying women and an underage girl for sexual services. More

    • 188 Shares149 Views

      in US Politics

      Conspiracy theories and cosying up to dictators: why intelligence experts are spooked by Tulsi Gabbard

      by

      In 2018, a Syrian dissident codenamed Caesar was set to testify before the House foreign affairs committee about the torture and summary executions that had become a signature of Bashar al-Assad’s brutal crackdown on opposition during Syria’s civil war.It was not Caesar’s first time in Washington: the ex-military photographer had smuggled out 55,000 photographs and other evidence of life in Assad’s brutal detention facilities years earlier, and had campaigned anonymously to convince US lawmakers to pass tough sanctions on Assad’s network as punishment for his reign of terror.But ahead of that hearing, staffers on the committee, activists and Caesar himself, suddenly became nervous: was it safe to hold the testimony in front of Tulsi Gabbard, the Hawaii congresswoman on the committee who just a year earlier had traveled to Damascus of her own volition to meet with Assad?Could she record Caesar’s voice, they asked, or potentially send a photograph of the secret witness back to the same contacts who had brokered her meeting with the Syrian president?View image in fullscreen“There was genuine concern by Democrats in her own party, and Republicans and us and Caesar, about how were we going to do this?” said Mouaz Moustafa, the executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, an activist group, who had previously traveled with Gabbard in Syria in 2015. “With the member sitting on this committee that we believe would give any intelligence she has to Assad, Russia and Iran, all of which would have wanted to kill Caesar.”During a congressional trip in 2015, Moustafa recalled, Gabbard had asked three young Syrian girls whether the airstrike they had narrowly survived may not have been launched by Assad, but rather by the terrorist group Isis. The one problem? Isis did not have an air force.Photographs from the 2018 briefing showed a heavily disguised Caesar sitting in a hoodie and mask giving testimony before the House committee.“I often disguise [witnesses],” said Moustafa, who had worked closely with Caesar and served as his translator. “But that day I was especially wary of Tulsi.”There is no evidence that Gabbard sought to pass any information about the Syrian whistleblower to Damascus or any other country, nor that she has any documented connection to other intelligence agencies.But within Washington foreign policy circles and the tightly knit intelligence community, Gabbard has long been seen as dangerous; some have worried that she seems inclined toward conspiracy theories and cosying up to dictators. Others, including the former secretary of state and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, have gone further, calling her a “Russian asset”.Those concerns have been heightened by Gabbard’s nomination under Donald Trump to the post of director of national intelligence, a senior cabinet-level position with access to classified materials from across the 18 US intelligence agencies, and shaping that information for the president’s daily briefing. The role would allow her to access and declassify information at her discretion, and also direct some intelligence-sharing with US allies around the world.