January 1, 2026

The Puppets' Dilemma. Nicholas Nehamas, et al., of the New York Times: “The government of Russia has made a formal diplomatic request that the United States stop its pursuit of an oil tanker that had been sailing for Venezuela and is now fleeing the Coast Guard in the Atlantic Ocean, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The request was delivered late on New Year’s Eve to the State Department, said the people, who discussed the diplomatic message on the condition of anonymity. It was also sent to the White House’s Homeland Security Council, one of the people said.” MB: Oh, what is Putin's No. 1 U.S. Puppet to do? Will Little Mario displease No. 1 Puppet? 

Marie: I thought I was onto a gift link to the WSJ's interview of Donald Trump, who talked to Journal reporters about his health. But I wasn't. However, Isaac Schorr of Mediaite has five takeaways from the report/interview. Trump says his health is "perfect." That's delusional. No one who is 79 years old today has "perfect health." Here's an Independent story that also includes some of the WSJ content. ~~~

     ~~~ Update: Scott Lemieux comes through! His gift link to the WSJ story, by Annie Linskey, et al., worked for me (to read the story, collapse the subscription ad): Donald “Trump is taking more aspirin than his doctors recommend. He briefly tried wearing compression socks for his swelling ankles, but stopped because he didn’t like them. And he regrets undergoing advanced imaging because it generated scrutiny of his health.... Trump, 79, the oldest man to assume the presidency, is showing signs of aging in public and private, according to people close to him. Yet he has at times eschewed the advice of his doctors and scoffed at the medical community’s widely accepted health recommendations, relying instead on what he calls his 'good genetics.'... Trump gets little sleep and has recently struggled to keep his eyes open during several televised events in the West Wing. Aides, donors and friends say they often have to speak loudly in meetings with the president because he strains to hear....

“He has for weeks said that he underwent an MRI at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in October. When asked about the procedure by the Journal, Trump and his doctor said he got a different form of imaging: a CT scan.... His physical signs of aging are becoming more evident to some of his closest advisers. His skin is so delicate that Pam Bondi, now his attorney general, caused his hand to bleed when she nicked him with her ring while giving him a high-five at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.” ~~~

Here's a precious sentence from the report: “Trump veers from topic to topic in his lengthy public statements, and sometimes makes factual errors.”  

     ~~~ Marie: If the link above doesn't work for you, try using the link in Lemieux' post. If you don't have a WSJ subscription, in order to read the article, you probably will have to collapse a nearly-full-screen ad for WSJ subscriptions.

