Tag: January 6

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Much like my dog every time he goes outside, the news seems unsure where it is going this week. We have a lot of meandering threads that continue from last week, with little resolution in sight. Nonetheless, the NNR will keep you posted on the updates.

Standard standing reminders still apply: I guess after six years I’m conceding that I’m a journalist, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not a gas stove!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers.  Onward to the news!       

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Cleanup in Aisle 45:

Since it’s otherwise a quiet week for Election Rejection news, now seems like a fine time to catch everyone up on the Santos saga. Here’s what has happened:

• Santos Malos. If you somehow have not yet caught up on the impressive fraudulence of George Santos, let me give you the Cliff notes: He has lied about basically everything it is possible to lie about. Over the past few weeks, we’ve caught lies on topics ranging from his family of origin to his qualifications to how he spent his donations to whether he’s wanted by the Brazilian government. As you might imagine, this kind of thing leads to federal and House investigations, as well as ethics complaints from the Dem side of the aisle. As of this week, we can also add hostilities from his own aisle to that list, as half the GOP attempts to kick Santos off the island. Nonetheless, as we’ve seen so ably demonstrated over the past few weeks, McCarthy isn’t doing anything that might challenge his fragile hold on the House, and that includes making Santos answer for any of this. I’ll keep folks posted on whether anything comes of any of this, but it’s my guess that we’ll be stuck with him until 2024.
  

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Meanwhile in Biden Rebuilding, the scandal story from last week has grown more heads.  Here’s what I have for you:

• What’s Up with These Docs (cont). Remember last week, when the GOP had already started comparing Biden’s classified cache to Trump’s? They got slightly more supporting facts this week, because we learned about more classified oopsies in Biden’s home in Delaware. I do want to stress that there’s still a dramatic difference between the two in terms of context and magnitude, but it’s not a great look for Biden, especially when the new House is desperate to investigate him already. Attorney General Merrick has appointed special counsel, in the form of Robert Hur, to investigate the matter further. I’ll keep folks posted on this one as well.

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Your New Normal:

• Out Of Gas. The GOP went all the way off the rails about gas range stoves this week, apparently in response to a Biden official from the Consumer Product Safety Commission saying he considered a ban on them during a routine interview. The chair of the commission had to publicly clarify that nobody was banning gas stoves in the near future, but people are still defending their Constitutional right to them anyway. (That said, there really are health concerns associated with gas stovetops, as has been highlighted in major studies in recent years. There just aren’t any federal plans to do anything about it.)

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The Bad:

• Climate Change Catastrophes (cont).  The severe storms in California that I documented last week are still ongoing as I type this, though experts believe that the state may see a break soon.  Flooding is still a major concern; according to NWS, some areas have weathered over half their annual rainfall in the past three weeks. Needless to say, this isn’t normal, and we may be rebuilding local infrastructure for quite a while after this. 

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The Good:

• Recent Economic Resilience.* Several outlets reported this week that consumer prices fell in December by a 0.1% monthly rate overall. It’s a small decrease, but it’s also the first decrease since May 2020, so it’s still worth getting excited about. The annual inflation rate dropped as well, largely due to falling gas prices. Incremental progress!

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So that’s all I have for this week, and here’s hoping it doesn’t get worse. For making it through, you deserve these penguin bros and a more functional government.  I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved news, and I hope you will be back as well–but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments.  Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me head scritches for my dog!

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Well, another week has happened, and we once again have as many questions as answers. That said, we did at least see the stunning conclusion to Mr. Speaker’s Wild Ride–so now the official House dysfunction can truly begin.

Standard standing reminders still apply: I guess after six years I’m conceding that I’m a journalist, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not a Rules package!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers.  Onward to the news!       

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Cleanup in Aisle 45:

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the changing of the guard, this was a quiet week for Election Rejection news. Here’s what has happened:

• Jury Went Down in GA. The grand jury investigation into Trump’s election interference in Fulton, Georgia wrapped up this week, submitting its charge recommendations to the local district attorney before a judge officially dissolved it yesterday. Now that it’s over, we have something of a waiting game–if the district attorney decides to press charges, this will be followed by a criminal grand jury investigation. That said, we have no idea what the charge recommendations actually were, because there will be a hearing on January 24 to determine whether the recommendations become public. Here’s hoping it was something good.
  

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The Biden Rebuilding updates, surprisingly, look a lot like the above this week.  Here’s what I have for you:

• What’s Up with These Docs. President Biden’s attorneys found 10 Obama-era classified documents at Biden’s think tank this week, which appear to have been left in his old office. The documents were promptly turned over to the National Archive upon their discovery, but Republicans wasted no time equating the incident with Trump’s ongoing Mar-a-Lago fight. For those of you playing the home game, Trump had over 300 classified documents strewn about his country club, which sees significantly more traffic than a think tank office–this is like saying the dust you find under your couch is the same as the dumpster out back.

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Your New Normal:

• Setting Up the Speaker. After a record fifteen votes (and a near fistfight on the House floor), the House of Representatives finally elected Kevin McCarthy as new Speaker of the House late Friday night. He made a broad range of scary concessions to achieve the majority vote, some of which we may never even know, because they occurred as handshake deals behind closed doors. That said, we definitely know some of the terms he agreed to, because they showed up in the House Rules package that passed yesterday. These changes will likely create a lot of headaches as we move into the next fiscal year, especially because the Senate has no obligation to accept any of the bonkers bills that result.  The most noteworthy and likely Clown Caucus concessions to show up in the package: 1) streamlining defunding things; 2) making it easier to bring motions to kick out the Speaker; 3) making it harder to raise the debt ceiling; 4) kicking out half the Office of Congressional Ethics with surprise term limits; 5) reviving the ability to terrorize federal workers; and 6) limiting how much the Speaker can negotiate with other bodies like the Biden Administration. Finally, though the committee itself was already planned, it’s likely that McCarthy agreed to establish Jim Jordan as head of the newly-minted Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government as a concession as well, since Jordan was an early alternate candidate in the voting circus–although, surprisingly, not one of the 21 professional pains in McCarthy’s rear otherwise.

