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      Hiding in plain sight: Americans’ obsession with camouflage is a sign of paranoid times

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      It’s become an inescapable pop culture touchstone. A pattern of crispy brown leaves interspersed with twigs and moss darting around like advancing thickets, peeking out from underneath jackets, plastered on oversize pants and trucker hats.Hunting camouflage, a tactical pattern designed to resemble forest undergrowth to disguise hunters during deer season, is seen everywhere from Chappell Roan’s Midwestern Princess hat (and its ill-fated Harris-Walz dupe), to Lana Del Rey’s gator-wrangling husband, to Sweetgreen’s kale-themed camo merchandise, to lacy thong underwear sold by Bass Pro Shops that promises “a look that’s as thrilling as the hunt itself”.While we live in an age of ephemeral trends – anyone remember mob wife? What about grandpacore? – the recent rise of hunting camo outside hunting culture has been a slow burn.In 2021, the clothing brand Online Ceramics released a foliage-covered baseball hat. Later that year, GQ called Realtree camouflage “a cool-kid essential”. The designer Marine Serre released a fall 2022 collection featuring a glitchy camo pattern worthy of Elmer Fudd, and an $85 “God’s Favorite” cap became available via the luxury retailer SSENSE. The pattern has found itself increasingly in the closets of urban tastemakers, as likely to see the inside of a coffee shop as the muzzle of a gun. Even prior to this demographic expansion, Realtree, one of the most popular hunting camo licensors, estimated licensed partners sold $4bn in branded products each year.View image in fullscreenIt is also one of the few current fashion objects that could be considered truly democratic, accessible to all: you can buy a woody khaki denim maxi skirt for $300 or a hat with identical print at Walmart for $5.97.However, hunting camo’s creeping pervasiveness mirrors the rise of populism in the United States and a wholesale rejection of the “elite class”. During the most recent election, the Democratic party abandoned its core voters on the left by swinging rightwards with a bloodless campaign designed to capture centrist and undecided voters. (See: Kamala Harris palling around with Liz Cheney, and the refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.)Meanwhile, the Harris-Walz hunting camo hat was a doomed attempt to court young, hyper-online voters through an extremely shallow campaign based on fleeting internet parlance over addressing progressive voters’ real needs. As a result, the political system is thoroughly despised by many on the left and the right.View image in fullscreenAccording to Sarah Scaturro, chief conservator at the Cleveland Museum of Art, whose master’s thesis traced the evolution of camo in fashion, the pattern tends to appear outside military contexts during periods of political instability. During the Vietnam war, the military’s US woodland print was defaced and subverted by protesters as a form of dissent. It ascended again around the late 1990s and early 2000s, a time of unease over Y2K and the contested election of George W Bush. “[The current revival suggests] we’re really in an insecure moment where we don’t really know what will happen,” Scaturro says.Hunting camo, as worn by the denizens of Duck Dynasty, symbolizes autonomy, self-sufficiency and a rigid belief in personal liberties. “When that survivalist look becomes desirable, to me that reflects that we’re experiencing anxiety as a society,” says Louisa Rogers, an assistant professor of fashion communications at Northumbria University. A recent survey found that gen Z feels the need to make $587,000 a year to consider themselves financially successful; economic unease is being felt across the US.In 2024, hunting camo reflects our culture’s growing individualism, and a desire to arm oneself in the face of great uncertainty. As opposed to military camo, which can symbolize faith in or a direct criticism of our military institutions, hunting camo brings to mind the second amendment. Increasingly, we live in a sick society that forces people to fend for themselves, and what more poignant symbol do we have than the gun enthusiast? The pattern has been co-opted by libertarian self-determinists who reject government in all its forms, so it makes sense that such a paranoid archetype resonates widely in an era where neighbourly trust in one another has all but eroded away. Ironically, the widespread embrace of hunting camo could be the closest we have come to bipartisanship in a long time.View image in fullscreenRogers suggests that some of the appeal of hunting camo to non-hunters might also rest in its inherent taboo. At times, it can be difficult to tell whether it’s worn in earnest; meme accounts like Pathetic Fashion and Doomscroll Forever point out the aesthetic homogeneity – Realtree camo hat, white tank and New Balances – that now exists between the political poles. While some may be wearing the pattern to subvert its rightwing associations, others wear it cloaked under several levels of brain-fried irony to the point where they may actually be embracing the outlaw symbolism (like rightwing-coded “it” girls such as Red Scare’s Dasha Nekrasova). Others still, including the midwest musicians Ethel Cain and Chappell Roan, might see it as a way of reclaiming their rural roots.What do actual hunters make of the broad adoption of their hobby gear? Is it stolen valor? “I don’t think I’ve ever heard another hunter complain about it,” says Lindsay Thomas Jr, chief communications officer of the National Deer Association. “National surveys show a large majority of the public supports hunting, and if the non-hunting public is adopting camo for their own fashion, I think it’s symbolic of that support.” (According to a June survey, public support for legal hunting shooting is 76%, a figure that has been declining since 2021.)In the end, we’re left with a paradox. “Camouflage is a protective pattern. It’s meant to protect us, conceal us, save us from danger,” says Scaturro.But wearing camo in the city doesn’t offer protection, literally. What it does offer is a way to blend in, especially now that Donald Trump is about to enter office once again. It’s about “becoming part of a whole”, says Rogers. “There is a sense of community creation there, a leveling out between the people the pattern resonates with and the leftwing consciousness.” In this way, Realtree is the perfect pattern for these anxious times. More

