<....There’s no clear evidence of a Republican realignment

Every time either party wins a high-stakes election, particularly if it results in a governing trifecta, there’s talk in the air of realignment, of a shifting of tectonic plates that changes the position of the major parties for a generation. We heard it from Republicans in 2004, just before a precipitous decline in George W. Bush’s popularity that cost the GOP control of Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008. We heard it from Democrats in 2008, just before they lost the House in a calamitous 2010 midterm with the Senate following suit in 2014. In 2020 Democrats told themselves the defeat of Trump (followed by his much-condemned refusal to accept it) meant the MAGA infection of the GOP was at a definitive end.

These realignment dreams were all illusions, and there’s no clear evidence today’s are any different. Do Trump’s gains among the fast-growing Latino population mean Democrats are doomed in future presidential elections? Bush’s very similar gains in the same demographic group (and also, lest we forget, among Black voters) sure didn’t stick. Does the GOP’s 2024 progress among young voters guarantee a glorious future? Probably not, since they’re still losing among the under-30 voters, aside from the fact that a slightly new cohort arrives every year, now featuring first-time voters whose crucial experience will be with the reign of overwhelmingly Christian conservative Republicans who may disappoint their economic aspirations and foreign-policy views just as much as Biden did.

There’s also virtually no chance that future elections will feature an octogenarian Democratic incumbent who takes his sweet time giving way to a vice-presidential successor who struggles to come up with a “change” message, even as her opponent survived two assassination attempts. The weird stuff about 2024, including its weird presidential winner, will probably be more noteworthy to historians than any long-term trend it signaled. So the smart expectation going forward is continued partisan polarization and highly contested elections, not some red apocalypse.>

<Kamala Harris’s defeat was damaging to the left. But her loss overshadows the true scope of the damage wrought on the Democratic Party: the permanent loss of the Senate.

Democrats have lost the Senate before, but this loss is different from 2014. This time, it may well be for good. For the first time in a century, there is not one Democratic senator from a reliably red state.

We have entered an era of one-party rule — at least where the Senate is concerned.

Today, the Senate map mirrors the national electoral divide. Democratic senators in blue states, Republican senators in red states, and swing states up for grabs. That’s grim news for Democrats. Simply put, there are more red states than blue states.

For decades, Democrats relied on popular Democratic senators in deep-red states — for example, Tom Daschle in South Dakota (lost in 2004), Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas (lost in 2010), Mary Landrieu in Louisiana (lost in 2014), Claire McCaskill in Missouri (lost in 2018), and Jon Tester in Montana (lost in 2024). In recent years, these red-state Democrats were critical to holding the Democratic majority.

The final nationalization of the Senate in 2024 with the ousting of Tester and Sherrod Brown in Ohio, and the retirement of Joe Manchin in West Virginia, shifts the path to a Democratic Senate majority entirely to blue and purple states. This makes the Democrats’ task nearly impossible.

Republicans, in contrast, can compete in many more states. Even if Democrats sweep every swing state contest (and oust Susan Collins in Maine), they can win at most 52 seats in the Senate. That includes both seats in North Carolina. If Republicans were to win all the Senate seats in all of those same swing states, they would control 62 seats.

Considering that only a third of swing state seats will ever be up for election any given cycle, the odds of Democrats winning all 14 races are almost a statistical impossibility. Susan Collins’s hold on blue Maine makes the task even tougher.

There is a historical analog to this emerging phenomenon: the Permanent Democratic Congress. From 1954 through 1994, Democrats controlled the House for 40 out of 40 years, and 58 out of 62 years until 1994. Only recently have we entered an era of congressional oscillation between parties, an era that came to an end this November.

This new permanent Republican Senate has three profound consequences for the Democratic Party and the institution of the Senate.

First, any incoming Democratic president will enter the White House with a severe handicap, limiting the enactment of broad campaign promises. Instead of enjoying a mandate reflected by majorities in Congress, the far likelier scenario is a Democratic president immediately vying against a confident and combative Republican Senate. Any partisan campaign promise — from a public option to progressive tax reform — is dead on arrival. The same hostility President Obama faced after losing the Senate in 2014 will be the presumptive landscape.

The implications for effective governance are severe: structural reforms would be almost unattainable, further entrenching the perception of dysfunction in Washington. For the Democratic Party, the consequences are graver: this hyper-gridlock would be inextricably linked to Democratic presidencies, deepening voter disillusionment during their time in power....>

<....Republicans no longer have any incentive to confirm Democratic judicial nominees, knowing a Republican-controlled Senate can outwait a Democratic president.

The precedent for this is very recent: Merrick Garland. Republicans opted not to vote on a lame duck Democratic president’s nominee to the Supreme Court, betting on the chance to confirm a Republican nominee instead. Now, it’s more than a gamble; it’s a near certainty. With the presidency likely to continue teetering between the parties, Republicans only need to hold out until the next Republican presidency. As long as the current political geography remains, there is no risk of a new Democratic president backed by a Democratic Senate to swiftly fill judicial vacancies.

Under this new norm, Republicans can mold the judiciary in their ideological image, without fear that Democrats will rebalance it. If a vacancy does open on the Supreme Court during a Democratic presidency, Republicans wouldn’t need to rush to fill it: they would maintain a comfortable conservative majority even with the vacancy, albeit 5-3 instead of 6-3. If Republicans continue this stonewalling during Democratic presidencies, with their new permanent hold on the Senate, the Supreme Court’s conservative 6-3 majority may become 7-2, 8-1, and eventually 9-0.

The filibuster derives its power from the majority party’s recognition that someday soon, they will likely find themselves in the minority. When that day comes, the filibuster will be a valuable asset ensuring the minority’s perspective is heard.

But the filibuster’s threat and power hinge on the shared belief that each party will eventually rotate in and out of the majority. In the new age ushered in by the 2024 elections, Republicans have little reason to believe Democrats will take the Senate back anytime soon.

Without any realistic fear of losing their majority, Republicans have no further use for the filibuster. Rather than serving as a safeguard, it now only stands in their way. It no longer provides commensurate prospective protection. Both parties have already weakened the filibuster through the Nuclear Option when it suited their needs and the benefits outweighed the backlash.

Given this and President-elect Trump’s firm grip on the GOP and his eagerness to push through his agenda, the filibuster’s days are numbered.>

<Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) argued in a column for the conservative Washington Examiner that Congress should let the federal government shut down for a month and just wait for President-elect Donald Trump to take office.

In particular, he blasted leadership for not passing a long-term budget and simply passing a string of "continuing resolutions" to kick the can down the road on maintaining government funding.

"This embarrassing failure apparently isn’t too embarrassing because Congress persists in it. The only exception is that Congress periodically crams all of the programs and bills into a single entity called 'omnibus' legislation for the purpose of raising the spending levels, structural deficit, and national debt — all the while, of course, funding new monstrous federal programs," wrote Biggs, who recently tried to push the House to arrest Attorney General Merrick Garland. "Then, once again, Congress will go back to its spending and legislative addiction, the continuing resolution. In fact, Congress has passed a continuing resolution 34 times in the last 10 years. And there is talk of another this month."

