Biden to decide fate of Nippon Steel’s $15B bid for U.S. Steel

Nippon Steel’s $15 billion bid to buy U.S. Steel has been referred to President Joe Biden after a government panel could not decide whether it should go forward.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. deadlocked on a decision. The panel has said allowing Nippon to take over Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel could result in lower domestic steel production, representing “a national security risk," according to the Washington Post.

Nippon Steel said it has addressed the concerns and made key commitments to grow U.S. Steel and protect American jobs, the Wall Street Journal reported.

How steel might finally kick its coal habit

Biden has opposed the takeover and believes U.S. Steel should be owned and operated in the U.S., CNBC reported. President-elect Donald Trump also has rejected its sale to a foreign company, per CNBC.

If Biden takes no action in the next two weeks, the merger would get an unexpected greenlight, CNBC reported.

If the deal collapses, Nippon Steel must pay a $565 million penalty to U.S. Steel and has said it would consider pursuing legal action against the U.S. government, per CNBC.

The transaction comes as domestic steel demand is growing in the U.S. Prices have soared globally as production capacity has fallen short of need.

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“I couldn’t work with the guy”: Original “Christmas Vacation” director quit because of Chevy Chase

"Home Alone" director Chris Columbus almost directed another holiday classic, "Christmas Vacation."

The filmmaker opened up with Vanity Fair about the filmmaking process for "Christmas Vacation," the third movie in National Lampoon’s “Vacation” series. He said he worked alongside John Hughes to write the script, which of course would star Chevy Chase, the "Saturday Night Live" breakout who was the star of the "Vacation" franchise.

But the first time Columbus met Chase, his experience with the film soured. Columbus explained, “I was signed on . . . and then I met Chevy Chase . . . I realized I couldn’t work with the guy."

He continued, “I was one of the many who couldn’t work with him. And I called John and I said, ‘This is really hard for me, but I can’t do this movie with Chevy Chase.’"

25 fun facts about "Home Alone"

While they weren't too far into the production, Columbus said he had to meet with Chase before shooting his scenes.

In their first meeting, Columbus recalled, "I talked about how I saw the movie, how I wanted to make the movie. He didn’t say anything. I went through about a half hour of talking. He didn’t say a word. And then he stops and he says — and this makes no sense to any human being on the planet, but I’m telling you. I probably have never told this story. Forty minutes into the meeting, he says, ‘Wait a second. You’re the director?’ And I said, ‘Yeah . . . I’m directing the film.’"

He continued, "And he said to me the most surreal, bizarre thing. I still haven’t been able to make any sense out of it. He said, ‘Oh, I thought you were a drummer.’"

The filmmaker would go on to meet with Hughes and Chase together but "I was basically nonexistent." Following the dinner, Columbus thought, "‘There’s no way I can make a movie with this guy.' First of all, he’s not engaged. He’s treating me like s**t. I don’t need this. I’d rather not work again. I’d rather write . . . Who says anything like that to anybody? It makes no sense."

Columbus realized there was a silver lining though. He recalled, “I quit ‘Christmas Vacation.’ The next weekend, I got another script from John — and it’s ‘Home Alone.’ ‘Home Alone,’ for me, was even more personal, a better script. And I thought, I can really do something with this, and I don’t have to deal with Chevy Chase.”

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Long before “Happy holidays,” there was a real war on Christmas 400 years ago

The War on Christmas appears to be over, depending on who you ask. Early in December, YouGov released a poll showing that 23% of American adults still believe that war is raging, with 31% undecided and 46% unconvinced. It's a significant drop from two years ago, when up to 39% of adults believed that Christmas was under attack, invariably from the direction of the left and spearheaded by those who sought to snuff out good holiday cheer in the name of supposedly woke pluralism.

Instead of caroling and ringing church bells, the most prominent sounds on Christmastide were now town criers calling: "No Christmas! No Christmas!"

"Parents have bravely pushed back against woke propaganda in the schools, elected better leaders, and have fought for their children’s education over woke indoctrination," crowed GOP education official Ryan Walters on the Daily Wire. But even in supposed victory, his gloating found few echoes; the so-called War on Christmas, rather than ending in climactic struggle and triumph, seemed to just fade away from the national discourse.

Its quiet disappearance, in a sense, is a suitable end to a war in which no violence was committed and no real threat to the holiday ever manifested, just as the raucous celebrations of its 1660 restoration in England marked a return to tradition after a Puritan government actually banned the celebration of Christmas and enforced the law with military force.

"Be it Ordained, by the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled, That the said Feast of the Nativity of Christ, Easter and Whitsuntide, and all other Festival dayes, commonly called Holy-dayes, be no longer observed as Festivals or Holy-dayes," read the 1647 parliamentary legislation called "An Ordinance for Abolishing of Festivals," which condemned those festivals as blasphemous "superstitions" with no biblical justification. For much of the next 12 years, soldiers and local watchmen patrolled the streets to ensure that shops remained open and penalize anyone they saw engaging in the usual festive excess. Instead of caroling and ringing church bells, the most prominent sounds on Christmastide were now town criers calling: "No Christmas! No Christmas!"

What a medieval 12 Days of Christmas looks like, from porpoises to bloody Herod games

The 17th century laws against Christmas celebrations in England, the Puritan colonies in America and other places represented its foes at their apogee – with such condemnation drawing inspiration from the controversies surrounding its inception more than a thousand years before. Scripture does not record the birth date of Jesus Christ, and so early Christian scholars spent centuries wrangling over when to celebrate this most important apotheosis. By the fourth century, the two widely recognized dates were Dec. 25 — celebrated as Christmas in what was then the western half of the Roman Empire and now by most Christians worldwide — and Jan. 6, known by most Christians as Epiphany but celebrated as Christmas itself by some Eastern churches.

Contrary to popular belief, the designation of Dec. 25 and the subsequent 12 days for celebration was not simply an attempt to appropriate pagan fun from the Roman festivals of Saturnalia and Sol Invictus (the "Invincible Sun"). Rather than mentioning those supposed practical considerations, treatises from the early Christian centuries draw from biblical inferences, contemporary understanding of time and calendrical math to argue for its case. That Jesus' birth should roughly coincide with those two festivals defying the winter darkness, as opposed to the innumerable other Roman festivals scattered throughout the year, was considered to be proof of Jesus' incarnation as the pivot of the universe, an affirmation of the supreme miracle by which all peoples embrace the coming of hope and the true Light.