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      Sad but true – Donald Trump really did wrestle his way into the White House | David Moon

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      Do you remember World Wrestling Entertainment? For many people, the show, in which muscle-bound wrestlers in tight tights throw one another around in staged fights, is a nostalgic throwback to the early 2000s, when it played briefly on Channel 4. Today, its mix of soap opera, theatre and athletic spectacle still draws millions of viewers each week. To some, it’s a guilty pleasure; to others, timeless entertainment. Still, few would associate it with the serious world of politics.For Donald Trump, though, professional wrestling is a lifelong passion. His announcement in November that the former CEO of WWE, Linda McMahon, would take up the role of education secretary in his cabinet of curiosities elicited shock and disbelief. It is impossible to fully understand US politics today without understanding the significance of pro wrestling.Long before McMahon’s nomination, Trump was the first occupant of the Oval Office to be a WWE Hall of Fame inductee, an honour that marked his decades-long business relationship with the company. Trump has hosted two WrestleManias, the WWE’s flagship annual event, appeared more than a dozen times on WWE programmes, played a leading role in two storylines, and gotten physical (albeit to a very limited, awkward degree) around the ring itself. It’s now widely acknowledged that pro wrestling is key to Trump as a political phenomenon. Yet its influence is bigger than Trump. Wrestling has become a key element to understand the reshaping of US politics itself – particularly the Republican right.Just look at the 2024 presidential campaign. Jesse “the Body” Ventura was named by the Robert F Kennedy Jr campaign as a potential vice-presidential running mate. Hulk Hogan tore his shirt off at the Republican national convention, rallied “Trumpaholics” at Madison Square Garden, and hinted at a possible role in a future Trump administration on Fox News. For his part, Donald Trump participated in a Fox News segment with former WWE superstar Tyrus, who dubbed him “the people’s champion” and gave him a replica title belt. He joined the podcasts of pro wrestling icon Mark “the Undertaker” Calloway and current WWE superstar Logan Paul, as well as receiving the endorsement of Calloway and Glenn Jacobs – better known as WWE’s Kane, the Undertaker’s storyline brother – in a TikTok video.One explanation for such behaviour is simply that it’s strategic. A former boxing promoter, Trump has become a fixture at combat sports in general, especially Ultimate Fighting Championship (which merged with WWE to form the media conglomerate TKO in 2023), whose CEO, Dana White, was one of the first people brought on stage at his victory speech. By attaching himself to entertainment forms widely dismissed in polite society, Trump burnishes his anti-establishment vibes while reaching out to a younger, often politically apathetic, male electorate that populates these fandoms. It is pro wrestling, however, that is his natural home. The idea that Trump’s pro wrestling background is used strategically is also linked to his infamous campaign rallies. From the fireworks and thumping entrance music, to the carefully choreographed conflict and spectacle on the stage, the atmosphere of these rallies has often been compared with pro wrestling shows.View image in fullscreenTrump frequently resorts to call-and-response chants and indulges in “smack talk” against the “losers and haters” – assigning them diminishing nicknames such as “lyin’ Ted”, “crooked Hillary” and “sleepy Joe”. Being part of a pro wrestling audience – much like attending a Trump rally – allows spectators to experience emotions that are usually forbidden. They can scream, shout and display rage in a rare public context where it’s socially permitted. Trump rallies are safe spaces where it’s acceptable to emote: to shout and cheer for your country and candidate, while vocalising hatred for political opponents. In 2016, it was possible to think these similarities were coincidental. Today, the influence of pro wrestling is unavoidable. Watch the post-election footage of Donald Trump emerging to the strains of Kid Rock’s American Badass – the Undertaker’s previous entrance music – through the roaring crowd of a recent UFC event and it’s impossible not to make the connection.As the US political sphere becomes one gigantic pro wrestling arena, traditional theories and frameworks are inadequate for making sense of events. We need, therefore, to turn to pro wrestling for answers, particularly the industry-specific concept of “kayfabe”. Initially a label for the illusion that pro wrestling’s predetermined performances were “real”, today, kayfabe describes the peculiar way fans engage with pro wrestling as an acknowledged performance form. In her own insightful writings on pro wrestling and politics, the writer and author Abraham Josephine Riesman proposes “neokayfabe” as a label for Trump-inspired Republican strategies that deliberately blur truth and fiction so that producers and consumers lose the ability to distinguish between what’s real and what isn’t.The idea of politics as kayfabe can be taken further. In my view, the relationship between pro wrestling fans and performances are analogous to how electorates engage with contemporary politics more generally. Trump and his supporters are an extreme case of a wider phenomenon. Enjoying pro wrestling involves a deliberate suspension of disbelief, whereby fans acknowledge the theatricality of the performance while investing in it emotionally. Spectators collaborate with the performers by playing along as “believing fans”, cheering and booing as conventions dictate, embracing the spectacle even while recognising its pretence. In pro wrestling terms this is called “keeping kayfabe”.This mirrors people’s engagement with the artifice surrounding contemporary, professionalised politics. We all know, for example, that politicians’ words are written by speechwriters, based on focus group findings, targeted at specific voter demographics, identified by pollsters and strategists. Yet supporters suspend disbelief, cheer conference speeches and emotionally invest in sentiments they express, all while knowing and accepting and even discussing in detail the calculations behind their construction. In other words, they keep kayfabe. Politics increasingly amounts to this: electorates acting out their role as “believing supporters” while maintaining a knowing cynicism about the whole performance.What makes Trump special is thus not that he personifies “pro wrestlingified” politics, but that his supporters are willing to suspend their disbelief and support his campaign when its fakery is so blatant. If the best our political systems offer their understandably jaded electorates is the option to “suspend disbelief” and “keep kayfabe” with a political campaign they view as essentially simulated, we shouldn’t be shocked many choose the one with an anti-establishment pose and chaotic performance style (each products of a pro wrestling pedigree). It may be a performance, sure, but at least it’s entertaining.