"At the same time, because we can’t, or won’t, eliminate, modify, or combine federal programs in a continuing resolution, we see the immortality of the federal bureaucracy. We continue to fund the odious Planned Parenthood. The World Health Organization, United Nations, and other anti-American institutions continue to receive our dues money," he raged.

Biggs accused the Education Department of "targeting" Christian universities, and attacked the State Department for "propagandizing against conservatives."

"You can never rein in spending or eliminate wasteful or harmful federal programs if you fail to pass budget bills," he concluded. "I’d rather let a lapse in spending kick in on Dec. 20 until the new Trump administration takes over in January 2025."

A federal government shutdown would lead to hundreds of thousands of people suspended from work and massive shocks to the economy. One shutdown that occurred during the previous Trump administration, as Trump demanded money for his border wall, only let up when the strain on air traffic controllers threatened to collapse the U.S. air travel system.>

<Republicans in the House of Representatives have a highly ambitious agenda that they want to pass even though they have a razor-thin majority that leaves them with no room for error.

The American Prospect's David Dayen took a look at the daunting timeline Republicans face and has concluded that they really could fail to deliver on their vow to extend the tax-cut package they passed seven years ago.

First, he notes that Republicans are currently split on how to handle an ambitious budget reconciliation package, as they are debating over whether to cut their agenda into one or two packages.

Although the House GOP favors doing everything in one fell swoop, Dayen argues that path is still fraught with peril.

"Throwing everything into one bill just complicates the enormous number of issues that must be addressed," he writes. "As my colleague Bob Kuttner has laid out, Trump has made as much as $7 trillion in tax cut promises, and there isn’t much around in the way of obvious offsets to fill that gap, even though many in the caucus want the package to not increase the deficit. That much actual savings would require cutting deep into broadly popular programs."

Added to this, Dayen has found that there will be major divides between Republicans about what should and should not be concluded in the package.

"On the details, some Republicans want to keep parts of the IRA intact and some don’t," he notes. "Some want to raise tariffs legislatively as an offset and some don’t. Some are demanding a repeal of the cap on state and local tax deductions and some see that as too expensive. Some want to deal with health care in that tax bill and some don’t. Some want to cut Medicaid and food stamps and some don’t."

With all these balls in the air, Dayen concludes that not extending the Trump tax cuts, which he describes as "a fate worse than death" to Republicans, could really happen due to their own "incompetence.">

<My Trump-supporting friends celebrate the president-elect’s broad mandate to “Make America Great Again.” They are confident he will successfully resolve a super-sized list of domestic and international problems inherited from the Biden-Harris administration, which, according to Trump, is responsible for “a nation in decline, a failing nation.”

Not so fast.

While Trump voters brag about his decisive 312 to 226 Electoral College victory over Vice President Harris, they conveniently ignore that he won the national popular vote by only a slim margin of 1.5 percentage points. This is a reality check for his touted “mandate,” especially since Republican control of the House of Representatives is razor-thin.

I write as a former Republican who wants Trump to succeed for the good of the nation. But like millions of Americans, I was disturbed by the Trump-Harris choice and did not vote for either. In the long term, my concern is irreversible national decline, and here are five reasons I fear it will accelerate when “Trump 47” governs like no president in American history.

First, “Trump versus the Constitution” will likely be a continuous fight. In his first term, Trump was twice impeached but not convicted. In his second term, Trump’s bravado-filled “dare-me” attitude could again result in a grievous assault on the Constitution to achieve his political agenda, facilitated by the Supreme Court’s controversial ruling on presidential immunity.

Ironically, the court’s landmark decision, wherein a very wide range of acts by presidents are considered “official,” was issued three days before the nation celebrated the Founders’ July 4, 1776, Declaration of Independence from an oppressive British crown.

Trump 47 is constitutionally limited to one term and thus incentivized to break traditional norms and laws. He could bust through established guardrails without pushback from the co-equal legislative and judicial branches meant to stop presidential power grabs.

The first Trump norm-busting act could be installing some of his more controversial Cabinet officials through Senate recess appointments — testing the limits of his constitutional authority.

Second, Trump 47 is saddled with more multi-layered business conflicts of interest than Trump 45. Worse, he has not promised to divest or withdraw from any of his companies or partnerships that could generate millions or even billions in profits from his administration’s policy decisions.

For example, Trump will be the first president to own a controlling stake (nearly 57 percent) in a publicly traded company — Trump Media & Technology Group — symbol DJT. The company presents an unusual opportunity for investors, including foreigners. They can support Trump by pumping the stock’s value and growing Truth Social into a more powerful, robust media platform and presidential communication tool for official announcements, personal spin and misinformation.

Equally advantageous is Trump’s family stake in World Liberty Financial. Announced in September, this crypto platform is well-timed for investment, with Trump promising to be the nation’s first crypto-friendly president. Priming the pump, crypto-industry PACS donated $131 million to elect Trump and dozens of pro-crypto lawmakers.

Additionally, Trump’s traditional hotel, condo and golf projects with foreign governments, especially Saudi Arabia, should be scrutinized when international dealings could favor Trump’s holdings.

Then there is the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, arguably Trump’s most influential adviser, supporter, largest donor, crypto-investor, and now government efficiency chairman. Musk has Herculean conflicts of interest. Over the last decade, just two of Musk’s companies, Tesla and Space X, were awarded at least $15.4 billion in government contracts. Musk and Trump’s mutually beneficial relationship will surely make headlines.

A more comical conflict of interest will be evident if Trump continues to personally promote Trump watches, gold sneakers, coins and Bibles after taking office....>

<....Third, Trump’s rule is based on fear, and steadfast loyalty determines access and influence. The latter is a primary qualification for employment, especially if the nominee is an “America First Fighter” or “MAGA warrior” who insists the 2020 election was “rigged.”

At the Pentagon, Trump’s “purge plan” is to institute loyalty tests for generals and within promotion boards. Symbolically, it means red MAGA caps will be uniform headgear. In the military, fostering loyalty to the president rather than the Constitution is a troubling trend that weakens the armed forces and should alarm all Americans.

As usual, Trump is threatening to primary elected leaders who vote against his wishes. He enjoys intimidating the legacy media and denigrating anyone who blocks his agenda on Truth Social and allied media platforms, most notably Elon Musk’s “X,” Steve Bannon’s “War Room,” Tucker Carlson’s and Joe Rogan’s podcasts.

Then, traditionally, on Fox News and Newsmax, Trump surrogates swing into action when someone either needs to be chastised or promoted.