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The Bad:

• Climate Change Catastrophes (cont). A lot of media attention is (rightfully) turning to ongoing severe storms in California, which have created mudslides and flooding throughout the state. The storms have led to evacuation of hundreds of thousands and killed at least seventeen people as I type this; it has also left hundreds of thousands without power. The conditions contrast dramatically with the ongoing three-year drought that the state experienced, which only ended this past fall. Needless to say, it’s a rough situation that may get worse before it gets better.

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The Good:

• Recent Labor Resilience. The Federal Trade Commission proposed a new rule this week that would ban noncompete agreements from employment contracts, leaving employees free to take other jobs in their field if they leave their current one. This would be a massive win for workers if it went through, and frankly, even the fact that it was proposed is very exciting. I’ll try to keep folks posted on this!

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So that’s all I have for this week, and here’s hoping it doesn’t get worse. For making it through, you deserve baby hippo zoomies and a more functional government.  I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved news, and I hope you will be back as well–but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments.  Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me your favorite Tumblr posts!

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Hello, and welcome to 2023! The last few weeks of the year went much like the rest of 2022 did: There were some wins, some rough moments, and a lot of “what just happened.”

Standard standing reminders still apply: I guess after six years I’m conceding that I’m a journalist, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not a report!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers.  Onward to the news!      

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Cleanup in Aisle 45:

The end of the year remained a relatively frenetic time for Election Rejection news. Here’s what has happened:

• Election Rejection: Winding Down the House (some more). As I forecast before the break, the House committees of 2022 took a number of shots at Trump on their way out the door.  The House Ways and Means committee did indeed vote to release Trump’s taxes, which is how we learned that the IRS didn’t follow policy and therefore never audited him during his first two years in office. We also learned that he held foreign bank accounts while President and paid no taxes in 2020. Meanwhile, the January 6 committee released its final 814-page report, as foretold by prophecy. Though much of that information was already public, report highlights include recommending overhauling the Election Count Act and banning Trump permanently from office.
  

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The Biden Rebuilding updates are once again mostly legislative, but they’re nonetheless big news for Biden.  Here’s what I have for you:

• Pile of Spending Bill. The biggest news from the Biden administration is definitely the passage of the 2023 fiscal spending bill, which Biden signed into law just before the new year. I’ve been rummaging in its innards for two days now to track the changes to Medicaid and CHIP, but this bill has a mountain of other important stuff stashed in it too. Among the noteworthy provisions: 1) An overhaul of the Election Count Act (as mentioned above) to avoid a repeat of January 6; 2) a federal ban on Tiktok apps for government devices; 3) funding for aid to Ukraine; and 4) a bunch of new rules for retirement savings. 

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Your New Normal:

• Contagion Corner. We’re experiencing another new dominant COVID subvarient spike, this time XBB.1.5, which the WHO warns is the most transmissible strain we’ve seen to date. This creates extra risk for seniors, though we’ll likely see other major effects as well. On a related note, the CDC reports that U.S. life expectancy has fallen for another year, in part due to the impact of COVID on older populations. Meanwhile, the US is imposing travel restrictions on people from China–which is pretty hypocritical, when we created XBB.1.5 and our COVID transmission rate still dwarfs theirs.
  
• House Hot Mess. The House of Representatives has been stalled out for the last two days because there’s no new Speaker of the House, which is preventing them from addressing any business.  More specifically, the QAnon Caucus has been sticking it to prospective Speaker and garbage human Kevin McCarthy over and over again; as I type this, they’ve managed to keep him from the position for six straight votes and counting. It’s a spite-fueled clown show that didn’t even have a competitor until they coalesced around Jim Jordan somewhere around Vote 3, and by Vote 4 this morning they had moved on to local Florida Man Byron Donalds. Notably, House Democrats have held fast in their support of minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, who has remained the plurality winner every single time. Several of them also brought popcorn with them yesterday, because the lack of a Speaker means there are not yet rules of decorum, so there’s no rule against it.

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The Bad:

• Climate Change Catastrophes. Most of the country saw unusually dangerous weather over the holiday week, which messed up water mains, knocked out power, caused a 46-car pileup in Ohio, and killed 40 people in Buffalo. The storm also created a mess for many airlines, but Southwest Airlines stood out as the clear loser in that regard.  The company wound up canceling thousands of flights for several days straight due to a combination of weather woes, poor infrastructure, and poor management. 

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The Good:

• Reproductive Health Resilience. We saw a major expansion of access for reproductive health over the last few days, when the FDA finalized rules which permit retail pharmacy sale of abortifacient medication. This clears the path for increased telemedicine access, particularly as the DOJ issued an opinion this week that the pills may be legally mailed to recipients in any state under federal law. I’m sure this isn’t the last we’ll see of this rule, but it’s a really meaningful expansion of access and I’m excited about it.

