Don’t Blame Libs or Progs for Driving Silicon Valley to the Right

Posted on by Josh Marshall

There’s currently a debate online about whether social media owners were always secretly or latently right wing or whether “progressives” took a business constituency that was a reliably friendly and financially generous ally and turned it into an enemy through relentless attacks. Needless to say, there are a lot of jangling threads to this story, details that are hard to wrestle into an overarching theory. There are Silicon Valley titans like Peter Thiel who have always been not simply right-wingers but advocates of weird, tech-infused neo-monarchism. There have also been various left-aligned campaigns that must have rankled various tech titans. And finally, it’s very important to remember that it’s not at all clear that Silicon Valley as a whole is moving right. Management is. But the real and big story is simpler and more structural. The major technology platforms became mature businesses at vast scales; in so doing they butted up against the regulatory purview of the national government; and with the former leading to the latter they shifted toward a more conventionally anti-regulatory politics. A lot of it is really that simple.

There’s an important additional, related point which is that on becoming mature businesses they began looking toward the federal government more and more to protect their business positions from new entrants or other threats.

Continue reading “Don’t Blame Libs or Progs for Driving Silicon Valley to the Right” →

Aileen Cannon Tries To Run Out The Clock On Jack Smith’s Report

Posted on by David Kurtz

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

The Saga Of The Jack Smith Report

The legal turmoil over the public release of Volume I of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report continued over the weekend, with U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon again weighing in despite lacking any jurisdiction over the Mar-a-Lago case, because it’s currently on appeal, or the Jan. 6 case in DC, over which she never had jurisdiction.

I’m not going to rehash the confusing series of filings and rulings here, but instead refer you to these good rundowns:

  • Steve Vladeck: “And just to say the quiet part out loud, the urgency here stems from the unspoken but universally held understanding that, if the January 6 volume hasn’t been publicly released by January 20, it won’t be.”
  • Joyce Vance: “Delay is ever Trump’s friend in legal proceedings, and the clock is ticking. A delay invoked by Judge Cannon and unchecked by the Eleventh Circuit, or one that happens at the Supreme Court if Trump’s allies appeal there, could, as a practical matter, end the possibility of release of the report.”
  • Chris Geidner: “The question now is what Garland; the Eleventh Circuit; and, if necessary, the Supreme Court or, if it comes to it, President Biden do about it.”

Jack Smith Leaves Justice Department

After the fanfare of his appointment and then leading the two biggest criminal investigations of Donald Trump, Special Counsel Jack Smith’s departure from the Justice Department wasn’t announced but rather tucked into a footnote in a court filing Saturday: “The Special Counsel completed his work and submitted his final confidential report on
January 7, 2025, and separated from the Department on January 10.”

Trump Sentenced For His Sole Criminal Conviction

ICYMI: TPM’s Josh Kovensky’s report from inside the courtroom during the sentencing of President-elect Donald Trump in the porn star hush money case.

Rudy G Held In Contempt For Second Time In A Week

CNN: Federal judge slams Rudy Giuliani as ‘outrageous and shameful’ as she holds him in contempt in 2020 election defamation case

Death Toll Rises To 24 In Los Angeles Fires

A search team searches for body remains at a home destroyed by the Eaton Fire in Altadena, Calif., Saturday, Jan. 11, 2025. (Photo by Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

The toll from last week’s Los Angeles conflagrations rose to 24 as authorities continued to search Pacific Palisades and Altadena for remains. Extreme fire weather was forecast to return to the area this week.

GOP Ghouls Seize On LA Fires To Raise Debt Ceiling

Politico: “A group of House Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump talked about tying wildfire aid to a debt ceiling increase Sunday night, as the fires spreading across huge swaths of Los Angeles are estimated to become one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history.”

