The Full Belmonte, 1/11/2024
Special counsel Jack Smith has resigned
“Special Counsel Jack Smith has resigned from the Justice Department effective Friday, according to a court filing.
The filing comes amid a legal fight to stop Attorney General Merrick Garland from releasing the special counsel’s report of his investigations into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the alleged mishandling of classified documents after Trump left office.
Smith gave his final, two-volume report to the attorney general on Tuesday. Garland has indicated he will not release the part of the report regarding the classified documents investigation.”
Read More at CNN
California Fires
The remains of a neighborhood in Pacific Palisades, Calif. Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times
“Firefighters have made little progress battling two huge fires in Los Angeles. The largest, the Palisades fire, expanded east last night, threatening an upscale area that includes the Getty Center.
The fires have killed at least 11 people and destroyed or damaged thousands of buildings. (These maps show the scale of the destruction.)
Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered an independent review to determine why firefighters ran out of water earlier this week.
‘Everywhere you look, everything’s on fire’: A mother knew she had to get her family out of Altadena, even if it meant losing all that they left behind.
People who live through wildfires may experience anxiety, depression or psychological distress for years afterward, experts warned.” [New York Times]
5 looming questions about California’s devastating wildfires
BY SHARON UDASIN AND ZACK BUDRYK
“An infernal barrage of blazes continues to ravage the Los Angeles metropolitan region, where the death toll has now risen to at least 10 individuals.
While authorities have yet to identify precise causes for most of the fires, the Los Angeles Police Department apprehended one individual accused of sparking one of them. But what has become abundantly clear is that a mix of copious, dried-out vegetation and windy weather has fueled the flames and shocked an overtaxed water system.”
Read the full story here at The Hill
CNN
Los Angeles neighbors take care of each other
“Heroes are leading the way in the Los Angeles wildfires. Firefighters and first responders are working extremely long, exhausting hours to try to save their neighbors’ homes — even when their own have burned down. Civilians are helping to evacuate their neighbors, clear debris obstructing evacuation routes and offering their homes as safe places to stay. And in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where 80% of all students rely on free breakfast and lunch, administrators are still serving free meals during the crisis so children won’t go hungry.
Rick Miller was checking in on a friend’s house in Altadena on a street leveled by the wildfires. Their house was gone, but on the street, he found a dog all alone, with burns on its body. The dog warmed to him and allowed Miller to wrap it in a blanket for a much-needed rescue. The interaction brought Miller to tears.
‘It’s about caring for each other,’ Miller told CNN. “Everyone needs help here.”
Miller brought the dog to the Pasadena Humane Society, which is working to save hundreds of pets suffering from burns and smoke inhalation, horses that couldn’t be evacuated and wild animals like peacocks and baby raccoons injured in the fires. All kinds of neighbors are getting the help they need.” [CNN]
(Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images)
Donate to Los Angeles wildfire relief
“As wildfires rage in LA, multiple local and international nonprofits are on the ground providing life-saving care to victims. CNN’s Impact Your World has vetted multiple organizations that are providing direct aid, including Airlink, which provides airlifts in disasters, the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank and the Animal Wellness Foundation. By donating through Impact Your World, you can send your donation to a specific group or split it across all of the nonprofits. Click here to donate.” [CNN]
Congress braces for California wildfire fallout
BY MIKE LILLIS, ARIS FOLLEY AND MYCHAEL SCHNELL
© Greg Nash
“House lawmakers are bracing for what could be a contentious battle over emergency spending in the wake of the wildfires that are tearing through Southern California — an unprecedented disaster that’s already estimated to have caused more than $50 billion in damage in and around Los Angeles.
While both parties united quickly in December to provide more than $100 billion in emergency aid for hurricanes and other disasters, the wild card this time around will be President-elect Trump, who is already blaming California Democrats for the scale of the destruction.
The debate won’t happen immediately. The fires are still raging; the ultimate price tag is yet unknown; and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) says it has enough cash on hand to respond to a number of disasters around the country, including the California wildfires, in the near term.”
Read the full story here at The Hill
LA losses will shatter records
Photo: David Hume Kennerly. Used by kind permission
Above: David Hume Kennerly, the legendary political photographer, soared over Pacific Palisades in a chopper yesterday. ‘Only one house on this block survived — it appears to have a metal roof,’ David told Mike.
Risk experts believe the insured losses from the LA wildfires will easily top $20 billion. But that's only the start of the crisis California now faces, Axios managing editor Ben Berkowitz writes.
Anything above $12.5 billion would pass 2018's Camp Fire to become the biggest insured wildfire loss ever, per data from insurance brokers Aon.
At the high end of the range, the LA fires would be near the list of the 10 costliest natural disasters in global history by inflation-adjusted insured loss, according to the Insurance Information Institute.
The big picture: The loss number only tells part of the story.
Thousands upon thousands of homes and businesses have been lost, and tough decisions about if and how to rebuild will take years, even as climate change makes this sort of disaster more likely.
California's insurance market was already struggling as carriers fled the state's many risks. So the state insurer of last resort, FAIR Plan, has ballooned to an unsustainable size.