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So that’s all I have from the holidays, and here’s hoping it doesn’t get worse. For making it through, you deserve this cat eating a sweet potato and a more functional government.  I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved news, and I hope you will be back as well–but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments.  Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me notes about your tai chi exercises!

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This week was pretty eventful as everyone gears up for the holidays, but there’s still a surprising dearth of horrorshow news. It’s a Hanukkah miracle, y’all. (Speaking of holidays, the NNR will take its customary end-of-year break after this roundup. Barring any unforeseen nightmare news, we will return in the new year on Tuesday, January 3.)

Standard standing reminders still apply: I guess after six years I’m conceding that I’m a journalist, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not an indictment!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers.  Onward to the news!      

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Cleanup in Aisle 45:

This is a relatively big week on the Election Rejection front. Here’s what we are tracking:

• Election Rejection: Winding Down the House. The House January 6 committee confirmed today that they are referring Trump to the DOJ for 4 different crimes in connection with January 6, most notably incitement of an insurrection itself. They’ve also released an executive summary of their full report, which is already 160 pages long–the full report, which will be even longer, will be released on December 21. The referrals are not binding, and the DOJ already has an investigation open on this matter, but they are likely to review the House committee’s compiled testimony as part of that investigation. In related news, the House Ways and Means Committee will spend tomorrow discussing Trump’s tax returns, which will likely have interesting repercussions as well.
  

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The Biden Rebuilding updates are once again mostly about other branches interacting with the Biden agenda, though we do have one story from the Fed.  Here’s what I have for you:

• End-of-Year Updates. There are a lot of odds and ends to report this week as we head into the holiday break. On the legislative side of things, the Senate did indeed pass the military bill that made its way through the House last week, which will end mandated COVID vaccination for the armed services. Meanwhile, on the judicial side, Attorney General Garland is moving to end sentencing disparities in federal cases involving distribution of crack and powder cocaine. This is a long-overdue move for an issue of racial inequity that has been on the books for over thirty years and was originally crafted by Biden himself. The Supreme Court also issued an administrative stay on Title 42, which will preclude Biden from ending it and letting asylum seekers enter the country properly again. Finally, the Fed raised interest rates again, but at a lower increase than the previous several have been.

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Your New Normal:

• Contagion Corner. With COVID cases still on the rise, the Biden administration is reviving their free test campaign again–households can now order another four tests by U.S. mail. Meanwhile, yet more studies were published showing that Republican policies increase COVID fatalities, and as if to underscore this point Ron DeSantis announced he wants to indict people who implemented COVID vaccines. There was also a study finding that long COVID has killed about 3,500 people since the pandemic began. But in more positive tripledemic news, there were also a few stories suggesting that the flu season may be peaking early, which would hopefully ease things a bit if it recedes.

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The Bad:

• Twitter Trash Fire. Twitter with Elon Musk at the helm continues to be a hot and concerning mess. This week, he banned a bunch of journalists from the platform because they covered a story about a bot that tracked his jet’s flights. Eventually the accounts were reinstated, only for Twitter to release a new policy stating that it will ban users who share links to other social media platforms. Then that policy was deleted without being officially rescinded. Finally, Musk capped off the week by taking a poll about whether he should step down as CEO, which resulted in users collectively voting him off the island (though he has not stepped down as I type this).

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The Good:

• Recent Environmental Advancement.* Scientists in California achieved a major breakthrough in nuclear fusion this week, when they successfully created ‘ignition’ using giant lasers–in other words, they created a reaction that generated energy at a rate exceeding the activation energy. This breakthrough reflects decades of work, and has a lot of potential applications for clean energy and safer nuclear use. It’s an exciting advancement!

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So that’s all I have for this week, and for that, we can all be grateful. For making it through, you deserve this baby tortoise routine and a more functional government.  I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved news, and I hope you will be back as well–but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments.  Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me more hours in the day!

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The news was conspicuously quiet this week, all things considered, which makes me suspicious that it is planning something. In the short term, I’ll take the quiet news week, but let’s all brace for the worst over the holidays just to be on the safe side.

Standard standing reminders still apply: I guess after six years I’m conceding that I’m a journalist, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not an election!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers.  Onward to the news!      

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Cleanup in Aisle 45:

The flow of Election Rejection stories is starting to lessen a bit as I type this, but there’s still a lot to cover. Here’s what has happened:

• Election Rejection: Investigation Roundup. For yet another week, there is news on almost all of the Trump investigations we’re tracking at the NNR.  Among the actual actionable news:  1) The House January 6 investigation is planning to issue several criminal referrals to the DOJ in its last few days of existence, though we’ll have to wait until December 21 for full information about who it is considering indicting and on what charges; 2) the special counsel for the Department of Justice investigation into January 6 has begun subpoenaing state officials that fielded Trump correspondence; and 3) another search of Mar-a-lago as part of the stolen documents investigation this week managed to uncover yet more classified documents, which caused the DOJ to move to hold Trump in contempt of court (though sadly, that motion was not granted).Also, though strictly speaking, this is really more Trump-election-adjacent, 4) the Trump Organization was found guilty this week of seventeen counts of tax fraud.
  

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The Biden Rebuilding updates this week are really more about the legislative side, but they do involve Biden’s agenda pretty directly.  Here’s what I have for you:

• Legislative Updates.  As foretold by prophecy, the House did pass the Respect for Marriage Act this week, which means that incremental legislative protections for same-sex and interracial marriages will be enacted at the federal level as soon as Biden signs it into law. As I mentioned last week, however, the final version of the bill does not provide protections for states granting same-sex marriage if Obergefell is overturned, which means it may become effectively unenforceable in many places in the U.S. at some point in the future. And on the ignoring Biden side of the spectrum, the House also passed a version of the National Defense Authorization Act this week that rescinds Biden’s COVID vaccine mandate for troops. That last bit is particularly frustrating when cases are rising again–but more on that below.