A Sobering Read

Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Joseph Wright, and Erica Frantz, the authors of the new book The Origins of Elected Strongmen, writing in Politico:

We’ve studied democratic erosion in countries around the world, and our research has found that the most important bulwark against an elected leader undermining democracy doesn’t come from opposition parties or pro-democracy activists. It comes from the ruling party — and particularly the powerful elites in that party — and their efforts to constrain their own leader.

The danger to democracy is particularly acute in political systems led by parties where leaders wield disproportionate influence relative to the political parties that back them — as is now the case in the Republican Party. Our data on all democratically elected leaders around the globe in the 30 years since the end of the Cold War show that where leaders dominate the parties they lead, the chances of democratic backsliding increase, whether it’s through gradual democratic decay or a rapid collapse

A Profile In Some Courage

One Republican state Supreme Court judge stands up to his partisan North Carolina colleagues.

IMPORTANT

Michael Hirsh: “According to nearly a dozen retired officers and current military lawyers, as well as scholars who teach at West Point and Annapolis, an intense if quiet debate is underway inside the U.S. military community about what orders it would be obliged to obey if President-elect Donald Trump decides to follow through on his previous warnings that he might deploy troops against what he deems domestic threats, including political enemies, dissenters and immigrants.”

And So It Begins …

AP: “Incoming senior Trump administration officials have begun questioning career civil servants who work on the White House National Security Council about who they voted for in the 2024 election, their political contributions and whether they have made social media posts that could be considered incriminating by President-elect Donald Trump’s team, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.”

Good Read

Thomas Zimmer:

I fear that, after so many years of Trumpism shaping American politics and culture, a lot of people have become so inundated with Trump’s bizarre stunts, so accustomed to his outrageous rhetoric, that they might be numb to how dangerous this is – and how much this isn’t just “Trump being Trump,” but the face of a radicalizing Right in charge of the Republican Party. There is, unfortunately, no law of nature that says democracy can’t be brought down and wars can’t be started by a bunch of clowns if they have enough support from people, parties, and institutions who enable them. It’s all just a farce – until the goons and buffoons are in power. And that’s where we are.

The Trump II Clown Show

  • WSJ: In Reversal, Tulsi Gabbard Backs Spying Power in Bid to Win Senate Support
  • The Schedule: Whose Confirmation Hearings Are On Tap This Week
  • WSJ: Hegseth Preps for Contentious Confirmation Hearing With Republican Help

Manafort Is Still Manaforting

NYT: “Four years after receiving a pardon from President Donald J. Trump for crimes related to foreign lobbying, Paul Manafort is again seeking business from political interests abroad.”

Elon Musk Watch

  • NYT: Inside Elon Musk’s Plan for DOGE to Slash Government Costs
  • WaPo: DOGE is dispatching agents across U.S. government
  • Wired: Elon Musk’s Quest for Domination Has Gone Global
  • NYT: Elon Musk Hijacks U.K. Politics in Favor of the Far Right

Mark Zuckerberg Is On Quite A Roll

  • Bloomberg: Zuckerberg Says Most Companies Need More ‘Masculine Energy’
  • CNBC: Meta announces end of DEI programs
  • Semafor: Trump, Zuckerberg meet at Mar-a-Lago
  • 404 Media: ‘It’s Total Chaos Internally at Meta Right Now’: Employees Protest Zuckerberg’s Anti LGBTQ Changes
  • NYT: Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s Sprint to Remake Meta for the Trump Era

Satire Is On Life Support



[image or embed]

— The Onion (@theonion.com) January 11, 2025 at 1:05 PM

Biden DOJ Tries To Make Small Amends For Tulsa Massacre

Part of Greenwood District burned in Race Riots, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, June 1921. (Photo by: Universal HIstory Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

WSJ:

In the weeks after the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, in which white mobs burned the Oklahoma city’s vibrant Black neighborhood to the ground, a federal agent quickly concluded that the attack that left as many as 300 people dead wasn’t motivated by “racial feeling,” and its perpetrators hadn’t broken any laws.