“There is real concern about her contacts [in Syria] and that she does not share the same sympathies and values as the intelligence community,” said a person familiar with discussions among senior intelligence officials. “She is historically unfit.”View image in fullscreenGabbard and her supporters have denounced those attacks as a smear, saying that her history of anti-interventionism in Syria and Ukraine has been misrepresented as a kind of “cold war 2.0”.In Washington, she has staked out a unique foreign policy position as a strong supporter of Israel and the “war on terror” – but also as a critic of US rivalries with countries like Russia and Iran (she strongly criticised Trump’s decision to assassinate the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani as an “illegal and unconstitutional act of war”).“When it comes to the war against terrorists, I’m a hawk,” she told a Hawaiian newspaper in 2016. “When it comes to counterproductive wars of regime change, I’m a dove.”Jeremy Scahill, the leftwing US journalist and activist, wrote that to “pretend that Gabbard somehow poses a more grave danger to US security than those in power after 9/11 or throughout the long bloody history of US interventions and the resulting blowback is a lot of hype and hysteria”.But Gabbard has repeatedly shared conspiracy theories, including claiming shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine that there are “25+ US-funded biolabs in Ukraine which if breached would release & spread deadly pathogens to US/world”. In fact, the US program stemming back to the 1990s is directed at better securing labs which focus on infectious disease outbreaks.Days after Russia invaded Ukraine, with Kyiv engaged in a desperate defense of the country’s sovereignty, Gabbard said: “It’s time to put geopolitics aside and embrace the spirit of aloha, respect and love, for the Ukrainian people by coming to an agreement that Ukraine will be a neutral country.”View image in fullscreenAnd she has repeatedly supported dictators, including Assad, suggesting that reports of the 2013 and 2017 chemical weapons attacks were false, and calling for the US to “join hands” with Moscow following its 2015 intervention in Syria.Establishment Democrats and Republicans have openly questioned whether or not she poses a threat to national security.“I worry what might happen to untold numbers of American assets if someone as reckless, inexperienced, and outright disloyal as Gabbard were DNI,” wrote Adam Kinzinger, a former congressman who served on the foreign affairs committee with Gabbard in 2018 when Caesar testified.The person close to the intelligence community said that there were continuing concerns about Gabbard’s contacts in the Middle East, stemming back to the controversial 2017 meeting with Assad – an encounter that Gabbard has insisted she does not regret.Those contacts may be explored during a Senate confirmation hearing early next year, the person said.Gabbard was briefly placed on a Transportation Security Administration watchlist because of her overseas travel patterns and foreign connections, CNN reported last month, but was later removed.She does not have a background in intelligence, although the Hawaii native served in the army national guard for more than two decades, and has deployed to Iraq and Kuwait.Moreover, there are concerns that her choice could affect intelligence sharing among US foreign allies, including the tightly knit Five Eyes intelligence group that includes the US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand, as well as Nato and allies in Japan and South Korea.“Much of the intelligence we get, at least from the human collector side, is from our partners,” said John Sipher, formerly deputy director of the CIA’s Russia operations, noting that the cooperation was usually informal, “personality- and trust-based”.“They’re going to be really hesitant to pass [information] to a place that that is becoming more partisan and less professional … they would be making their own checklist: ‘Hey, this sensitive thing that we would in the past have passed to the CIA that could do us damage if it becomes public … Let’s just not do that this time.’” More