Many Roman festive practices did find sanctuary in the medieval liturgical calendar, in modified and Christianized form. The tradition of Roman patricians serving food and drink to their slaves during festival of Saturnalia evolved into two separate Christmastime commemorations: the mock ordination of a "boy bishop" on the Feast of the Holy Innocents (Dec. 28) and the passing of local Church leadership to its sub-deacons on the Feast of the Circumcision (Jan. 1), better known as the "Feast of the Fools" as it became associated with public exuberance, including comic performances, fountains of wine and motley costumes.

The Bacchanalian disorders of the Feast of the Fools and mockery of traditional hierarchies provoked a wave of censure by Church and secular leaders. In 1431, the ecumenical Council of Basel ordered the deans and rectors of churches to expel "frivolities" and "profane abuses" from holy buildings, but implicitly allowed them to take place in the squares outside. Some rulers took the council's ruling as the basis to enact even stricter laws that banned such practices completely, but popular support for the festivals ensured that they were lightly imposed, ignored, or in many cases, repealed.

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The reproach of those two Christmastime traditions presaged a much broader and more potent attack led by radical Protestant reformers in the 16th century, who denounced the celebration of Christmas, and the Catholic Church that sanctioned it, as tainted relics of pagan idolatry. Pointing out that scripture neither confirmed a date for Jesus' birth nor called upon the faithful to enjoy 12 days of rowdy merry-making, adherents to the regulative principle of worship — that anything without scriptural warrant is prohibited — warned that to mark the birth of Christ with intemperate revelry and "frivolous" ceremonies (e.g. the sign of the cross, kneeling before consecrated bread) was to replace the purity of God's message with puerile, human theatrics.

By force of law, shops and markets were made to stay open, churches were prohibited from holding Christmas services or providing free "Christmas ale" . . .

Some theologians also suggested that the early Church only chose Dec. 25 as the date of Nativity because they wanted to add a Christian veneer to Roman Saturnalia, justifying Protestant claims that the Catholics had turned the occasion of Jesus' birth into a happy excuse to drink, fornicate and gamble in excess. “Men dishonor Christ more in the 12 days of Christmas than in all the 12 months besides,” complained Hugh Latimer, an English Protestant clergyman and martyr.

In some cities where Protestants held power, authorities sought to excise most or all objectionable practices from Christmas, which was relegated to a single day of church service either on Dec.25 or on the nearest Sunday. Nevertheless, some reformers were annoyed that a much-purified Christmas still attracted masses of superstitious worshipers, who continued to hold it in greater reverence than any other day in the year.

“Now I see here today more people than I am accustomed to having at the sermon. Why is that? It is Christmas Day. And who told you this? You poor beasts. That is a fitting euphemism for all of you who have come here today to honor Noel," admonished the Genevan reformer John Calvin on Christmas Day in 1551. "When you elevate one day alone for the purpose of worshiping God, you have just turned it into an idol."

The strange, psychedelic history of Christmas

While Calvin, a self-described moderate, distanced himself from Geneva's decision to remove the special commemoration of feast days, his pointed words encapsulated Protestant anxieties over Christmas that came to a head in 1647, when the English Parliament issued a ban on all "superstitious" feast days, including Christmas. Parliament, then dominated by Puritans who sought purity of worship and doctrine, had just emerged victorious in a civil war against a king they deemed a reactionary autocrat and closet papist. The professional military force Parliament commanded — the New Model Army — was, if anything, even more fervent in its Puritan convictions and for the most part happy to enforce the new injunctions.

The term "Puritan," originally used as a pejorative, came to encompass intensely religious, largely middle-class English Protestants who practiced a simple worship of God, believed that the Church of England retained too much of its "Popish" character, and yearned to build a Holy Commonwealth governed by mutual covenant. Their detractors often used their opposition to excess as evidence of their hatred for all things merry, even though Puritans drank alcohol in moderation and hardly abstained from marital sex. Prior to the civil war, many Puritans had sailed to the American colonies to follow their exiled pastors and set up their own city on a hill; those who remained now found an opportunity to build one over the ruins of the old Church.

From the Scottish Marches to the heart of London, Christmas lovers closed their shops in defiance of Parliament and some that opened were attacked.

And so by force of law, shops and markets were made to stay open, churches were prohibited from holding Christmas services or providing free "Christmas ale," and citizens were instructed not to hold conspicuous festivities, which included caroling, displaying traditional evergreens, wassailing the homes of rich townsfolk in exchange for gifts, and enjoying overly sumptuous feasts. Anti-Puritan propaganda would later claim that soldiers broke into people's homes in search of contraband mince pies, but the only time the pies were even technically illegal was in 1644, when Christmas Day fell on a national fast that Parliament imposed on the last Wednesday of every month. Puritans also did not oppose commemorating the Nativity on principle, even if they objected to its practice at the time. In general, authorities focused on regulating public morals rather than intruding on private lives, but this "middle course," with or without a mince pie ban, still provoked resistance and fury that often turned to violence.

From the Scottish Marches to the heart of London, Christmas lovers closed their shops in defiance of Parliament and some that opened were attacked. The Lord Mayor of London, accompanied by army officers, personally ripped down festive decorations from the doors of homes and churches, only to be set upon by jeering crowds that caused his horse to bolt.

In Canterbury, the mayor swaggered around the public square pressuring townsfolk to open their businesses, drawing an angry crowd of onlookers. When he then threatened to clap a man in the stocks for refusing to obey, the crowd assaulted him and his escort, then spread out across the town, stringing up holly, looting shops that complied with the mayor and seizing control of the municipal buildings and gunpowder magazine. The disorder spread into the surrounding countryside of Kent before soldiers were sent to reassert control. While local authorities sought to make a summary example of the rioters, Parliament balked at further inflaming the region just as the defeated Royalists were plotting a comeback, and the grand jury set up to try the prisoners exonerated them all.

The Rev. Increase Mather — the father of Salem witch trial participant Cotton Mather — spoke enthusiastically for the ban.

Riots also broke out in Ipswich, Bury St. Edmunds, Norwich and other towns, while pro-Christmas pamphlets such as "The Vindication of Christmas," which complained of Parliament's attack on “our high and mighty Christmas-Ale that formerly would knock down Hercules, & trip up the heels of a Giant," circulated among the population. Nine years after the Ordinance passed, Parliament and Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell had made little further headway, with MPs complaining on the Christmas morning of 1656 that their sleep had been disturbed by the noise of their neighbors’ "preparations for this foolish day’s solemnity," and that they saw "not a shop open, nor a creature stirring" in London.

Although Parliament passed the Ordinance six years before Cromwell assumed power, the man who would be king-in-all-but-name, like the mince pies, became a convenient shorthand used by Royalists to explain the broader assault on Christmas by dour, killjoy Puritans. In any case, Cromwell's death in 1658 doomed his increasingly unpopular Protectorate, and in 1660, Parliament consented to the restoration of both monarchy and Christmas, to scenes of widespread jubilation.