Systematic reforms designed to expand coverage and let insurers re-price risk are just now coming online — but may be too late, given the scope of losses.
The latest: California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is ordering an investigation into water supply problems that left fire hydrants dry and hurt firefighting efforts.
The 117-million-gallon Santa Ynez Reservoir in Pacific Palisades was empty and closed for repairs as the wildfire tore through homes, the LA Times reports: ‘Whether having the reservoir online would have had a meaningful impact on fighting the blaze is unclear.’” [Axios]
SALT-focused Republicans to meet with Trump as they threaten to hold up bill
BY EMILY BROOKS AND TOBIAS BURNS
“Republicans who are pledging to withhold support for President-elect Trump’s ambitious agenda if the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap is not raised are set to meet with the incoming president this weekend.
’I've been very clear from the start, I will not support a tax bill that does not lift the cap on SALT,’ Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) told reporters earlier in the week.
Republicans are plotting to push Trump’s tax, energy and border priorities through a special party-line ‘reconciliation’ process that bypasses the need to get Democratic buy-in but can only be used once or twice in a year.”
Read the full story here at The Hill
Supreme Court to hear case challenging Obamacare’s preventive coverage
At issue is a provision requiring health-care plans to cover no-cost preventive care, including cancer screenings, immunizations and contraception.
“The Supreme Court said Friday it will review the constitutionality of a provision of the Affordable Care Act that requires health plans to provide no-cost preventive care, including cancer screenings, immunizations and contraception, to millions of Americans.
The case puts the law, commonly known as Obamacare, in the crosshairs once again and follows several challenges in recent years by conservatives hoping to overturn it, as well as a landmark 2012 ruling by the justices upholding its legality.
In Becerra v. Braidwood Management Inc., a Christian-owned business and six individuals challenged the preventive-care provision because it requires health-care plans to cover pre-exposure medications intended to prevent the spread of HIV among certain at-risk populations. The plaintiffs argue that the medications “encourage and facilitate homosexual behavior,” which conflicts with their religious beliefs.
The plaintiffs also contend that an expert committee that mandates the preventive care health-care plans must offer is unconstitutional because its members are not appointed by the president with Senate approval, in violation of the appointments clause.
A Texas district court sided with the plaintiffs, ruling that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force — which set the coverage requirements — was unconstitutional because its members had not been confirmed by the Senate and that all mandates it had imposed since 201o were invalid.
The government appealed, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling with one major caveat. The 5th Circuit did not invalidate the task force’s mandates universally, only as they applied to the plaintiffs.
Both the plaintiffs and the government asked the Supreme Court to take up the case, saying the lower court’s rulings could allow other plaintiffs to seek a nationwide ruling that would invalidate the preventive-care provision.
Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar, who defended the case on behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services, warned in court filings that such a decision could be catastrophic, putting preventive care out of reach for many Americans who have come to rely on it.
‘Such a remedy would upend healthcare coverage for millions of Americans,’ Prelogar wrote.
It is unclear what position the federal government will take when President-elect Donald Trump takes office this month.
The plaintiffs wrote in their filing to the Supreme Court that they also objected to mandates in the preventive-care provision requiring plans to cover all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptive methods, including contraception that the plaintiffs contend induces abortions.
The Supreme Court is likely to hear oral arguments in the case later this year.” [Washington Post]
Biden awards Pope Francis the nation's highest civilian honor
READ FULL STORY→ USA Today
INTERNATIONAL
Ukraine doubles down on Kursk ahead of Trump taking office
BY BRAD DRESS
“Ukraine is leaning into its efforts to hold onto the Russian territory of Kursk amid intense pressure from Russian and North Korean forces to take it back, apparently gambling that the region could be a valuable card in potential negotiations with Moscow.
After weeks of Russian and North Korean advances in Kursk, Ukraine launched a minor offensive on Sunday to push forces back and retain a grip on the roughly 300 square miles Ukrainian troops still hold.
With less than two weeks before President-elect Trump takes office with a promise to negotiate an end to the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appears to be doubling down on Kursk as both a strategic necessity and a bargaining chip, despite lingering questions about the operation’s tactical value.”
Ukraine says it captured two North Korean soldiers, took them to Kyiv
READ FULL STORY→ USA Today
A Dark, Dangerous Hour
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, hold hands and pose for photos after the inauguration ceremony in Caracas, Venezuela, on Jan. 10.Jesus Vargas/Getty Images
“Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was sworn in on Friday for his third six-year term as president amid a backdrop of mass protests and foreign outcry. Much of the international community and independent vote monitors claim that opposition leader Edmundo González rightfully won last July’s presidential election, with tally sheets from electronic voting machines showing that González secured twice as many votes as Maduro.
‘This is the darkest and most dangerous hour that Venezuelans have experienced since the fall of the atrocious dictatorship Marcos Pérez Jiménez,’ journalist Boris Muñoz wrote in El País on Wednesday ahead of the inauguration ceremony.