    • 263 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Hegseth vows to stay sober if confirmed as defense secretary; Trump signals pro-crypto stance with SEC pick Paul Atkins – live

      by

      Pete Hegseth is back on Capitol Hill as he seeks to reassure Republican senators of his ability to lead the defense department despite a steady trickle of troubling reports about his personal conduct.Over the weekend, the New Yorker reported that Hegseth, a former Fox News host, was known to drink excessively. It quoted a former staffer at a veterans non-profit that he led saying: “I’ve seen him drunk so many times. I’ve seen him dragged away not a few times but multiple times. To have him at the Pentagon would be scary.”The Hill reports that Hegseth told Roger Wicker, a Republican senator who will chair the armed services committee, that he will stay sober if he gets the defense secretary job. Speaking to reporters, Wicker said: “I think that’s probably a good idea.”Donald Trump will sit down for an interview with Kristen Welker, host of NBC’s Meet the Press, for an interview that will air on 8 December, NBCUniversal announced in a press release on Wednesday. The interview will be filmed this Friday and will be the president-elect’s first network interview since the election, NBC’s press release added.Trump has been notoriously antagonistic toward mainstream American news networks like NBC in the past. In September 2023, he threatened to sue Comcast, NBC’s parent company, over what he described as “Country Threatening Treason”.In a post on Truth Social on 24 September 2023, Trump said:
      I say up front, openly, and proudly, that when I WIN the Presidency of the United States, they and others of the LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and event.
      Several people close to Donald Trump, including some he has chosen to serve in his cabinet, are encouraging the president-elect to pardon Edward Snowden, the Washington Post reports.A former National Security Agency contractor, Snowden fled to Hong Kong in 2013 and handed over tens of thousands of top-secret documents to media outlets, including the Guardian. He has since been in exile in Russia. Trump almost pardoned Snowden before leaving office in 2021, but ultimately decided not to.Here’s more on his latest thinking on the matter, from the Post:“I decided to let that one ride, let the courts work it out,” Trump said 10 months after leaving office, when asked about pardons for Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. “I was very close to going the other way.”But advocates for clemency for Snowden, including several of Trump’s picks for top Cabinet posts, are hopeful that Trump is now closer to pardoning the former spy, who has been living in Moscow for more than a decade to avoid a 2013 Justice Department indictment.Matt Gaetz, the former congressman who withdrew last month as Trump’s nominee for attorney general, said the Snowden pardon has been a topic of discussion among people working on Trump’s presidential transition since the election, though he said he had not spoken about it with Trump during that time. Gaetz is hopeful that the future president will deliver.“I advocated for a pardon for Mr Snowden extensively. That did not give Mr Trump any apprehension in his nominating me. I would have recommended that as attorney general,” Gaetz said Monday. “I have discussed the matter with others in and around the transition, and there seemed to be pretty broad support for a pardon.”Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary pick, Robert F Kennedy Jr., campaigned for president on the promise of a “day one” pardon of Snowden and building a Washington monument in his honor. Director of National Intelligence pick Tulsi Gabbard sponsored a 2020 House resolution with Gaetz calling for the government to drop charges against Snowden.Kenneth Chesebro, a little-known lawyer who played a key role in developing the fake electors scheme, is asking a Georgia judge to withdraw his guilty plea in the wide-ranging election interference case filed by Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney.Chesebro pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to file false documents, agreeing to serve five years of probation, serve 100 hours of community service, pay $5,000 in restitution and write an apology to the citizens of Georgia. He also agreed to turn over all evidence in his possession and serve as a witness in the case.But in September, Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee threw out the charges that Chesebro had pleaded guilty to, which were related to filing false statements in federal court. State-level prosecutors did not have the authority to file those charges, McAfee ruled in September.“In Georgia, a defendant cannot plead guilty to a charge that does not constitute a crime,” Chesebro’s lawyer wrote in a court filing on Wednesday.The Georgia case has been on hold since earlier this year when the defendants in the case sought to have Willis removed from it over her romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the case’s lead prosecutor. McAfee ruled that Willis could continue as long as Wade resigned, which he did. Trump and other defendants appealed that ruling.The case is not expected to go to trial any time soon and it is unclear whether it will be dismissed entirely after Trump won the presidency.Pete Hegseth’s chances of becoming defense secretary will likely be determined by Joni Ernst, a Republican senator from Iowa who is also the first female combat veteran to serve in the chamber, the New York Times reports.Hegseth is expected to meet today with Ernst, a victim of sexual assault who has supported a bill to change how the military handles such attacks.The former Fox News host was investigated in connection with a sexual assault in Monterey, California, in 2017. Though no charges were brought, it has been reported that he reached a financial settlement with his female