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Arizona state Senate candidate John McLean killed in suspected DUI crash: 'True public servant'

Police confirmed a Democratic candidate for the Arizona Senate was killed in an early morning crash by a suspected drunk driver in Tucson on Friday.
Read full article on: foxnews.com
Democrats got wiped out in 2004. This is what they did next.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) looks down before delivering a concession speech during the election at Faneuil Hall November 3, 2004, in Boston. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images In 2004, life as a Democrat was pretty bleak. The party lost a presidential election to George W. Bush for a second time. Adding insult to injury, Democratic nominee John Kerry lost the popular vote. The party was seemingly losing ground, after having won the popular vote in 2000 and losing the Electoral College thanks only to an exceedingly close (and contested) loss in Florida. It was a different world back then, but Democrats sensed that voters resoundingly had rejected what they had to offer — even while running against a Republican candidate broadly considered vulnerable. In 2024, life as a Democrat is pretty bleak in many of the same ways it was two decades ago. Ballots are still being counted after the presidential election, but the Democratic presidential nominee is on track to lose the popular vote for the first time in 20 years. That popular vote loss has forced a broader reckoning: Winning the popular vote “acted as a kind of salve: Yes, the Electoral College may have delivered Bush and Trump the presidency, but on some level, their administrations were illegitimate, unsanctioned by the popular will,” said Nicole Hemmer, a political historian at Vanderbilt University focused on media, conservatism, and the presidency. Without a “but the popular vote” fallback, Democrats are confronting a harsh reality. “For the first time since 2004, this election felt like an embrace of conservatism, albeit a much different kind of conservatism than the one associated with the 2004 winner,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.  Now, as in 2004, Democrats are engaging in what can be generously viewed as introspection (or, less generously, a “circular firing squad”) to chart a new course back to power and assess what went so very wrong this time around. The blame for that is up for debate: It may have been the economy, Democrats’ embrace of “wokeness,” President Joe Biden’s decision to run for a second term, the fact that many Americans actually liked what Trump was selling, or any number of other factors. Though it may take months for what specifically went wrong to become clearer, the 2004 election and its aftermath might provide some insight into how Democrats can move forward. After all, four years after the Bush-Kerry debacle, Democrats won the 2008 election in a landslide, with Barack Obama beating John McCain by nearly 10 million votes and entering the White House with massive congressional majorities at his back. What Democrats today can learn from the party’s loss in 2004  There are obvious differences between 2004 and 2024. The aughts election was dominated by 9/11 and the Global War on Terror that followed. This year, those topics barely registered, while Trump and Biden’s respective records, the economy, and the culture wars took center stage. Further, Kerry’s campaign started with winning a very competitive primary, whereas Vice President Kamala Harris took over after Biden stepped aside and gave her his endorsement. But the vibes among Democrats are similar, and what they do next may determine whether they see a revival in the 2026 midterms and the elections that follow. Overall, Democrats took three lessons from 2004. Whether one believes those lessons apply to 2024 depends, in large part, on what one believes went wrong for Harris in her loss to Trump. But, given Democrats’ successful recovery from 2004, it’s a history lesson worth taking. 1) They pursued a 50-state strategy Following the 2004 loss, a popular meme rocketed around the (still somewhat nascent) internet: a map that depicted the Democratic “United States of Canada” as existing along the coasts and a Republican “Jesusland” encompassing the vast majority of land in the US. If that seems reductive and problematic on multiple fronts, you’re not wrong, but the map, aforementioned problems aside, served in part as shorthand for pointing out Democrats’ turnout problem. Yes, Kerry had turned out 9 million more votes than Al Gore had four years before, but he still fell almost 3 million short of Bush. That gap revealed a vulnerability for Democrats: their inability to mobilize a broad coalition in swing states and beyond that would translate into an Electoral College victory. Kerry couldn’t summon the kind of voter enthusiasm necessary to match Bush’s strong performance in rural areas and outer suburbs. To goose turnout, Democrats looked to Howard Dean, who ran a populist primary campaign but lost to Kerry. Elected as chair of the Democratic National Committee in 2005, Dean became a proponent of a “50-state strategy.” The idea behind this strategy was that Democrats need to try to compete in every state, maximizing turnout in Democratic areas while cutting into Republican margins where possible. This year, former DNC chair Donna Brazile, like