González and ally María Corina Machado urged Venezuelans to take to the streets to protest the Maduro regime, leading hundreds of anti-government demonstrators to march on Caracas. Even Machado, long in hiding due to government crackdowns against political dissidents, emerged to participate in one of the rallies. Her team accused government forces of violently detaining her on Thursday, only to release her hours later. Vice President Delcy Rodríguez denied government responsibility.
Since last July, the Maduro regime has arrested thousands of protesters. More than 20 people have been killed during the unrest, and many demonstrators have said they were tortured while in custody.
Police, military, and intelligence officers guarded the legislative palace in Caracas as Maduro was sworn in. ‘I swear that this new presidential term will be one of peace, prosperity, equality, and new democracy,’ Maduro said in his inauguration speech. At the same time, he blamed other Latin American governments and the United States of ‘attacking’ Venezuela’s electoral process, but without any evidence.
Washington has been calling González the ‘president-elect’ since last November, and earlier this week, the opposition leader met with U.S. President Joe Biden and vowed to return to Caracas on inauguration day. At the time of writing, González’s current whereabouts are unknown.
‘The international community cannot allow the normalization of fraud in the most transcendental human rights crisis in our hemisphere,’ Juan Pappier, the Americas deputy director at Human Rights Watch, posted on X on Thursday.
Following Maduro’s inauguration, Washington imposed sanctions on eight Venezuelan officials and increased the reward for Maduro’s arrest from $15 million to $25 million. Rewards also exist for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López. The European Union and United Kingdom also announced sweeping new sanctions on Caracas on Friday.
Also on Friday, the Biden administration extended temporary protected status for approximately 600,000 Venezuelan nationals in the United States for an additional 18 months, citing ‘the severe humanitarian emergency the country continues to face due to political and economic crises under the inhumane Maduro regime.’
Even among Venezuela’s Latin American neighbors, very few foreign leaders attended the ceremony. ‘The poor showing due at Maduro’s inauguration represents a chilling in regional support,’ FP’s Catherine Osborn wrote in Latin America Brief this week. Notable absences included Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.” [Foreign Policy]
Greenland's art of the deal
Don Jr. takes a selfie with a well-wisher in Greenland on Tuesday. Photo: Emil Stach/Ritzau Scanpix via Getty Images
“Denmark sent private messages in recent days to President-elect Trump's team expressing willingness to discuss boosting security in Greenland or increasing the U.S. military presence on the island, Axios' Barak Ravid and David Lawler report.
Why it matters: Trump's refusal to rule out military force to take control of Greenland was effectively a threat to invade a longstanding NATO ally. Those comments caught Copenhagen and many other European capitals off guard.
The big picture: Greenland (pop. 56,000) is largely autonomous, but Denmark maintains responsibility for defense.
Trump has repeatedly declared that controlling Greenland — the world's largest island — is necessary for U.S. national security vis-a-vis Russia and China. His son Don Jr. visited Greenland this week bearing MAGA hats.
Behind the scenes: In the messages passed to the Trump team, the Danish government made clear Greenland isn't for sale, but expressed readiness to discuss any other U.S. request regarding the island, the sources said.
The U.S. already has a military base on Greenland and an agreement with Denmark dating to 1951 on defending the island, under which an increase of U.S. forces could easily be discussed.
The main question is whether Trump would be content to cut a deal with Denmark and declare victory, or whether his true mission is to become the first president in 80 years to gain new territory for the U.S.
What else we're watching: Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Israel today to push for a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal, Axios' Barak Ravid reports.
It's a last-minute effort by Trump to get a deal before his inauguration on Jan. 20.” [Axios]
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol takes questions during a press conference on state affairs on November 7, 2024 in Seoul. | Pool photo by Kim Hong-Ji.
“THE NEW AMERICAN EXPORT — The U.S. has long exported its cultural products to South Korea, flexing its soft power within the country through Hollywood products and academic exchanges. It now appears to be exporting something different — Donald Trump’s politics of defiance and norm-breaking.
President Yoon Suk Yeol, the country’s politically troubled leader, is increasingly utilizing the American president-elect’s legal and political tactics in a desperate attempt to evade the consequences of a botched attempt to impose martial law in December.
Although the imposition of martial law — declared out of frustration against an opposition party that had slashed his budget plans and impeached his allies — lasted less than six hours, the move has thrown the country into political unrest. Yoon ended up getting impeached by the National Assembly and stripped of his presidential powers, and his fate remains in the hands of the Constitutional Court, which will review the decision in the coming months. Meanwhile, Yoon is under criminal investigation for insurrection, and a warrant has been issued to detain him. Yet he’s been resisting arrest by blocking off the entrance to his residence with his security personnel. As he remains hidden from the public eye, he and his legal team have increasingly grown bolder in their attacks against the legal system and the opposition party and their attempts to dodge accountability — moves that closely resemble Trump’s tactics when he was accused of insurrection.
This isn’t the first time a parallel between Yoon and Trump has been made: When Yoon first took office in 2022, some had called him the ‘Trump of Korea’ because of his reputation for speaking off the cuff and promises of populist policies that were meant to recruit young male voters unhappy with their lack of upward mobility.