The Ultimate Holiday Eve News Dump. Julianne McShane of MS Now: "The House Oversight Committee on Wednesday released the transcript and video of its deposition with former special counsel Jack Smith, who led two failed prosecutions of ... Donald Trump.... The deposition took place on Dec. 17 in Washington, D.C. Read the full transcript of the deposition below." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Here's the video, posted by Meidas Touch: ~~~

~~~ Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: “Jack Smith, the former special counsel, defended his decision to twice indict ... [Donald] Trump, accusing him of 'exploiting' violence on Jan. 6, 2021, to overthrow the 2020 presidential election.... Mr. Smith, a former prosecutor vilified by Mr. Trump as a partisan, spent much of the eight-hour, closed-door session on Dec. 17 before the House Judiciary Committee rebutting a range of Republican claims, including the accusation that he had improperly obtained metadata on phone calls involving Trump-allied lawmakers.... Mr. Smith sought to undermine the narrative that the president was an innocent figure persecuted by partisans who weaponized federal law enforcement.... And Mr. Smith appeared intent on making another point: that he was unfazed by Mr. Trump’s vow to prosecute him. 'I am eyes wide open that this president will seek retribution against me if he can,' he said. Speaking in clipped, cautious tones — at times so quietly he was asked to talk louder — Mr. Smith defended Justice Department and F.B.I. officials who have faced firings, transfers and caustic public criticism from Mr. Trump and his allies. The former special counsel called such attacks 'false and misleading.'” ~~~

     ~~~ Kyle Cheney, et al., of Politico list seven takeaways from Smith's appearance before the committee. Here are a few: “Some of Smith’s most substantive testimony centered on his never-implemented trial strategy: using Republicans who believed in Trump to make the case against him.... Smith said he came to believe that Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, tweet attacking [Vice President] Pence while he was at the Capitol 'without question' exacerbated the danger to Pence’s life. Smith ... said he never officially decided whether to bring additional charges against the figures he alleged were Trump’s co-conspirators — including attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro, John Eastman and Boris Epshteyn.... Smith maintained he never communicated with [President] Biden or White House staff before or during his investigation.... He emphasized that he regularly consulted with Justice Department officials to ensure he abided by its guidelines.” Read on. ~~~

     ~~~ Julianna Bragg of Axios has five key takeaways. Some overlap with Politico's but not all of them. 

“Trump Is the Jan. 6 President.” New York Times Editors: “... Jan. 6, 2021 ...was a turning point toward a version of Mr. Trump who is even more lawless than the one who governed the country in his first term. It heralded a culture of political unaccountability, in which people who violently attacked Congress and beat police officers escaped without lasting consequence. The politicians and pundits who had egged on the attack with their lies escaped, as well. The aftermath of Jan. 6 made the Republican Party even more feckless, beholden to one man and willing to pervert reality to serve his interests. Once Mr. Trump won election again in 2024, despite his role in encouraging the riot and his many distortions about it, it emboldened him to govern in defiance of the Constitution, without regard for the truth and with malice toward those who stand up to his abuses.... Americans must summon the collective will to bring this era to an end and make certain that the violence, lawlessness and injustice of Jan. 6 do not endure.” This is a very long editorial. (Also linked yesterday.)

Heather Cox Richardson assesses the Trumpian Year That Was: "The hallmark of the first year of ... Donald J. Trump’s second term has been the attempt of the president and his cronies to dismantle the constitutional system set up by the framers of that document when they established the United States of America. It’s not simply that they have broken the laws. They have acted as if the laws, and the Constitution that underpins them, don’t exist." (Also linked yesterday.)