Dean, believes part of the solution could be the return of the 50-state strategy. They’re not alone: “We cannot run in just the few states that we need,” said Claire Potter, a professor emerita of history at the New School. “The Democrats have, in some ways, really backed off that strategy, and I think they’re wrong to have done so.” The Harris campaign — for very understandable reasons — did not utilize Dean’s method. With only a few months to campaign, Harris focused on swing states and select demographic groups. She largely did not visit historically “safe” Democratic states. While it’s not clear that she could have stanched the bleeding in those places, there were significant rightward shifts from New York City to Southern California. And it’s not clear how well the 50-states theory has aged. After all, Hillary Clinton ran up the popular vote total after winning big in solidly blue states, but she got to serve as president for exactly zero days. That strategy was later credited with helping Democrats make gains in the 2006 midterms and with helping to put Obama in the White House in 2008. And after 2024, where Democrats lost ground in just about every county in the US, a plan to boost the party’s popularity nationally is not one it can afford to ignore. 2) Democrats reevaluated their messaging In 2004, Democrats didn’t have a response to the rise of the right-wing blog Drudge Report and Fox News’s consolidation around Republicans. Kerry was often cast as an elitist with an expensive haircut, and right-wing commentators successfully turned one of his strengths as a candidate — his military service in Vietnam — into a liability through viral attack ads.  “There is this kind of disingenuous attack on Kerry as the Harvard boy, as somebody who’s faking having really fought in Vietnam,” Potter said. “Bush is able to play the card of being an outsider, even though he is an incumbent, even though he went to Yale, even though his father was president.” In response, Democrats sought to reevaluate their overall messaging strategy. The influential book Don’t Think of an Elephant! by the cognitive linguist George Lakoff served as a guidebook for reframing debates in their own terms and for explaining their policy positions by evoking values of empathy, fairness, and community without adopting the language of conservatives. They also embraced Dean — dubbed by the Washington Post in 2005 as an “outsider insurgent” who wore beat-up shoes and flew coach, spending most of his time outside of DC.  In 2024, Democrats were again outflanked by a new Republican media machine — this time, including the likes of Joe Rogan and Theo Von — to deliver their message. Harris, for her part, declined to appear on Rogan’s podcast, reportedly for fear of how it would be perceived within the party. 3) Democrats sought to become a party of ideas Kerry campaign adviser Kenneth Baer said that, in 2024, Democrats repeated their mistake in 2004 of defining themselves as being the opposite of Republicans.  “Smart people seem to have come around to the idea that you can’t just say Trump’s terrible,” Baer said, arguing that Democrats had the same issue in 2004, when Kerry spent much of his time on the campaign trail criticizing Bush instead of defining affirmative reasons to vote for Democrats. That called for Democrats to “rethink all our policies and our approaches,” Baer said. Baer went on to found the magazine Democracy: A Journal of Ideas as a platform for those ideas. That’s where Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), then a Harvard Law School professor, published a 2007 manifesto about how financial products like mortgages and credit cards should be regulated by the government. That idea would later give rise to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Today, some Democrats say the party still needs to better connect with the working class, but Baer noted that there is disagreement about what that means and whether that should involve an economic or cultural approach.  The limits of political strategy Democrats would very much like a silver-bullet strategy that guarantees them a post-2004-esque recovery. But the truth is, political strategy and planning can only go so far. And that may be one of the biggest lessons from two decades ago. The party’s return to power in 2008 was principally driven by two factors: Obama was a generationally politically gifted politician. George W. Bush was a generationally terrible president whose second term featured a bungled and deadly response to Hurricane Katrina; an even more disastrous and deadly handling of the Iraq War (the false pretenses of which came fully to light during Bush’s second term); and the 2008 financial crisis and ensuing economic meltdown. “The conditions that would collapse Bush’s support in his second term were already in place when he won reelection,” Hemmer, the political historian, said.  So how Democrats do in 2026, 2028, and beyond will likely have a lot to do with Trump’s performance during his second term. Today, preliminary exit polls suggest Trump is unpopular, his proposed tariffs could be disastrous for the economy, Democrats may mobilize against his policies as they did in his first term, and he may only have a very narrow House majority to work with, potentially hampering his agenda.  If such a collapse happens, however, Democrats also have to be prepared to seize on it.