accuser. Hegseth has also faced allegations of creating a hostile workplace environment for women when he was involved in veterans non-profits.Pete Hegseth is back on Capitol Hill as he seeks to reassure Republican senators of his ability to lead the defense department despite a steady trickle of troubling reports about his personal conduct.Over the weekend, the New Yorker reported that Hegseth, a former Fox News host, was known to drink excessively. It quoted a former staffer at a veterans non-profit that he led saying: “I’ve seen him drunk so many times. I’ve seen him dragged away not a few times but multiple times. To have him at the Pentagon would be scary.”The Hill reports that Hegseth told Roger Wicker, a Republican senator who will chair the armed services committee, that he will stay sober if he gets the defense secretary job. Speaking to reporters, Wicker said: “I think that’s probably a good idea.”Donald Trump has nominated cryptocurrency lobbyist Paul Atkins to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, a sign that his administration will take a friendlier approach to the digital assets that have boomed in value in recent years despite concerns about their financial risks.In a post on Truth Social announcing the appointment, Trump wrote:
      Paul is a proven leader for common sense regulations. He believes in the promise of robust, innovative capital markets that are responsive to the needs of Investors, & that provide capital to make our Economy the best in the World. He also recognizes that digital assets & other innovations are crucial to Making America Greater than Ever Before.
      Atkins served as an SEC commissioner during George W Bush’s presidency, and currently co-chairs the Token Alliance, an initiative of the Chamber of Digital Commerce intended to inform policymakers about digital assets. He also runs Patomak Global Partners, a risk management firm.Under Joe Biden, the SEC has been chaired by Gary Gensler, a critic of cryptocurrencies who will step down when Trump is inaugurated – a day the digital asset industry is very much looking forward to.Donald Trump announced Bill McGinley as White House counsel only three weeks ago, but today assigned him the new position in the “department of government efficiency”, swapping him for David Warrington instead. No reason was given for the switch-up.Warrington, a partner at Dhillon Law Group, represented Trump on cases such as those involving the effort to remove him from the ballot due to the role he played in the 6 Jananuary 2021 attack on the US Capitol.Warrington is the latest of Trump’s personal attorneys to take up a role in the administration. The veteran marine also led the Republican National Lawyers Association and worked on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.“He is an esteemed lawyer and Conservative leader,” Trump said.Trump appointed William “Bill” Joseph McGinley as counsel to a newly created non-government agency, the “department of government efficiency” (“Doge”), headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Doge, named after the Dogecoin meme cryptocurrency, is meant to “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies”, according to Trump.McGinley was White House cabinet secretary during Trump’s first term, a role meant for coordinating policy and communications strategy.“Bill will play a crucial role in liberating our Economy from burdensome Regulations, excess spending, and Government waste,” Trump said in a statement announcing the new appointment. “He will partner with the White House and the Office of Management and Budget to provide advice and guidance to end the bloated Federal Bureaucracy. Bill is a great addition to a stellar team that is focused on making life better for all Americans. He will be at the forefront of my Administration’s efforts to make our Government more efficient and more accountable.”Adam Boheler will serve as lead hostage negotiator for the administration, a role which will come into focus during future conversations with Israel and Hamas.Trump said yesterday on Truth Social there will be “HELL TO PAY” if the hostages in Gaza are not released by the time of his inauguration.Negotiations over a ceasefire in Gaza have not been met with success. At least 44,466 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israeli forces, according to the Gaza health ministry, many of whom are women, children and elderly people.Donald Trump nominated healthcare executive Adam Boehler as special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, “with the personal rank of Ambassador”.“Adam worked for me as a Lead Negotiator on the Abraham Accords team. He has negotiated with some of the toughest people in the World, including the Taliban, but Adam knows that NO ONE is tougher than the United States of America, at least when President Trump is its Leader. Adam will work tirelessly to bring our Great American Citizens HOME,” Trump said in a statement.“Adam was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the first CEO of the United States Development Finance Corporation. He went to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.“Congratulations to Adam, his wife, Shira, and their four beautiful children, Ruth, Abraham, Esther, and Rachel!”The supreme court spent two and a half hours hearing oral arguments over Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care, which members of the court’s six-justice supermajority appear inclined to uphold. An attorney for the state argued that the law protects “minors from risky, unproven medical interventions”, while the Biden administration’s top lawyer said: “Tennessee made no attempt to tailor its law to its stated health concerns.” The American Civil Liberties Union also spoke against the law, with its lawyer Chase Strangio making history as the first openly transgender person to argue before the supreme court. A decision is expected in the coming months.Here’s what else has gone on today so far:

      Pete Hegseth’s nomination as defense secretary is reportedly teetering amid reports of excessive drinking, financial mismanagement and a sexual assault allegation. Donald Trump is said to be considering Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, to replace him for the job of leading the Pentagon, but has announced no decision yet.

      Hegseth’s mother, Penelope Hegseth, defended her son in an interview with his former employer Fox News, saying: “He doesn’t misuse women.”

      Trump announced a slew of new appointments to top administration jobs, including army secretary and Nasa administrator. Among those picked was former federal inmate Peter Navarro, who will be a top White House trade adviser.
      Members of the supreme court’s conservative supermajority appeared willing to uphold Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors in just-concluded oral arguments.Biden administration solicitor general Elizabeth Prelogar as well as American Civil Liberties Union attorney Chase Strangio argued that the Tennessee law, known as SB 1, ran afoul of constitutional protections against sex discrimination, and that it jeopardizes the mental health of minors by forcing them to go through puberty before they can access gender-affirming care once they turn 18.But conservative justices questioned whether by rejecting the law, they would create a situation whereby a young person would use the care to transition genders, then regret it later on. They also questioned whether the constitution addressed the sort of situation that the Tennessee law deals with.“You say there are benefits from allowing these treatments, but there are also harms, right, from allowing these treatments, at least the state says so, including lost fertility, the physical and psychological effects on those who later change their mind and want to detransition, which I don’t think we can ignore,” said Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative justice.Other members of the six-justice conservative bloc made similar points, which is more than enough to issue a ruling upholding Tennessee’s law, and likely those of the more than two dozen other states with similar measures on the books.As the arguments wrapped up, conservative supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh asked Tennessee solicitor general Matthew Rice about how the state’s law should be viewed in the context of state’s rights.“You are not arguing that the constitution take sides on this question … you are arguing that each state can make its own choice on this question. So, from your perspective, as I understand it, it’s perfectly fine for a state to make a different choice, as many states have, than Tennessee did and to allow these treatments,” Kavanaugh asked.“That’s correct,” Rice replied, arguing that the question of how to regulate such care is one best left to legislatures to determine, not the courts.“We think that’s because of what your honor has pointed out, that no matter how you draw these lines, there are risk and benefit, potential benefits and harms to people on both sides, and the question of how to balance those harms is not a question for the judiciary, it’s a question for the legislature,” he said.Liberal supreme court justices were openly skeptical of the Tennessee law.The state’s solicitor general Matthew Rice began by arguing that there are risks to gender-affirming care, leading justice Sonia Sotomayor to cut in: “I’m sorry, councilor, every medical treatment has a risk, even taking aspirin. There is always going to be a percentage of the population under any medical treatment that’s going to suffer a harm.”Sotomayor argued that the law creates a “sex-based difference” in who can receive medical care, but Rice said he disagreed, arguing that the law is instead regulating different medical procedures.“We do not think that giving puberty blockers to a six-year-old that has started precocious puberty is the same medical treatment as giving it to a minor who wants to transition. Those are not the same medical treatment,” he said.Currently before the court is Tennessee’s solicitor general, Matthew Rice, who is arguing in favor of the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors.“Tennessee lawmakers enacted SB 1 to protect minors from risky, unproven medical interventions. The law imposes an across-the-board rule that allows the use of drugs and surgeries for some medical purposes, but not for others. Its application turns entirely on medical purpose, not a patient’s sex. That is not sex discrimination,” he began.“The challengers try to make the law seem sex-based this morning by using terms like masculinizing and feminizing, but their arguments can … conflate fundamentally different treatments, just as using morphine to manage pain differs from using it to assist suicide, using hormones and puberty blockers to address a physical condition is far different from using it to address psychological distress associated with one’s body.”Back at the supreme court, liberal justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she was concerned that if the court upheld the Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care, it would undermine decisions that outlawed forms of racial discrimination.She specifically cited the landmark Loving v Virginia decision of 1967, which found laws against interracial marriage were unconstitutional.“We’re just sort of doing what the state is encouraging here in Loving, where you just sort of say, well, there are lots of good reasons for this policy, and who are we, as the court, to say otherwise? I’m worried that we’re undermining the foundations of some of our bedrock equal protection cases,” Jackson said.“I share your concerns,” ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio replied. “If Tennessee can have an end run around heightened scrutiny by asserting at the outset that biology justifies the sex-based differential in the law, that would undermine decades of this court’s precedent.”Donald Trump has announced nominees for several top administration roles, including army secretary, Nasa administrator and advisers dealing with trade and hostages held overseas.Among those selected was Peter Navarro, who served four months in prison earlier this year after being convicted of contempt of Congress. Trump appointed Navarro as senior counsel for trade and manufacturing, a role similar to one he held during the first Trump administration. Here’s what the president-elect said in making the appointment:
      I am pleased to announce that Peter Navarro, a man who was treated horribly by the Deep State, or whatever else you would like to call it, will serve as my Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing. During my First Term, few were more effective or tenacious than Peter in enforcing my two sacred rules, Buy American, Hire American. He helped me renegotiate unfair Trade Deals like NAFTA and the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS), and moved every one of my Tariff and Trade actions FAST …
      The Senior Counselor position leverages Peter’s broad range of White House experience, while harnessing his extensive Policy analytic and Media skills. His mission will be to help successfully advance and communicate the Trump Manufacturing, Tariff, and Trade Agendas.
      The president-elect announced three other appointments:

      Daniel Driscoll to serve as army secretary. An Iraq war veteran, Driscoll was most recently serving as an adviser to vice-president-elect JD Vance.