      Dr David Moon is head of division for politics at Bath University More

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      Ex-FBI informant agrees to plead guilty to lying about Bidens’ Ukraine ties

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      A former FBI informant accused of falsely claiming that Joe Biden and the president’s son Hunter had accepted bribes has agreed to plead guilty to federal charges, according to court papers.As part of the plea deal with the justice department special counsel, David Weiss, Alexander Smirnov will admit he fabricated the story that became central to a Republican impeachment inquiry in Congress.The plea agreement comes just weeks after prosecutors filed new tax-evasion charges against Smirnov. The two sides will recommend a sentence of at least two years behind bars and no more than six years, according to the agreement.David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld, attorneys for Smirnov, said they will make their case for a fair sentence in court and declined to comment further.Smirnov was arrested in February on allegations that he falsely reported to the FBI in June 2020 that executives associated with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid Hunter Biden and Joe Biden $5m each in 2015 or 2016. Smirnov told his handler that an executive claimed to have hired Hunter Biden to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems”, according to court documents.Prosecutors said Smirnov had had contact with Burisma executives, but it had been routine and actually took place in 2017, after Barack Obama’s presidency and Biden, his vice-president, had left office – when Biden would have had no ability to influence US policy. Prosecutors said Smirnov made the bribery allegations after he “expressed bias” against Biden while the latter was a presidential candidate in 2020.Smirnov repeated some of the false claims when he was interviewed by FBI agents in September 2023, changed his story about others and “promoted a new false narrative after he said he met with Russian officials”, prosecutors said.Smirnov has agreed to plead guilty to charges of tax evasion and causing a false FBI record, according to court papers.Smirnov is being prosecuted by the same special counsel who brought federal gun and tax charges against Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden was supposed to have been sentenced this month on his convictions in those cases, until he was pardoned by his father. More

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      New Jersey governor asks Biden for federal help on unexplained drones – as it happened