Lazaro Gamio & Amy Walker of the New York Times: “Since his return to office..., [Donald] Trump and his family have engaged in a moneymaking campaign like none in modern American history. It is enriching the family, as well as important officials and business partners. The president’s family and allies are benefiting from their proximity to power, retaining or building stakes in industries that the government oversees and that Mr. Trump’s policies have boosted. And several are negotiating deals with foreign governments, raising questions about the administration’s diplomatic priorities.” Update: I've changed the link to one that appears to be a gift link. MB: This is one of those annoying interactive pages that either the Times hasn't quite mastered or I haven't as I usually -- incluidng this time -- have found them difficult to navigate.

Tyler Pager of the New York Times: Donald “Trump said on Wednesday that he would abandon, for now, efforts to deploy the National Guard in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland, Ore. The decision comes after the Supreme Court ruled last week that Mr. Trump could not deploy troops in the Chicago area over the objections of Illinois officials. The president’s announcement made no mention of the ruling, but he suggested his administration would not hesitate to deploy troops in the future. 'We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again — Only a question of time,' he wrote on Truth Social. The president’s announcement also did not acknowledge that in both Portland and Chicago the troops had a limited, if nonexistent, presence in part because of legal challenges to their deployment.” (Also linked yesterday.) The AP's story is here. Politico's report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ AND Then. Laurel Rosenhall of the New York Times: “The Trump administration must return hundreds of California National Guard troops to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s control, a federal appellate court ruled on Wednesday. The troops were under the president’s command since he sent them to Los Angeles following protests over immigration raids this summer.... While most of [the troops] were later withdrawn, some 300 troops have remained under federal control. 'I’m glad President Trump has finally admitted defeat: We’ve said all along the federalization of the National Guard in California is illegal,' Mr. Newsom said in a statement on Wednesday. 'We welcome our California National Guard service members back to state service.'”

Arc de Trump. Sophia Cai of Politico: “... Donald Trump said in an interview Wednesday that construction of his long-teased Triumphal Arch is expected to begin 'sometime in the next two months.'... 'It hasn’t started yet. It starts sometime in the next two months. It’ll be great. Everyone loves it,/ Trump told Politico. 'They love the ballroom too. But they love the Triumphal Arch.' The proposed structure — modeled loosely on European victory monuments — is one of several high-profile projects Trump has personally championed as part of the semiquincentennial celebrations, a sprawling effort expected to include national and local events across the country.... Trump has framed the project as a patriotic landmark meant to honor American history and military service, though critics have raised questions about cost, aesthetics and whether the executive branch has the authority to unilaterally move forward with such construction in Washington.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ AND This. Jonathan Edwards & Dan Diamond of the Washington Post: “The White House on Wednesday laid out a nine-week timeline to win approval for ... Donald Trump’s proposed ballroom, even as one federal review panel said it has yet to receive required building plans and basic details of the project remain unclear. The dueling accounts and compressed review schedule underscore a central dispute over the project: whether the Trump administration is taking the procedural steps required under federal preservation law, or advancing construction in ways that could foreclose meaningful public review. By pouring millions into early foundation work while approvals remain unresolved, critics argue, the White House risks constraining meaningful scrutiny by oversight bodies.” ~~~

One of the things we're going to be redoing is your parks. I'm very good at grass because I have a lot of golf courses all over the place. I know more about grass than any human being, I think, anywhere in the world. And we're going to be [regrassing] all of your parks, all brand-new sprinkler systems, the best that you can buy, just like the Augusta. Mo, it'll look like Augusta. It'll look like, more importantly, Trump National Golf Club. That's even better, but we're going to look -- we're going to have all brand-new beautiful grass. You know, like everything else, grass has a life. Do you know that, grass has a life? You know, we have a life and grass has a life and the grass here died about 40 years ago. So we're going to be rebuilding all of your parks and it's going to happen fast. -- Donald Trump, August 21, 2025, in address to Parks Police Officers ~~~  

