Tennessee Congressional Race. Shane Goldmacher & Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: “Matt Van Epps, a Republican former state official and Army veteran, won a special election for the House on Tuesday in Tennessee, holding off a surprisingly stiff Democratic challenge in an overwhelmingly Republican district that drew a flood of national attention and money. Mr. Van Epps’s victory over Aftyn Behn, a Democratic state representative from Nashville, was called by The Associated Press. With 95 percent of votes counted on Tuesday night, he was leading by nearly nine percentage points.... But the relatively tight margin in such a deep-red district nonetheless represents a warning shot about the [Republican] party’s vulnerabilities heading into the 2026 midterm elections. Mr. Trump carried the seat by 22 percentage points a little over a year ago. The Seventh Congressional District, which stretches from Kentucky to Alabama and includes part of downtown Nashville, had been drawn by G.O.P. state lawmakers specifically to elect a Republican.”
I didn’t know about the second strike. I didn’t know anything about the people. I wasn’t involved, and I knew they took out a boat, but I would say this, they had a strike. -- Donald Trump, Cabinet meeting, Tuesday ~~~
~~~ The Buck Stops ... Someplace Else. Adam Cancryn of CNN: “... Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday sought to distance themselves from the decision to launch a follow-up strike on a suspected drug boat in the Caribbean, insisting they weren’t aware of what the military had done after the first strike didn’t kill everyone on board.... Trump added that he was relying on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to keep him apprised of the situation, and that Hegseth was 'satisfied' with the September attack.... The defense secretary did not learn about the second strike, he added, until hours later.... Hegseth — who initially derided the reports of a follow-up strike as 'fake' before the administration officially acknowledged that it occurred — lashed out again Tuesday at reporting of the decision-making, calling scrutiny of the second strike 'really irresponsible.'... Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee told CNN’s Dana Bash, 'I’m very suspicious that they’ve never shared that tape with us and that they are consciously trying to cover up what took place.'” ~~~
~~~ Marie: This entire murder-for-oil campaign is an outrageous disaster; the cowardice of these two clowns is classic. So Trump blames Pete, and Pete blames the operation commander ~~~
I watched that first strike live. I didn’t stick around for the hour and two hours, whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs, so I moved on to my next meeting. -- Pete Hegseth, Cabinet meeting, Tuesday
~~~ Exit, Tap-Dancing, Stage Right. Helene Cooper of the New York Times: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday that he had not noticed survivors in the water during U.S. military strikes that killed 11 people in the Caribbean in September. His remarks, at a cabinet meeting at the White House in which he cited the 'fog of war,' were the latest from Trump administration officials meant to address questions about whether the U.S. military committed a war crime when it launched a second strike on a boat on Sept. 2, killing two survivors of the initial attack who were clinging to the burning wreckage. Mr. Hegseth had said that he watched the operation live on video before he 'moved on' to his next meeting. But following news reports about the second U.S. strike, Mr. Hegseth said he 'didn’t stick around' to see it. The defense secretary said Adm. Frank M. Bradley, the commander of the operation, 'made the right call,' in ordering the second strike. 'He sunk the boat, sunk the boat and eliminated the threat, and it was the right call.'...” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: This is of course the same Pete Hegseth who went on the Fox “News” teevee September 3 to boast, “I watched it live.” However, since he claimed Tuesday that he knew about the second strike “hours” after it occurred, he knew about it when he appeared on Fox. But now that he's been caught orchestrating a classic war crime, Pete says he had hurried away to another meeting and just plain missed Part 2 of the “double tap.” As Akhilleus wrote in Tuesday's Comments, “He preaches tough guy ethos, but when it comes to standing up for what he truly believes in (war crimes, illegal murder, lethality) he runs and hides.”