Fourth, Trump believes he was elected in part to “destroy the deep state.” Let’s call this a hostile takeover of government. It means reducing or replacing the permanent bureaucracy of career civil servants who run the day-to-day federal government and provide continuity. Trump firmly believes they are not loyal to him and lax in enforcing his agenda. If Trump’s plan is implemented through “Schedule F,” thousands of senior civil service positions could shift to “loyal” political appointees.

Trump also aims to enlarge the executive branch’s power and “pro-Trump proof” all levels of government to prevent unethical actions from surfacing. Thus, Trump is expected to fire numerous government inspector general watchdogs who independently investigate agency wrongdoing.

Fifth, Trump enters office with a uniquely macho, “fight-fight-fight” presidential attitude of revenge and retribution against anyone perceived as anti-Trump. He could unleash the federal government’s power through the IRS and by denying or offering security clearances, contracts, mergers, communications licenses, etc. — rewarding friends and punishing those not in lockstep.

Ultimately, will Americans care if President Trump bends or tramples the Constitution and rules more like an authoritarian? Maybe not, if his aggressive social and economic policies are “making America great again” with low inflation and interest rates. Will voters applaud Trump’s iron hand if he ends the immigration crisis and is credited with making the world more peaceful?

Expect Trump to govern like no president in American history, breaking whatever can be broken to fulfill his “mandate.” If successful, he will forever change the government, military, the executive branch, the nation and even the world.>

<The glass cabinet in the waiting room is empty, framed photos that used to hang on the wall have been carted away, and, except for the few remaining staffers speaking in low voices and the sound of packing tape fastening cardboard boxes, California Sen. Laphonza Butler's office is quiet.

It's a wonder that there is much to pack at all. Butler only moved into this space on the ground floor of the Hart Senate building - the same office her friend, Vice President Kamala Harris, used to work out of when she was the junior senator from California - 14 months ago.

Fourteen months is a vanishingly short amount of time to spend in a body that moves as glacially as the U.S. Senate, where the average tenure is 11 years, where one current member has worked for more than 4 decades, and where it takes roughly 7 years for a piece of legislation to make it to the president's desk.

"There is a thoughtfulness - some might even call it a slowness - to the to the pace of the Senate," Butler says. "But it does allow for relationships to develop over time, for trust to really take hold, and for common ground to emerge to find complicated solutions to what are really complicated challenges across the country."

Butler says she has been surprised by the collegiality, or as she puts it, how different some members are in person from the characters they play on cable news. It is a wise parting narrative for Butler to adopt, considering that her hopes that any of the bills she introduced this session will advance in the newly-Republican-controlled Senate will rely almost exclusively on their GOP co-sponsors.

The night before we met, Butler presided over the Senate chamber for the last time, and later this week she will deliver a farewell address from the floor in which she will invoke Kendrick Lamar's "historic rap battle" with Drake, inverting Lamar's lyrics in a invitation to abandon partisan resentments: "Because, indeed, ‘they' are exactly like us."

Speaking with her, the thing that is clear is that Butler has undertaken a process that her predecessor, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, never did: She has recognized that it's time to leave.

Feinstein, a legend in her native California, died in office at age 90, so infirm that in her last year she missed dozens of votes and held up the work of the Senate Judiciary Committee at a critical moment when Democrats had control of the chamber and the opportunity to stock the federal bench.

Decisions like hers - like Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's refusal to retire while President Barack Obama was still in office, and President Joe Biden's stubborn insistence on running for another term despite his advanced age - have forced Democrats into their current beleaguered crouch: cast out of the White House, stuck in the minority in the House and Senate, and with a super minority on the Supreme Court that could take decades to break.

In the U.S. House, minority leader Hakeem Jeffries appears to be working to quietly shuffle the oldest members out of leadership positions: 76-year-old Raul Grijalva, 77-year-old Jerry Nadler, and 74-year-old Gerry Connolly are all facing challenges to their leadership positions on key committees. But the party more broadly will, at some point, need to reckon with the age issue that, more than any other, has put them in this position.

Butler, who was appointed to the Senate by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, has some parting thoughts about that. As the former president of EMILY's List, the most powerful political action committee working to elect Democratic women, and the one-time head of SEIU California, the largest union in the largest state in the country, Butler had both the resources and relationships to mount a credible bid for a full term in office. She chose not to run. (Incoming Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff will be sworn in on Monday.)....>

<....It was remembering her decision to leave SEIU, Butler says, that helped clarify the decision in her mind. "I don't believe that power belongs to one person. I truly believe, when you're an organizer in the labor movement, the real power of the union is the workers themselves - not the person who's the president," she says.

"When is it time to go?" she asks. "I think it has to start with: ‘Whose power is it?' Are you running for yourself, or are you serving the power of the people who elected you? Who trusted you. And if at any point in time you were no longer able to exercise fully the power that they - not you, but they - have, it's probably time to have that conversation right with yourself, with your family, with your colleagues."

The way Butler describes herself - "the granddaughter of a sharecropper, who becomes the president of the largest union in the largest state, then the nation's third black woman in the Senate" - it sounds like she still might have a media consultant or two on speed dial in case another political opportunity arises in the future.

But she maintains that, for now, she really does not have any plans. "My life so far has taught me that there's nothing I can't do," she says. "I do want to take a moment to appreciate the gravity of what this moment is and what my life has been, and then figure out how I take all of that and think about what is the next step."

She'll at least have some company as she contemplates: Her friend Kamala Harris, who will also be looking for her next steps. The pair first met when Harris was running her first statewide race for attorney general, and seeking the backing of the SEIU. At EMILY's List, Butler championed Harris and helped put her in a position to consolidate support behind her bid for president when Joe Biden withdrew.

Come January, they'll both be unemployed - although Butler prefers a different term. "I talked to the vice president about the most recent set of transitions that I've made, and she's talked to me about the recent set of transitions that she had been contemplating. We have been really supportive of each other in our moments of transition, and I would expect that that support would continue from this moment forward.">

<Former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney has clapped back at President-elect Donald Trump after he threatened to imprison her and other members on the congressional committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, Capitol riots.

In an interview on NBC’s Meet The Press that aired Sunday morning, Trump claimed that Cheney, along with a “committee of political thugs” deleted all the evidence from their investigation.

“Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps,” the President-elect said, referring to Mississippi Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (the committee’s chairman). “They deleted and destroyed all evidence.”

“Cheney was behind it,” Trump continued. “And so was Bennie Thompson and everybody on that committee. For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail.”

In a statement reported by The New York Times, Cheney responded to Trump’s claims, describing them as an “assault on the rule of law and the foundations of our republic.”

“Here is the truth: Donald Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election and seize power,” Cheney said. “He mobilized an angry mob and sent them to the United States Capitol, where they attacked police officers, invaded the building and halted the official counting of electoral votes. Trump watched on television as police officers were brutally beaten and the Capitol was assaulted, refusing for hours to tell the mob to leave.”