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Your New Normal:

• Contagion Corner. It’s a bad week for Contagion Corner on basically all axes. COVID cases are rising again nationally as I type this, with transmission levels high all over the country; current strains remain particularly dangerous for people over 65 and immunocompromised individuals. Flu infections are very high nationally as well, and experts are still concerned about RSV, though rates appear to have peaked by the time that I’m writing this. The combination “tripledemic” is causing experts to stress the value of masking again, and many jurisdictions are either highly recommending or mandating masks again under CDC Community Level rules. Against this backdrop, it is relieving to note that as of this week, bivalent booster shots have been approved for children under five.

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The Bad:

• New York Times Walkout. The New York Times was in the news this week when over 1,100 workers staged a one-day walkout, saying that its executives have been failing to bargain in good faith since March 2021 when their employee contract first expired. Though I consider it encouraging that the Times covered its own walkout on Friday, no agreement has been struck as far as I know at the time that I’m typing this. Newspaper strikes are historically rare, and it’s a noteworthy statement about both our current labor movement and conditions at the New York Times that they chose to strike now.

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The Good:

• Recent Election Resilience. I’m sure most folks reading this have heard by now that the Georgia senate runoff was called for Raphael Warnock earlier this week, leaving the Senate Democrats with a true 51-49 majority. Needless to say, it’s very rare for the President’s party to pick up seats in the midterms, especially with approval ratings about said President hanging out around 40%. The results can likely be attributed to both high early voting turnout and low Republican engagement. These results do come with a small asterisk, as Arizona Senator and world’s worst bisexual Kyrsten Sinema responded by officially leaving the Democratic party a day or two later. That said, she’s expected to still caucus with the Democrats on most issues for the remainder of the term.

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So that’s all I have for this week, and for that, we can all be grateful. For making it through, you deserve this baby pangolin spa day and a more functional government.  I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved news, and I hope you will be back as well–but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments.  Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me blueprints for my house in Valheim!

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I assume, Dear Reader, that you are just as sick of reading “it’s another bad news week” as I am of typing it. Nonetheless, here we are another week, with even the Good news being kind of a bummer. The roundups will continue until morale improves.

Standard standing reminders still apply: I guess after six years I’m conceding that I’m a journalist, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not an election!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers.  Onward to the news!      

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Cleanup in Aisle 45:

The flow of Election Rejection stories is starting to lessen a bit as I type this, but there’s still a lot to cover. Here’s what has happened:

• Election Rejection: Investigation Roundup. There is news on almost all of the Trump investigations that I mentioned last week, with some bonus Trump calling for the Constitution to be suspended just for funsies.  Among the actual actionable news:  1) The presumptive new head of the House has indicated that he plans to investigate the House January 6 investigation instead of, y’know, investigating the attack on the Capitol; 2) the separate Department of Justice efforts regarding January 6 just convicted several members of the Oathkeeper supremacist group of sedition due to their attack on the Capitol; 3) the House Ways and Means committee received copies of Trump’s taxes and is beginning to review them after the Supreme Court okayed their subpoena last week; and 4) the Eleventh Circuit went ahead and chucked the special master order for the Mar-A-Lago stolen document investigation out the window.
  

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There’s also a lot of misery happening on the Biden Rebuilding front.  Here’s what I have for you:

• Railroad Union Blues.  It’s looking likely we’ve avoided a railroad strike over the holidays, but the methodology for getting there was classic Gilded Age. Instead of further negotiation on Biden’s rail settlement during an extension of the status quo period, as I forecast last week, Congress used a law from 1926 to force railroad unions to submit to the existing settlement. I want to be extremely clear that this existing settlement was being rejected by the unions for good reason–namely, that it did not include any provision requiring paid sick leave for workers, who currently lack access to paid sick leave at all.  Though the Senate did consider adding seven days of paid sick leave to the agreement, that provision failed in the Senate because it received 52 votes rather than the 60 required to pass. It’s still in the realm of possibility that the unions will choose to strike illegally, and I will continue to keep folks posted on this story.

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Your New Normal:

• House Changing of the Guard. We got more news on House leadership this week, with Nancy Pelosi’s hand-picked protege Hakeem Jeffries becoming the Dem’s Minority Leader for the next session. Jeffries will be the party’s first Black House leader, and it’s likely he will continue to take centrist positions on most issues. The new Dem whip will be Katherine Clark, and Pete Aguilar will be the caucus chairman.

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The Bad:

• Stochastic Terrorism Times. There was a bunch of news about stochastic terrorism this week, especially regarding LGBT and Jewish populations–which, let me tell you, is a real hoot if you’re a member of both communities.  In Ohio, a bunch of Proud Boys menaced a children’s storytime event at a church until it was canceled because the event involved drag queens. There were also similar “protests” in Florida and New York from overtly antisemitic groups over the same weekend, though they received less coverage. Perhaps unsurprisingly, against that backdrop, the Department of Homeland Security also issued a terrorism bulletin this week that noted increased focus on Jewish and LGBTQ populations as well as sustained focus on other groups such as immigrants, medical providers, and public officials.