      Adam Boehler as special envoy for hostage affairs. Boehler was involved in negotiating the Abraham accords that normalized relations between Israel and some Arab states, and Trump said he “will work tirelessly to bring our Great American Citizens HOME”.

      Jared Isaacman as Nasa administrator. The billionaire was earlier this year the first private citizen to perform a spacewalk from a capsule from Elon Musk’s firm SpaceX.
      The justices are now hearing from Chase Strangio of the American Civil Liberties Union, who is also the first openly transgender attorney to argue before the supreme court.Strangio said that the court should rule against the Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for minors. Here’s his opening statement:
      On its face, SB 1 bans medical care only when it is inconsistent with a person’s birth sex. An adolescent can receive medical treatment to live and identify as a boy if his birth sex is male, but not female, and an adolescent can receive medical treatment to live and identify as a girl if her birth sex is female, but not male.
      Tennessee claims the sex-based line drawing is justified to protect children, but SB 1 has taken away the only treatment that relieved years of suffering for each of the … plaintiffs, and, critically, Tennessee’s arguments that SB 1 is sex-neutral would apply if the state banned this care for adults too, by banning treatment only when it allows an adolescent to live, identify or appear inconsistent with their birth sex. SB 1 warrants heightened scrutiny under decades of precedent because the sixth circuit failed to apply that standard, this court should vacate and remand. More

    • 175 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense should alarm all of us | Moira Donegan

      by

      It takes a lot to get a man’s mother to declare him an “abuser of women”. Mothers, as a rule, are not known for their ungenerous assessments of their sons’ behavior. But Penelope Hegseth, the mother of the Fox News personality Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Defense, once did just that in an email to her son.“I have no respect for a man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego,” Hegseth’s mother wrote to him. “You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains and embarrasses me to say that, but it’s the sad, sad truth.” The email – which Hegseth’s mother later disavowed – appears to have come around the time of the dissolution of Hegseth’s second marriage; during Hegseth’s first marriage, according to a new report by Vanity Fair, he confessed to no fewer than five affairs.The April 2018 email from Hegseth’s mother came just months after an October 2017 incident in which a woman alleges that Hegseth raped her at a Republican women’s conference in the seaside town of Monterey, California. In a police report, the woman said that while she was intoxicated at the time of the incident and believed she may have been drugged, she “remembered saying no a lot” and claimed that Hegseth had blocked her from a hotel room door with his body when she had tried to leave. The woman subsequently went to the hospital; Hegseth later paid her a settlement, and she signed a non-disclosure agreement. Hegseth denies any misconduct and has not been charged with a crime.That 2017 incident, in which heavy drinking at a work event allegedly culminated in Hegseth committing sexual assault, is in line with another slew of allegations against the defense secretary nominee published last Sunday by the New Yorker, in which whistleblowers at not one, but two of Hegseth’s former employers compiled allegations of his drinking, financial mismanagement, and disrespectful, lewd and abusive behavior towards women, going so far as to risk their own careers in order to report Hegseth to management.During his three-year tenure as the president of the conservative group Concerned Veterans for America (CVA), Hegseth was repeatedly so intoxicated at work events that he had to be carried out, according to a report compiled by multiple former CVA employees that was sent to management in February 2015. That report also claims Hegseth took employees to a strip club in Louisiana as part of a work event and was almost thrown out of the venue by security when he tried to climb on stage with the dancers. A separate letter sent to CVA management – there seem to have been many letters about him sent to management – claims that when Hegseth was at an Ohio bar in May 2015, he drunkenly chanted: “Kill all Muslims! Kill all Muslims!”According to the New Yorker, Hegseth’s alleged misbehavior at the CVA was consistent with drunken impropriety that Hegseth is alleged to have engaged in as the head of another conservative non-profit, Vets for Freedom, which was dissolved after Hegseth’s leadership drove it to insolvency amid many work parties that were described by one insider as “trysts”.Hegseth was pushed out as president of CVA in 2016, and landed his Fox News gig shortly thereafter. But his heavy drinking appears to have continued. NBC News interviewed 10 current and former employees of Fox News who reported that Hegseth smelled of alcohol at work and complained of being hungover before going on the air. One of them said they had smelled alcohol on him at work as recently as last month.Together, the allegations paint a picture of a drunken, incompetent and sexually entitled man, prone to over-indulgence and short on self-discipline, who abuses alcohol, is habitually unprofessional, mismanages other people’s money and treats women as one might a Kleenex. He comes off as ineffectual, disrespectful, wasteful and unworthy of respect. Trump wants to put him in charge of 3 million civilian and military employees, one of the largest budgets of any government agency in human history and the nation’s security and military readiness.Incompetence has never been a disqualifying quality in Trump’s orbit, and abuse of women, at times, has seemed like it counts, in Trump world, almost as a virtue. Trump’s is a masculinity of domination and swagger, in which women’s bodies are a theater on which men prove their own strength; respect or kindness towards others is a sign of weakness; and good governance is for nerds and losers who simply don’t have the balls for self-dealing.By that metric, allegations that Hegseth sexually abused women, cheated former employers out of money and was habitually drunk may not even be seen as negatives. They may be interpreted, in Maga world, as signs of a man with the kind of baseless self-assurance, disregard for others and determination to dominate that the Trump administration has always prized most highly, not least of all in Trump himself.But there are signs that some Republicans, at least, remain capable of something like embarrassment. NBC News reported on Tuesday that as many as six Republican senators are cooling on the prospect of voting to confirm Hegseth; in the narrowly divided Senate that will convene next year, he can afford to lose only three.Perhaps the senators are put off by the allegations of Hegseth’s alcohol abuse in a way they were not by his allegations of sexual abuse. But ultimately, the senators will only withhold their votes from a Trump nominee if they feel they can politically afford to do so. Like many of Hegseth’s alleged encounters with women, the vote will come down to an exercise in domination – and that is the kind of contest that Trump has always aimed to win.