“This was the worst breach of our Constitution by any president in our nation’s history,” she continued. “Donald Trump’s suggestion that members of Congress who later investigated his illegal and unconstitutional actions should be jailed is a continuation of his assault on the rule of law and the foundations of our republic.”

The investigation committee released an 845-page report on their findings and evidence in 2022 along with 140 transcripts of testimonies, emails, and voicemail messages. In a letter last year, Thompson disclosed that the committee did have to ask the executive branch to go through some of the investigation’s material first to protect “law enforcement, sensitive operational details, and private, personal information that, if released, could endanger the safety of witnesses.”

In her statement, Cheney addressed Trump’s questioning of the committee’s ethics writing, “Donald Trump knows his claims about the select committee are ridiculous and false, as has been detailed extensively, including by Chairman Thompson.”

“There is no conceivably appropriate factual or constitutional basis for what Donald Trump is suggesting — a Justice Department investigation of the work of a congressional committee — and any lawyer who attempts to pursue that course would quickly find themselves engaged in sanctionable conduct,” she added.>

<President-elect Donald Trump is sending a clear, and dark, message to his supporters with his renewed vow to pardon the Jan. 6 rioters as soon as he takes office, former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance told MSNBC's Ari Melber on Monday evening.

Specifically, she argued, he is telling his supporters that no matter how many crimes they commit, he will have their back as long as the crime was on his behalf.

Former Republican Bill Kristol opened the discussion.

" J.D. Vance ... is someone who explicitly said he would not have done what [Vice President Mike] Pence did and refuse to challenge the electors," he said. "The speaker of the House was someone, I believe, who [tried] to throw out the electors on January 6th. Kash Patel looks like he will be confirmed, more Republican senators falling in line, as FBI director. He was at the Defense Department, involved in the internal government coup plotting that sort of complemented, preceded really the assault on the Capitol."

"It is unbelievable, from January 7th to even two years ago in a way we would have a presidency basically on the side of those who assaulted the Capitol and who tried to overturn the election four years later," he continued. "It is actually shocking."

"Joyce?" asked Melber, himself an attorney.

"You know, when you listen to these comments and watch these videos, what you are forced to consider is the message that Donald Trump is sending, because it is not just to the January 6th defendants," said Vance. "It is to the people he hopes will support him in this next term, and the message is: support me at all costs, use violence, commit crimes, I will take care of you. I find that to be deeply frightening.">

<As the labor movement braces for a second Trump term, union members and their leaders are celebrating a major victory over a controversial law that stripped public sector unions of collective bargaining rights.

In response to a lawsuit alleging that a notorious law passed by the former Republican governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker in 2011 is unconstitutional, a county judge ruled on Monday that more than 60 sections of the law and several sections of a follow-up law in 2015, Act 55, are unconstitutional.

Walker called the decision “brazen political activism at its worst” and Republicans plan an appeal.

Thousands protested the introduction of the law, which crippled unions’ funding and powers. Following the passage of Act 10, several Republican-dominated states pushed to pass similar legislation, including Florida which passed a similar law in May 2023 targeting public sector unions, and Iowa, which passed legislation that took away collective bargaining rights from many state employees in 2017.

Act 10 stripped collective bargaining rights from thousands of state employees in Wisconsin, limiting their ability to bargain solely on wage increases that cannot exceed inflation. It also forced public sector labor unions to annually vote, with a majority of members participating and voting, to maintain certification.

“We were kind of just demonized, not just teachers, but public sector workers in general,” said John Havlicek, a high school Spanish teacher in La Crosse, Wisconsin and former president of the La Crosse Education Association which represents teachers in the school district. “Teachers don’t go into it for the money but I also have groceries to buy and bills to pay and stuff like that. A lot of public sector workers, in my experience teachers, really felt like we were being scapegoated. It was really bad.”

The act has had a significant impact on union membership, pay and benefits. In 2010 Wisconsin had a union density rate of 15.1%. That number dropped to 8.4% in 2023.

The law also forced public sector workers to pay more for healthcare and retirement benefits, resulting in around an 8.5% decrease in their pay for workers making $50,000 a year.

An April 2024 report by the Wisconsin department of public instruction found teacher pay had declined from 2010 to 2022 by nearly 20% and about four out of every 10 first year teachers either leave the state or the profession after six years.

Public school funding also drastically declined in Wisconsin after Act 10 was enacted. Per pupil spending in Wisconsin out paced [sic] the national average by around $1,100 per student in 2011 and was $327 per pupil lower than the national average in 2021.

A study published in 2018 by Jason Baron, assistant professor in economics at Duke University, blamed a 20% drop in average student state test scores in Wisconsin on the law.

“We saw school districts just tossing out 50 years of labor agreements that had been reached in our contracts,” added Havlicek. “The biggest things that we talked about we can no longer talk about. It’s not salary and benefits, those things were limited by state budgets anyway. It was all the other things like how many classes you can teach, how many kids can be in a classroom, all kinds of stuff that would be considered working conditions.”

He explained he’s “optimistic” about the ruling to overturn the law, but if it withstands appeal it remains uncertain how long it will take to get back what teachers lost with their union contracts and restore the working conditions they had prior to the law.

“A cohesive staff, people that are dedicated, who are willing to make teaching a calling in life, a lifestyle built around being an educator, is achieved by having an experienced veteran staff with low turnover. We’ve lost that, and I don’t know how long it’ll take to get that back,” he said.

Police officers, firefighters and other public safety officers were exempted from the Act 10 legislation....>

<....Ben Gruber worked as a firefighter-paramedic in Wisconsin when the law was enacted, so he was unaffected until 2019 when he became a conservation warden, a job that was covered by Act 10.

“There was a pretty drastic change for me,” he said. “I went from having full collective bargaining rights, the ability to have a say in my working conditions and contract and a grievance procedure to immediately that stuff was gone,” said Gruber, who is currently president of AFSCME Local 1215 and a plaintiff in the lawsuit against Act 10.

Gruber argued the impacts of the law have been drastic on public sector workers in Wisconsin, from stripping workers of their rights to deteriorating working conditions and compensation.

“It’s really impacted our ability to provide the highest quality service that we can to the public as public servants,” he added. “We’re all here to serve the public, and all we ask in return is a voice in our working conditions. I think one of the impacts that’s often overlooked is the cost associated with all of the illegal terminations, discriminatory promotional practices, the lack of accountability for management and the loss of talent and professional experience that we see in increased turnover and hiring, all those hidden costs that don’t get talked about and really are a degradation on our ability to go out and provide that really strong public service.”

Since Act 10 was passed in Wisconsin, employee turnover for state employees soared; retirements increased from 3.3% in 2010 to 6.8% in 2011. Non-retirement separations, resignations and terminations, increased from 2.8% in 2010 to a record high in 2022 at 11.7%, according to a June 2023 report by the Wisconsin Policy Forum.

“Act 10 stripped workers of the freedom and power to have a voice on the job to bargain wages, benefits and working conditions,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. “There are many fights still to come, but this decision stands to make a huge difference for educators, nurses and public service workers and the people they proudly help each and every day.”