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The Good:

• Recent Relative Marriage Resilience. The Senate did also pass the Respect for Marriage Act this week, which provides some incremental legislative protections for same-sex and interracial marriages at the federal level. This news does come with some important caveats, however; the bill creates large religious exemptions that SCOTUS signaled today may be broadened soon through new case law. It also does not provide protections for states granting same-sex marriage if Obergefell is overturned, which means it may become effectively unenforceable in many places in the U.S. at some point in the future.

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So that’s all I have for this week, and I’m sorry, there are no news refunds. For making it through, you deserve tippy tappies and a more functional government.  I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved news, and I hope you will be back as well–but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments.  Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me more hours in the day!

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Folks, I really appreciate your patience last week during a traumatic time for those of us in the LGBTQIA+ community. Now that we’ve had a bit of a breather over the long weekend, the NNR is back and ready to tackle the last week and a half. And ho boy, is there a lot to tackle.

Standard standing reminders still apply: I guess after six years I’m conceding that I’m a journalist, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not an election!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers.  Onward to the news!      

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Cleanup in Aisle 45:

On the Election Rejection front, even with elections over there is still a lot to report. Here’s what has happened:

• Election Rejection: Investigation Roundup. There sure are a lot of election-related investigations right now, almost all of which are centered on 45, and we’ve gained a few more in the last couple of weeks. Right now, we’re tracking: 1) The House January 6 investigation, which is racing to completion ahead of the new session and has subpoenaed the secret service driver mentioned in their last public hearing; 2) the separate Department of Justice investigation into January 6, which appointed a special counsel this week and is currently trying to get Mike Pence’s testimony; 3) the grand jury probe into Trump’s election interference currently happening in Georgia, which finally heard testimony from current Senator Lindsey Graham this week and ordered former NSA advisor Michael Flynn to testify; 4) the Mar-A-Lago stolen document investigation, which is still ongoing and will also be handed by special counsel as of this week; and finally, 5) the Manhattan investigation into Trump paying off Stormy Daniels, which is somehow back from the dead now that it’s 2016 all over again (but more on that below). Of additional and related note, though not a separate investigation per se, is the Supreme Court decision this week that the House may indeed subpoena Trump’s tax records–those documents will almost certainly find their way into several of the investigations listed above.
  
• Original Flavor Election Rejection. Though the GOP wanted Trump to put off announcing a 2024 campaign until the Georgia special election was over, in true 45 form he didn’t even last a week before filing paperwork and announcing a 2024 bid last Tuesday. Notably, Rupert Murdoch, who among other things runs Fox News, has made it clear that his empire won’t support Trump this go-round, and as I discussed above the announcement won’t protect Trump from his zillion investigations either. Meanwhile, in the other form of original flavor election rejection, as I type this there is already a lawsuit challenging election results in Arizona. The lawsuit is being brought by GOP candidate for attorney general Abe Hamadeh, who lost by about 510 votes, and it’s alleging that the technical ballot issues in Maricopa county precluded accurate results. That said, since his fellow GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake still hasn’t conceded, it’s very possible she’ll join the suit as well.

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The melange above makes the Biden Rebuilding front look quiet, but there’s still news on that front as well.  Here’s what I have for you:

• Loan and Union Updates. In light of the ongoing student loan cancellation legal limbo, the Biden Administration announced this week that they would extend the payment pause on federal student loans in general, rather than allow them to come due in January as originally planned. We also got word of a final $6B student loan settlement for a class action lawsuit about borrower defense to repayment, which is a type of relief available to students whose colleges defrauded them. And speaking of settlement, four freight rail unions have rejected Biden’s negotiated rail settlement from earlier this fall.  In the short term, this is being handled by an extension of the status quo period so that further negotiation can happen, but if no deal can be reached, we may see a railway strike as soon as December 9.

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Your New Normal:

• Your Normally Scheduled Election. We do still have traditional election updates to track, both from Georgia and from remaining seats that have been called since last week. The House has officially changed hands for the next session, with the GOP obtaining 220 seats by the time I type this. Nancy Pelosi will be handing House leadership over to Kevin McCarthy, who is current minority leader, though it looks like the GOP’s margin will be very narrow–Democrats did preserve at least 213 seats, leaving the GOP with a total maximum possible majority of nine votes. One of the two seats still not settled is Lauren Boebert’s seat in the Colorado Third District, where her opponent Adam Frisch has conceded but nonetheless is entitled to a recount unless he formally withdraws. Meanwhile, in Alaska, famously moderate Republican Lisa Murkowski emerged the victor of this week’s Senate race through ranked-choice voting. Finally, in Georgia, the state Supreme Court had to step in to protect early voting over the weekend, preserving people’s ability to cast ballots until December 2 as the state gears up for the special election on December 6. Due to a number of voter suppression provisions already in place, ballot places saw very long lines on Saturday, with some voters having to wait multiple hours even though voting early. It’s likely we can expect even longer lines on the actual date of the special election next week.
  
• Contagion Corner. The biggest news from contagion corner is that we appear to have a new dominant variant of COVID again, this time the BQ variant that is particularly dangerous for immunocompromised people. We are also seeing an uptick in XBB cases, which is a variant similarly resistant to monoclonal antibody treatments. That said, a study was also published this week suggesting that two-thirds of first wave COVID infections have led to long COVID. Needless to say, none of that news is awesome, but I’ll keep people posted on further updates.