7 m
vox.com
St. John’s getting ‘big jump’ in competition during stretch that will ‘set the tone’
The start has been fun. The national ranking is good for optics. But now we begin to find out about Rick Pitino’s Johnnies.
7 m
nypost.com
‘Lanterns’ HBO Series Casts Poorna Jagannathan
She will join Kyle Chandler, Aaron Pierre, and Kelly Macdonald in the eight-episode series.
7 m
nypost.com
Soft-on-crime Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg drops $40K on trauma-relief program for ‘snowflake’ staff
Woke Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg – who critics say notoriously treats criminals like they’re the victims – plans to quietly roll out a taxpayer-funded program to help pacify stressed staffers, The Post has learned.
9 m
nypost.com
Ex-mayor of notorious Long Island town accused of spewing racist remarks and forcing his staffer to take edibles, shoot geese
He might be the real Amityville Horror.
nypost.com
Harris’ campaign blew $2.6M on private jets in final weeks of campaign
Vice President Kamala Harris shelled out plenty on private jet travel in the final dying gasps of her presidential run.
nypost.com
How Democrat gerrymandering has made it nearly impossible for Republicans to make even bigger gains in the House
“What you’ve seen is that you have many fewer competitive seats in the country because the way in which redistricting is conducted," said former New York GOP Rep. John Faso,
nypost.com
The Uplift: Photos from Helene
A woman from the Ashville area aims to reconnect victims of Hurricane Helene with the family photos they lost in the storm. David Begnaud surprises a selfless woman, known for giving rides to those in need, with a brand new car. Plus, more heartwarming stories.
cbsnews.com
Letters to Sports: A fond farewell to John Robinson
Readers of the L.A. Times Sports section give their opinions and thoughts on the passing of John Robinson, the Rams and Chargers, plus USC and UCLA football.
latimes.com
Donald Trump Floods the Zone
The sheer quantity of individually unqualified selections might perversely make blocking any of them harder.
theatlantic.com
Man arrested in connection with suspicious bag that prompted shutdown of Torrance courthouse
A Redondo Beach man was arrested Friday in connection with a suspicious bag that was left outside the Torrance courthouse this week, authorities said.
latimes.com
Don't despair, voters — L.A. residents struck major blows for good government
Reform ballot measures for L.A. city and county governments signal local voters' desire for more responsive and more ethical leadership.
latimes.com
Gotham FC peaking in time for semifinal battle vs. Washington
No. 3 seed Gotham, being in its best form of the year, is right on time for Saturday’s playoff semifinal against the No. 2 Washington Spirit.
nypost.com
Inside Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater’s ‘Wicked’ romance: ‘There was a gravity pull’
“I could see it for them [long term]. I don’t think this is a PR move that ‘this will help my career if I date the other one.’ There’s something there.”
nypost.com
Trump won big with black men— now he must convince them to be better fathers
Just as many pollsters predicted, Donald Trump scored record numbers of African-American votes last week — particularly among black men. Some 21% of them voted for Trump, up 2% from 2020, with nearly one-third of black men under 45 rallying behind the once and future president.   It’s a startling figure to many people, particularly...
nypost.com
‘Family Ties’ actress Justine Bateman speaks out on Biden years: ‘Man, we just went ‘1984’ on ourselves’
"I was surprised to feel, physically feel, a relief in my body," Justine Bateman told The Post of Donald Trump's preisdential win. "I didn't realize how uncomfortable the last four years had felt ..."
nypost.com
Sustainability Needs More Than Technology. This Leadership Framework Might Be the Answer
Sustainability needs more than technological solutions. The Inner Development Goals can deliver a leadership framework for real change.
time.com
Zelenskiy says Ukraine must do all it can for war to end next year through diplomacy
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Ukraine must do all it can to ensure the war with Russia ends next year through diplomacy.
nypost.com
Satisfying vs. Productive
Weekends are, ostensibly, for relaxation. But the impulse to make every moment productive can make guilt-free leisure a challenge.
nytimes.com
Eye on America: Chef teaches kids healthy recipes, and examining the "sandwich generation"
In Illinois, we meet a chef whose hands-on workshops teach kids and families how to boost nutrition at home. And in California, we examine the increasing number of families who are juggling raising kids while caring for their aging parents. Watch these stories and more on "Eye on America" with host Michelle Miller.