Republican proponents of Act 10 have appealed the court decision and are planning to seek a stay of the law pending appeal in a fight to preserve the law, citing budget savings from the law that have come from shifting benefit compensation for retirement pensions and health insurance onto employees.

Walker, who lost re-election in 2018, criticized the decision and claimed collective bargaining “is not a right. It is an expensive entitlement.”>

<For years, the Republican Party — and ultra-wealthy businessmen in general — have warned about "unelected bureaucrats" and the danger they pose to accountable government. But when they are handed unified control of Washington, they immediately bring in their own to control everything, wrote Ryan Teague Beckwith for MSNBC.

The principal way they are already doing this, he wrote, is the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative, in which two pro-Trump billionaires, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, are heading up an unofficial task force, outside the government itself, to essentially make recommendations from on high about which federal programs and services should be cut.

All their complaints about "unelected decision-makers working without authorization from Congress and the Constitution" don't matter, he said, because "as it turns out, these critics don’t really mind any of those things, as long as they’re the ones in charge."

Nor are Musk and Ramaswamy alone, Beckwith noted — another billionaire, Marc Andreessen, is now helping Trump strategize on massive government changes, despite his recent complaints on Joe Rogan's podcast about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an independent agency that has returned billions of dollars to taxpayers from corporate misconduct, as "an independent agency that just gets to run and do whatever it wants."

Funnily enough, Beckwith wrote, all the agencies these billionaire GOP allies are complaining about were "created to regulate some of the largest and most powerful companies in the United States and keep the economy from crashing."

Whereas DOGE "is an independent advisory panel that Musk gets to personally control, with no limits on its purview, which is not directly authorized under the Constitution or even by Congress" — ostensibly what these billionaires claim to hate, but seemingly not so much when it's run by one of their own.

And Musk's grand promises to cut $2 trillion in spending are effectively impossible unless he persuades Trump to break his longstanding promises and make cuts to Social Security and Medicare — which there is no clear mandate for any elected official to do.

"Nothing in the Constitution bars Trump from asking for advice from a commission, even if the people staffing it seem ill-equipped for the task," concluded Beckwith.

"But by the same token, there was never anything wrong with federal workers writing regulations based on laws passed by Congress, or with the president and Congress working together to create an agency that’s free from day-to-day political meddling, or with judges and other unelected officials making decisions. ... If you only object to the rules when you aren’t in power, then you aren’t really objecting to the rules at all; you’re objecting to not being in power.">

<Rep. Susan Wild (Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Ethics Committee, was absent from the panel’s meeting last week after being traced as the source of leaks to the press regarding the investigation into former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), sources told The Hill.

It remains unclear if Wild voluntarily skipped the Thursday gathering or was asked not to attend, what information she leaked and to whom, and how the panel tracked her back as being the leaker. Two sources said Wild ultimately acknowledged to the panel that she had leaked information.

Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) served as acting ranking member during Thursday’s meeting, according to a source, who noted that any time a member of the panel is absent, there is an acting ranking member in their place.

It also remains unclear if the Pennsylvania Democrat, who is leaving Congress at the end of the year, will be present at Ethics Committee meetings in the future. Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.), the chairman of the panel, told reporters that Thursday’s meeting was not the last for the group.

In a statement to The Hill, Wild’s chief of staff, Jed Ober, said the congresswoman skipped last week’s meeting because she was “frustrated” with how the Gaetz report had been handled, and said characterizing her absence as anything more was “inaccurate.”

“Rep. Wild was frustrated by the manner in which the report was handled and didn’t feel it was fruitful to participate in any further meetings on its ‘potential’ release. Characterizing it as anything more is inaccurate. There will be no further statement,” Ober said.

Wild’s office declined to comment when asked if the congresswoman would attend future Ethics Committee meetings pertaining to the Gaetz report. A spokesperson for the Ethics Committee declined to comment.

Wild was noticeably missing from last week’s Ethics Committee gathering, being the only member of the panel who did not enter then exit the committee room, which was swarmed with reporters. Punchbowl News later reported that she would not attend.

The panel met to discuss its investigation into Gaetz, which has become the subject of controversy after the Florida Republican was nominated by President-elect Trump to serve as his attorney general, resigned from the House, withdrew his name from consideration for the Cabinet, and then said he would not take the oath of office in the next Congress. Whether or not to release the report has become a heated debate on Capitol Hill.

The group broke from its Thursday meeting without publishing the report. In a statement afterwards, the panel said it is “continuing to discuss the matter.”

The Ethics Committee — which is known for conducting business in secrecy — had been investigating Gaetz for roughly three-and-a-half years, probing allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. The investigation, however, came to an abrupt end after Gaetz resigned from the House, since the panel does not have jurisdiction over former members of Congress.

Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing.

Various pieces of information about the years-long probe into Gaetz have leaked in recent months, including logistics about meetings, votes taken during those gatherings, and the panel’s plan to vote on releasing the report days after he announced his resignation.

Any leaks from members and staff are a violation of the committee’s rules: Individuals on the panel take an oath swearing they will not disclose unauthorized information.

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will not disclose, to any person or entity outside the Committee on Ethics, any information received in the course of my service with the Committee, except as authorized by the Committee or in accordance with its rules,” the oath reads, according to the panel’s rules.

Wild — who has been the top Democrat on the Ethics Committee since 2022 — is not returning to Congress next year after losing her re-election bid to Republican Ryan Mackenzie.

The congresswoman’s frustration with the committee was apparent following a meeting regarding the Gaetz report last month. Guest exited the huddle saying “there is not agreement by the committee to release the report,” which Wild later characterized in remarks to the press as “inaccurate.”

She accused Guest of having “betrayed the process by disclosing our deliberations within moments after walking out of the committee,” which was her reason for commenting to the press.>

<FOX News host Pete Hegseth's nomination to become Trump's secretary of defense is facing growing opposition, with reports highlighting serious allegations of sexual assault and excessive drinking. While these alarming accusations may in themselves be disqualifying, they are also far from the only reason for senators to reject Hegseth's confirmation.

Hegseth's deep ideological commitment to extremist Christian nationalism, if put in a position of great power and authority, would pose a serious threat to the right to religious freedom enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

Hegseth's well-established Christian nationalist views, by embracing the idea of America as a Christian nation with a geo-political mandate to advance a narrow religious agenda across the world, are directly opposed to the principles of religious liberty that have made the United States a model for diverse, multi-faith democracy. He has publicly praised the Crusades in his book "American Crusade"as a necessary effort to "push Islamism back" both culturally and militarily—alarmingly describing our current era as "much like the 11th century."