More than a century later, the Justice Department has sought to correct that flawed record, writing in a report made public this week that the rampage wasn’t the result of spontaneous mob violence but rather a coordinated, military-style effort to ruin what was then one of the wealthiest Black communities in the U.S.

You can read the new DOJ report here.

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It Won’t Age Well

Posted on by Josh Marshall

Having watched Mark Zuckerberg’s week-long rollout of the new MAGAfied Facebook/Meta, let me put my chips down on none of this aging well for his company. It’s simply too clumsy and over-the-top and it places too many bets on a lame-duck President who will be governing a still sharply divided country. As much as anything else, these moves highlight Meta’s tech and global regulatory vulnerabilities — not so much vis a vis the U.S. government or even the European Union as other tech giants. These things take a long time to play out. The U.S. government and the executive branch that Trump will soon control can absolutely do a lot of favors for Zuckerberg and Meta. And Zuckerberg has been pretty transparent about what he hopes those favors are. But overall it just tells a very weak and defensive brand story as you see this playing out over the years to come.

What’s So Special?

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

Hello, it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️

At one point during Trump’s sentencing hearing on Friday, Judge Juan Merchan remarked that while the circumstances of the case were unique, there was nothing really that unusual about the trial itself.

“The trial was a bit of a paradox,” Merchan said. “Because once the courtroom doors were closed, the trial was no more special, unique, or extraordinary than any of the other 32 criminal trials that took place in this courthouse at the same time.”

It’s true. The core charge brought against Trump — falsification of business records — was nothing unusual. I sat through the entire trial in the spring, and attended sentencing on Friday. The form of the trial itself was typical — as drab and impersonal in its environs and the manner in which it proceeded as any other legal proceeding. What made it fascinating was the collision with Trump’s ego, and his multi-year attempt to ram his way through the criminal justice system in the hopes that he could make it to the other side intact.

I don’t want to be too precious about the rule of law issues here. We all know who Trump is; we also all know the extensive flaws that have undermined faith in the rule of law and justice institutions over the past several years and decades. Though the trial showcased the ways in which Trump presents a unique threat to the rule of law, it’s still hard for me to contemplate the damage he has done without almost reflexively thinking of all of the police killings that led to Black Lives Matter protests, or the failure of the Obama administration to try to hold any Wall Street executive criminally accountable after the financial crisis. It’s hard to imagine an American billionaire seriously being threatened by a prosecution at this point. Now, I recognize that these are all different problems stemming from different causes. But they each contribute to the impression of a justice system that seems to have one standard for elites, and another for everyone else. Trump may be a convicted felon, but he will face no punishment. In ten days, he’ll be President. 

At the same time, going to Trump’s trial each day brought that disparity — and the “paradox” Merchan highlighted — into focus: the courthouse was dingy, with barely functional climate control. It’s a far cry from the luxury in which Trump has spent his entire life, and the sheer power that he’s about to assume. The process was imposed on him as much as any consequence of the result. But that is, as Merchan said, part of what made the trial so “extraordinary.”

— Josh Kovensky

Here’s what else TPM has on tap this weekend:

  • Hunter Walker looks ahead to Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing and whether he can still be confirmed despite his flaming pile of scandals.
  • Kate Riga reports on Friday’s Supreme Court oral arguments on a law involving TikTok’s future operations in the U.S. and the way in which the arguments laid bare a fracture in the Republican coalition under Donald Trump.
  • Khaya Himmelman looks at the legal roadmap ahead after the North Carolina Supreme Court blocked the certification of an election victory by the Democratic incumbent justice on that very court.
  • Emine Yücel weighs in on Tom Homan’s rhetorical gymnastics as he outlines the Trump administration’s at-the-moment incoherent plan to deport undocumented immigrants and supposed criminals.

Can Pete Hegseth Survive His Mountain Of Scandals?

The confirmation hearing for Pete Hegseth, once-and-future President Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, poses some interesting questions for us all. Namely, how much scandalousness can one person engage in and still have a position in the Trump Cabinet?