~~~ AND This. Stephen Groves of the AP: “The Trump administration has ended the lease agreement for three public golf courses in Washington, a move that offers ... Donald Trump an additional opportunity to put his stamp on another piece of the nation’s capital. The National Links Trust, the nonprofit that has operated Washington’s three public courses on federal land for the last five years, said Wednesday that the Department of the Interior had terminated its 50-year lease agreement. The Interior Department said it was terminating the lease because the nonprofit had not implemented required capital improvements and failed to meet the terms of the lease.” ~~~

     ~~~ Rick Maese of the Washington Post: “The move marks an extraordinary federal intervention into the management of District recreational assets and reflects a broader push by ... Donald Trump to remake high-profile civic spaces in the nation’s capital....” The link appears to be a gift link. Do read on. Maese reports on the very reasonable fear that all indications are that Trump will turn these public courses into clubby facilities too expensive for ordinary golfers to access.

Julian Barnes, et al., of the New York Times: “The C.I.A. has determined that Ukraine did not target President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia or one of his residences in an attack this week, according to U.S. officials, rebutting an assertion Mr. Putin made in a phone call to ... [Donald] Trump on Monday. John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, briefed Mr. Trump on the finding, a person familiar with the matter said. Mr. Trump has not directly acknowledged the intelligence, but on Wednesday, he posted on social media a link to a New York Post editorial that blamed Mr. Putin for standing in the way of a peace deal with Ukraine and cast doubt on the veracity of his claim that he was the target of an attack. On Monday, [Mr. Trump] had said he was 'very angry' about the purported attack when Mr. Putin told him about it. The C.I.A. declined to comment, and the White House referred questions to Mr. Trump’s social media post.” The Hill has a story here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: A PBS report, also linked yesterday, characterized Trump's attitude this way: "The CIA has assessed that Ukraine was not targeting a residence of Russian President Vladimir Putin in a recent drone attack, a claim that Putin told ... [Donald] Trump, and that Trump seemed to accept. Trump now suggests that he agrees with European leaders that it’s Russia blocking the path to a peace agreement." I have a feeling this is one of the things Trump "learned," only to almost immediately forget it.