Hegseth's book and views perpetuate fear and division with inflammatory and discriminatory rhetoric. He argues that Islam is inherently violent and that the rise of Muslim communities in America represents an existential threat to the country. His harsh stance on immigration and refugees echoes the same xenophobic rhetoric that has fueled fear and division across the globe. By framing Muslims as enemies and refugees as invaders, Hegseth seeks to further divide Americans along lines of religious belief—and gleefully embraces the idea of destructive religious conflict.

His embrace of this harsh, polarized worldview in his two Crusader tattoos: a Jerusalem Cross, symbolizing the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, and "Deus Vult," the Latin phrase meaning "God wills it," which was used as a rallying cry for the Crusaders' brutal campaigns.

Hegseth has advocated for parents to take their children out of government-funded schools and instead pursue homeschooling, classical education, or Christian schools as part of a broader vision of a Christian society where such extreme views are taught and normalized. This vision reflects the influence of Reformed Reconstructionism, a theology that advocates for a Christian theocracy, where secular government is subservient to biblical law.

Hegseth's record on diversity within the military, an area that he would have direct influence over as secretary of defense, shows how his views could dangerously impact his actions and policies. He has criticized efforts to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion, including military initiatives that promote religious accommodation, and has argued that women should not serve in frontline military combat jobs. By advocating for a military that restricts opportunities based on religion or gender, Hegseth seeks to effectively treat millions of Americans as second-class citizens, forbidden from serving their country in the armed forces.

Currently, roughly 70 percent of active-duty personnel identify as Christian, with substantial numbers of atheists, agnostics, Jews, Muslims, and affiliates of Eastern religions in the ranks. Yet even among Christians, Hegseth's extreme views are unusual and unpopular. Most people of faith in this country, including Christians, do not want to see the government dictate religious belief and restrict fundamental rights on the basis of religion.

The U.S. military's mission is to keep our country safe and to uphold our constitution—not to advance an extreme agenda that would make our institutions and citizens subservient to a religious agenda. Hegseth's views indicate that far from faithfully serving constitutional democracy and acting in the best interests of our armed forces, he could seek to warp the military to suit his own goals and beliefs. His vision for the military and our government is rooted in a dangerous fusion of faith and force, making him a threat to the freedoms and safety of all Americans, no matter their faiths or beliefs.

As senators consider his nomination, they must recognize that a man who champions religious warfare and sees the diversity of our military as a weakness instead of a strength is not fit to lead the Pentagon. The United States is built on the idea that all people, regardless of their faith, should be free to worship as they choose, and to live equally together without fear of coercion by their government. Hegseth seems to reject that idea – and so he cannot be trusted to protect and fight for it.>

This a problem, <angryfred>? Too bad, <mawdicker>.

<Donald Trump's newly built department that aims to slash federal funding is set for implosion as the president-elect throws together a pair of 'ticking time bombs," a reporter predicted Tuesday.

With Elon Musk and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) working side-by-side, the Department of Government Efficiency will devolve into "crazy town," said The New Republic's Greg Sargent in his Wednesday New Republic "Daily Blast" rundown.

The new government agency, headed by Tesla CEO Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, is tasked with sifting through the entire federal government to find drastic cuts. On the congressional side, a matching committee is being set up to work with the executive branch on the cuts.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has named Greene to head the congressional side.

"What could give MAGA a bigger thrill than that high-wattage duo?" asked Greg Sargent in his Wednesday New Republic "Daily Blast" rundown.

Last month, Greene was ridiculed for being named to the position despite having a sporadic congressional attendance.

"This is good, actually," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) wrote on X. "She barely shows up and doesn’t do the reading. To borrow a phrase I saw elsewhere, 'It’s like giving someone an unplugged controller.'"

A Politico report said some Republicans quietly fear that "Greene’s involvement could become a major distraction for the Trump-GOP agenda," said Sargent. He noted that "distraction" in Washington speak means "disaster."

Sargent then interviewed tech writer Gil Duran, who has been a "close observer of Musk’s machinations."

Duran said he thinks Musk intends to use the opportunity to "gain attention. On a daily basis, Elon Musk has to be the center of attention at all times."

The goal is to cut one-third of the federal budget, which is approximately $2 trillion. Duran said doing so means making sweeping changes to programs people need and want. When many Americans begin to feel the effects of the cuts, it will become a political problem for those in the House and Senate.

"I think he sees government as a butterfly he can pull the wings off," said Duran. "I think he'll find it's a lot more complicated and dangerous than that."

As for Greene, Duran called her a "ticking time bomb," which is a problem because Musk, he said, is the same.

"I think the first thing that tells me about DOGE is that it's going to be crazy town," Duran continued. "Greene has no filter and no standards, and Musk and Trump are trying to make this as outrageous as possible with little concern for public opinions. So Marjorie Taylor Greene being included is like throwing gasoline on a fire.">

<"Voting" by way of editors is laughable.

Generally, those who are active serve as a group of thugs to harass members and change the rules to suit themselves. One cries out, and the rest come to cast stones. Those editors who are less active tend to have far more class and much less hypocrisy, not wishing to soil their hands routinely violating guideline #3 and #5 amongst the gang.

Voting should be open to paying members, closed to non-paying members and editors. How does that sound? Otherwise, zanzibar would vote countless times under untold number of disguises.

The usefulness of the Biographer's Bistro to this website is way, way overrated, and corruption looms. General interest in unfound information prior to World War I is not high (nowhere near as high as politics, which should have no place whatsoever), but that research angle gets played royally leading into other abuses, such as entertaining the manipulations of a certain non-member who fanciez being the boss-all.

There are plenty of paying members who know more about the current chess community and better suited to voting than those interested in the biography niche.

Just tellin' it like it is.>

You have nichevo (nothing) to contribute, <mawdicker>, so get off your high horse and stop pretending to care what becomes of this site.

<Impeccable timing, upgrading during the 2024 World Chess Championship, when some of the old faces return, and leave again. We're supposed to think, plan ahead in chess, look our best during the big event.

In the time being, perv is forced to watch youtube to borrow their analysis, said as much himself. That's twice the work for perv, very trying for a slacker. Of course, being a contemporary bear, FTB just uses SF on my smart watch. It's handy.>

<FBI Director Christopher Wray told employees at an internal town hall on Wednesday that he is resigning, according to sources familiar with the meeting.

He said he is stepping down at the end of the current Biden administration.

"After weeks of careful thought, I've decided the right thing for the Bureau is for me to serve until the end of the current administration in January and then step down. My goal is to keep the focus on our mission -- the indispensable work you're doing on behalf of the American people every day. In my view, this is the best way to avoid dragging the Bureau deeper into the fray, while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important to how we do our work," he said in his remarks.

"It should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway -- this is not easy for me. I love this place, I love our mission, and I love our people -- but my focus is, and always has been, on us and doing what's right for the FBI," he said.

"When you look at where the threats are headed, it's clear that the importance of our work --  keeping Americans safe and upholding the Constitution -- will not change. And what absolutely cannot, must not change is our commitment to doing the right thing, the right way, every time. Our adherence to our core values, our dedication to independence and objectivity, and our defense of the rule of law -- those fundamental aspects of who we are must never change," he said.