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      Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic former speaker of the House of Representatives, sustained an injury while on an official visit to Luxembourg and was hospitalized, her office announced.“While traveling with a bipartisan Congressional delegation in Luxembourg to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi sustained an injury during an official engagement and was admitted to the hospital for evaluation,” spokesperson Ian Krager said.“Speaker Emerita Pelosi is currently receiving excellent treatment from doctors and medical professionals. She continues to work and regrets that she is unable to attend the remainder of the CODEL engagements to honor the courage of our servicemembers during one of the greatest acts of American heroism in our nation’s history.”He added that the 84-year-old, who just won another term representing her district that centers on San Francisco, “looks forward to returning home to the US soon”.More signs have emerged of how Donald Trump will make good on his pledge to transform the US government, once he is inaugurated president. The New York Times has reported that Aaron Siri, a lawyer who has challenged the approval of vaccines for polio, hepatitis B and other preventable diseases, is sitting in on interviews for job candidates conducted by Robert F Kennedy Jr. Separately, the Wall Street Journal says that Trump’s transition team is exploring ways to downsize or get rid of banking regulators that were created in the wake of the Great Depression, and which have repeatedly stepping in to stabilize the US economy in the decades since.Here’s what else happened today:

      Phil Murphy, New Jersey’s Democratic governor, has asked Joe Biden for federal help to learn more about the unexplained drones flying over his state.

      Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic former House speaker, has been hospitalized after fracturing her hip in Luxembourg, during a trip to commemorate the Battle of the Bulge.

      Daniel Penny, who was acquitted earlier this week on charges related to the chokehold death of an unhoused man on a New York City subway, will attend the US army-navy football game with JD Vance.

      Anita Dunn, a former Biden White House adviser, criticized the pardon of Hunter Biden.