Marie: Yesterday I linked a CBS News story about Trump's first vetoes last year, which only tangentially implied that the vetoes were retaliatory. Here's the NYT story, which popped up later and which I did link yesterday. The headline of Pager's report might as well be "Trump Is Such a Dick." ~~~ 

     ~~~ Tyler Pager of the New York Times: Donald “Trump issued his first vetoes of his second term this week, rejecting legislation that passed Congress with bipartisan support and prompting criticism that his actions were the latest moves in the president’s retribution campaign. The two bills aimed to fund a water pipeline in southeastern Colorado, and expand land reserved for the Miccosukee Tribe in Florida as well as direct the Interior Department to help mitigate flooding there. In messages to Congress released Tuesday, Mr. Trump said he blocked the bills to save taxpayers’ money. But the president has grievances against the Miccosukee Tribe and the state of Colorado, leading lawmakers to accuse Mr. Trump of blocking the bills because of political disagreements. Throughout his second term, Mr. Trump has carried out a campaign of retribution against political opponents, law firms, universities and specific individuals. In Florida, Mr. Trump suggested the veto of the bill to expand Miccosukee Tribe land was tied to its opposition to his immigration agenda. The Miccosukee Tribe joined a lawsuit earlier this year to block the administration from constructing an immigrant detention center in the Everglades nicknamed Alligator Alcatraz. And in Colorado, Mr. Trump has attacked the state’s leaders over the imprisonment of a former state election official, Tina Peters, for interfering with the 2020 presidential election.” ~~~

~~~ Then Jack Healy piled on: ~~~ 

     ~~~ Jack Healy of the New York Times: “Miffed at Colorado’s votes against him in three successive elections and furious at its refusal to free Tina Peters, a convicted election denier and ardent Trump supporter, Mr. Trump has opened an assault against the Democratic-run state. His administration has cut off transportation money, relocated the military’s Space Command, vowed to dismantle a leading climate and weather research center and rejected disaster relief for rural counties hammered by floods and wildfires. A major escalation to Mr. Trump’s attacks on the state came on Tuesday, when he used the first veto of his second term to kill a pipeline project to provide clean drinking water to the state’s eastern plains, a largely conservative area. If there were any doubts about Mr. Trump’s sentiments toward the state’s leaders, he posted a New Year’s Eve message telling Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, and the Republican district attorney in Mesa County who prosecuted Ms. Peters, Daniel P. Rubinstein, to rot in Hell.... I wish them only the worst.'...” (Also linked yesterday.)

RAS remarked in yesterday's Comments, "Donnie can't even identify the national bird, which is pretty distinctive, so now I am wondering about that 'camel' he keeps bragging about remembering." Good point. MB: I then went hunting and found this copy of Donnie's Minnesota cognitive test results online: ~~~

Ben Finley of the AP: “The U.S. military said Wednesday it struck five alleged drug-smuggling boats over two days, killing a total of eight people while others jumped overboard and may have survived. U.S. Southern Command, which oversees South America, did not reveal where the attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday occurred.... A video of Tuesday’s attack posted by Southern Command on social media shows three boats traveling in a close formation, which is unusual, and the military said they were in a convoy along known narco-trafficking routes and 'had transferred narcotics between the three vessels prior to the strikes.' The military did not provide evidence to back up the claim. The military said three people were killed when the first boat was struck, while people in the other two boats jumped overboard and distanced themselves from the vessels before they were attacked. Southern Command said it immediately notified the U.S. Coast Guard to activate search and rescue efforts.”

Christiaan Triebert & Nicholas Nehamas of the New York Times: “The oil tanker fleeing American forces in the Atlantic Ocean has been formally renamed and added to an official Russian database of vessels registered in that country, potentially complicating U.S. efforts to board the runaway ship. According to the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping, the vessel, previously known as the Bella 1, is now registered as the Marinera. The database lists the vessel as flying the Russian flag, with a home port of Sochi. Under international law, ships flying a country’s flag are under that nation’s protection.... American officials said it was not flying a valid national flag when it was initially approached by the Coast Guard more than a week ago. The slow-moving tanker has been evading the Coast Guard after being stopped on its way to pick up oil at a Venezuelan port. It may now be trying to invoke the aid of Russia, a longtime ally of Venezuela’s. Crew members recently painted a crude Russian flag on the side of the vessel.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Putin is messing with Trump. Maybe this will help Donald remember he's mad at Vlad.

Carol Rosenberg of the New York Times: “...  the Coast Guard has traditionally sought to halt the flow of illicit drugs ... [using] a law enforcement approach, in sharp contrast to the Pentagon’s use of deadly force since September against vessels it says are smuggling cocaine.... Cutters guided by an intelligence center in Key West, Fla., have intercepted go-fast boats in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean and seized people suspected of smuggling, as well as bales of cocaine and marijuana.... The Coast Guard missions continue, with seizures at the same rate as last year. Cutters still return from monthslong patrols to unload bales of cocaine or marijuana from their decks in events for the media. But after Attorney General Pam Bondi directed prosecutors in February to mostly stop bringing charges against low-level offenders in favor of bigger investigations, the once steady stream of federal trafficking cases is drying up.” ~~~

     ~~~ Here's a link to a NYT video about the Coast Guard's intercepting suspected drug-trafficking boats. I don't know if it will work if you don't have a NYT subscription, but the link resembles gift links. 

Ken Bensinger & Ernesto Londoño of the New York Times: “A 43-minute video posted online in the past week, purporting to expose extensive fraud at Somali-run child care centers in Minnesota..., has also set off a series of events that show the symbiotic relationship between the Trump administration and self-described citizen journalists. It was posted to X and YouTube the day after Christmas by Nick Shirley, a 23-year-old who has ... produc[ed] viral content that aligns with MAGA policies.... The New York Times could not verify the claims made in the video. Mainstream news sites have reported on cases of social services fraud in Minnesota for years, including a 2,200-word article in The Times last month.... The scale of the reaction to Mr. Shirley’s video ... highlights the way the White House seeds narratives about key issues, then rewards sympathetic creators who deliver viral content. That content need not be new, or even particularly revelatory, to succeed.

“Mr. Shirley’s latest video appears to have been filmed on Dec. 17 in and around Minneapolis, where he knocks on the doors of numerous child care and autism centers.... When someone does open up, Mr. Shirley demands to see whether there are children inside but is never shown any. At each stop, Mr. Shirley, citing state billing records, announces that the operation is fraudulent because he does not see any children. All told, he claims to have personally uncovered $110 million in fraud.... One of the locations Mr. Shirley visited, Mako Childcare Center, has been out of business for three years.” The link is a gift link. Related stories linked below. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The story exposes how phony Trump and his minions -- Vance, Noem, Patel, etc. -- are. While I don't doubt that some of these Somalis -- not necessarily the ones Shirley identified -- are criminal frauds, they may have been as successful at their craft as some of the fraudsters Trump has pardoned. The brouhaha the administration has drummed up is based in racism. ~~~