1 h
cbsnews.com
Screw it, it’s Christmas now
Christmas lights at a house in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, New York City. | Roy Rochlin/Getty Images After last week’s presidential election, something unusual started happening in my neighborhood: On a walk to a wine bar on November 11, I saw stoops lined with pine garlands next to skeletons and spider webs, relics from Halloween a mere week and a half prior. Someone had set up two life-size nutcrackers on their front porch; someone else’s brownstone windows offered a peep into their living room, where a fully lit Christmas tree was already aglow inside.  But according to people all over the country, it wasn’t just my neighborhood. The early start to the most festive season seemed to be a reaction to — what else — the results of the election, which plunged many Americans into an uncanny mood they haven’t experienced since the last time Donald Trump was elected in 2016. Or, as Massachusetts social worker Dylana Becker put it: “Holiday lights because my daughter may have no fucking rights.” Becker started putting up Christmas decor on November 6th. Rachael Kay Albers, a marketing professional in Chicago, told me she “just bought a 10-foot tree, not even on sale,” with the philosophy, “Fuck it, it’s time for twinkles.” Rachel Lewis, a social media manager in North Carolina, erected an inflatable penguin on her roof that same week. “Our neighbor said, ‘Isn’t it early?’ And we said ‘No, it’s not.’” Much like how interest in elaborate skincare routines exploded in the wake of Trump’s 2016 election, Americans seem to be diverting their anxieties into holiday cheer, if only by sheer force. It’s not exactly a mystery as to why: In uncertain times, we seek escape and comfort, and nothing occupies a cozier or more nostalgic place in the American imagination than Christmas. Couple that with a late Thanksgiving, and people are seeing little point in waiting for the turkey to be done to put up their trees.  For some, Christmas came even before the polls closed. Mia Moran, a children’s book editor in Queens, said she went shopping for Christmas pillows at Target in early November. “This year it just feels like we needed something,” she tells me. “[Christmas] is a good outlet, and also a neutral sense of pure joy. It’s not charged in any way.”  @alessandrabrontsema Decorating for Christmas brings me so much joy ✨???? #christmas #christmasdecor #holidaydecor #christmasdecorating #holidaydecorating #christmastree #christmastok ♬ Carol of the Bells – Instrumental – Russell Davis & Roy Vogt & Michael Green & Marty Crum & Jeff Kirk & David Angell & Carrie Bailey & Steve Patrick & Nancy Allen & Ginger Newman & Sarah Valley It’s ironic, considering the decades-long right-wing mania about the supposed “war on Christmas” by the media establishment. This year, for the first time in recent memory, perhaps it’s the left who’s more fervently embracing the holiday. “When the polls close in your state, you are officially allowed to begin playing Christmas music,” tweeted First Amendment lawyer Adam Steinbaugh on the evening of the election. After it became clear Trump was winning, comedian Mike Drucker posted, “I’m listening to Christmas music starting tomorrow cuz fuck this shit.” According to the Wall Street Journal, forcing holiday spirit is a “healthy response” to election stress, one that “beats sitting there saying, ‘Oh my god, this is an existential threat to the world and I’m going to enter a doom and gloom loop,’” explained Kevin Smith, a political science professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  It’s also entirely possible that it isn’t just the election that’s caused this year’s bout of “Christmas creep,” a term that’s been discussed and debated since the 1980s. The phenomenon itself has existed far longer, however: Early Christmas sales (and complaints about them) can be traced back to the Victorian era. It’s typical for customers to be annoyed by businesses using far-off holidays as marketing tools. What’s less common is for Americans to seemingly all agree, individually, that the time for twinkle lights is now.  This year, per Axios, retail experts say that holiday deals are starting early partly because of the fact that there are five fewer days between Black Friday and Christmas this year, and partly because of election uncertainty. Lowe’s, for instance, launched its holiday decor line in July, a month earlier than the year before, while Amazon moved its Prime Day up to early October.  America’s favorite coping mechanism has always been buying stuff, and if Christmas spending is any indication, we’ve been getting steadily more anxious for years. The National Retail Federation expects the typical consumer will spend $902 on Christmas gifts and decor, up $25 from last year, reports Business Insider. Prophecy Market Insights projects that the Christmas decoration industry will nearly double in the next decade, from $8.45 billion in 2024 to $13 billion in 2034.  