      Trump said Republicans should repeal daylight savings time.
      Texas has launched a legal challenge to laws enacted by Democratic states to shield doctors who prescribe abortion pills, the Associated Press reports.The lawsuit by the Republican-led state against a New York doctor who prescribed abortion pills to a Texas woman could spark a fight over how abortion pills, which are the most common way the procedure is accessed, are prescribed. Here’s more, from the AP:
      Texas has sued a New York doctor for prescribing abortion pills to a woman near Dallas, launching one of the first challenges in the U.S. to shield laws that Democrat-controlled states passed to protect physicians after Roe v. Wade was overturned.
      Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the lawsuit on Thursday in Collin County, and it was announced Friday.
      Such prescriptions, made online and over the phone, are a key reason that the number of abortions has increased across the U.S. even since state bans started taking effect. Most abortions in the U.S. involve pills rather than procedures.
      Mary Ruth Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, School of Law, said a challenge to shield laws, which blue states started adopting in 2023, has been anticipated.
      And it could have a chilling effect on prescriptions.
      “Will doctors be more afraid to mail pills into Texas, even if they might be protected by shield laws because they don’t know if they’re protected by shield laws?” she said in an interview Friday.
      The lawsuit accuses New York Dr. Margaret Daley Carpenter of violating Texas law by providing the drugs to a Texas patient and seeks up to $250,000. No criminal charges are involved.
      In yet more Donald Trump policy news, the president-elect just weighed in on daylight saving time, saying on Truth Social he will support undoing it:
      The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t! Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation.
      He’s not the only one in the GOP who’d like to see the seasonal time change – in which Americans set their clocks back an hour in the fall, and forward an hour in the spring – go away:The New York Times reports that Nancy Pelosi fell and broke her hip during her trip to Luxembourg.Citing unnamed people close to the Democratic former House speaker, they said doctors were confident they could repair the damage in a “routine operation”, but it was not yet known if that would be done in Luxembourg or the United States.New Jersey’s recently elected Democratic senator Andy Kim said he went out last night with a police officer to Round Valley reservoir in the state, where he could see the unexplained drones flying over.“The officer pointed to lights moving low over the tree line. Sometimes they were solid white light, others flashed of red and green,” Kim wrote on X.He continued:
      We oriented ourselves with a flight tracker app to help us distinguish from airplanes. We often saw about 5-7 lights at a time that were low and not associated with aircraft we could see on the tracker app. Some hovered while others moved across the horizon.
      We saw a few that looked like they were moving in small clusters of 2-4. We clearly saw several that would move horizontally and then immediately switch back in the opposite direction in maneuvers that plane can’t do.
      The police officer said they see them out every night. They only seem to start when it gets dark and they disappear before dawn. They get reports that they sometimes fly low over homes, especially up in the hills.
      The officer said they’ve tried to get closer with use of a helicopter but that the drones would turn off the lights and go dark if approached.
      New Jersey’s Democratic governor Phil Murphy is asking Joe Biden for more help from the federal government in determining the cause of a series of mysterious drones seen flying over the state.In a letter sent to Biden today, Murphy wrote:
      While I am sincerely grateful for your administration’s leadership in addressing this concerning issue, it has become apparent that more resources are needed to understand what is behind this activity. This week, the FBI testified in a joint subcommittee hearing before Congress that the federal government alone cannot address UAS [unmanned aircraft systems]. New Jersey residents deserve more concrete information about these UAS sightings and what is causing them.
      Here’s more on the unknown drones and Murphy’s request to the president:Progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has picked up the support of two congressional caucuses in her bid to be named the top Democrat on the prominent oversight committee.The Congressional Progressive Caucus announced its endorsement of Ocasio-Cortez, writing on X:
      AOC’s fearless advocacy leading the Oversight Committee will help ensure Democrats retake the House in 2026. Our Caucus is proud to support her candidacy.
      The Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s incoming leadership committee is also backing her, saying:
      With her strong national profile and media presence, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez is critical in combating misinformation and ensuring the truth reaches the American people.
      Travis Timmerman, an American imprisoned in Syria for seven months, has been flown out of the country, the US military told AP.A US official said Timmerman was flown out on a US military helicopter. The 29-year-old said he had gone to Syria on a Christian pilgrimage and was not ill-treated while in Palestine Branch, a notorious detention facility operated by Syrian intelligence.He said he was freed by “the liberators who came into the prison and knocked the door down (of his cell) with a hammer”.Timmerman said he was released Monday morning alongside a young Syrian man and 70 female prisoners, some of whom had their children with them.He had been held separately from Syrian and other Arab prisoners and said he didn’t know of any other Americans held in the facility.Annoyance has been growing among politicians and law enforcement in New Jersey following proliferating reports of drone flights in recent weeks, including almost 50 on Sunday night alone. The Guardian’s Richard Luscombe has this report on the growing demand for answers:The governor of New Jersey has demanded that Joe Biden take control of an investigation into mysterious and more frequent appearances of multiple large drones flying over his state amid mounting frustration that federal officials are downplaying the incidents.Democrat Phil Murphy released on Friday a letter he wrote to the White House to express his “growing concern” after representatives from the Pentagon and FBI ruled out involvement by the US military, or hostile foreign actors, in numerous sightings of unexplained flying objects above about a dozen counties since the middle of November.“It has become apparent that more resources are needed to fully understand what is behind this activity,” he wrote in the letter, published the same day that reports emerged of multiple drones breaching airspace at Naval Weapons Station Earle in Monmouth county.“I respectfully urge you to continue to direct the federal agencies involved to work together until they uncover answers as to what is behind the UAS [unmanned aircraft systems] sightings.”Tens of millions of Americans cast ballots in the November election that sent Donald Trump back to the White House – and tens of millions of other did not bother. The Guardian’s Jedidajah Otte spoke to some of those in the latter group to learn why:The 2024 US presidential election had been widely characterized as one of the most consequential political contests in recent US history. Although turnout was high for a presidential election – almost matching the levels of 2020 – it is estimated that close to 90 million Americans, roughly 36% of the eligible voting age population, did not vote. This number is greater than the number of people who voted for either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris.More than a month on from polling day, eligible US voters from across the country as well as other parts of the world got in touch with the Guardian to share why they did not vote.Scores of people said they had not turned out as they felt their vote would not matter because of the electoral college system, since they lived in a safely blue or red state. This included a number of people who nonetheless had voted in the 2020 and 2016 elections.While various previous Democratic voters said they had abstained this time due to the Harris campaign’s stance on Israel or for other policy reasons, a number of people in this camp said they would have voted for the vice-president had they lived in a swing state.“I’m not in a swing state, and because of the electoral college my vote doesn’t count. I could have voted 500,000 times and it would not have changed the outcome,” said one such voter, a 60-year-old software developer with Latino heritage from Boston.Donald Trump has made clear that ordering a draconian crackdown on undocumented immigrants will be one of the first things he does, once he becomes president. The Guardian’s Adrian Carrasquillo reports that migrant rights groups are preparing to fight back:With Donald Trump ready to unleash his mass deportation policy in January, many local and national immigrant rights, legal aid and civil rights organizations are preparing for the unexpected.During his campaign, Trump often spoke of launching – on day one – “the largest deportation program of criminals in the history of America”. Now that he has been elected, various rights groups are preparing for the uncertainty of how quickly and to what extent Trump will be able to execute his plans.After his inauguration, these groups expect a flurry of executive orders around rescinding Joe Biden’s orders on immigration and facilitating efforts to deport people. Trump is likely to rescind old rules on who is a priority for deportation, making it clear that authorities will deport anyone at any time. NBC News reported there could be five executive orders on immigration.Also expected is an immediate focus on criminals and work-site raids, which the former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) director and incoming “border czar” Tom Homan has confirmed.“Trump’s going to try to go big and portray his effort as focused on criminals,” said Vanessa Cardenas, the executive director of America’s Voice. “But of course, they’re blurring the lines on who is considered a criminal.”More signs have emerged of how Donald Trump will make good on his pledge to transform the US government, once he is inaugurated president. The New York Times has reported that Aaron Siri, a lawyer who has challenged the approval of vaccines for polio, hepatitis B and other preventable diseases, is sitting in on interviews for job candidates conducted by Robert F Kennedy Jr. Separately, the Wall Street Journal says that Trump’s transition team is exploring ways to downsize or get rid of banking regulators that were created in the wake of the Great Depression, and which have repeatedly stepping in to stabilize the US economy in the decades since.Here’s what else has happened today so far:

      Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic former House speaker, has been hospitalized after sustaining an injury in Luxembourg, during a trip to commemorate the Battle of the Bulge.

      Daniel Penny, who was acquitted earlier this week on charges related to the chokehold death of an unhoused man on a New York City subway, will attend the US army-navy football game with JD Vance.

      Anita Dunn, a former White House adviser to Joe Biden, criticized the pardon of Hunter Biden.
      Remember Herschel Walker?The former NFL player was a Republican candidate for Senate in Georgia two years ago, but lost to Democrat Raphael Warnock after allegations of a variety of problematic conduct by Walker emerged.Walker has not been heard from much since then, and Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Patricia Murphy has revealed the reason why: he went back to school to get a degree he set aside to pursue a career in football.Here’s more:
      It’s not often that a story in politics makes you smile, especially these days. But that’s exactly what’s happening with the news that Herschel Walker, the former University of Georgia star running back, is graduating this week with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia at the age of 62.
      Like a lot of people, Walker had planned to get his degree long ago, but, as he explained, “life and football got in the way.” In his case, “life” meant a lot – starting with getting married and signing a multimillion-dollar contract to play for Donald Trump’s New Jersey Generals in the short-lived USFL. From there, he moved to Texas to play for the Dallas Cowboys before becoming a sort of journeyman – playing for three more NFL teams and eventually returning to Dallas to play for the Cowboys once again.
      …
      Despite Washington Republicans’ most aggressive defense during the campaign’s frenzied final weeks, Walker lost to Warnock in a runoff and quickly disappeared from public view. He put his house in Atlanta on the market, cut off contact from most of his political staff and, for all anybody knew, returned to Dallas where he’d started out.
      But then, more than a year after the campaign ended, came a picture. It was Walker, tucked into a tight desk-and-chair combo, snapped in a classroom during summer school classes on UGA’s main campus in Athens. A call to the registrar’s office confirmed that he had quietly reenrolled as an undergraduate at UGA’s College of Family and Consumer Sciences where he began more than 40 years earlier. Yes, at the age of 62, Walker was a college student again.
      It’s important here to say that this was no publicity stunt. There were no press releases to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution nor quiet tipoffs from Walker or his team. He simply seemed to be back in Athens to take care of long unfinished business. More

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      Amazon donates $1m to Trump’s inaugural fund as tech cozies up to president-elect

