Most networks devoted their time to repeating the identical drained narratives about our authorities’s most up-to-date shutdown scare. Based on insiders, Donald Trump isn’t comfortable after the primary huge take a look at of his management expertise went down the bathroom after Congress didn’t move his most popular debt deal. Much less mentioned was how Republicans caved to billionaire Elon Musk, defending his company pursuits in China even because the Home GOP hung working class individuals out to dry.
The Lacking Member of Congress
Congress has made a nasty behavior of defending its growing old and ailing members, even when which means actively deceiving the American individuals as to their whereabouts. Suppose I’m exaggerating? This week, a reporter for the Dallas Categorical got down to discover GOP Rep. Kay Granger, who, regardless of being the Home Appropriations Committee Chair, hasn’t forged a vote since July. And discover her they did: at “an area reminiscence care and assisted residing dwelling she now calls dwelling.
Home Appropriations Committee Chair Kay Granger
Now even some Republicans are saying sufficient is sufficient. Texas GOP government committeeman Rolando Garcia slammed Granger’s deception as a “sad and humiliating way to end her political career,” including that Granger was “already in visible decline when she ran for re-election in 2022.”
Granger’s workforce insists she’s going to stay in workplace. Yikes.
Trump’s Dopey Diplomats
Donald Trump
Whether or not it’sfake sheriff and failed Senate candidate Herschel Walker as Ambassador to the Bahamas, or convicted fraudster Charles Kushner as French envoy, or former Trump household hanger-on Kimberly Guilfoyle as America’s girl in Greece, it’s laborious to think about Trump nominating a much less certified and extra scatterbrained set of overseas emissaries. Among the most high-profile picks additionally know completely nothing in regards to the international locations they’ll be working in—particularly NATO Ambassador nominee Matt Whitaker, who has no expertise with army diplomacy, NATO, or Europe. Tremendous!
Regardless of what the MAGA base thinks, ambassadorships aren’t simply plush gigs handed out to associates. Some ambassadorships will play key roles in deciding the way forward for the Center East, together with the essential Turkish ambassadorship that Trump has supplied to marketing campaign donor and alleged overseas agent for the United Arab Emirates Tom Barrack.
It’s no shock that many profession overseas service officers are actually debating retiring fairly than reply to this lengthy checklist of uneducated, uninterested nominees. That may depart America uncovered overseas at a time of rising world unrest—precisely the scenario that Russia, China, and different geopolitical adversaries need.
Lina Khan vs. Junk Charges
FTC Chair Lina Khan
Federal Commerce Fee Chair Lina Khan has been one in every of Washington’s best-kept secrets and techniques, and this week, she racked up yet one more win for shoppers taken benefit of by the resort and dwell occasion industries. On Thursday, the FTC finalized a rule requiring these companies to reveal hidden “junk fees” upfront, a part of Khan’s effort to enhance transparency within the notoriously shady resort reserving and live performance ticket buying world. Shockingly, even among the FTC’s Republican commissioners stsupported the proposal.
Customers collectively waste over 50 million hours yearly attempting to search out the precise value of resort rooms and live performance tickets that business leaders like Ticketmaster do their finest to bury underneath charges that always aren’t seen till the ultimate step in a web-based buy.
Customers can thank music’s most profitable girl for the FTC’s … swift motion. The debacle round buying tickets for Taylor Swift’s recently-concluded Eras Tour lit a hearth underneath the federal authorities, leading to not simply the brand new FTC rule, but additionally a bipartisan Home invoice to advertise extra transparency in how live performance tickets, airline fares, and resort rooms are bought.
Subsequent, Congress says they’ll construct on the FTC’s new rule by tackling value collusion and doable antitrust violations by the nation’s largest leisure distributors and hospitality corporations. However good luck reaching something when the nation’s subsequent president owns a sequence of overpriced lodges and leisure venues.
Attain out!
Till subsequent week, maintain your eyes peeled and keep inquisitive, associates—and Completely satisfied Holidays!
We’re proper within the thick of the vacation season, and we’re all drained after a protracted election wherein we gave 110%, however that is essential: Every day Kos is falling wanting our ultimate aim of the yr and time is operating out. Are you able to chip in to assist us shut the books on 2024?