While Christmas was once again legal in the realms of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland now ruled by King Charles II, the far-fetched colonies continued to chart their own course. The inhabitants of Massachusetts Bay Colony, whose very purpose existed in opposition (but not outright rebellion) to the Anglican monarchy, continued to uphold the ban they implemented in 1659, when the General Court had declared that “whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way” was subject to a five-shilling fine.

The Rev. Increase Mather — the father of Salem witch trial participant Cotton Mather — spoke enthusiastically for the ban. Like his brethren in England, he believed the celebrations to a blasphemous excuse for people to get lost in an “in Revellings, excess of Wine, in mad Mirth.” He and other proponents encountered little protest in Boston and Plymouth, where the population was overwhelmingly Puritan.

Less successful were half-hearted efforts to introduce the ban in outlying fishing towns notorious for heavy drinking and loose morals. Furthermore, the Massachusetts colony stood alone among the English colonies as well as from the mother country, whose king threatened to withdraw his royal charter should the Puritans persist in their course. The ban, along with other laws regulating public morality, was finally lifted in 1681, to much grumbling from the colony's inhabitants. Businesses and schools often remained open, and churches closed, well into the 19th century until 1856, when Christmas was finally made a public holiday in the state.

Christmas has not faced any organized threat in the Anglosphere since, though traditions like wassailing and installing a boy bishop have largely faded away, to be replaced by newer practices like spilling eggnog on an ugly sweater and accumulating credit card debt. One wonders how a Puritan would react to this new kind of excess — or the companies that encourage it.

about Christmas history

My invention brought clean water to millions. Don’t rewrite the law that made it possible

When was the last time you washed your hands, took a shower, or had a glass of water? Probably this very day. But more than half the world's population can't take these activities for granted. For 4.4 billion people, the only water available is unsafe to drink, and risky to use for other activities too. That's because in developing nations like India — where I was born and raised — outbreaks from waterborne diseases like typhoid and cholera are ubiquitous.

Climate change could return us to the pre-antibiotic era

In the early 1990s, I was working as a physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ("Berkeley Lab") when I heard about a devastating cholera outbreak in my home country. It infected hundreds of thousands of people and killed more than 2,000. With vast scientific resources at my disposal at the lab, I knew I might be able help prevent the next outbreak. So, on my own time, I started to study waterborne pathogens with the aim to develop a new way to make water drinkable that would be affordable and effective in rural areas of low income countries.

In a short few years, and later on with funding support from the Energy Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, I came up with an invention — the UV Waterworks — that met all my goals. It was inexpensive, efficient, portable and effective.

None of this could have happened without a little-known 1980 law called the Bayh-Dole Act.

Roughly the size of a microwave, the device sanitizes water using UV light to kill harmful bacteria, viruses and molds. It can purify approximately four gallons of water per minute and provide a year's worth of potable drinking water for just seven cents per person. That's less than 5% of the 2024 average cost of a single 16.9-fluid-ounce bottle of water in the United States.

My goal was to save lives, not make money, so I wanted my invention to be as widely available as possible. But I didn't know how to get it into the hands of the public. At first, I considered releasing the blueprints online for anyone to download and use freely. But after meeting with the licensing staff at Berkeley Lab, I learned that this wasn't the best approach.

Someone had to take a business risk and shoulder the cost of production. And no company was going to take on that risk without a patent and an exclusive license, without which finding investors would have been almost impossible. Moreover, putting my invention on the web wouldn't have democratized it effectively, as the people who needed it most likely didn't have access to the internet, much less the technical, management and financial capacity to manufacture and distribute a novel product.

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The University of California, which runs the lab, filed the initial patent. I helped found WaterHealth International, which exclusively licensed the UV Waterworks technology from the university in 1996. This allowed us to attract funds to build the product on a mass scale. In the time since, the invention has benefited tens of million people across India and Africa. Roughly 80% of our customers live below the poverty line in their home countries.

None of this could have happened without a little-known 1980 law called the Bayh-Dole Act, which allows academic institutions that receive public funds to retain patent rights to their own inventions.

Before Bayh-Dole, the U.S. government held the patent rights to any discovery developed with taxpayer support. But as federal agencies had little capacity to commercialize these breakthroughs, they rarely did. By 1980, the government had licensed less than 5% of the patents it held — leaving potentially lifesaving inventions on the shelf.

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But the Bayh-Dole Act changed that waste of taxpayer supported research. It allows universities to own and license inventions they make with government support — and they did so in droves. In the four-plus decades since Bayh-Dole, the law has facilitated nearly half a million invention disclosures; led to the founding of more than 17,000 startups; supported 6.5 million jobs, and contributed $1 trillion to the U.S. gross domestic product, according to AUTM, an organization that tracks public-private tech transfer.

Nevertheless, the law has been criticized by those who object to any private-sector use of academic research, no matter the benefits. Most recently, the White House proposed a policy change that would allow the government to "march in" and relicense certain patents — taking the rights from one company to give to another — on products it deems too expensive.

But this policy could drive investment away from any innovation that once received government funds. If it had been in place when I developed UV Waterworks, that invention might still be just an academic curiosity, and never been commercialized improving health outcomes for millions of people in need.

Technological advancement is the key to solving today's most pressing issues, including the climate crisis, pandemics and world hunger. The Bayh-Dole Act helps both universities and companies continue to innovate. Undermining it would quite literally be a disservice to humanity.

about public health

Women demand “deeds not words”: Joe Biden must enshrine the ERA in the Constitution

In an interview with MeidasTouch on Thursday the host Ben Meiselas asked President Joe Biden what he is working on right now and what he hopes to accomplish before the end of his term. President Biden responded, “There's a couple things I want to get done. Women's issues, for example… We should be passing the ERA. There's a consensus for it.”

This is a good sign. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) has been over 100 years in the making, and it is long overdue. To borrow a phrase from the suffrage movement when the ERA was first written—we want deeds, not words.

The ERA has met all the requirements to be added to the Constitution. All that’s left is one signature.

The ERA is a fundamental fix to gender-based discrimination 100 years in the making. Once finalized, it would enshrine gender equity into our nation’s Constitution as the 28th Amendment, protecting women from violence no matter who’s in the White House. It would make it easier for women to win in court and provide an avenue for Congress to pass more robust laws to protect us.