Charles Scheland, a professional modern dancer in Manhattan, says that in addition to putting up his tree, string lights, and nutcracker statue, he’s also already started pulling his favorite Christmas music to teach in his dance classes. He says that part of that is due to the shock and disappointment of what began as a galvanizing Democratic campaign. “I really think that the joy of the Harris campaign and the optimism of that movement got people excited, and to have that so deafening crushed, people just want to get some of that joy,” he says.  There’s also another reason for the skip from Halloween to Christmas, he posits. “Thanksgiving is a tricky holiday because it is often celebrated with extended family, and sometimes we don’t agree with our extended family. So rather than getting into the trickier holiday, we’re just jumping ahead to the next.” In the years since 2020, holidays, and to an even greater extent, seasons, have become celebrations not just IRL in the form of decor and activities, but online. People on TikTok and Instagram began to document their “winter arcs,” their “Meg Ryan falls,” and their hot girl summers as a way of marking the passage of time when it seemed like the only way to feel alive was watching someone else’s life through a screen. As I’ve argued before, dividing one’s life into seasons and leaning heavily into seasonal aesthetics is a way of romanticizing your life while also dissociating from it, a potentially useful tool when it feels like nothing makes sense.  I’m not immune, either. After my unexpectedly festive neighborhood walk, two wines deep, I decided that I absolutely needed to make a reservation at one of those bars in Manhattan where they deck it out with festive decor for the month of December. In most respects, these are miserable establishments — the kind of bars that are overpriced and crowded to the point of sweltering, places marketed with the promise of quaintness and communal cheer but mostly exist as traps for tourists to take photos in. But in that moment, being surrounded by a million twinkling wreaths and giant red bows and exhausted holiday shoppers from New Jersey sounded like not the worst place to be. In fact, I could think of much worse things: a decaying democracy, or a man investigated for sex crimes being installed as attorney general, for instance. So screw it, it’s Christmas now. May we all find merriment where we can.
1 h
vox.com
How much is one Paul Skenes card worth? Pirates offer 30 years of prime season tickets
The Pirates have offered an incredible haul to whomever ends up with a unique Paul Skenes card released by Topps. Olivia Dunne is helping the team's effort.
2 h
latimes.com
How Haruki Murakami and other writers are grappling with our surreal post-pandemic reality
'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' bears Murakami's hallmarks, including references to jazz and the Beatles. It also joins other new works in contending with catastrophe.
2 h
latimes.com
When the Mountain fire hit close to home, this community banded together
Somis, a rural community in Ventura County, was used to close calls. This was different. My mother-in-law was lucky; some neighbors weren't.
2 h
latimes.com
Cassie told her story — and launched music’s #MeToo reckoning
Sean “Diddy” Combs has been hit with a deluge of sex abuse lawsuits that sparked music’s #MeToo moment. It all started with Cassie one year ago.
2 h
washingtonpost.com
'Family Ties' star Justine Bateman says Trump's election lifted 'suffocating cloud' on free speech
Author and filmmaker Justine Bateman spoke with Fox News Digital about the "suffocating cloud" that has been lifted following the election of President-elect Trump.
2 h
foxnews.com
Wildfire retardant is laden with toxic metals, USC study finds
The discovery of high levels of heavy metals in a popular fire retardant has added to long-running concerns from environmentalists.
2 h
latimes.com
She got seizures at 10 months old. So her dad wrote a musical about epilepsy and empathy
"It's All Your Fault, Tyler Price!" from composer Ben Decter and director Kristin Hanggi could help de-stigmatize the condition.
2 h
latimes.com
Why picking RFK Jr. to lead HHS is raising alarms among many public health specialists
The anti-vaccine activist could oversee the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health.
2 h
latimes.com
How Hollywood flipped the May-December romance so older women rule
It’s been a year of older actresses getting their groove back. And Nicole Kidman isn’t even done yet.
2 h
washingtonpost.com
California regulators propose plan that could close Aliso Canyon. Or is it just 'kicking the can'?
The California Public Utilities Commission unveiled a proposal that could potentially close the Aliso Canyon gas storage field in the coming years, but local activists and politicians say it doesn't provide a fast or clear enough timeline.