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The Bad:

• Multiple Mass Murders. As I referenced in the intro paragraph, this was a very difficult week for gun violence.  First, while on a University of Virginia field trip to DC, a student–who apparently wasn’t even in the African American studies class taking the trip–opened fire on the bus and killed three people, injuring two others. Then over the weekend, at a queer club in Colorado Springs, a person with an AR-15 managed to kill five people and injure twenty-five more in what was almost certainly a hate crime before being subdued by other club patrons and brought into custody alive. Finally, as we headed into the holiday, an employee of a Walmart in Chesapeake, VA brought a gun to his shift and fatally shot seven people, including himself. It is incredibly disheartening to have to keep reporting repeatedly on this kind of senseless violence in civilian public spaces, and as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community the Club Q murders truly get under my skin. I want to stress that the rhetoric being espoused about trans people by the Republican party demonstrably incites violence and is very dangerous. We need to take it seriously and work to counter it, just as we must work to counter all forms of violent white supremacy.

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The Good:

• Recent Climate Resilience.* At the COP27 climate summit last week, though emissions agreements proved elusive, we did see an interesting form of agreement entered. More specifically, the over 200 countries involved agreed to form a “loss and damage fund” which, in effect, set up compensation for climate damage caused by wealthy countries that generate the most pollution. It’s a form of support that countries experiencing climate change hazards have been trying to set up for a long time, and hopefully it will prove helpful as we experience more and more natural disasters.

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So that’s all I have for this week, and I think we can agree that it’s more than enough. For making it through, you deserve this cat parkour and a more functional government.  I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved news, and I hope you will be back as well–but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments.  Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me your favorite recipe for pumpkin pie!

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For yet another week, we’re continuing the theme of “more election news than you can shake a stick at,” and not all results are even in as I type this. Given the Georgia runoff election, we definitely won’t be done with election news for another several weeks–but there is nonetheless a lot to report. I’ll continue to keep folks posted.

Standard standing reminders still apply: I guess after six years I’m conceding that I’m a journalist, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not an election!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers.  Onward to the news!      

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Cleanup in Aisle 45:

On the Election Rejection front, we have less than I feared but still more than I want to report. Here’s what has happened:

• Election Rejection: Trump Stuff. Just because there’s a national election that ostensibly doesn’t involve him, that’s no reason for Trump to stop being in the news!  This week, the story is that he’s suing the House Jan 6 panel to so that he can avoid the subpoena they sent him. He also keeps hinting that he’s going to run in 2024, even in unrelated places like his memo asking to keep the special master in place for the Mar-A-Lago matter. Meanwhile, especially given the dismal Republican performance in the midterm elections this week, GOP officials are trying to shut him up about his own plans to run, and many appear to be openly trying to pry the party out of his dayglo orange hands.
  
• Original Flavor Election Rejection. We didn’t get as much original flavor election rejection as I had feared, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t get any.  In Maricopa County, AZ, people gathered to protest “fake results” because a printing malfunction slowed down the counting process. That same day AZ senate candidate Blake Masters announced that he wouldn’t concede, despite his opponent Mark Kelly’s victory, until every single vote was counted. Meanwhile, in the state’s gubernatorial election, local javelina and MAGA candidate Kari Lake has outright signaled she won’t concede several times–most famously, back in mid-October before there were even any ballots cast. That race appears to have just been called for her opponent Katie Hobbs as I type this, so I guess we’ll see what happens next from here.

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The melange above makes the Biden Rebuilding front look quiet, but there’s still news on that front as well.  Here’s what I have for you:

• Loan Cancelation Canceled. A federal district court in Texas found Biden’s loan cancellation plan unlawful this week, marking the second legal challenge to the program and the first conclusion on the merits. Despite the tortured logic of the court opinion, the Biden administration has stopped accepting applications under the program. Just today, the 8th Circuit also upheld the injunction from the first legal challenge, which was an earlier case in St. Louis. These are frustrating challenges to an innovative program, particularly because one of the Texas plaintiffs was a recipient of a $48K forgiven PPP loan before suing to prohibit loan forgiveness.

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Your New Normal:

• Your Normally Scheduled Election. There’s a lot still in flux from the 2022 midterms, but I do have some concrete things to report–and much of the news is pretty promising. By Saturday, it became apparent that the Democrats managed to hold onto 50 Senate seats, winning Nevada and Arizona and flipping a Pennsylvania seat that has been red for forty years. (My pet theory is that Elon Musk won the Senate for us when he told everybody to vote Republican.) This means Dems will maintain control of the Senate while we wait for results on Georgia’s seat, which is proceeding to a runoff election for the second time in a row. Meanwhile, there are still seventeen House seats unresolved as I type this, and either party could gain control based on the number of seats already won. It’s currently expected that the GOP will take a razor-thin majority when the final votes are tallied, but given the chaotic week we just had, who knows what will happen next.
  
• Contagion Corner. There was a lot of news this week about COVID, flu, and RSV–namely, that infections of any of them are bad (who knew), especially in children. There was also a story about a ship in Australia arriving in Sydney with over 800 passengers infected with COVID. But on the more positive pediatric side, a local long-term study published this week shows that universal masking in schools is effective for reducing COVID transmission. The NNR continues to recommend both vaccination and masking indoors.

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The Bad:

• Climate Change Crises.* There was a fair amount of news this week about climate change.  President Biden issued some statements about America’s failure to meet the 2015 Paris climate agreement and the steps that may be taken in order to curb our emissions from here. Meanwhile, a massive draft assessment was issued this week by the United States Global Change Research Program, finding (among other things) that the continental US is warming at a higher rate than the global average. This has a lot of implications for the country, most of which are pretty dire if we don’t engage in transformative change.