"That's the real strength of the FBI -- the importance of our mission, the quality of our people, and their dedication to service over self. It's an unshakeable foundation that's stood the test of time, and cannot be easily moved. And it -- you, the men and women of the FBI -- are why the bureau will endure and remain successful long into the future," Wray continued.

President-elect Donald Trump has picked Kash Patel to replace Wray at the FBI, pending Senate confirmation.

Trump reacted to the news shortly after in a statement railing against Wray and praising Patel, who was on Capitol Hill Wednesday to shore up support among Republican senators.

"The resignation of Christopher Wray is a great day for America as it will end the Weaponization of what has become known as the United States Department of Injustice," Trump wrote on his social media platform. "I just don't know what happened to him. We will now restore the Rule of Law for all Americans."

Trump specifically took aim at the Justice Department's investigations against him by special counsel Jack Smith.

"Under the leadership of Christopher Wray, the FBI illegally raided my home, without cause, worked diligently on illegally impeaching and indicting me, and has done everything else to interfere with the success and future of America," Trump wrote. "They have used their vast powers to threaten and destroy many innocent Americans, some of which will never be able to recover from what has been done to them."

Patel told ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Mary Bruce just after Wray's announcement he'll be ready on "Day 1."

"We look forward to a very smooth transition and I'll be ready to go on day one," he said.

Patel declined to answer any additional questions about retribution, his message to Trump or whether he's spoken to the president-elect.

Wray, who was appointed by then-President Trump to a 10-year term and confirmed in August 2017, oversaw the agency in a "heightened threat environment" and number of high-profile cases, including the investigation of the man who appointed him.

Congress changed the FBI director's tenure to 10 years to years to address concerns about political interference.

As FBI director, Wray oversaw the investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, hundreds of Chinese espionage cases, the probes into Trump's and President Joe Biden's handling of classified documents as well as thousands more criminal investigations.

Wray was nominated by Trump after Trump fired his predecessor, James Comey.

Republican critics have accused Wray's FBI of political interference, a lack of transparency and a lack of responsiveness to Congress.

Iowa GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley, the incoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Wray on Dec. 9, expressing a "vote of no confidence" in Wray and his deputy director.

"For the good of the country, it's time for you and your deputy to move on to the next chapter of your life," Grassley wrote.

Grassley quickly responded to Wray's resignation announcement.

<The United States' federal government is once again facing the possibility of a shutdown. And House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), hoping to avoid one, is, according to NOTUS reporter Reese Gorman, planning to introduce "a three-month spending bill on the House floor next week."

But other House Republicans, Gorman reports, are questioning Johnson's "three-month approach."

One of them is Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas), who asked, "Why not do it ‘til the end of the year?"

Donald Trump ally Nehls, according to Gorman, wants the federal government funded longer than three months — as he doesn't want the president-elect to be distracted from his goals after his second presidency gets underway.

A nine-month funding bill, Nehls said, "gives Donald Trump an opportunity to then focus on the border, focus on all these issues, and then get appropriation bills for the following year."

Similarly, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tennessee) told NOTUS, "I don't want to tie Trump's hands in the first 100 days, so that'll weigh greatly on my thought process."

Gorman explains, "It isn't difficult to find Republicans questioning the wisdom of, once again, delaying a final spending deal. Many lawmakers are dubious of setting up a deadline during the first weeks of Trump's presidency. Republicans told NOTUS it would distract the new president from enacting other parts of his agenda, and that Trump and the new Congress likely wouldn't get a more conservative spending deal just because there was a new president."

The NOTUS reporter points out that when a new Congress is seated in January, Johnson "will have to be reaffirmed as speaker."

"The last time he faced a vote on his speakership, Johnson survived because the vast majority of Democrats voted with Republicans to table a motion to vacate," Gorman notes. "Eleven Republicans voted to remove Johnson — more than enough if Democrats hadn't saved the speaker. This time, Johnson is unlikely to get Democratic help. And that has left him doing everything he can to quell an uprising."

A GOP lawmaker, interviewed on condition of anonymity, believes that a three-month spending bill would only benefit Johnson — and no one else.

The House Republican told NOTUS, "It's very clear this is to protect the speaker, to keep his seat, because of a promise he made to never pass an end-of-the-year package. That’s all and that's it.”>

<The North Carolina House voted on Wednesday to override Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto on a GOP-backed bill that will strip power from the newly-elected Democratic Gov. Josh Stein and Attorney General Jeff Jackson. The vote total was 72-46.

In the waning days of its veto-proof supermajority last month, the Republican-controlled legislature passed a sweeping bill known as SB 382. The legislation allocates some funds to hurricane relief, but more notably explicitly limits the authority of Stein and Jackson. The bill also radically transforms the way that elections are run throughout the entire state, which will make it more difficult for election officials to carry out their responsibilities for upcoming elections.

“This is a most unfortunate vote,” Democratic State Rep. Pricey Harrison told TPM, after voting against the measure. “The Governor’s veto was spot on; the bill did not provide hurricane relief to an area that needs support now. The bill does contain a number of problematic provisions grabbing power from newly elected Democrats that will likely be found to be unconstitutional once the bill is challenged in court.”

Stein described the fast tracked bill as proof that “Republicans in the General Assembly are grabbing power and exacting political retribution.”

“This legislation was titled disaster relief but instead violates the constitution by taking appointments from the next Governor for the Board of Elections, Utilities Commission and Commander of the NC Highway Patrol, letting political parties choose appellate judges and interfering with the Attorney General’s ability to advocate for lower electric bills for consumers,” Cooper similarly said in a statement this month, shortly after he vetoed the bill.

National Democrats condemned the move as well. “The North Carolina Republican Party is desperately trying to cling to power after North Carolinians soundly rejected state Republicans at the ballot box this November, ” DNC Chair Jaime Harrison, said in a statement shared with TPM. “Rather than respect the will of voters, state Republicans have put up bogus legislation that cloaks their attempt to overturn democracy and undermines essential hurricane relief.”

The bill contains a number of provisions, but most notably, it gives the newly-elected Republican state auditor Dave Boliek, authority over the five-member state election board. This is a responsibility that is typically given to the governor. There is no other state auditor in the country who holds this power.

The bill also does not allow the attorney general to take positions that are contrary to the general assembly.

In terms of restructuring the way elections are run, the legislation compresses the timeframe for the counting of provisional ballots into a three-day time period, instead of a ten-day window. It also compresses how long voters have to cure ballots, as well as the timeframe administrators have to count absentee ballots.

“State Board staff were not consulted about this significant piece of legislation that transfers authority of the State Board of Elections and makes substantial administrative changes that may make it impossible for the county boards of elections to adequately ensure every eligible ballot cast is counted, especially in high turnout elections,” Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the State Board of Elections previously said in a statement on the legislation.