In recent years, our rights have experienced a whiplash roller coaster. After Donald Trump was first elected president in 2016, women got organized. We got angry. Our unapologetic outrage sparked many movements for justice, including a resurgence of #MeToo. This hashtag and the women who used it to share their deeply personal stories had an enormous cultural impact. Yet, meaningful policy change did not follow. Even after laying bare their traumas, survivors were left with little recourse. And, despite all of this, men accused of assault keep rising to positions of power and authority. The ERA could be #MeToo’s ultimate vindication.

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This is not hyperbole. The ERA is the groundwork for gender equity in this country. It could help strengthen laws like the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) which, in its initial 1994 iteration, provided a way for survivors to sue their attackers in civil court. Legislators at the time referred to this civil rights remedy as one of VAWA’s most important provisions. Unfortunately, in the year 2000 the Supreme Court decided women do not have a constitutional right to be free from gender-based violence and therefore Congress had no foothold to pass that provision of VAWA. With the heart of the law cut out, women have been left fewer protections.

Adding the ERA to the Constitution would change that. It would grant Congress a new, stronger authority to pass laws addressing gender-based violence. With it, they could return VAWA to its most powerful form, giving survivors a way to sue the people who violated them—an especially important recourse when the criminal system fails to deliver justice. This provision would help empower survivors and would deter abusers from continuing to assault women. Without a specific equality protection in our Constitution, the rise in sex-based discrimination and violence will continue unabated without consequences for abusers.

By enshrining the ERA in our Constitution, we could then begin the hard work of clawing back other basic protections like the right to access abortion. Protections against sex discrimination are currently on the chopping block in the new Supreme Court case United States v. Skrmetti. To combat this, the ERA would provide a way to get justices to side with women, that’s not connected to the current, flawed schema of judicial review.

Not only is the ERA a powerful tool—it’s a popular one. Equality is more popular than politicians or parties. It’s popular with voters across the political spectrum. In New York, a state-level Equal Rights Amendment won by 61% this past election. In 2022, the solid swing state of Nevada passed an ERA by a shocking 58% in an election where the incumbent Democratic Governor lost and four in 10 registered voters were not affiliated with either major political party. Americans want equal rights, no matter who they voted for.

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We can use this extremely powerful, popular amendment to protect ourselves, but we have to carry it over the finish line. The ERA has met all the requirements to be added to the Constitution. All that’s left is one signature. The Archivist of the United States—the first ever woman appointed to the position — needs to certify the ERA and publish it in our federal register.

That’s it.

In a non-binding statement, Archivist Shogan indicated earlier this week that she doesn’t think she can move on the ERA, which is unfortunate. But, she’s not a lawyer and her legal assessment is not relevant. Her continued inaction is action. She’s extra-constitutionally inventing a role for herself — that of an unelected appointee who is making it her job to keep women and queer people out of the Constitution. There’s one person who can move this amendment forward, and that’s President Joe Biden. He can provide the Archivist notice that the ERA has been validly ratified and is now the 28th Amendment, as the American Bar Association has determined and a group of all major labor unions this week supports. The ERA belongs to the people, and she must then act.

We have both dedicated years of our lives to this issue because finalizing the ERA is the single most important thing we can do to protect ourselves and the people we love for generations to come. It’s not a case that can be overturned like Roe v. Wade or a law that can be gutted like VAWA — it’s a permanent constitutional amendment, cemented into the fabric of our nation’s founding principles. Women have been fighting for over a century to be included in the Constitution. Success is in sight. We demand deeds, not words.

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Elon Musk can easily use Donald Trump’s greatest advantage against him

The more Donald Trump denies he's being controlled by billionaire Elon Musk, who purchased the president-elect with over $250 million in campaign spending this year, the less anyone believes him. Last week's spending battle was complex in the details, but not in the main takeaway: The Tesla CEO is leading the aging and tired Trump by the nose. Trump's sole ask of congressional Republicans going into budget negotiations was to end the debt ceiling, at least for a couple of years, to spare him the headache of negotiating it while in office. Then Musk started flipping out on Twitter about all manner of line items, seemingly spun up by random social media users named after feline waste products. Both Trump and the GOP meekly followed suit, nearly bringing government to a halt while scrambling to cut a bunch of stuff to appease Musk, who didn't even understand most of the arguments he was making.

In the end, both Musk and Trump failed to kill the bill. Musk did slightly better, getting some of his specific funding proposals, but he failed at the big-picture goal of decimating the budget. Trump, however, failed miserably, losing most GOP votes for his one goal of shutting down the debt ceiling. Most importantly, the process thoroughly exposed Musk's hold over Trump. Democrats started the "President Musk" meme, and, predictably, Trump's narcissism has led to defensiveness. First, Trump's spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt put out a statement insisting, "President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. Full stop."

It wasn't a full stop, because Trump himself stepped into the fray Sunday at a Turning Points USA event, during an especially sleepy speech. "No, he’s not going to be president, that I can tell you," Trump told the crowd. “And I’m safe. You know why he can’t be? He wasn’t born in this country.”

The generous interpretation of this comment is that Trump is attacking a strawman, as no one thinks Musk is literally going to be president. They are accusing Musk of being the true power behind the throne. A less generous interpretation is that Trump, age 78, got confused and forgot that he doesn't have to keep campaigning. Either way, lots of folks on social media recalled the famous line from "Game of Thrones": "Any man who must say 'I am the king' is no true king at all."

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I apply this Tywin quote any time someone has to make a claim about how alpha or dangerous they are. 🤷🏻‍♀️ That does include President-elects who have to brag about their absolutely minuscule margins of victory as well…

[image or embed]

— Kayla Sue (@kaylasuewho.bsky.social) December 17, 2024 at 9:35 AM

In that fictional universe, the boy-king Joffrey was put to bed. In our world, the suspicion is Trump's handlers give him his phone or golf clubs to distract him, so they can get work done. Trump certainly didn't alleviate concerns that he's lost a step during that speech, in which he complained at length about Panama controlling the Panama Canal. For those unaware of the dumbest obsessions of the right nearly five decades ago, President Jimmy Carter got a lot of flack when he signed over control of the canal in 1977 (it took effect in 1999). Being mad about it today is like still being mad about the Dodgers losing the '77 World Series, except this is somehow even dumber.

Trump's advanced age contributes to suspicions that he is being puppeteered by Musk, who is 25 years younger than the official president-elect. Even Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., joined the discourse, releasing a video with her dog snoring as she said, "Republicans don’t know who their daddy is."