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The Good:

• Recent Ballot Resilience. There were a lot of trends during the midterm elections that are really promising. Young voters turned out in massive numbers, largely rejecting the fascist and anti-democratic candidates up and down the ballot and voting in our first Gen Z representative. This Gen Z civic engagement in turn meant a so-called “red wave” just never materialized in most places. Voters also overwhelmingly supported reproductive health, with four different states either gaining or preserving protections by referendum. Meanwhile, two different states elected openly lesbian governors for the first time ever. Finally, four states passed referenda that prohibited forced prison labor under their state constitutions for the first time. We’ll want to think about how these trends reflect a stymied will in places with widespread suppression, particularly as we move into the Georgia runoff.

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So that’s all I have for this week, and I think we can agree that it’s more than enough. For making it through, you deserve this felinterior designer and a more functional government.  I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved news, and I hope you will be back as well–but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments.  Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me more hours in the day!

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We’re continuing last week’s theme of “more election rejection news than you can shake a stick at,” and as promised last week, the NNR is here to keep folks posted in the final days ahead of the midterms. Though I’m not in the business of reading tea leaves regarding what will happen in a particularly unpredictable election tomorrow, there’s still a lot of news to report.

Standard standing reminders still apply: I guess after six years I’m conceding that I’m a journalist, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not an election!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers.  Onward to the news!      

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Cleanup in Aisle 45:

On the Election Rejection front, our circuses have circuses this week. Here’s what has happened:

• Election Rejection: Jan 6 Stuff.  Remember those 8 contested emails I mentioned last week, which Trump’s lawyers were trying to block by appealing to the Ninth Circuit? There were some very interesting finds in those, so naturally Trump counsel accidentally forwarded them and they wound up published by Politico. (The most interesting thing to come out was indisputably the Trump attorneys’ belief that Clarence Thomas would forestall the 2020 election certification.) Meanwhile, the House panel is offering immunity to a Trump aide in exchange for testimony again, and we learned more about Oathkeeper threats after Jan 6 from the Stewart Rhodes ongoing trial.
  
• Insurrection Update: Various Trump Court Things. In light of Trump’s repeated hints that he’s about to run for President again, the DOJ is starting to think about how it will investigate a Presidential candidate–and the RNC is signaling that it won’t pay his legal fees anymore. Of course, none of this stopped Trump from deciding to sue the New York Attorney General, even though his attorneys advised against it because the legal brief is pretty much made of spite and wishes.
  
• Original Flavor Election Rejection. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the biggest election rejection story is probably the election tomorrow. Prominent Democrats such as President Biden and former President Obama spent the week warning people that democracy itself might not survive if people keep voting in MAGA sociopaths. Honestly, it’s hard to take that as hyperbole when the GOP is already suing over swing state ballots and claiming the election was rigged. Just to add more fuel to fire, Putin’s staff went ahead and confirmed that Russia interferes in American elections on the regular, a judge in AZ had to order armed people away from ballot boxes, and many swing states are preparing for unprecedented threats of violence at polling locations. It’s likely to be a bumpy ride from here, folks.

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The melange above makes the Biden Rebuilding front look quiet, but there’s still news on that front as well.  Here’s what I have for you:

• Biden Miscellany.* The biggest news on the Biden front is that the Fed raised interest rates by 0.75 to combat inflation for the fourth time in a row–bringing us to six consecutive rate hikes this year, which improbably is not exaggeration. This represents the biggest rate hike in decades, and the new rate of between 3.75 and 4% hasn’t been seen since the Great Recession of 2008.

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Your New Normal:

• Your Normally Scheduled Election. Amid all the weirdness and excessive spending of this year’s midterm election, it’s easy to lose track of the election itself. As I type this, over 41 million ballots have already been cast through early voting and absentee ballots, and in many places those ballots eclipse the total number cast in our last midterm election in 2018. Nonetheless, tomorrow will likely be an incredibly eventful day, especially with so many state referenda in play on topics like abortion, marijuana, and voting itself. If you are one of the many people planning to head to the polls tomorrow, you can find your polling place, double-check that you are registered, and read up on your ballot online before you go.

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The Bad:

• Muskrat New Habitat (again). If you live on the Internet like my household does, you’ve probably watched the Elon Musk takeover train wreck–when the owner of Twitter is also the undisputed Twitter Main Character, it’s hard to look away.  Suffice to say, he did indeed lay off thousands of people when he chaotically fired a full half of the company on Friday. Then over the weekend he claimed that his fleeing advertisers simply hate free speech, tried to hire a bunch of the staff back because apparently some of them weren’t supposed to be fired, and confirmed his ongoing plan to turn Twitter’s verification system into a status symbol. (Several people, including me, were very concerned that he planned to launch what is effectively a misinformation campaign on the day before a major election, but he did push back the rollout on that one until after the midterms.)  Today, just to top everything off, he told everyone to vote Republican and started permanently banning verified accounts that were changing their account names in order to parody him. 

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The Good:

• Recent Court Resilience. There’s a lot that is very concerning going on with SCOTUS right now, but this week they did decline to hear a challenge to the TSA’s authority to mandate masks on public transportation. Needless to say, this allows a very firmly-worded decision from the D.C. Circuit court to remain in place in that circuit instead, and these days we take that as a win.

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So that’s all I have for this week, and I’m sorry, there are no news refunds. For making it through, you deserve this unusual cat transit method and a more functional government.  I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved news, and I hope you will be back as well–but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments.  Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me new blends of herbal tea because we’re running low!