      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

    • 113 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump makes U-turn on top White House lawyer pick

      by

      Donald Trump announced on Wednesday he was appointing David Warrington to serve as the White House counsel, abruptly changing his mind about who will be the top lawyer in the incoming administration as he moves his original pick to the new department of government efficiency.The move means Warrington, a longtime Trump lawyer who was also the Trump campaign’s general counsel, will effectively be the most prominent legal adviser to Trump in the day-to-day running of the West Wing.“Dave will lead the office of the White House counsel, and serve as the top attorney in the White House. Dave has represented me well as my personal attorney, and as general counsel for my presidential campaign,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.Warrington has been a low-profile but consistent fixture in Trump’s legal orbit for years, leading the campaign’s pre-election litigation with the federal election commission and civil cases, including efforts to ban Trump from the ballot over the January 6 Capitol attack.Warrington had been in contention to be White House counsel in the days after the election – it is typical for the general counsel on the presidential campaign to get the White House counsel job – until Trump decided he wanted the Republican lawyer Bill McGinley instead.The precise details about why Trump changed his mind are unclear.The Trump transition team’s “War Room” account said in a post on X that McGinley was moved to the department of government efficiency because the agency, which is expected to be part of the Office of Management and Budget, needed its own lawyer to oversee efforts to cut millions in government spending.“President Trump knows reforming the federal government won’t be easy – and that’s why he needs a solid, experienced pro like Bill McGinley at DOGE,” the post said, using the acronym for the efficiency department.But the decision also comes after Warrington, in the lead-up to the Thanksgiving holiday last week, attempted what was widely seen as an effort to force the exile of top Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn over an alleged pay-to-play scheme for potential cabinet nominees.The apparent ouster attempt failed and Epshteyn has remained inside Trump’s orbit. Several Trump aides suggested Warrington might have been offered the White House counsel job as part of a detente inside the Trump legal teams, so that Warrington got what he wanted and Epshteyn retained his influence.“Bill will play a crucial role in liberating our economy from burdensome regulations, excess spending, and government waste. He will partner with the White House and the Office of Management and Budget to provide advice and guidance to end the bloated federal bureaucracy,” Trump said.The White House counsel role is not a Senate-confirmed position. Warrington would be part of a West Wing senior staff led by the White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, the co-chair of the Trump campaign with whom he has worked closely. More