~~~ All based on a 'gotcha' video claiming that 3 daycares had no kids. One hadn’t opened yet for the day; one is actually closed. Dude arrived with no I.D. No call ahead. They DIDN’T LET HIM IN! The fraud they’re referencing was investigated & prosecuted by the Biden DOJ. The ringleader was white. -- Sherrilyn Ifill on Bluesky (thanks to RAS for the link) ~~~

~~~ Marie: So some not-very-bright kid whose goal in life is to become an "influencer" tries to muscle his way into child daycare centers (which are closed to random intruders for obviously reasons), finds out nothing at all, but makes wild false assertions (his accomplice, “identified only as David..., claims to have uncovered fraud worse than 'anywhere else ever in history'”). The WashPo story linked below said Shirley showed up at one center before it opened and at another with six or seven men, some of them masked: would you open the door?? Also, on the YouTubes, I saw CCTV video of one center taped on the day Shirley said there were no children there; the footage showed multiple adults bringing children into the center and leaving without them. A normal federal government response would be either (a) crickets or (b) to alert local law enforcement to Shirley & his sidekick's harassing, menacing activities. But no. We don't have a normal federal government: ~~~

     ~~~ A-mazing. ABC News: “The Trump administration is pausing child care funding to all states after allegations of fraud in daycare centers in Minnesota emerged, an official with the Department of Health and Human Services said. The official said the funds will be released 'only when states prove they are being spent legitimately.” The official did not provide details or more information about the proof the agency is requiring from states. HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon told ABC News that recipients of funding who are 'not suspected of fraudulent activity' are required to send HHS their 'administrative data' for review. Nixon said that recipients of federal funding in Minnesota and those 'suspected of fraudulent activity' have to provide the HHS with additional records that include 'attendance records, licensing, inspection and monitoring reports, complaints and investigations.'” Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~

     ~~~ Paige Cunningham, et al., of the Washington Post: “Day care operators say the Trump administration’s restrictions on federal child care funding unfairly punish them over a conservative activist’s fraud allegations against Minnesota centers that are undercut by state records and disputed by some of the owners.... Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) said [in a statement] the administration is threatening funding for child care services 'apparently all on the basis of one video on social media.... “To say I am outraged is an understatement.'...” Here's more from the AP.

Eric Niiler of the New York Times: “The Trump administration is closing NASA’s largest research library on Friday, a facility that houses tens of thousands of books, documents and journals — many of them not digitized or available anywhere else. Jacob Richmond, a NASA spokesman, said the agency would review the library holdings over the next 60 days and some material would be stored in a government warehouse while the rest would be tossed away.... The shutdown of the library at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., is part of a larger reorganization under the Trump administration that includes the closure of 13 buildings and more than 100 science and engineering laboratories on the 1,270-acre campus by March 2026.... NASA spokeswoman Bethany Stevens ... [said] the changes were part of a long-planned reorganization that began before the Trump administration took office.... She said that shutting down the facilities would save $10 million a year and avoid another $63.8 million in deferred maintenance.... The library closure on Friday follows the shutdown of seven other NASA libraries around the country since 2022, and included three libraries this year.” Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: What Bethany meant to say was, "The closure of this large research library is in keeping with President Trump's longstanding policy: 'Paper trails, bad.'" 

Marie: Yesterday, I linked this Washington Post report on the drop in U.S. vaccination rates, but at the time I linked the story, I don't think it included the facility to check out rates in your community, as it does now. Besides, the link here is a gift link (I think), and yesterday's link was a plain ole subscriber-firewalled link. 

Anushka Patil of the New York Times: “A federal judge in San Francisco on Wednesday found that the Trump administration illegally moved to end temporary deportation protections for tens of thousands of people from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua. The ruling was a blow to the administration’s efforts to limit the reach of a humanitarian program meant to shield migrants from deportation to countries in crisis. In her ruling, Judge Trina L. Thompson found that the efforts of the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, to terminate protections for people from the three countries had been preordained and driven by an intent to target the Temporary Protected Status program, known as T.P.S. In a 52-page ruling, she wrote that the government’s ... decisions in June and July to cancel the program ... had failed to address ... 'food insecurity in Nepal, staggering crime in Honduras, or humanitarian crises in Nicaragua.' Judge Thompson, an appointee of President Joseph R. Biden Jr., also said that immigration advocates who had sued over the program cancellations had plausibly argued that the cancellations were motivated by racial animus.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Why, it's almost as if making racist remarks about refugees from "shithole countries" works against you when you try to deport said refugees back to the aforementioned shithole countries. 

Blithe Spirit. Ann Marimow of the New York Times: “At a time when federal judges have faced threats, intimidation and calls for impeachment, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Wednesday used his annual report on the state of the judiciary to focus on history and the nation’s upcoming 250th birthday, with a nod to judicial independence. The report landed at a fraught time for the Supreme Court as it confronts a series of legal challenges to the Trump administration’s expansion of presidential power. It followed months of attacks by ... [Donald] Trump and his allies on lower-court judges who have ruled against him. But Chief Justice Roberts chose to address such matters only through oblique historical references. In a 13-page report, he traced the development of the nation’s two foundational documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and the role they envisioned for the judiciary.”

     ~~~ Marie: What Marimow meant to write was, "In keeping with Donald Trump's expanding dementia and continuing pretense that 'everything is going very smoothly,' Chief Justice John Roberts wrote a report in which he pretended he had no idea WTF was going on." ~~~

     ~~~ NBC News' report is here. And here's Roberts' report (pdf), via the Court; it's hard to read because about 85% of it is printed in a crap font with messed-up letter spacing. Short passages, interspersed among the other text, are printed in Times Roman or something akin to it and are easily readable. 

The Contrarian depicts "the year in protest signs." Thanks to RAS for the link. 