The fact that Hegseth’s uniquely checkered past has yet to sink his nomination has put the spotlight on Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), a member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services. Ernst has been critical of Hegseth’s past comments on women in the military and she is widely seen as the pivotal swing vote.  

And Hegseth has truly tested the limits of what any Republican might be willing to overlook for Trump. 

As you may recall, Hegseth, a former Fox News host, was accused of rape in 2017. Hegseth, who has maintained that allegation was false, has said a confidential financial settlement he reached with the woman who made the claim was made solely in an effort to protect his job. The many awful details of that alleged incident include the fact Hegseth was going through his second divorce at the time. That breakup was ongoing in 2018 when Hegseth’s own mother wrote an email accusing him of having engaged in all manner of marital misdeeds including infidelity and having “abused” women.

Hegseth’s personal life may have made the most headlines, but it’s hardly the only issue with his nomination. 

In his writing (both as a young man and after beginning his career at Fox), Hegseth railed against the LGBTQ community and efforts to promote diversity. He also took a number of extreme positions that are quite notable for a man who could potentially lead the Pentagon, including describing efforts to eliminate far right extremists from the ranks of the armed forces as “insidious” and arguing women do not necessarily belong in combat roles. 

Hegseth also sports tattoos with symbols that have been linked to far right extremism. When TPM inquired about his ink and his extremist positions, we were dubbed a “jackass” in an angry text from an unnamed Hegseth adviser. 

To top all this off, Hegseth also had a slew of issues as he led a veterans group from 2013 until 2016. Former employees compiled a report detailing a series of concerning allegations, including several that involved issues with Hegseth’s allegedly excessive drinking. 

It’s extremely rare for the Senate to reject a Cabinet nominee. The last time it happened was 1989 when there were similar concerns about excessive alcohol use. 

Hegseth has responded to the mountain of scandals by promising to stop drinking if he is confirmed and otherwise trying to power through the nomination process. And, in recent weeks, there have been some indications that that approach is working. 

On  Dec. 12, the New York Times published a detailed account of what was described as the “resurrection” of Hegseth’s bid to lead the Pentagon. According to that report, Trump had been convinced to let Hegseth stick it out after his pick to be attorney general — Matt Gaetz – flamed out and bowed out amid his own series of scandals. The Times also detailed something of a pressure campaign from Trump allies — including some associated with the Heritage Foundation’s confirmation push — aimed at convincing reluctant Republican senators to get behind Hegseth. 

However, as MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell smartly pointed out, that report simply detailed continued support for Hegseth. It didn’t reveal the key fact: whether he has the votes and, specifically, if he had won over Ernst. 

Ernst is crucial since one defection on the committee would technically be enough to stop the nomination from moving forward. However, there are signs Ernst may be on board including relatively positive statements from her office and a Jan. 5 CBS report that Senate Majority Leader John Thune has “privately told President-elect Donald Trump that he believes Pete Hegseth will have the votes to be confirmed as Secretary of Defense.” But, once again, the reporting was not definitive. Thune did not confirm or deny the report.

Ernst’s office did not respond to questions from TPM about whether she has made up her mind. 

With the confirmation hearings set to start on Tuesday, we’re about to find out whether Hegseth will be able to overcome his scandalous baggage. One Democratic source who is actively working on efforts to oppose the nomination said it will all come down to Ernst, and the conventional wisdom is that she would need the “cover” of another member of the committee joining her to vote Hegseth down. The Democrat suggested Ernst, who is up for re-election this year, is in an unenviable position. 

“She’s either going to get primaries coming out of this or she’s going to get hit in the general election with, ‘You’re just a sycophant for your party and you put someone deeply unqualified in charge of the Pentagon,” the source said. 