Yoon’s most blatant attempt to trace Trump’s path is his use of the U.S. Supreme Court’s immunity ruling for his own defense. In July, the Supreme Court granted presidents broad immunity for official acts while in office — a decision that gave Trump leverage against the charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 election. Under that same logic, Yoon argues that his martial law declaration was within his constitutional rights as president and immune to prosecution. While it isn’t uncommon for lawyers to bring up rulings from other nations in their defense, it’s unlikely it will hold much weight in court: South Korea’s Constitution has made it clear that sitting presidents are not immune to insurrection or treason charges.
Yoon’s more effective legal and political move, however, appears to be the claims of election fraud. Trump sowed doubt about his 2020 loss by questioning the election’s legitimacy and using it as a justification for radical action. Those conspiracy theories have become a powerful glue that have bonded his supporters together. And while far-right Korean conspiracy theorists have raised doubts about elections in the past — especially after the general election in April that handed a massive win to the opposition party — Yoon is now channeling that sentiment into questions about the legitimacy of the National Assembly and framing himself as a savior.
‘How can the public trust election results when the computer system that manages elections, the core of democracy, is so sloppy?’ Yoon said in a public speech just days after his martial law declaration as a means of justification. In response, Yoon’s most dedicated supporters have waved signs saying ‘Stop the Steal’ in pro-Yoon rallies — a nod to the MAGA movement’s rallying cry and the historically strong alliance between American and Korean conservatives, which dates back to the Korean War and the fight against communism.
‘They just refuse to make the connections between their own kind of conspiratorial beliefs and reality. Just the inability to do that, I think, is the real parallel,’ said Karl Friedhoff, an Asia studies fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
Yoon and his supporters wouldn’t be the only ones to draw lessons in resistance from Trump. In Brazil, thousands of former President Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters attacked official buildings in the country’s capital after he lost reelection in 2022, drawing close comparisons to the Jan. 6 Capitol attacks led by Trump followers.
For those watching from the U.S., it all seems too familiar.
‘The best case scenario is that [Yoon] slowly starts to peel his supporters back from their support for impeachment,’ said Friedhoff. ‘There will be consequences, but he’s certainly going to try to delay them for as long as possible.’
If Yoon’s rhetoric — the kind that offers a sinister view of the political establishment and presents himself as the solution — seems familiar, it may be because it so closely resembles Trump’s own dark framing. In his speech declaring martial law, Yoon called the country a ‘drug paradise,’ the National Assembly ‘a den of criminals’ and concluded that ‘Korea faces a fate that is never strange even if it collapses immediately’ — charged words that echo Trump’s declarations that the U.S. is a ‘failing nation’ and the left is ‘crooked’ and treasonous. And like MAGA supporters, Yoon’s base has been riled up by the president’s words, parroting his claims while taking to the streets in protest against his arrest.
Yoon, however, may not have the same political staying power as Trump, despite all the parallels: He isn’t an inspiring orator and doesn’t have the same hold over his followers, said S. Nathan Park, a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft following Korean politics.
‘He doesn’t have a good way out,’ Park said. ‘He might get arrested soon. He might get arrested later, but I just do not see how he can avoid being removed from the office.’” [POLITICO]
The method in Trump’s Greenland madness
The climate skeptic is responding to the reality of the Arctic’s melting ice: more resource extraction, faster trade routes, new military bases.
This article is also available in: French
January 9, 2025 4:35 am CET
By Karl Mathiesen and Giovanna Coi
“Donald Trump’s demand for Greenland is no 19th-century imperial throwback. Rather, it signals a hypermodern reality: a world transforming thanks to climate change, with China, Russia and the United States jostling to take advantage.
Greenland’s ice sheets are losing 270 billion tons of water per year, while Arctic sea ice is vanishing so rapidly that the polar sea may be ice-free by some summer in the 2030s.
This unfreezing opens new possibilities for resource extraction, faster trade routes, space and military bases, new fishing zones — and great power confrontation. Moscow and Beijing are moving to exert control over the Arctic region, which is warming faster than anywhere else on the planet.
Against this backdrop, Trump’s demands for Greenland begin to look, if not reasonable, then reasoned.
The incoming U.S. president flirted with the démarche during his first term, but was flatly dismissed in Nuuk and Copenhagen.
On Tuesday, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen again rebuffed Trump’s request to buy the island, an autonomous territory Denmark has controlled since 1814 and home to America’s most northerly military base.
But Frederiksen added she was ‘really happy regarding the rise in American interest in Greenland.’
It was a comment that belied a nagging anxiety among the U.S. and its allies that they have failed to respond to Russian and Chinese efforts to seize the initiative in the high north.
‘We’ve sort of been asleep at the switch,’ said Michael O’Hanlon, director of research in the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
A succession of Pentagon white papers over the last decade raised concerns about the growing intent of China and Russia in the region. Yet the U.S. has done little to back its interests in the high north. “All the hoopla about the importance of the Arctic is somewhat belied by a lack of the resources really being devoted to it,” O’Hanlon said.