2 h
latimes.com
Crypto 'godfather' of Bel-Air: Probe widens into L.A. deputies' alleged links to mogul
At least six L.A. County sheriff's deputies have been relieved of duty amid an investigation into their work for a 24-year-old cryptocurrency entrepreneur accused of extortion and hiding millions of dollars from tax collectors.
2 h
latimes.com
Letters to the Editor: I was a teacher when Prop. 187 was on the ballot. Here's what my students did to show their patriotism
A teacher in Eagle Rock at the time Prop. 187 was on the ballot recalls her students' moving display of patriotism in the face of anti-immigrant fervor.
2 h
latimes.com
Elon Musk’s SpaceX all but owns the market for U.S. government launches
SpaceX is on a trajectory to remain the most dominant player in space launches for years to come as it makes strides with its heavy-duty Starship rocket program.
2 h
washingtonpost.com
After high-profile clashes with Trump, Adam Schiff will soon have a new title: Freshman
Rep. Adam B. Schiff is accustomed to the limelight on Sunday talk shows and on the House floor. In the Senate, the Burbank Democrat will carry a new title: freshman.
2 h
latimes.com
Orange County man receives life sentence for hate-motivated murder
Samuel Woodward, then 21, was driven by 'pure hate and rage' over his victim's sexual orientation and religious beliefs, the judge says.
2 h
latimes.com
With 'The Saints,' Martin Scorsese puts his faith in Fox Nation
Fox News Media's streaming service has become a home for passion projects from big names with red state appeal, including Martin Scorsese and Kevin Costner.
2 h
latimes.com
Letters to the Editor: What do Senate Republicans have to say about Matt Gaetz and RFK Jr. in the Trump Cabinet?
Readers discuss Trump's controversial Cabinet picks, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services and Matt Gaetz for attorney general.
2 h
latimes.com
Column: 'The Onion buys Infowars' is not the craziest headline this week
Satirical news site the Onion buys far-right conspiracy site Infowars
2 h
latimes.com
Trump's early moves send strong signals about what to expect
President-elect Donald Trump opened his transition back to the White House this week with a flurry of personnel announcements that sent forceful messages to major constituent groups, potential political rivals and the country at large.
2 h
latimes.com
Charlie Fishman made D.C. a better jazz town
The concert promoter, who died this week, dreamed up the DC Jazz Festival on a napkin.
2 h
washingtonpost.com
Yawning deficit looms as Maryland leaders weigh future cuts, tax hikes
Budget officials say that by 2030, there will be enough revenue to pay for just 84 percent of the state budget, forcing lawmakers to make hard spending choices.
2 h
washingtonpost.com
Trump may start his second term with a stunning power grab
President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a House Republicans Conference meeting at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill on November 13, 2024, in Washington, DC. | Allison Robbert/Getty Images With President-elect Donald Trump’s latest slate of extreme or controversial nominees — Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services secretary — has come the question about whether even a Republican-controlled Senate will actually confirm them all. But what if that’s asking the wrong question? What if Trump has no intention of asking the Senate’s permission? Throughout the transition, Trump has made several references to his intent to use “recess appointments” to get his appointees in place more quickly. This refers to a longstanding presidential power to fill jobs that typically require Senate confirmation if Congress is in recess. The Constitution included that power in an era when reconvening a recessed Congress would take months of travel time; more recently, presidents have used it to get around Senate opposition for certain picks. Yet Trump’s references to recess appointments were vague, and it was unclear exactly why he sounded so insistent on them. The new Congress would not need to recess for some time. The Senate surely would consider his top nominees quickly. The new Republican majority would likely be deferential to most of his choices, and the Democratic minority has no power to actually block any of them. So why would recess appointments be necessary so soon? We got a potential clue about what Trump may have in mind when the well-connected conservative legal activist Ed Whelan heard a rumor. “Hope it’s wrong,” Whelan wrote on X Wednesday, “but I’m hearing through the grapevine about this bonkers plan: Trump would adjourn both Houses of Congress under Article II, section 3, and then recess-appoint his Cabinet.”  