— Hunter Walker

‘Paternalism’ v. ‘Real Risk’: TikTok Case Presses On Libertarian Tech Bro/Old School GOP Divide

Friday’s Supreme Court arguments on a law mandating that TikTok’s parent company sell the social media platform or shut it down in the U.S. exposed a fracture in the Republican coalition under Donald Trump. 

For old school Republicans (and many Democrats), China is the prominent antagonist, and the notion of the PRC manipulating tender-headed Americans through a seemingly innocuous video newsfeed is a horrifying one.

“Congress and the President were concerned that China was accessing information about millions of Americans — tens of millions of Americans — including teenagers and people in their 20s, and that they would use that information over time to develop spies, to turn people, to blackmail people — people who, a generation from now, will be working in the FBI or the CIA or the State Department,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said, giving voice to this camp.

The man who tried to convince him otherwise, that TikTok is a critical speech platform and that concerns of Chinese manipulation are overwrought, was Noel Francisco, Trump’s old solicitor general, arguing on behalf of the social media platform. Francisco seemed to find his staunchest ally in Justice Neil Gorsuch, generally the most libertarian conservative justice on the bench. 

“Isn’t that a pretty paternalistic point of view?” Gorsuch asked U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar about the administration’s concern about the covert manipulation. “Don’t we normally assume that the best remedy for problematic speech is counter speech?” 

Most of the justices began arguments in Kavanaugh’s posture, though as arguments went on they spent more time interrogating the government’s position that the content manipulation concerns aren’t a form of content-based restriction, which would trigger heightened First Amendment protections. The justices sounded opposed enough to TikTok’s argument to suggest that they’ll uphold the ban — but had qualms about government overreach. TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, whether posturing or sincere, has said that it would shut down TikTok in the U.S. rather than divest. 

The arguments were a microcosm of an ideological schism in a party that now stretches to include self-styled tech cowboys like Elon Musk and establishment China hawks like Mitch McConnell. Trump’s flip-flop on banning TikTok over the past four years reveals his attempt to balance these countervailing factions.

“As far as TikTok is concerned, we’re banning them from the United States,” he told reporters on Air Force One in 2020.

At the time, he was explicit that his hunger for a ban stemmed from animosity towards China, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. He followed up the threat with an executive order forcing ByteDance to divest or face sanctions. That order was blocked by the courts and later retracted by President Joe Biden, though Congress would soon pass a law forcing TikTok to be sold or face a ban.

Fast forward four years to when Trump is running for president — enjoying massive popularity on TikTok — and had just met Jeff Yass, a major Republican donor who happens to own a large share of ByteDance, per the New York Times.

“I’m now a big star on TikTok,” Trump said in September 2024 on Truth Social. “We’re not doing anything with TikTok but the other side’s going to close it up. So if you like TikTok, go out and vote for Trump. If you don’t care about TikTok — and other things like safety, security and prosperity — then you can vote for a Marxist who’s going to destroy our country.”

He now fully opposes the ban and has filed briefs in the Supreme Court case calling for the deadline to be extended so he can negotiate a new deal — a tacit statement about which wing of his party is ascendant.

— Kate Riga

Republicans On The NC Supreme Court Blocked Certification Of A Dem Victory – What Happens Now?

Earlier this week, the North Carolina Supreme Court, in a 4-2 order, blocked the State Election Board from certifying the Democratic winner of a Supreme Court race, but the legal battle is far from over. 

The state Supreme Court has set a briefing schedule that, as of now, will span through January 24th, to resolve the matter. 

The State Supreme Court has ordered the Republican challenger Jefferson Griffin to file his legal argument by January 14. His brief will argue in favor of tossing out 60,000 November ballots, in an effort to steal the election from Democratic incumbent and apparent winner of the race, Allison Riggs. The State Election Board, which last month rejected Griffin’s ballot challenges, has until January 21 to respond. Griffin must then file a reply brief by January 24. 