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      Amazon is the latest tech giant to donate to Donald Trump’s inaugural fund.The company plans to give $1m to the fund, first reported by the Wall Street Journal. Amazon follows Meta, Facebook’s parent company, also handing over $1m to Trump’s inaugural committee. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on Friday that he, too, would make a personal donation of $1m, first reported by Fox News.As Trump prepares to enter office for a second time, several tech titans are cozying up in hopes of favorable treatment for their businesses. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is slated to meet with Trump next week. And Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg dined with him at his Mar-a-Lago estate last month. Google CEO Sundar Pichai reportedly had plans to meet with the president-elect this week at his club as well. And Time magazine, which is owned by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, has named Trump its “person of the year”.OpenAI’s Altman says that Trump will be a leader in technological progress. “President Trump will lead our country into the age of AI, and I am eager to support his efforts to ensure America stays ahead,” he said in a written statement to the Guardian.Donations to inaugural committees are fairly standard for big businesses looking to make nice with incoming administrations. Amazon donated $57,746 to Trump’s first inaugural fund in 2017, according to OpenSecrets. Google and Microsoft also donated. Meta confirmed to the Guardian that it did not donate that year.For Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration, Amazon said the administration did not accept donations from tech companies, according to the Wall Street Journal.Trump is offering bonus perks to donors who give at least $1m to his inaugural committee, according to the New York Times. Those include several tickets to activities planned around the event, such as dinners with Trump, his cabinet picks and JD Vance.Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, had long been the focus of Trump’s ire. The president-elect had blasted the newspaper over its coverage of him, often zeroing in on Bezos for being at fault. At one point in 2018, Trump called the paper “the Amazon Washington Post” and said it had “gone crazy against me”. He also alleged the paper lobbied on behalf of Amazon.Those days of conflict may be over. Before the election, the Washington Post broke with longstanding tradition and announced it would not endorse a candidate in the presidential race, a move widely seen as Bezos not wanting to rankle Trump. Bezos defended the decision, saying it was to avoid “a perception of bias”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhen Trump won the election, Bezos praised him on X. “Big congratulations to our 45th and now 47th President on an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory. No nation has bigger opportunities,” Bezos wrote. “Wishing @realDonaldTrump all success in leading and uniting the America we all love.”Amazon CEO Andy Jassy also lauded the win on X, saying it was a “hard-fought victory” and that “we look forward to working with you”. Amazon’s stock has risen 14% since the election. Amazon did not return a request for comment. More

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      Nancy Pelosi hospitalized after sustaining injury on Luxembourg trip

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      Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the US House of Representatives, suffered an injury on a trip to Luxembourg and has been admitted to a hospital for evaluation, her office said in a statement on Friday.Pelosi, 84, is the first woman to serve as speaker of the House and had also been a longtime leader of the House Democratic caucus.“While traveling with a bipartisan congressional delegation in Luxembourg to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi sustained an injury during an official engagement and was admitted to the hospital for evaluation,” a Pelosi spokesperson, Ian Krager, said in a statement.Krager added: “Speaker Emerita Pelosi is currently receiving excellent treatment from doctors and medical professionals. She continues to work.”The San Francisco congresswoman stepped down from her role as speaker – a powerful position second in line to the presidency after the vice-president – in 2023 but she has continued to serve in the House.She was re-elected in November to another two-year term beginning on 3 January.Pelosi played a key role in passing Joe Biden’s sweeping $1tn infrastructure bill in 2022 and famously feuded with Donald Trump during his first four years in office, culminating with the moment when she tore up his State of the Union speech on national television in 2020.Pelosi has been a prominent figure in Washington over a tenure spanning seven presidential administrations. She first served as House speaker from 2007 to 2011, then regained the job in 2019 after her party took back control of the chamber in the 2018 midterm elections.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDemocrats lost their House majority in 2022, and Republicans will again hold a narrow majority next year when President-elect Trump returns to the White House. More

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      Daniel Penny will be JD Vance’s guest at Army-Navy football game in Maryland

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      JD Vance, the vice-president-elect, confirmed that Daniel Penny, a Marine Corps veteran recently acquitted of homicide charges, will be his invited guest at the Army-Navy football game on Saturday in Maryland.Penny will watch the game from a suite alongside president-elect Donald Trump and other figures in Trump’s next administration, including his defence secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth.“I’m grateful he accepted my invitation and hope he’s able to have fun and appreciate how much his fellow citizens admire his courage,” Vance posted on X, confirming news first reported by the non-profit publication Notus.The invitation follows Penny’s acquittal on Monday by a New York jury, which found him not guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the 2023 death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man with a history of arrests, mental illness and medical conditions. Medical evidence revealed that Neely had sickle cell trait, an inherited genetic condition that under extreme physiological stress can potentially compromise blood oxygen transport, a factor Penny’s defence team argued could have contributed to his death.The case sparked nationwide controversy after Penny placed Neely in a chokehold on a New York City subway train in May 2023. Witnesses reported that Neely had been shouting and acting erratically, with one passenger, Juan Alberto Vazquez, telling NBC News at the time that Neely was making aggressive statements about not caring about potential consequences.It will be Penny’s first public appearance since his acquittal, and a high-profile event with deep ties to the military at that.Vance was vocal in his support of Penny, describing the prosecution as a “scandal” and praising the jury’s decision.“Daniel’s a good guy, and New York’s mob district attorney tried to ruin his life for having a backbone,” Vance posted on X.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPenny, in a sit-down interview with Fox News this week, maintained that he feared for his own safety and that of other passengers during the incident, describing himself as being in a “vulnerable position”.“The guilt I would have felt if someone did get hurt, if he did do what he was threatening to do, I would never be able to live with myself,” Penny said. “I’d take a million court appearances and people calling me names and people hating me just to keep one of those people from getting hurt or killed.” More