Ice melting, ice busting
Russian President Vladimir Putin has long dreamed of turning the Northern Sea Route — which runs along Russia’s coast and in the past has been ice-bound — into a cold-water Suez Canal. That would slash the time it would take to transport products from China to Europe, and open Siberian ports and energy products to Asian markets.
In April 2000, just 10 days after winning his first presidential election, Putin stood aboard the nuclear icebreaker Rossiya and delivered a message to the heads of shipping and energy companies: Russia’s economic future lies in control and development of the Arctic Ocean passages and the great Siberian oil and gas fields.
The location of his speech was key. While climate change is making the northern seas progressively more accessible, icebreaking ships are likely to remain necessary to keep trade routes open through the winter for years to come.
It is hardly insignificant, then, that a brand new Rossiya is under construction in a shipyard near Vladivostok. It is the first in a class of nuclear-powered icebreakers that, once built, will be the largest on Earth — able to smash through 4-meter-thick ice. (You can watch it being built live on a Rosatomflot webcam.) It’s only the largest of several new icebreakers under construction, with more in the pipeline to bolster Russia’s already significant fleet.
Contrast that with U.S. icebreaking capabilities — which consist of just two ships, one of which is almost 50 years old. A Mississippi shipyard got approval to begin building the first of a new, modern generation of vessels just before Christmas.
China is also looking north — and money is following its gaze.
China in 2018 announced the Polar Silk Road, its own plan to develop the Arctic and in particular open up trading and energy routes across Russia’s far north. During an October visit to China, Putin invited investment in the Northern Sea Route. Chinese energy companies have already taken major stakes in Siberian gas projects, while other Chinese companies have helped develop port infrastructure.
Chinese companies have also shown interest in mineral exploitation in Greenland, which is becoming easier as the ice sheets retreat. It’s a prospect that has caused American panic. But in reality, Chinese firms have made little headway.
Power politics at play
It’s this shifting landscape that Trump is using to justify America’s claim to the world’s largest island.
‘I’m talking about protecting the free world,’ Trump said in a news conference on Tuesday, which took place while his son, Donald Trump Jr., was on a surprise visit to Greenland. ‘You don’t even need binoculars. You look outside, you have China ships all over the place, you have Russia ships all over the place. We’re not letting that happen.’
He even refused to rule out using military force to take the island from his NATO ally. O’Hanlon dismissed Trump’s comments as trolling. ‘It sounds so fantastical that I can't even take it that seriously.’ United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday also dismissed it.
The Danes appear more inclined to take Trump at his word. Last month, King Frederik issued a decree that edited Denmark’s coat of arms to more prominently feature the Greenlandic polar bear. Meanwhile, Greenland’s government has renewed its calls for independence.
At the least, Trump’s move was ‘very crude diplomacy,’ said Arild Moe, an expert in Russia’s development of the Northern Sea Route from the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Norway. ‘Just the idea that you can buy an autonomous territory is so outrageous. But I think you can leave that a little bit aside, and then you can talk about U.S. interests, because there is something behind this.’
The melting sea ice and the rise of China had inserted new tension into strategic decision-making in the region, he said.
Until now, O’Hanlon said, U.S. strategy for the Arctic had been less about ‘aggressively pursu[ing] American unilateral access’ and more about preventing Russia or China from blocking ‘other people’s access to the Arctic, the same way the Chinese have threatened to do with the South China Sea.’
Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, told journalist Adam Rubenstein last week that he had urged the president during his first term to tone down his demands for sovereignty over Greenland, seeking instead to expand U.S. presence and influence on the island through backroom discussions with the Danes and the Greenland government. ‘It’s obviously a strategic interest,’ he said.
That is a conversation Frederiksen appeared to be inviting in her comments to Danish media on Tuesday. Danish officials also question the necessity for the U.S. to own Greenland when its ally would be open to further American investment and military presence.
The Arctic is unfreezing and in motion. And it’s unlocking a new irony about climate change: While Europe and America’s greatest advocates for tackling global warming seem to have been caught napping by one of its fastest-moving manifestations, China and Russia — which both dragged their heels on cutting emissions — have moved to take advantage.
Compounding the irony, it’s Trump — a dogged climate skeptic — who seems to have found a climate change response he apparently won’t let go.” [POLITICO]
Biden's jobs streak
Data: BLS. Chart: Axios Visuals
“The U.S. economy added 2.23 million jobs in 2024, including 256,000 in the final full month of Joe Biden's presidency.
The big picture: There have been more jobs gained under Biden's term than under the full terms of former Presidents Trump, Obama, or George W. Bush, Axios' Dan Primack writes.
By the numbers: Biden is now at +16.1 million, aided by the post-pandemic economic recovery.
Trump oversaw 2.1 million job losses, although there were 6.6 million jobs added during his first three years in office (i.e., pre-pandemic years).
Obama oversaw 7.1 million job gains, with losses at the beginning of his first term due to the Great Financial Crisis.
Bush oversaw 5.2 million job gains.