Zolan Kanno-Youngs & Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times: Donald “Trump unleashed a xenophobic tirade against Somali immigrants on Tuesday, calling them 'garbage' he does not want in the United States in an outburst that captured the raw nativism that has animated his approach to immigration. Even for Mr. Trump — who has a long history of insulting Black people, particularly those from African countries — his outburst was shocking in its unapologetic bigotry. And it comes as he started a new ICE operation targeting Somalis in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region.... 'When they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but bitch, we don’t want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it,' Mr. Trump added as Vice President JD Vance banged the table in encouragement. He said Somalia 'stinks and we don’t want them in our country.' He described Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, who came to the United States from Somalia as a refugee and became a citizen 25 years ago, as 'garbage.' 'We could go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country,' Mr. Trump said. 'She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage. These aren’t people who work. These aren’t people who say, “Let’s go, come on, let’s make this place great.”’” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Maybe the best NYT lede ever in a story about Donald Trump. ~~~
~~~ When he wasn't making racist remarks or deflecting responsibility for war crimes, Trump was dozing: ~~~
~~~ Natalie Allison, et al., of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump closed his eyes for extended periods as Cabinet officials went around the room Tuesday providing updates on their work, at times seeming to nod off.... A Washington Post analysis of multiple video feeds of the meeting Tuesday showed that during nine separate instances, Trump’s eyes were closed for extended periods or he appeared to struggle to keep them open, amounting cumulatively to nearly six minutes. The episode was similar to an Oval Office event on Nov. 6 when the president spent nearly 20 minutes battling to keep his eyes open. Trump’s apparent drowsiness during the 2-hour, 17-minute gathering with his Cabinet followed pronouncements in recent days by the 79-year-old president, his advisers and his doctor that he is in excellent health and full of stamina — an assertion the president repeated early in Tuesday’s meeting. 'Right now, I think I’m sharper than I was 25 years ago,' Trump said, criticizing a recent New York Times article that said the president was facing the realities of aging. He later resurrected a frequent insult, 'Sleepy Joe,' to mock former president Joe Biden, the first octogenarian to serve as president....”
Annals of “Journalism,” Ctd. Erik Wemple of the New York Times (another refugee from the WashPo): The Pentagon is conducting a sort of orientation program for its new “journalists.” “Most of them are media figures newly credentialed to work as journalists within the sprawling complex, agreeing to strict new rules that nearly all traditional correspondents have refused to sign. The result has been a press corps full of people who are outspoken cheerleaders for the administration.... They include Laura Loomer, the influential pro-Trump activist; LindellTV, an upstart digital news site known for promoting election conspiracy theories; and Gateway Pundit, a site that has also often spread conspiracy theories.... The journalists who refused to sign onto the new rules work at news organizations such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Fox News, national TV networks and wire services. They, as well as many media lawyers, have argued that the new rules conflict with the First Amendment.” Oh, and James O'Keefe & Matt Gaetz. Really. ~~~
~~~ AND, speaking of Drunk Pete's major screw-ups: ~~~
~~~ Noah Robertson & Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: “The Pentagon’s inspector general is set to release in the coming days a redacted report scrutinizing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the commercial messaging app Signal to share sensitive U.S. military plans, according to four congressional aides familiar with the matter. The full, classified document has been shared already with the House and Senate Armed Services committees, as well as Hegseth’s office.... The incident became a major political crisis for the administration after Trump’s national security adviser at the time, Mike Waltz, inadvertently added the editor of the Atlantic magazine, Jeffrey Goldberg, to a Signal group chat as he and Hegseth, and other senior officials deliberated bombing Houthi militants in Yemen. Waltz was eventually removed from his White House post. He now serves as U.N. ambassador.”
Minho Kim of the New York Times: “The Trump administration last week told lawmakers that it would further shrink the broadcasting capacity of Voice of America despite a judge’s order to maintain robust news operations at the federally funded news group, which provides independent reporting to countries with limited press freedoms. Kari Lake, a Trump ally who leads the broadcaster’s parent agency, wrote in a Nov. 25 notice to Congress reviewed by The New York Times that the administration intended to close its six overseas news bureaus and four overseas marketing offices, including in Jakarta, Indonesia; Islamabad, Pakistan; Nairobi, Kenya; and Prague, Czech Republic.... The expected closures appear to contradict [Judge Royce C. Lamberth’s] order from April, which required Trump officials to resume operations at V.O.A. so that it would 'fulfill its statutory mandate' to serve 'as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news.'”
Paul Sonne & Valerie Hopkins of the New York Times: “President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia held talks for nearly five hours late Tuesday with Steve Witkoff..., [Donald] Trump’s special envoy, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, negotiating with the two U.S. emissaries as Washington pushed for an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine. The negotiators discussed the substance of U.S. peace proposals but did not delve into the wording of any provisions, reach any specific compromises or agree to a new summit between Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump, the Kremlin’s top foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, told journalists after the marathon talks concluded.” (Also linked yesterday.)