Republican Justice Trey Allen, in a concurring opinion this week, wrote that although he agreed with temporarily blocking the certification of Riggs as the winner, the order, “should not be taken to mean that Judge Griffin will ultimately prevail on the merits.” But, rather, that “the Court has merely ensured that it will have adequate time to consider the arguments made by Judge Griffin in his petition for writ of prohibition.”

The case has bounced between federal and state courts since the State Board of Elections rejected Griffin’s ballot challenges, but right now, resides with the state Supreme Court. 

Riggs, however, this week requested an expedited review in federal court, after appealing a federal judge’s decision to have the case remanded back to the state Supreme Court. In her motion to expedite, Riggs requested a briefing schedule so that the appeal could be heard between January 28 and 31. That appeal is currently pending. 

Alongside’s Rigg’s appeal, Democrats have rallied around Riggs, demanding that Griffin concede. And a coalition of voting rights groups has launched a billboard campaign and an online petition against Griffin to highlight his campaign to undermine the will of the voters. 

— Khaya Himmelman

Words Of Wisdom

“They know exactly who they’re going to arrest. They know exactly where they’re probably likely to find them…”

That’s Tom Homan, the man Trump tapped as border czar for his incoming administration, last weekend attempting to explain how ICE will find and arrest supposedly known criminals who are in the United States illegally.

This “they know exactly where they’re probably likely” rhetoric sure does a lot of work to build confidence in Homan’s leadership and ICE’s ability to track undocumented immigrants and alleged criminals. 

I’m sure they will definitely probably likely find and deport them all in no time.

— Emine Yücel

Trump Gets Sentenced To Be First Convict President

Posted on by Josh Kovensky

NEW YORK—In form, it looked like a sentencing. Donald Trump appeared remotely, but everything else was in place: the judge was seated up high, the defendant and prosecutors positioned down below. But the impression was fleeting. Trump, who will be President in 10 days, was represented by two lawyers who he has said will hold top roles in his Department of Justice. The judge spent most of the sentencing explaining why no real punishment could be applied to Trump.

Continue reading “Trump Gets Sentenced To Be First Convict President” →

Down the Rabbit Hole of the Greenland Tech-Bro State

Posted on by Josh Marshall

If you delve into Greenland discourse you quickly find all sorts of degenerate weirdness. And let me be crystal clear in the second sentence of this post that by “Greenland discourse” I mean more or less nothing about the actual physical place or its people: I mean the imaginings of various North American tech weirdos and Trumpers. I also mean very little about the generally silly conversation about whether the United States will annex Greenland. I stand by everything I wrote about that yesterday. But whenever you discuss Donald Trump’s Greenland jones, or, more specifically, whenever you dismiss it, you’ll hear from a lot of people about the various Silicon Valley fantasies about Greenland and why this is really what Trump’s talking about. I don’t think those are really what Trump’s yakking is about at all. But they’re at least part of the milieu Trump’s now part of. So it’s in the mix, adjacent, part of the idea world that gets these guys excited. Or, stated differently, what gets Trump’s new money men ginned up and thus keeps him talking.

For this little adventure we can start with this TechCrunch article entitled: ‘I went to Greenland to try to buy it’: Meet the founder who wants to recreate Mars on Earth. You have to go deep into the tech weirdo rabbit hole to make sense of recreating Mars on Earth (it has to do with Elon Musk, basically). Because Mars is actually a super-frigid, waterless barren wasteland. I’m into space travel as much as the next guy. But you wouldn’t want to live there or recreate it anywhere. You also shouldn’t try to buy Greenland. But that’s another story.

Continue reading “Down the Rabbit Hole of the Greenland Tech-Bro State” →

Trump Sentenced To Nothing In New York Hush Money Case

Say what you will about President Trump: he knows how to make an entrance. This time, he will enter the presidency with the distinction of being the first to have a felony conviction on his record. Friday’s sentencing came a mere ten days before he is slated to take office.

Judge Juan Merchan imposed a sentence of “unconditional discharge” — that means no probation, no fines, and no jail time. Trump appeared by video feed and boasted about his election victory. He did not express remorse. “I’d just like to explain that I’ve been treated very unfairly,” he concluded.