Bill Clinton has a stronger record than any of his successors, with a total of 23 million jobs added, although his annual average trails that of Biden.” [Axios]
TECH
“The U.S. government under incoming President Donald Trump should intervene to stop the EU from fining American tech companies for breaching antitrust rules and other violations, Meta chief exec Mark Zuckerberg said late Friday.” Full story: trib.al/IWW9g57
Zuckerberg urges Trump to stop the EU from fining US tech companies
Meta's make-up-with-MAGA map
Mark Zuckerberg talks to Joe Rogan in Austin on Thursday. Screenshot via YouTube
“Meta's Mark Zuckerberg has outlined a new template for companies to make up with President-elect Trump and MAGA, Axios' Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei write in a "Behind the Curtain" column.
Why it matters: Meta did this with a methodical striptease over nine days, capturing massive public and MAGA attention.
‘This is speaking Trump's love language,’ a transition source told us.
Behind the scenes: Zuckerberg had been considering some of the moves for years. Almost all had been in the works for months. But sources tell us Meta deliberately packaged them all up for detonation over nine days to maximize the pop for Trump.
‘It's hard to break through in this media environment,’ said a source familiar with the strategy. ‘It sends a signal.’
Here's the Meta formula:
Put a Trump friend on your board (Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White).
Promote a prominent Republican as your chief global affairs officer (Joel Kaplan, succeeding liberal-friendly Nick Clegg, president of global affairs).
Align your philosophy with Trump's on a big-ticket public issue (free speech over fact-checking).
Announce your philosophical change on Fox News, hoping Trump is watching. In this case, he was. ‘Meta, Facebook, I think they've come a long way,’ Trump said at a Mar-a-Lago news conference, adding of Kaplan's appearance on the "Fox and Friends" curvy couch: ‘The man was very impressive.’
Take a big public stand on a favorite issue for Trump and MAGA (rolling back DEI programs).
Amplify that stand in an interview with Fox News Digital. (Kaplan again!)
Go on Joe Rogan's podcast and blast President Biden for censorship.
And light up social media with all the fireworks.
Between the lines: Love it or hate it, the strategy seemed to work brilliantly. Trump praised Meta. Rogan hailed Zuck.
House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who has aggressively investigated Big Tech, said he hopes other companies ‘follow the lead of X and Meta in upholding freedom of speech online.’
The big picture: Every company in America is watching. We can expect some to copy Zuckerberg — after Elon Musk showed the way.
Shifts this fast are rare. And rarely isolated.
The bottom line: Alex Bruesewitz — CEO of X Strategies LLC, and trusted adviser to the Trump campaign on alternative media — told us companies are either ‘a. Finally recognizing that 'wokeness' is a cancer, or b. Strategically adapting to the political climate and pandering to Republicans now that we are in power.’
‘Only time will tell which is the true motivation,’ Bruesewitz said. ‘Regardless, MAGA is winning and will continue to win!’” [Axios]
Meta's pivot will be hard to match
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
“After Mark Zuckerberg's embrace of President-elect Trump, Silicon Valley is watching to see whether a whole row of tech dominoes is about to fall in the same direction, Axios managing editor Scott Rosenberg writes.
Some early signs:
Google, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon have lined up to give $1 million each to the inauguration. (Apple's donation came personally from CEO Tim Cook.)
Amazon put $40 million behind a Melania Trump documentary.
Reality check: Zuckerberg, unlike his rival CEOs, has absolute voting control of his company.
As he said in his three-hour conversation with Joe Rogan: ‘Because I control our company, I have the benefit of not having to convince the board not to fire me.’
None of the other members of tech's trillion-dollar club can move with the same speed or independence, even if they wanted to.” [Axios]
Up close with world's largest supercomputer
Photos: Ina Fried/Axios
“The world's most powerful supercomputer was officially dedicated in the Bay Area yesterday, with the CEOs of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and AMD on hand to celebrate their handiwork, Axios' Ina Fried reports.
Why it matters: El Capitan — as the $600 million supercomputer is known — will handle classified tasks aimed at securing the U.S. stockpile of nuclear weapons and conducting a variety of other unspecified simulations.
Zoom in: El Capitan, along with a smaller sibling designed for non-classified work, sit inside a large data center inside Lawrence Livermore National Labs in Alameda County, roughly 30 miles east of Silicon Valley.
That smaller sibling, Tuolumne, is similar in design to El Capitan, but just one-tenth the size. It's still powerful enough to rank tenth among the world's most powerful supercomputers.
By the numbers: El Capitan is capable of peak performance of 2.79 exaflops, or 2.79 quintillion calculations per second.
That's equivalent to the processing power of about 1 million of today's high-end smartphones working simultaneously.
Its 87 computer racks and accompanying infrastructure weigh 1.3 million pounds. That's about the same as four blue whales or 100 African elephants.” [Axios]
Elon Musk’s Boring Company Is Tunneling Beneath Las Vegas With Little Oversight
by Daniel Rothberg for ProPublica and Dayvid Figler, City Cast Las VegasJan. 8, 5 a.m. EST
Reporting Highlights
“The Vegas Loop: Elon Musk’s Boring Company is constructing a planned 68-mile tunnel system beneath Las Vegas where drivers will ferry passengers around the urban core in Teslas.