Christopher Sherman & Mike Catalini of the AP: “Former Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced last year to 45 years in prison for his role in a drug trafficking operation that moved hundreds of tons of cocaine to the United States, was released from prison following a pardon from ... Donald Trump, officials confirmed Tuesday. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons inmate website showed that Hernández was released from U.S. Penitentiary, Hazelton in West Virginia on Monday, and a spokesperson for the bureau on Tuesday confirmed his release.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
I have never seen such open corruption in any modern government anywhere. -- Steven Levitsky, author of How Democracies Die ~~~
If you’re just an average citizen, you can’t even get in the line. I told my guy he’d probably be better off if he broke into the Capitol or made a major donation to Trump’s inauguration. -- Lawyer for an ordinary ex-con who meets DOJ criteria for a pardon but won't get one ~~~
~~~ Don Moynihan: Juan Orlando Hernández, the former President of Honduras, was tried and convicted of exactly the accusations that Trump is using to drum up a pretext for war against Venezuela. Hernández was convicted of receiving millions from violent drug gangs for facilitating the flow of 400 tonnes of cocaine into America, while corrupting state institutions.... Trump is also invading Democratic cities with military or paramilitary forces. His justifications for their presence is to improve public safety and enable his immigration sweeps.... But if Trump was interested in law and order, why does he keep pardoning criminals?... [Moynihan lays out a number of ways Trump has abused the pardon power.] He is pardoning politicians who have been convicted of corruption, even as he is using the justice system to target political opponents.... One analysis by Democratic House Judiciary staffers found that Trump’s pardons eliminated $1.3 billion in restitution and fines.... Trump is using pardons in the same way he has used other parts of the government, such as peace deals or tariffs: not as a demonstration of reasoned mercy, but as an opportunity to extract benefits for himself, his family or supporters.” Thanks to RAS for the link. (Also linked yesterday.)
Alabama. Chris Hippensteel of the New York Times: “The University of Alabama on Monday suspended two student magazines — one appealing to women, another to Black students — saying they ran afoul of guidance from the Justice Department on diversity, equity and inclusion programs. University officials told staff members at the publications — a women’s lifestyle magazine called Alice and Nineteen Fifty-Six, which encompasses Black culture and student life — that because of shifting federal policy on D.E.I. programs, the university could no longer support them. One official attributed the decision in part to a July memo from Attorney General Pam Bondi, in which she included recommendations on how institutions receiving federal funding could avoid what the Trump administration deemed unlawful D.E.I. practices.”
Nicholas Kulish of the New York Times: “Michael and Susan Dell announced on Tuesday that they would deposit $250 in individual investment accounts for 25 million children, an amount totaling $6.25 billion. It is one of the largest philanthropic gifts ever to go directly to Americans. The money expands the number of children who will receive seed money for the investment accounts, known as 'Trump accounts.' The federal government will give $1,000 to babies born between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2028. The Dells’ gift extends to children up to 10 years old, though it limits eligibility to those who live in a ZIP code where the median household income is below $150,000.” The AP report is here. MB: Whatever these savings accounts are, they are not “Trump accounts.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Ken W., in yesterday's Comments: "Nice of Mr. and Mrs. Dell, I guess, and I'll praise them for their generosity (the immense tax breaks they will receive aside). But to me, it's another glaring sign that the economy is badly out of whack. Why would one person have that much money to give to so many that have so little? " MB: That is, for better or for worse, the entity that should be deciding how to distribute that $6.2 billion is called "Congress." Mr. & Mrs. Dell should have deposited all of their billions (except the first one) into the U.S. Treasury in the form of assessed taxes. ~~~
~~~ And Here's the Proof of That. Theodore Schleifer & David Fahrenthold of the New York Times: “Elon Musk’s charitable foundation grew larger than ever in 2024. But, for the fourth year in a row, the huge charity failed to give away the minimum amount required by law — and the donations it did make went largely to charities closely tied to Mr. Musk himself.... The foundation is now one of the largest in the country, with more than $14 billion in assets. But unlike some other billionaires who have dedicated their nonprofits to broader social or political causes, Mr. Musk in recent years used his nonprofit in ways that narrowly track the interests of his for-profit businesses.... The Musk Foundation gave away $474 million in 2024, more than it has in any prior year. But more than three-quarters of that, $370 million, went to a nonprofit in Texas led by Mr. Musk’s top aide. That nonprofit appears to provide a benefit to Mr. Musk’s business empire: It operates an elementary school in a rural area where many of his employees live, near a cluster of Mr. Musk’s companies.”
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