Merchan gave brief remarks and imposed his sentence.

The fact that sentencing went forward at all is something of a surprise. After Merchan indicated last week that he would move to conclude the case before Trump’s inauguration, the former and future President launched a series of appeals; first to the state court above Merchan, and then, breaking with procedure, directly to the Supreme Court on the same day he went to the New York state high court. The Supreme Court voted 5-4 Thursday evening to allow the sentencing to proceed.

TPM was in the courthouse. Read our live coverage below.

The Race Is On To Release Jack Smith’s Report Before Trump Takes Over

Posted on by David Kurtz

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

SCOTUS May Have Another Emergency Trump Case Soon

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has made a mess of the tendentious dispute over the public release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on the Jan. 6 and Mar-a-Lago prosecutions. But it may not matter for long if the case ends up before the Supreme Court.

Last evening, the appeals court mostly sided with the Justice Department in refusing to block Attorney General Merrick Garland from releasing the volume of the two-volume report pertaining to the Jan. 6 case. Garland has already said he won’t release the Mar-a-Lago volume until the case is complete (which puts it in the hands of the incoming Trump DOJ).

Still, the 11th Circuit didn’t go as far as the Justice Department had wanted. It failed to dislodge immediately the temporary injunction that renegade U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon imposed, preventing Garland from releasing the report until three days after the appeals court decision. On a practical level, I suspect the appeals court’s own rationale was leaving Cannon’s injunction in place would give the defendants in the Mar-a-Lago case a chance to take the matter to the Supreme Court without either Cannon or the 11th Circuit having to intervene again.

Instead, the appeals court invited the Justice Department to appeal Cannon’s decision if it wanted the matter resolved more quickly. The Justice Department immediately filed that invited appeal overnight. So now the case is back at the 11th Circuit and likely headed to the Supreme Court.

The race against the clock is on, with 10 days until inauguration and Trump’s takeover of DOJ, when the prosecutions and the reports are likely to be buried.

Trump Sentencing Is ON

In a surprise decision that showed the corruption of the six-justice conservative majority has some ill-defined limits, the Supreme Court declined in a 5-4 split to block the sentencing of President-elect Trump for his conviction in the hush money case involving porn star Stormy Daniels.

Chief Justice John Roberts joined with Amy Coney Barrett and the three liberal justices in refusing to allow Trump’s depredations to erode the rule of law even more dramatically than they already have. But it was a hollow victory in many key respects:

  • Alarmingly, four justices – Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh – would have blocked Trump’s sentencing altogether.
  • The Supreme Court’s scant order declining to intervene wasn’t scant enough. Rather than staying silent on its reasoning and doing the least damage possible, it invented new and vague constitutional standards for president-elects, tied the trial judge’s hands on sentencing, and once again carved out special treatment for Trump even as it handed him an ostensible defeat.
  • The liberal justices seem like hostages of late, forced to go along with bad reasoning and setting troubling new precedents even when getting their preferred outcomes.

Still, the sentencing of Donald Trump for 34 felony convictions 10 days before he is sworn in to a second, non-consecutive term is better than nothing. A low bar. Judge Juan Merchan’s sentencing of Trump will proceed this morning at 9:30 a.m. ET in state court in Manhattan. TPM’s Josh Kovensky is in the courtroom and will be covering it for us live.

Trump and Alito Call: A Loyalty Test

The NYT goes deep on the circumstances of the call between President-elect Trump and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and what it says about prioritizing loyalty above all else, old grudges against Bill Barr of all people, and the contours of a Trump II administration.

Rudy G Faces Another Contempt Hearing Today

Rudy Giuliani got owned by a federal judge in DC yesterday and will be forced to appear in person today at his second contempt of court hearing in as many weeks. Like the first one, this arises from the $148 million defamation judgment against him by Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.