Less Regulation: Despite its size, the project, because it’s privately funded, has not gone through the vetting typical of public transit systems, including lengthy governmental studies.
Musk’s Worldview: Musk says regulation often stymies innovation, a view that now has added significance given his new role advising President-elect Donald Trump on government efficiency.
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story. Were they helpful?
Elon Musk’s Boring Company spent years pitching cities on a novel solution to traffic, an underground transportation system to whisk passengers through tunnels in electric vehicles. Proposals in Illinois and California fizzled after officials and the public began scrutinizing details of the plans and seeking environmental reviews.
But in Las Vegas, the tunneling company is building Musk’s vision beneath the city’s urban core thanks to an unlikely partner: the tourism marketing organization best known for selling the image that ‘What Happens Here, Stays Here.’
The powerful Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority greenlit the idea and funded an 0.8-mile route at its convention center. As that small ;people mover’ opened in 2021, the authority was already urging the county and city to approve plans for 104 stations across 68 miles of tunnels.
The project is also realizing Musk’s notion of how government officials should deal with entrepreneurs: avoid lengthy reviews before building and instead impose fines later if anything goes awry. Musk’s views on regulatory power have taken on new significance in light of his close ties to President-elect Donald Trump and his role in a new effort to slash rules in the name of improving efficiency. The Las Vegas project, now well under way, is a case study of the regulatory climate Musk favors.
Because the project, now known as the Vegas Loop, is privately operated and receives no federal funding, it is exempt from the kinds of exhaustive governmental vetting and environmental analyses demanded by the other cities that Boring pitched. Such reviews assess whether a proposal is the best option and inform the public of potential impacts to traffic and the environment.
The head of the convention authority has called the project the only viable way to ease traffic on the Las Vegas Strip and in the surrounding area — a claim that was never publicly debated as the Clark County Commission and Las Vegas City Council granted Boring permission to build and operate the system beneath city streets. The approvals allow the company to build and operate close to homes and businesses without the checks and balances that typically apply to major public transit projects….” Read more at ProPublica
MEDIA
1 big thing: Reality-checkers
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
“Fact-checking suddenly looks quaint, inadequate and practically irrelevant, Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei write in a "Behind the Curtain" column.
Whole realities — the supposed culprits for the LA inferno, a new MAGA map of the world, a child sex-abuse scandal (‘grooming gangs’) in Britain — now sweep the internet overnight.
We no longer need fact-checkers. We need reality-checkers.
Why it matters: When President-elect Trump takes office 10 days from now, he'll be more impervious than ever to metaphysical truth — long the purview of traditional, rigorous news reporting.
Skeptics and opponents will be left shaping, and reacting to, entire worldviews and narratives that have so much momentum — and such powerful constituencies — that they become the reality that lawmakers, regulators, journalists and citizens will have to contend with.
This is uncharted terrain. What's real? What's spin? What's outright misinformation?
And who do you trust to make sense of it all? And what if others trust people who are untrustworthy?
Between the lines: Name the last time Democrats drove the dominant narrative on social media or even traditional media.
You'd have to go back to before the election. In fact, in the environment that exists at this moment, it's hard to imagine who would drive it and how it would be driven.
Two real-time examples capture this new reality of the online information ecosystem: the LA fires and the British grooming scandal, narrated by Axios' Zachary Basu:
1. As flames tore through Pacific Palisades on Tuesday, X became a cesspool of misinformation and anti-DEI attacks targeting LA Mayor Karen Bass and LAFD chief Kristin Crowley, who is the first woman and LGBT person in the job.
The truth became impossible to distill: Musk's vaunted Community Notes system was like a Band-Aid on a bullet hole, as reports of water shortages — some real, some fake — exploded into partisan blame games.
Trump quickly exploited the crisis and accused Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) of refusing to sign ‘the water restoration declaration,’ which the governor's office dismissed as "pure fiction." With the fires raging and growing, Trump posted on Truth Social: ‘Gavin Newscum should resign. This is all his fault!!!’ Musk quickly tweeted agreement.
In a now-deleted tweet, Musk responded ‘True’ to an Alex Jones post claiming the LA fires were ‘part of a globalist plot to wage economic warfare & deindustrialize the [United] States.’
Reality check: The unprecedented fires are a natural disaster caused by fierce winds and some of the driest conditions on record for early January, likely exacerbated by climate change.
Bass is facing real criticism for being on a diplomatic mission in Ghana at the start of the crisis. And water policies have been hotly debated in California. But there's no evidence of diversity programs hindering the response.
The lack of sufficient water to put out the fires wasn't as simple as a few bone-headed decisions by incompetent people. It's exceptionally complex: Municipal water systems aren't built for this many fires requiring this much water from this many hydrants. Fixing this, if super-fires are indeed a new normal, would be a domestic Manhattan Project.
Surely mistakes were made. But it's implausible to know the precise ones to fault in real time.