Senate Republicans voted to override Cooper’s veto earlier this month in a 30-19 vote.>

<I don’t know about you, but I don’t find killing people — for any reason — laudable, or funny, or cute, or hot. And online these days, that can feel like an isolating worldview.

Which is to say, I’ve been pretty disgusted over the past week, watching many Americans engage in one of the nation’s most disturbing pastimes: the valorization of deadly white vigilantes.

Of course, I’m talking about the overjoyed — at times, even lustful — reactions to Luigi Mangione, the man arrested in last week’s fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, and Daniel Penny, the man acquitted by a New York City jury after the chokehold death of a Black subway passenger last year.

The circumstances of the killings are quite different, to be sure. But the praise for Penny and Mangione has looked alike.

Both men have been on the receiving end of hero worship that, in the U.S., frequently seems intent on shrouding white men’s violent acts with adoration or mythological valor — even if it’s a stone-cold murderer.

Penny has become a folk hero among conservatives, who have framed him as a defender of public safety from the beginning. Immediately after his arrest, when little was known about him other than that he’d been filmed choking Jordan Neely, a homeless subway rider with a history of mental illness, right-wingers donated millions of dollars for his legal defense. And after his acquittal, Republicans have basically been falling over one another in their race to lionize him.

Mangione has achieved meme status in his own right and has been portrayed by some — including on the left — as someone who allegedly turned to homicide as a means of holding the exploitive health care industry accountable. (A defense attorney said Wednesday that Mangione is expected to plead not guilty in New York.)

I must say, it’s been startling to witness the raft of liberals praising someone accused of a brazen killing. To hear them tell it, Americans — in the same country where voters broadly supported hoisting Donald Trump and his billionaire cronies into power — are fed up with rich elites, and the person who shot this CEO is a byproduct of that moral rage.

Color me skeptical.

One reason? To state the seemingly obvious: When Black and Latino people kill, there doesn’t tend to be an obsession over why. And we certainly don’t tend to see a groundswell of sympathy — or worse, celebration. Yet, in the U.S., softened depictions — and at times, outright praise — of white killers have become common. (See: Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and serial killer Ted Bundy, just to name a few.)

Yet, in the U.S., softened depictions — and at times, outright praise — of white killers have become common.

This has all had me thinking about a piece that filmmaker Terence Nance wrote a few years ago on the tired trope of the “angelic” white savior in movies and television — and I think his critique is worth considering as we witness this latest hero worship.

“The trope is a bedtime story designed to rock the white masses to sleep with a smile on their faces and peace in their hearts, knowing that someone who looked like them, at the end of the day, did the right thing, and they too … are doing the right thing,” Nance wrote. “It is an aspirational fiction that somehow does not self-perpetuate. White angel movies do not model angelic behavior for the white masses; if they do, this modeling has yet to produce more real-life white angels or at least a critical mass of them (unless Bill Gates decided to start his foundation after seeing Blood Diamond).”>

<Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is expected to keep his gavel in the next Congress after receiving glowing reviews from President-elect Trump.

But if there is any kind of revolt from Johnson’s conservative detractors during the Jan. 3 Speaker vote, no Democrats will step in to save him, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) warned on Wednesday.

“I can say with a relatively high degree of confidence that no Democratic votes will be forthcoming for any Republican Speaker candidate on Jan. 3,” Jeffries told reporters in the Capitol.

Johnson has built a track record as one of the most conservative lawmakers in the lower chamber over his eight years on Capitol Hill. But a number of conservative hard-liners have bashed the Speaker after he cut deals with Democrats on legislation to fund the government and provide military aid to Ukraine.

In May, Johnson survived an effort by members of his far-right flank to boot him from power, but given the thin margins in the House, the vote required Democrats to cross the aisle to rescue him. They did so in overwhelming numbers: The tally was 359 to 43, with only 10 Republicans and 33 Democrats voting to oust him.

That strategy marked a shift from the Democratic tactics during the hard-liners’ successful effort to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in October last year. In that vote, no Democrats crossed the aisle to rescue McCarthy, allowing a group of just eight Republicans to push him out.

Johnson will need 218 votes to keep his gavel for the next two years in the upcoming Speaker election. He will have little room for defections, given the even thinner margins he’d preside over next year, when Republicans will control 220 seats to the Democrats’ 215.

The Republican advantage will be even smaller during the first months of 2025, since former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) resigned from Congress this month in a failed bid to become Trump’s attorney general. That means Johnson can afford only one GOP defection to keep his seat of power.

“In terms of my own nomination,” Jeffries quipped Wednesday, “I’m just trying hard to get to 215.">

<Albertsons said Wednesday that it is terminating its $25 billion merger agreement with Kroger and suing its rival, ending a controversial bid to combine two of the largest grocery companies in the U.S.

The decision to spike the deal follows a federal court order Tuesday that stopped it from moving forward. The judge in the case found that the Federal Trade Commission was likely to prevail in its argument that the merger violates antitrust law.

Albertsons and Kroger faced a separate legal setback in Washington state court on Tuesday as well, indicating just how difficult a time they would have getting the deal through and putting roughly 4,000 grocery stores under one company.

Albertsons CEO Vivek Sankaran said in a statement that the company made the “difficult decision” to kill the agreement after the courts issued injunctions.

“We are deeply disappointed in the courts’ decisions,” Sankaran said.

Albertsons said Kroger had “repeatedly ignored regulators’ concerns” that the deal would stifle competition, and failed to take steps that could have helped it achieve regulatory approval.

“Kroger willfully breached the Merger Agreement in several key ways, including by repeatedly refusing to divest assets necessary for antitrust approval, ignoring regulators’ feedback, rejecting stronger divestiture buyers and failing to cooperate with Albertsons,” the company said in a statement.

Kroger said it was disappointed by the judges’ decisions issued Tuesday and maintained that the merger would benefit consumers and employees. A spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment on Albertsons’ lawsuit against Kroger, which was filed in Delaware.

The FTC and several state attorney generals claimed that the merger would reduce competition in hundreds of local markets around the country, leading to higher prices for shoppers and lower pay for grocery store workers. They had the backing of several consumer groups and labor unions in their effort to quash the deal on the grounds it was anti-competitive.

Albertsons’ decision to abandon the deal amounts to a major win for the FTC and its progressive chair, Lina Khan, who was appointed by President Joe Biden. The agency maintained that allowing the deal to go through would have pushed grocery prices up even higher after a period of elevated inflation.

Kroger and Albertsons own dozens of major store brands between them, including Fred Meyer and Ralphs (Kroger), and Safeway and Jewel-Osco (Albertsons). They also employ some 700,000 workers, many of them represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers union.

The union’s president, Marc Perrone, said it was glad to see the court decisions undermine the deal.

“These grocery chains are highly successful because of the hard work of our members and workers across the country, and no merger or divestiture of stores should be allowed to endanger or threaten their vital role,” he said in a statement.>