Embrace The Complexity

TOPSHOT – In this aerial view taken from a helicopter, burned homes are seen from above during the Palisades fire near the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California on January 9, 2025. (Photo by JOSH EDELSON / AFP) (Photo by JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images)

The death toll in the Los Angeles wildfires rose to 10. Early estimates are that some 9,000 buildings have damaged or destroyed, roughly split in half between the Palisades fire, which remains uncontained, and the Eaton fire, which is 6% contained as of Friday morning. It is expected to be the costliest conflagration in economic terms in U.S. history.

Natural disaster coverage is notoriously difficult, often over-simplistic, and occasionally downright bad. Immediate public reaction and political responses can be emotionally charged, misguided, misdirected, and ultimately ephemeral.

One example in particular that Morning Memo has returned to from time to time over the past year is the mistaken framing of the insurance industry’s growing recognition of climate change risk as an “insurance crisis.” Insurers pulling back is a symptom of the climate crisis, another early warning sign, an arguably rational response amidst a sea of denial.

You’ve probably read by now that State Farm last year decided to dramatically reduce its property insurance exposure in Pacific Palisades by not renewing nearly 70% of its existing book of business there. Susan Crawford, who is as thoughtful and astute as anyone writing the broad issue of controlled retreat from high risk zones in a new climate, looks at the impact of the Los Angeles fires on California’s insurer of last resort.

In further service of embracing complexity versus reductive thinking in these matters, let me refer you to this insightful thread by Jake Bittle:

For a broader overview of the rapidly spreading effects of climate change on politics, Garrett Graff is another steady if urgent voice.

Global Temps Passed 1.5C In 2024 For First Time

Average global temperatures were 1.6 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average in 2024, making it the hottest year in human record-keeping and the first year that surpassed the 1.5-degree mark.

IMPORTANT

Trump advisers have spent months looking for a disease they can blame on immigrants as justification for closing down the southern border, the NYT reports.

Pizzagate Gunman Killed In Police Shooting

NYT: “A man in North Carolina who fired a rifle inside a Washington restaurant in 2016 because he wrongly believed an internet conspiracy known as Pizzagate was fatally shot by the police in North Carolina over the weekend when he pulled out a gun during a traffic stop, the authorities said.”

Quite A Presidential Tableau

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 9: Former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former President George W. Bush, former First Lady Laura Bush, former President Barack Obama, President-elect Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump, President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff attend state funeral services for former President Jimmy Carter at the National Cathedral at the National Cathedral on January 9, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

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Surprise! SCOTUS Will Not Save Trump On Hush Money Case

The Supreme Court will not intervene in Donald Trump’s New York hush money case. At least, not before his sentencing goes forward on Friday morning.

Trump filed a last-ditch brief with the Supreme Court on Wednesday, asking the justices to intervene and block his sentencing. On Thursday night, in a 5-4 decision, the justices said no.

With less than two weeks until he’s inaugurated, Trump has been moving to put an end to the last remnants of the various criminal cases brought against him over the past several years.

In a separate case, the incoming president is trying to prevent Special Counsel Jack Smith from releasing a report concluding his investigation. The report contains one volume covering the Jan. 6 investigation, and a second volume about the Mar-a-Lago classified records case. A ruling from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals late Thursday denied a bid by Trump’s former co-defendants to block the report, which could emerge in the next few days — but this issue, too, is likely first headed to the Supreme Court.

We’ll be following below.

Musk Leans Into MAGA’s Make-It-Up-As-We-Go Tradition

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

Last month, TPM reporter Emine Yücel was up on Capitol Hill attempting to pin down House Republicans on a topic that few wanted to directly discuss: whether or not the Republican conference as a whole was willing to act on recent pronouncements from a few vocal, far-right members that the party would look into sweeping cuts to the social safety net in the new Congress.

Continue reading “Musk Leans Into MAGA’s Make-It-Up-As-We-Go Tradition” →