President-elect Trump hosted 22 Republican governors at Mar-a-Lago last night. Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images
2. Musk plunged the U.K. into crisis last week— and is now plotting to oust center-left Prime Minister Keir Starmer — after reviving and weaponizing a decade-old child abuse scandal involving British-Pakistani grooming gangs.
What was a widely covered national story at the time — first broken, ironically, by traditional media — has been recast on X as a conspiracy of silence by the pedophilic establishment.
Musk has baselessly claimed Starmer — who was credited with improving the treatment of sexual assault victims as chief prosecutor in 2013 — is ‘deeply complicit in the mass rapes in exchange for votes.’
And Musk has lionized anti-Islam agitator Tommy Robinson — a convicted felon reviled in British society, even by right-wing Reform Party leader Nigel Farage — as a heroic citizen-journalist.
For the tens of millions of Americans and X users unfamiliar with the grooming gang scandal, every quote and move by the British government is now being scrutinized through Musk's tainted lens.
Reality check: Starmer and other British officials have acknowledged that authorities and politicians failed many victims of child abuse, and that recommendations from a 2022 independent inquiry should be implemented.
There's no evidence that the Labour government — which was elected in a landslide last July after 15 years of Conservative rule — has intentionally blocked investigations for political reasons.
The backstory: Trump — and Trumpworld — helped create this new reality.
From kicking off his first term with ‘alternative facts’ to changing the meaning of ‘fake news,’ MAGA-world has consistently sought to discredit traditional gatekeepers.
What you can do: Realize that in-the-moment information is often flawed, and rarely as black-and-white as presented.
Resist sharing any information outside highly trusted sources.
Think about the political motivations of people casting blame or spreading ideas.
View social media — including X — as a good place to find real-time videos, photos and updates if you trust and verify the source. But also full of bad actors. The burden is on you.
Take a deep breath. Traditional media sources you've grown to trust are quite good at sorting fact from fiction and offering helpful context. That often takes more than a few minutes or hours. Find a source you trust — and trust it.
In the case of the LA fires, the Los Angeles Times is doing a very good job on this front. Check out the coverage.” [Axios]
SOCIETY
Oldest and youngest newlyweds
Data: Census Bureau. Chart: Axios Visuals
“People are saying ‘I do’ later in life. The median age of those getting married for the first time was nearly 30 in 2023, up two years from 2010, Axios' Sami Sparber writes from census data.
Compare that to 1950, when the median age was around 22, per the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey.
State of play: D.C., New York and California residents are the oldest at their first marriage, at around 31.
Utah, Idaho and West Virginia residents are the youngest, at around 27.” [Axios]
SPORTS
“College football's final two: After last night's Cotton Bowl win, the Ohio State Buckeyes face the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame in Atlanta for the College Football Playoff championship on Jan 20 — inauguration night.” [Axios]
“The two Yankees fans who pried open Mookie Betts’ glove during Game 4 of the World Series are indefinitely banned from attending any MLB game, a league source confirmed to The Athletic.” Full story: www.nytimes.com/athletic/605...
THE WEEK IN CULTURE
Film
Pamela Anderson in “The Last Showgirl.” Zoey Grossman/Roadside Attractions
“In “The Last Showgirl,” Pamela Anderson stars as a dancer at a Las Vegas revue. The director Gia Coppola tells the story with ‘an obvious appreciation for the affirming highs and bitter lows that age and beauty afford,’ Manohla Dargis writes.
At the movies, the character of the ‘older woman’ — middle-aged and in a relationship with a younger man — has finally become the protagonist.
Oscar nominations will be revealed next week. The Times’s awards columnist shared the nods he’d like to see, including “Challengers” for best original score.
Perry, the miniature donkey who was used as a model for “Shrek” animators, died at 30.
Television
“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and “Abbott Elementary” share a city, but their tones couldn’t be more different. Still, this week’s crossover episode was seamless.
The director of a documentary about “The Jerry Springer Show” spoke to The Times about the talk show’s complex legacy.
After 17 years, Hoda Kotb anchored the “Today” show for the final time.
Music
Bob Czaykowski, known as Nitebob, working a soundboard. Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
Many of the music industry’s most respected — and consistently employed — rock ’n’ roll roadies are septuagenarians.
Sam Moore, the tenor half of the scorching soul duo Sam & Dave — known for indelible hits like “Soul Man” — died at 89.
The folk singer Peter Yarrow died this week at 86. With his trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, he eased folk music into the Top 10.
More Culture
Jenna Bush, the former first daughter and current literary influencer, is starting a publishing venture with Penguin Random House.
“Show Boat” set a new standard for Broadway. Frequently revived, as in a new production called “Show/Boat: A River,” it endures because it has always said something important about America, our critic writes.
Sara Mearns, a New York City Ballet star, discusses her recent return to the stage wearing hearing aids: ‘I want to hear the music that I’m dancing to.’
The Mexican architect Frida Escobedo designed a new wing at the Met. She is the first woman to do so in the museum’s 154-year history. Read about her rise.” [New York Times]