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      in US Politics

      Seth Meyers: ‘Trump’s fake populism was a con and it couldn’t be any clearer’

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      Late-night hosts talk Joe Biden’s act of clemency and Donald Trump becoming Time’s Person of the Year.Seth MeyersSeth Meyers could only laugh on Thursday evening at the image of Trump, just named Time magazine’s Person of the Year, ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.The incoming president looked delighted – or, as the Late Night host put it, “like a Make-A-Wish kid who faked being sick until he got what he wanted”.“Before he was elected he toured the country telling grandpas in folding chairs he was just like them,” he added, “and as soon as he wins he’s on a fucking marble balcony on Wall Street rocking a bell like he just ate a 72-ounce steak in under an hour.”As for the cover, Meyers had concerns. “My only issue is this glamour shot of Trump in a pose I’ve literally never seen him take before,” he said. “I’ve only ever seen him screaming or hunched over, so apologies if I’m not buying Donnie Contemplation over here.”Moreover, “this guy has pretended for over a decade to be a populist champion of the working class and now he’s on literal Wall Street, getting pats on the back from the richest people in the country,” he said. “The only way that Trump’s hypocrisy could be any more on the nose is if he started doing campaign events with actual fat cats.”Case in point: though Trump repeatedly promised on the campaign to lower grocery prices, he told Time that “it’s hard to bring things down once they’re up … You know, it’s very hard.”“Fuck me, I can’t believe we really have to spend the next four years watching this idiot relearn how hard it is to be president,” said Meyers. “Yeah man, we know it’s hard. Everyone knows.”“Trump’s fake populism was a con and it couldn’t be any clearer,” he added. “The second that he won he started rubbing elbows with his rich Wall Street buddies and admitting that his promises were all BS.”Jimmy KimmelIn Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel also lamented Trump’s Time magazine cover. “Sadly there’s no one left to roll it up and spank him with it,” he quipped. “Maybe Elon will do it for him? I don’t know.”According to Time, the Person of the Year distinction is bestowed on the person, group or concept that had the biggest impact for good or for ill. “Well, that’s him all right,” said Kimmel. “It was a no-brainer in every sense of the word.”As for Trump’s appearance at the New York Stock Exchange, “he jammed his little finger on that bell like it was the Diet Coke button in the Oval Office,” Kimmel joked.Kimmel also touched on Joe Biden’s last-minute act of clemency, commuting more than 1,500 criminal sentences. “Before this, the biggest act of clemency was on election night on November 5,” said Kimmel.“Joe Biden is handing out pardons like they’re Werther’s Originals,” he added. “He has no more malarkey to give right now.”Stephen ColbertAnd on The Late Show, Stephen Colbert also noted Biden’s clemency, in which he also pardoned 39 people. “Wow, I did not know he had 39 sons,” the host joked.The mass commutation is a tradition for all outgoing presidents, but Biden committed the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history. “I believe that is an empathetic and generous act of forgiveness and hope – that will be knocked out of the headlines as soon as Trump threatens to bomb Manila because he cut himself on one of their envelopes,” said Colbert. “That’s coming. You know that’s coming.”Colbert also laughed at Pornhub’s year in review, which revealed generational trends, such as the fact that 18-to-24-year-olds spend, on average, 76 fewer seconds than any other age group on videos. “I guess young folks today don’t have the attention span,” Colbert quipped. “Back in the 90s, if you wanted to see boobs on your computer, you had to listen to this,” he added before a dial-up tone.The site also provided a map highlighting the most distinct searches in each state, such as Tennessee’s “chubby milf”, Delaware’s “mature” (“I assume in honor of Joe Biden,” Colbert joked), Maryland’s “girlfriend” (“dorks!”) and Pennsylvania’s “naked women”. “That’s clearly Amish teens on rumspringa getting their first crack at a computer,” Colbert noted. More