AOC on Elon Musk “They don’t know which one they should be listening to first” “as I’ve said Republicans don’t know who their daddy is”. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[image or embed]

— Paul Eric Scannell (@pauleric70.bsky.social) December 21, 2024 at 11:03 PM

Republicans aren't exactly hiding how their heads are being turned, either. "It feels like Elon Musk is our prime minister," Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Tex., said on "Face the Nation" this weekend. Multiple GOP members of Congress floated the idea of replacing current Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., with Musk. Even Johnson "jokingly" offered Musk the role.

Donald Trump's threats against foreign nations are not about revenge

Echoing Yale historian Timothy Snyder, Ocasio-Cortez warned that this level of capitalist capture of once-democratic systems is oligarchy. That level of power concentration is what enables outright fascism or similarly corrupt authoritarian systems, like President Vladimir Putin's dictatorship in Russia. This is especially bad for ordinary people because, as we see with Russia, oligarchs suck up increasing amounts of money, while working people struggle to survive. Americans are already struggling, due to inflation and housing shortages, and it's likely to get worse as people like Musk scheme for ways to vacuum up more cash by cutting services to the public. But that's also why, as Ocasio-Cortez said, Musk's involvement is politically toxic for Trump, as it hands Democrats an apt illustration of how Trump sides with rich parasites against working people.

When it comes to controlling GOP leaders, Musk has a real advantage. Trump's favorite tool to keep politicians in line, threatening to run a primary opponent, makes even more sense for Musk, who can offer any such person limitless financial resources.

It appears Trump's nominee for chief of staff, Susie Wiles, is aware it's bad news to let Musk worm his way into being the shadow president. Despite all the mainstream media hype after Trump created "DOGE" — the Department of Government Efficiency — cooler heads noticed that this Musk-led initiative is not a real government agency, but a "presidential advisory committee." These are unpaid and powerless groups, often formed to avoid real change by giving make-work to activists and donors. President Joe Biden did it to shut up people calling for Supreme Court expansion and it's a safe bet that Wiles had the same goal in creating DOGE.

Alas for her, Musk has Twitter and he uses it the same way Trump did in his first term, to rile up supporters and create so much noise that those who are putting the leader on "ignore" are forced to kowtow to whims frequently spouted in the hours when more sober people are sleeping. Musk is doing what he became unbelievably wealthy doing: stealing other people's ideas and passing them off as his own. In this case, he's swiping Trump's strategy of using Twitter mobbing tactics to work around the bureaucratic obstacles. While it didn't work this time, in terms of actually stopping the bill, it's hard to ignore that Republicans, having spent years kowtowing to Trump's narcissism, are turning their practice towards lavish public obsequiousness to Musk.

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No telling how this all plays out, except that it will be chaotic. Despite Trump's victory in November, there have been strong signs for months that his cult-like grip on his followers is loosening. The Republican National Convention was a dud, and Trump's speech was a low point. One gets the strong impression that the MAGA masses are interested in a younger, more dynamic leader. While Musk seems like an odd pick, it's also true that the billionaire gets exponentially more engagement online than Trump does. When it comes to controlling GOP leaders, Musk has a real advantage. Trump's favorite tool to keep politicians in line, threatening to run a primary opponent, makes even more sense for Musk, who can offer any such person limitless financial resources.

The silver lining in all of this is that Trump and Musk are both mean-spirited narcissists. They'll struggle to avoid conflict if pitted in a "who's more powerful?" contest. Such a fight can only demobilize the GOP base as people take sides in this increasingly ugly fight. Consider how much battles like "Bernie Sanders vs. Hillary Clinton" or "Should Biden drop out?" weakened the Democratic coalition. A Musk vs. Trump battle will do the same to the GOP and could be worse since way more people in the mix are cantankerous jerks.

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Toxic “forever chemicals” could be entering your body from smart watch bands, study finds

Most people who own a smart watch or fitness watch use a band made of synthetic rubber to hold the device on their wrist. Although the bands are designed to feel comfortable against the skin, a recent study in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters found that they may be harmful. This is due to the substances they are made from — known as fluoroelastomers — which can contain large quantities of a dangerous so-called “forever chemical” known as perfluorohexanoic acid (PFHxA); it is unclear the extent to which this can be absorbed through the skin.

PFHxA belongs to a classification of industrial products known as per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which do not biodegrade and resist breaking down after exposure to water and light, hence the nickname forever chemicals. They have been linked to extreme health problems like cancer, high blood pressure and infertility. Despite these risks, PFAS are widely used in products like non-stick cookware, umbrellas, cosmetics, furniture, cleaning chemicals, water-resistant fabrics and stain-resistant coatings. PFHxA specifically is commonly used in pizza boxes, rain jackets, firefighting foam and waterproofing sprays.

Here’s how to remove some persistent pollutants from your drinking water at home

While the scientists behind the study weren’t originally looking for PFHxA, the forever chemical “was the most frequently detected compound” within the 22 watch bands analyzed across numerous brands and price points. Lead author Graham F. Peaslee, a physicist at the University of Notre Dame, told Salon that the researchers had not even been aware that PFAS were used in the watch bands until they saw a full-page ad touting them for being made of fluoroelastomer.

"The good news is that the consumer can opt for alternative wrist bands to avoid potential PFAS exposure risks."

“We realized that the general public didn't recognize fluoroelastomers as a type of PFAS,” Peaslee said. “Like all other forms of polymeric PFAS, we suspected that these materials would also have ‘other’ PFAS readily available together with the fluoropolymer, and we searched for 20 common PFAS.” That’s when they found the surprisingly high concentrations of PFHxA, a forever chemical that can enter the body after being eaten, inhaled, consumed through drinking or absorbed through the skin.

“This was unique in the sense that it was the first time we had found only one PFAS, and that it was at such high concentrations — much higher than we typically find in consumer products,” Peaslee said.

While the scientists didn’t test this with humans, they still reported that the high levels of PFAS in these products “poses an opportunity for significant transfer to the dermis [skin] and subsequent human exposure. Additionally, several of these watch bands were advertised as ‘sports and fitness’ monitors, implying that the wearer may be exercising with them, which means additional sweat contact and open skin pores.”

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Importantly, Peaslee noted that this is one instance in which a forever chemical was not necessary to include as an ingredient.

“There were many wrist bands available that don't use PFAS and without concern for the toxic shorter-chain PFAS that can be in direct contact with the consumer's skin,” Peaslee said. “The good news is that the consumer can opt for alternative wrist bands to avoid potential PFAS exposure risks.”

He added, “It is just a question of knowing that they are present — and it is possible to avoid those with fluoroelastomer materials.”

In addition to PFHxA, the nearly endless varieties of PFAS include perfluorooctanoic sulfonic acid (PFOS), hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid (HFPO-DA, commonly known as GenX Chemicals), perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA). As of 2019, there were more than 4,700 documented PFAS, even though most of them perform the same basic function — making products more resistant to stains, grease and other kinds of damage.