~~~~~~~~~~ 

Georgia. Rick Rojas & Sean Keenan of the New York Times: “A Georgia judge dismissed racketeering charges on Tuesday against dozens of activists who had fought the construction of a police and fire training center outside of Atlanta that became known as 'Cop City,' dealing a major setback to state officials who had pursued an unusually aggressive case against the protesters.... Georgia officials argued that the demonstrators were part of a criminal enterprise bent on sowing violence and disorder, and in 2023 the state attorney general charged 61 activists with racketeering.... In his ruling on Tuesday, Judge Kevin M. Farmer of Superior Court of Fulton County cited what was essentially a technical misstep by the attorney general’s office as justification for tossing the charges against the protesters.... The judge found that state prosecutors had failed to get Gov. Brian Kemp’s permission to move forward with a case that would otherwise be within the remit of a local district attorney. (Mr. Kemp, a Republican and a persistent critic of the activists, would have likely signed off.)”

New York. Subterranean Rhapsody. Dana Rubenstein of the New York Times: “Zohran Mamdani, the left-leaning populist who deployed a mix of charm, social media savvy and an unyielding focus on affordability to catapult him to political stardom, was officially sworn in as mayor of New York City early Thursday, just after the New Year’s Eve ball dropped in Times Square. The ceremony, held underground at an abandoned showpiece of a subway station by City Hall, caps Mr. Mamdani’s yearlong rise from obscure state lawmaker to international figure, embodying the hopes of New Yorkers and Americans across the country who were enthralled by his journey to becoming the city’s first Muslim and first South Asian mayor. Four minutes before midnight, Mr. Mamdani, 34; his wife, Rama Duwaji; and Letitia James, the state attorney general, disembarked from a No. 6 train into the grimy, dimly lit, and yet stunning subway station. They promptly took their places on the steps beneath a dramatic archway emblazoned with the words, 'City Hall.'...

“A public inauguration will take place at 1 p.m. on Thursday on the steps of City Hall, an event that will feature two of Mr. Mamdani’s most powerful colleagues on the left: Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who will administer a ceremonial oath of office; and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who will make opening remarks.”

New York City Hall Subway Station

~~~~~~~~~~

Iran. Ephrat Livni & Sanam Mahoozi of the New York Times: “Businesses, universities and government offices stayed closed on Wednesday across most of Iran under a government-ordered shutdown, as the president struggled to address public frustration that has fueled mounting protests over the faltering economy and the government.”