This may sound technical, but it would amount to a massive power grab: Trump would be forcing the Senate into a recess. This would mean that, for many of the most important posts in the federal government, Trump could simply ignore the Senate, thumbing his nose at the body to impose everyone he wanted, no matter how corrupt, extreme, or controversial they are. Moreover, it would mean Trump would be choosing to crash headlong into one of the biggest guardrails constraining the president’s authority: the Senate’s confirmation powers. If Trump were to try this and get away with it, Senate confirmation powers would effectively no longer exist. Currently, this remains in the rumor stage, and if it is truly something being considered by Trump, it remains unclear whether he’d go through with it. But it makes a lot of sense. It may reflect the influence of Elon Musk and the Silicon Valley right in Trump’s camp — it’s a risky, norm-shattering attempt to disrupt the way politics, governance, and presidential power work. (Musk has indeed been tweeting about recess appointments.)  It would mean starting off Trump’s term with a high-stakes showdown and certain litigation — with no one certain about exactly how things would play out. Why this recess appointment plot would be different than past recess appointment controversies Recess appointments have been the subject of political and legal controversy in the past. In 2012, President Barack Obama was frustrated at the Republican Senate minority’s constant filibusters of many of his key nominations. (At the time, 60 votes were needed to get nominees past a filibuster; rule changes have since lowered that threshold to a simple majority.) He wanted to use recess appointments to fill some posts, but Republicans were blocking the Senate from going into recess at all. Even though nearly everyone left town, they continued to hold “pro forma” sessions where nothing actually happened. So Obama decided to just do recess appointments anyway, filling three National Labor Relations Board seats and the directorship of the newly-created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The administration argued that the pro forma sessions were fake and Congress was actually in recess; therefore, Obama could do recess appointments. But the Supreme Court unanimously rejected his argument, saying it was up to Congress to determine whether it was in recess. Trump’s plan would be far more brazen. The Constitution states that during a congressional session, both chambers of Congress must consent if they want to adjourn Congress for more than three days. But it also says that “in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment,” the president “may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper.” In layperson’s terms, that would seem to say that if the House and Senate disagree on when to adjourn, the president can force them to do so. This power has never been used by the president. But according to Whelan’s sources in the conservative legal movement, this is the plan Trump’s team is putting together. First, Trump would get the House of Representatives under Speaker Mike Johnson to propose adjourning Congress. Then, if the Senate refused to do so, President Trump would step in, saying that because the two chambers disagreed, he’d use his power to force the Senate to adjourn. He would then make recess appointments to his heart’s content. Such appointments would then inevitably be challenged in court, and the Supreme Court would eventually determine whether they were legal. Whelan has gone public because he’s appalled by this idea. “It’s a fundamental general feature of our system of separated powers that the president shall submit his nominations for major offices to the Senate for approval,” he wrote in National Review. “That feature plays a vital role in helping to ensure that the president makes quality picks.” If Trump pulled this off, it would be an utter humiliation for incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Republican senators generally — it basically would be taking a wrecking ball to the power of the Senate.  The scheme would also require, as Whelan points out, the cooperation of Speaker Johnson and his House majority. But it is far from clear whether Republicans in either chamber — or the courts — have the inclination or the spine to stand up to an unprecedented power grab by Trump. And the rumors of it bode ill for other Trumpian abuses of power that will surely lie ahead.
2 h
vox.com
10 programs that could be on the ‘government efficiency’ chopping block
Vivek Ramaswamy, Elon Musk’s partner at Donald Trump’s planned spending panel, suggested defunding programs that Congress no longer authorizes. Here are some of those.
2 h
washingtonpost.com
How NYPD’s top earner raked in $403K last year — including an eye-popping amount in overtime
Lt. Quathisha Epps, a 19-year veteran assigned to perform administrative duties in NYPD Chief of Department's office, pocketed $403,515, half of which was overtime compensation.
2 h
nypost.com
Disney’s Delicious Romp of a Series Isn’t Just Steamy. It Also Nails a Key Element of the British.
When Rivals isn’t focusing on sex, it’s delivering a spot-on depiction of class in the U.K.
2 h
slate.com
Iran backs Lebanon in ceasefire talks, seeks end to ‘problems’
Two senior Lebanese political sources told Reuters the US ambassador to Lebanon had presented a draft ceasefire proposal to Lebanon's parliament speaker Nabih Berri on Thursday.
2 h
nypost.com
Slate Mini Crossword for Nov. 16, 2024
Take a quick break with our daily 5x5 grid.
2 h
slate.com