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According to Dr. Anna Reade, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), chemical engineers have created this wide variety of forever chemicals to engage in a practice known as “regrettable substitution.” When certain forever chemicals face increased regulation or notoriety, manufacturers try to have their cake and eat it too (often successfully) by swapping out the specifically banned compound for a slightly different alternative.

"There are two really good examples that are supported by just a ton of evidence now," Reade told Salon in July, mentioning the two different PFAS known as PFOA (which was used to make teflon) and PFOS (which was used to make Scotchgard).

"When those came under scrutiny, one of the big substitutions was to use a four-carbon version of PFOS instead,” Reade said. “What they did was they just used a different chain length, exactly the same molecule, but just a shorter version of it, a smaller version."

The final result was that "they switched to that and said it was safe because there wasn't any data on it," Reade said. The practice of engaging in regrettable substitution is still prevalent today.

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Learn how to invest with a trip to my mother’s kitchen

Like many of us this winter, I am making the long trip back to my parents’ house for the holidays. I live in New York, and my parents live in California. Look around my mother's kitchen and you'll find a lesson in diversification that can school us on how we should be investing our money.

My mother has no fewer than four different types of chili powder, along with a flour for making chapati, another flour for making cakes, a flour we bought years ago for making a particularly delicate chiffon, all kinds of pudding and, inexplicably, two jars of sun-dried tomatoes. Her cabinets are full of ingredients to prepare for the arrival of me, my sister and our preferred meals.

It's not always easy to predict which sister will arrive first. Should mom buy ingredients for my favorite lunch of lemon rice, or my sister's preferred idli upma, made with semolina and chilis? Luckily for us, she buys ingredients for both.

Trump transfers entire $4B stake in Trump Media to his trust

What is diversification?

The economist Henry Markowitz famously called diversification the only "free lunch" in economics. I'm here to tell you that having lunch at my mother's is exactly what Markowitz was talking about.

"Diversification" refers to the practice of investing in multiple, maybe even competing, assets. Every investment asset has a certain level of risk and a certain return. Usually, these go in opposite directions — assets with high returns (like moonshot companies' stocks) also have high risks (which is why they're called moonshots).

If my mother just kept just lemons and rice on hand, and my sister came home first, my sister would be a little sad and so would my mother. But if my mother has both, then maybe she buys smaller quantities or needs a little extra cabinet space, but she's guaranteed that whoever arrives first will say, "Mom, this is the best!"

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Markowitz and his co-author, Merton Miller, won the Nobel Prize for formalizing the intuition of my mother's kitchen with math: diversifying across assets, especially if they have nothing to do with each other, means you can have the same return while lowering your risk. They called it a "free lunch" because normally to get higher returns, you have to take on higher risk. But with diversification, you get the same or higher returns, and lower overall risk.

How do you diversify?

These days, the stock market seems almost obnoxiously high, driven almost entirely by tech firms promising profits from a forthcoming AI boom. The returns are obvious, but the risks are there, too. When a “frothy market” feels chaotic and risky and makes you anxious, Markowitz told us what to do: diversify.

The last time the stock market experienced a disastrous crash — during the Great Recession of 2008 — less risky, lower return assets went in the opposite direction. The dot-com bubble of the early 2000s was just like that, with non-tech firms less affected.

Diversification means you don't just pick winners — you pick losers, too, with the thought that they might be winners one day

The emotional barrier with diversification is that when one asset type — like tech stocks — is doing so well, investing elsewhere can feel like missing out on a great party. It can even feel like throwing money away, as inevitably some assets do better than others. Diversification means you don't just pick winners — you pick losers, too, with the thought that they might be winners one day. But regret is kind of the point of diversification. Regret that you missed out on the party can just as easily be regret that you went down with the party cruise ship.

In practice, diversification looks like investing in many different asset types: not just the stock market, and not just the S&P 500 or your favorite index. It means investing in international stocks or in Treasury and municipal bonds, and keeping some cash in a high-yield savings account, too. It looks like not gaining as much when the market soars — like it did the week after the November election — but also like not losing as much when the market corrects — like it did the week before Christmas.

Because here’s the inevitable: Both my sister and I will make it home for Christmas. Both sets of ingredients will be used. Investing in just a few places in a market that seems too good to be true is like spending all your cash on a fancy restaurant: When expectations are high, there's more room for disappointment. In uncertain times, take a trip home to Mom's house for the only free lunch in economics.

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What a medieval 12 Days of Christmas looks like, from porpoises to bloody Herod games

The English carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas" is a cumulative song, in which each verse builds upon the last, detailing the increasingly elaborate gifts that a "true love" has given to the singer. This popular holiday tune – known for its lords a-leaping and french hens – has many variations and refers to the real-life festive Christian season that celebrates the Nativity.

Henry V of Shakespearean fame, hosted a feast that offered 40 different types of fish, including roast porpoise.

For the month-long fast of Advent, Christians in medieval Europe would abstain from drink, meat and rich foods, denying themselves worldly comfort to seek God for life and sustenance. But beginning on Dec. 25, they would be amply rewarded for their temperance with 12 days of feasting, carousing and occasional hooliganism to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, a date unrecorded in the scripture but established by the early Church after centuries of scholarly wrangling.

Contrary to popular myth, the designation of Dec. 25 was not just a lazy attempt to steal pagan fun from the Romans. Several treatises from the first millennia A.D. pinpointed the birth of Jesus to that date based on biblical inferences and calendrical math, long before writers like Dionysius Syrus suggested that Dec. 25 was chosen for more practical reasons. Syrus was among many scholars who might have believed Jan. 6 to be the true date of Jesus' birth — while they might have lost the debate, that day, known as Epiphany, came to mark the end of 12 festive days that are Christian in its foundation, and yet also bear heavy echoes from a pre-Christian past.

When Hitler tried to redesign Christmas

Read on to learn how to celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas as people would have many centuries ago, celebrating the universality of embracing light in the dead of winter with Jesus in their minds as the pivot of the world.

Intemperate feasting

Medieval Christians were supposed to fast all the way until Dec. 25, which would be heralded by a candlelit Midnight Mass. The degree of ensuing decadence would depend on one's social status, but everyone, in theory, benefited from festive largesse. Princes and the high nobility took the opportunity to gorge themselves and their courtiers on heaps of food that often included exotic and rarely consumed delicacies. In 1387, Richard II of England's kitchens prepared, among other ingredients, 84 pounds of salt venison, 210 geese, 1,200 pigeons and 11,000 eggs. Thirty years later, his second cousin, Henry V of Shakespearean fame, hosted a feast that offered 40 different types of fish, including roast porpoise (which is admittedly, in our modern scientific classification, a mammal).