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Remember last week, when I was like “I sure hope we aren’t about to get a deluge?” I would like to personally apologize to you all for jinxing this week’s news like that, because after six years you’d think I would know better. At any rate, there’s more election rejection news than you can shake a stick at right now, which is perhaps not shocking with Election Day only a week away. I’ll continue to keep folks posted on the many many threads happening.

Standard standing reminders still apply: I guess after six years I’m conceding that I’m a journalist, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not an election!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers.  Onward to the news!      

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Cleanup in Aisle 45:

On the Election Rejection front, our circuses have circuses this week. Here’s what has happened:

• Election Rejection: Jan 6 Stuff. The House panel is moving forward with several types of interviews this week. Most notably, they are interviewing former Trump aide Hope Hicks, and they also have begun interviewing Secret Service staff. The committee also moved forward with reviewing 8 contested emails that Trump’s lawyers are trying to block, not waiting for the Ninth Circuit to review Trump’s lawyers’ appeal.
  
• Insurrection Update: FBI Tour of Mar-A-Lago. It was another comparatively quiet week on this front.  That said, the Mar-A-Lago investigation team did add another veteran prosecutor to its ranks, and they are also seeking to compel testimony from another of Trump’s allies. It’s likely we’ll see more news on this story soon.
  
• Insurrection Update: Other Trump Cases. A lot has happened on this front just in the last day.  Remember last week, when Justice Thomas went ahead and granted an administrative stay on an order compelling Graham to comply with the Georgia investigation?  This was indeed so that the full court could consider Graham’s request to freeze the whole thing, and they tossed that sucker out with a single paragraph of opinion–if I had to summarize the basic gist, it would be “lol nice try.” Meanwhile, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was ordered to testify in the same case earlier in the week. That said, Trump did have more luck in his attempt to get SCOTUS to block releasing his taxes after a lower court compelled them— because Chief Justice Roberts barred the IRS from giving them over again just today.
  
• Insurrection Update: Home Attack. I honestly wasn’t sure where to put this one, and eventually decided to just give the story its own paragraph, though I do think it shares roots with January 6 news. At any rate, Nancy Pelosi’s husband was attacked in their home in CA this week, and the assailant apparently yelled “Where is Nancy?” before assaulting him with a hammer. The assailant pretty quickly admitted that he had political motives once in custody, apparently planning to break Nancy Pelosi’s kneecaps due to her work in the House. He is being charged with several felonies, including an attempt to kidnap a federal officer.
  
• Original Flavor Election Rejection. Of course, on top of everything else above, there’s also news about our current election cycle, which is rapidly coming to a head. In Arizona, a federal judge refused to restrain people who are camping outside of ballot boxes, claiming that it is protected free speech to video people dropping off their ballots. Needless to say, the Justice Department intervened in this court case today, arguing that this behavior is illegal under the Voting Rights Act. Meanwhile, more than 100 lawsuits have been filed about November 8 already, despite the fact that Election Day hasn’t even happened yet.  (Most of the lawsuits are about how early voting and absentee voting are bad and lead to voter fraud, because of course they are.)

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The melange above makes the Biden Rebuilding front look quiet, but there’s still news on that front as well.  Here’s what I have for you:

• Biden Miscellany.* There was a fair amount of news this week, as there is every week, regarding the ongoing fight with inflation and how mortgage rates continue to climb because of it. That said, there was also a lot of news about a United Nations report published this week, which notes that the United States (and many other countries) are not hitting emission targets under the 2015 Paris climate accord. Needless to say, this has a lot of implications, and none of them are good, though presumably this will color negotiations at the next world climate summit, which will take place in Egypt next month.

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Your New Normal:

• Contagion Corner. There were a lot of stories this week about COVID, unsurprisingly. Most were regarding the threats created by reinfection (spoiler: they’re not great) and the likely risk of high transmission rates if we see an uptick in new variants over the winter. That said, there were also a few lingering stories about how white people in Republican states are more likely to die young, both from COVID and from other health risks.

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The Bad:

• Muskrat New Habitat. After several months of refusing to cover Elon Musk threatening to buy Twitter, on account of he kept shooting himself in the foot, I finally have to cover this story because Elon Musk actually bought Twitter this week. So far, it’s just as obnoxious as you were probably expecting–he immediately fired a bunch of executives and stopped enforcing safety-based content restrictions. Then news leaked that he plans to also lay off at least a quarter of the company, which will be thousands of people.  Finally, today he publicly haggled with Stephen King about how much a blue check mark should cost, so uh, we all got to watch that one happen. I want to stress that this takeover is horrifying and newsworthy because it’s not a merger or a corporate takeover; instead, Elon Musk now privately owns one of the most influential social media companies in the world because he paid $44B out of pocket for it. That is a truly staggering amount of money for one individual to even own, let alone be able to throw around, and we will likely see repercussions from this across many sectors for a long time.

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The Good:

• Recent Court Resilience. These stories aren’t “good news” so much as “signs the court system can sometimes work correctly,” but two different people who engaged in high-profile political violence were convicted appropriately this week. In Michigan, three men were convicted for a plan to kidnap the state governor, though their sentencing won’t be until December. And in Wisconsin, a man was convicted of intentional homicide for killing six people when he drove his SUV into a Christmas day parade, despite his claims that as a sovereign citizen he shouldn’t be prosecuted.

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So that’s all I have for this week, and I think we can agree that it was more than enough. For making it through, you deserve this pitball adventure and a more functional government.  I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved news, and I hope you will be back as well–but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments.  Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me extra sleep because it has been a long week and it’s only Tuesday!