Meanwhile, peasants and poorer urban workers could expect to receive at least 12 days' worth of relief from the usual labors, which in itself may have been as much cause to celebrate as the birth of their savior. While they would not have feasted on porpoise, a goose or pig would have been heartily consumed in a time when meat was too expensive for most people to eat regularly. Alongside meat, people ate pies, puddings and frumenty – a sweet porridge made with wheat, eggs, milk and sugar. Sometimes, the manor lord or guild masters would provide at least one meal for all of their workers, a practice perhaps emulated by the modern-day workplace pizza party.

Feasting did not relent after Christmas. On Dec. 27 lay the Feast of St. John, who was said to have drank a cup of poisoned wine without succumbing. Naturally, people commemorated this miracle by imbibing copious amounts of wine, or for the lower classes, beer or cider.

Throughout the Twelve Days, people shared traditional mince pies with friends and family, eating a mixture within that contained 13 ingredients representing Christ and his apostles. Those ingredients typically included dried fruits, spices, meats and most importantly, chopped mutton to remember the shepherds who paid homage to Jesus in the cradle.

While some people today might enjoy a Yule Log made from sponge cake and buttercream, the modern-day dessert is derived from a largely faded tradition of burning a huge, specially selected log of wood in a hearth to mark the winter solstice and symbolize the twigs the shepherds used to keep Jesus warm. In parts of Italy where the logs were particularly revered, households would decorate their ceppo di Natale and drizzle it with spices, wine or honey before setting a blaze that would be maintained until the Twelfth Night (Jan. 5 would make 12 nights including the night of the 24th), the evening before Epiphany, the last of the Twelve Days and a feast celebrating the visit of the Magi (three kings) to Jesus.

One of the most important items of an English noble's Epiphany feast was the cooked head of a giant boar, the ferocious sovereign of the forest whose slaying in a hunt represented the triumph of Christ Child over sin. Not everyone could afford a boar's head or go hunting for one, of course, so lesser burghers had to make do with pies or cakes in the shape of one while the poorest didn't bother with it at all.

Upending social hierarchies

While monks and guild actors performed dramatic retellings of biblical stories year-round, the plays were most frequent during Christmastide. Plays performed on the Feast of the Holy Innocents (Dec. 28) invariably commemorated the story of King Herod ordering the execution of all male children in Bethlehem under two years old. One of the oldest of these plays was the "Ordo Rachelis" ("The Play of Rachel"), which centered on the titular matriarch of the Hebrews lamenting the children's death as a representation of all the Hebrew mothers of Bethlehem. Another, the "Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors," included the hauntingly mournful "Conventry Carol," a mother's lullaby to her doomed child.

Other activities on the Feast of Innocents, varying in practice across Europe, were relatively less sedate. In Germany emerged so-called "Herod games" in which people would reportedly stage mock attacks on churches and assail bystanders with inflated animal bladders to ridicule the cruel absurdity of the Judean king.

The more well-documented tradition of this day was the election of a choirboy by his peers to perform the duties of bishop, dressing in his vestments and conducting Church services in a reversal of hierarchy. (Sometimes, the boy bishop would hold "authority" from Dec. 6, Saint Nicholas' Day.) More than representing a kind of penance towards children, the tradition of the boy bishop also paid homage to the idea that God favored the poor and innocent — at the moment of deposuit potentes de sede ("he hath put down the mighty from their seat") in the liturgy, the bishop would step down, and the boy would take his place at et exaltavit humiles ("and hath exalted the humble and meek").

More voluntary role-swapping took place on the Feast of the Circumcision (Jan. 1), in which the sub-deacons, members of the lower clergy, would preside over the the day's observances and celebrate the biblical principle that “God chose what is foolish in the world, that he might put to shame them that are wise." By the 12th century, the day came to be known initially in southern France and later in other parts of Europe as the "Feast of the Fools," an occasion for much drinking, parades, dancing and disorderly merriment. The Lord of Misrule, normally a sub-deacon or a lay commoner, was appointed by lot to direct the entertainments, and like other Christmas traditions found close parallel to the Roman festival of Saturnalia, in which people enjoyed a day of drunken revelry and patricians served food to their slaves.

This kind of sanctioned social revolution, of course, only marked the beginning of a year in which normal social hierarchies remained in place — but even this was too much for some rulers and church authorities, who tried by the 15th century were attempting to ban the practice with limited success.

Exchanging gifts

While Christmas trees were not widespread until the 16th century, churches and households sometimes hung branches of holly on their doors or apples on trees to commemorate Adam and Eve Day on Dec. 24. Wrapping gifts, placing them under trees and opening them on Christmas Day are a relatively modern invention — in early medieval times, some Christian rulers thought that the story of the three Magi bestowing gifts to their sovereign, Jesus the King of Kings, was a perfect justification to demand additional taxes and tribute from their own subjects.

By the 12th century, however, the growing influence of the Church and its demands for secular rulers to abide by Christian virtues meant that gift-giving largely took the form of providing alms and food for the poor. Charity was encouraged throughout the year, and all but obliged on the Feast of St. Stephen (Dec. 26), on which the famously charitable St. Wenceslas, later immortalized in a Victorian carol, was said to have trekked through a blizzard to provide firewood for a poor man despite his own kingly status. Like other saints, he served as a lesson for good Christians to observe biblical principles that he represented in life — in this case, to love and care for the poor.

The kind of gift-giving that most people are familiar with now — exchanges between friends and family — typically occurred among upper and middle class folk on New Year's Day, with a prince or lord typically receiving his own tribute in state, servants at hand to display them on sideboards after the presentation. This was an opportunity for subjects to please their lord with valuable and novel items, like the £30,000 gold cups that Cardinal Thomas Wolsey presented to Henry VIII of England almost annually, or, on at least one occasion, for a rebellious vassal to lull him into a false sense of security. Unfortunately for the Duke of Buckingham, his 1521 gift of a goblet engraved with the motto "With humble, true heart" did not do the trick, and he was executed the same year for high treason.

Sometimes, Henry enjoyed receiving more personal gifts, like his daughter Lady Elizabeth's Latin translation of Queen Katherine Parr's "Prayers and Meditations." The future Queen Elizabeth I was 12 years old at the time — long past the age in which a ghastly crayon drawing of dad would suffice.

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A timeline of the full Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni beef

Early this summer fans and online sleuths alike questioned what exactly happened behind-the-scenes between "It Ends With Us" co-stars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni.

Based on the Colleen Hoover bestseller, "It Ends With Us" is about a florist named Lily (Lively) who falls in love with neurosurgeon Ryle (Baldoni), whom Lily slowly discovers is abusive. The movie grossed $350 million worldwide and was released on Netflix earlier this month. Beyond the film's popularity, the alleged behind-the-scenes turmoil has also spilled through to audiences.

Shedding light on some of the speculation on what happened is in a new lawsuit filed by Lively on Friday that alleges sexual harassment, retaliation and an orchestrated media campaign to harm her reputation by Baldoni, the film's co-star and director. The lawsuit details unsettling behavior on set that led Lively to take protection against herself from Baldoni and a producer. An exposé by The New York Times has also detailed the elaborate social media machine allegedly used against Lively during the movie's press tour.

Salon breaks down the events leading up to the lawsuit, the complaint and the bombshell New York Times exposé:

Here's the "It Ends With Us" controversy people aren’t talking about

November 2023: Lively goes to the studio with safeguard demands

Lively's concerns about Baldoni were documented from the beginning. Before shooting even began, Lively refused to do additional sex scenes that Baldoni pushed because she considered them gratuitous, according to the complaint.

Then later, when production was set to resume filming post-Hollywood strikes, Lively went to the film's production company Wayfarer with a letter demanding safeguards.

“Our client is willing to forego a more formal HR process in favor of everyone returning to work and finishing the Film as long as the set is safe moving forward,” the letter stated.

According to her legal complaint, she said Baldoni had improvised nonconsensual kissing and discussed his sex life. Lively also claimed that he shared experiences where he may not have received consent from previous partners.

The complaint also says that Jamey Heath, the film's producer who is also Baldoni's podcast co-host, allegedly showed her nude videos of his wife. She also alleges he walked into Lively's dressing room while she was topless and having body makeup removed. She said both men would walk into her dressing room unannounced while she was undressed, even when she was breastfeeding.

Wayfarer acknowledged that “Although our perspective differs in many aspects, ensuring a safe environment for all is paramount,” according to her legal complaint.

April-May 2024: Creative differences plague Baldoni and Lively's working relationship

While Lively said that the men’s behavior on set had improved with the new protections, she said she was at a creative standstill with Heath and Baldoni.

With the support of Sony, the film's distributor, she made her own cut of the film. Lively's version of the film includes different scenes, editing and adding music Lively handpicked like using her friend Taylor Swift's song "My Tears Ricochet." Sony went with Lively's version and she received a producer credit.

As the film's release got closer, Lively and other cast members told Sony and Wayfarer they would not do press appearances with Baldoni. Hoover had allegedly also soured on Baldoni after he told her about Lively's allegations.

May 2024: Baldoni allegedly gets the ball rolling on a plan against Lively

Months after filming had wrapped on "It Ends With Us," Baldoni realized that Lively's husband, actor Ryan Reynolds, had blocked him on Instagram.

In texts obtained through the Times, Baldoni pointed out the growing contention between him and Lively as a possible issue when the film would begin being promoted. He told a publicist who worked at Wayfarer, “We should have a plan for IF she does the same when movie comes out. Plans make me feel more at ease.”

August 2, 2024: Baldoni retains the public relations expert who represented Johnny Depp

Just weeks before the film's premiere, Wayfarer and Baldoni had hired crisis management expert, Melissa Nathan, who is known for working with high-profile celebrities like Drake and Travis Scott. But her most significant client is Johnny Depp, whom she represented during the 2022 defamation trial with his ex-wife Amber Heard, who had accused him of abuse in 2016. He won, but the trial became a social media spectacle with claims of an online smear campaign working against Heard to damage her credibility.

Nathan left her longtime firm to start her own business called TAG PR, which counts music executive and manager Scooter Braun among its majority stakeholders. Braun is a longtime public adversary of Swift after he bought her masters, which prompted the singer to rerecord her first six albums to retake ownership of her music. This detail will come up again later.

Meanwhile, during conversations with Baldoni, Nathan formulated a plan with talking points about how Lively used "an imbalance of power to take creative control of the film." However, this wasn't enough for Baldoni.

“Not in love with the document they sent,” he texted Heath and another publicist, Jennifer Abel. “Not sure I’m feeling the protection I felt on the call.”

Abel texted Nathan: “I think you guys need to be tough and show the strength of what you guys can do in these scenarios. He wants to feel like she can be buried.”

“Of course – but you know when we send over documents we can’t send over the work we will or could do because that could get us in a lot of trouble,” Nathan replied. “We can’t write we will destroy her.”

Nathan continued, “Imagine if a document saying all the things that he wants ends up in the wrong hands.”

“You know we can bury anyone,” she wrote.

August 2024: Nathan allegedly begins forming a social media plan

Days later, Baldoni texted Abel highlighting an X thread that accused Hailey Bieber of bullying Selena Gomez. The thread had garnered 19 million views. “This is what we would need,” he wrote.

Then Nathan allegedly began formulating proposals to hire contractors to flood social media through “full social account take downs.” They would do this by creating “threads of theories” and working to “change narrative.”

“All of this will be most importantly untraceable,” she texted.

August 4, 2024: Nathan talks to an editor at The Daily Mail

Ahead of the premiere, Abel said, “I’m having reckless thoughts of wanting to plant pieces this week of how horrible Blake is to work with. Just to get ahead of it.”

Nathan texted back that she had spoken off the record to an editor at The Daily Mail.

"She’s ready when we are,” Nathan said. “[Baldoni] doesn’t realise how lucky he is right now.”

August 6, 2024: At the premiere of "It Ends With Us," cast stays separate from Baldoni

During the film's premiere screening, Baldoni – the director and main costar of the film – reportedly had a separate theater from Lively and other cast members. It was also reported that supporting cast members like Jenny Slate, Hasan Minhaj, Brandon Sklenar and even Hoover had unfollowed Baldoni on social media.

Slate, who plays Baldoni's sister in the film, even dodged a question about Baldoni on the red carpet. "I mean, what an intense job, to have to do so many things. I just found myself being like, 'Wow, I really just want to have one job at once.' And in fact, I've often felt that way," she replied.

The confusing cast dynamics also received its first round of press coverage from The Hollywood Reporter, citing online speculation on TikTok. The posts questioned what happened on set, why Baldoni wasn't conducting press with other cast members and why cast members had unfollowed Baldoni.

The NYTimes said that Nathan kept the allegations against Baldoni out of each article that was coming out. She said major news outlets were “standing down on HR complaint.”

August 9, 2024: Social media posts against Lively ramp up

The film's marketing was accused by people online of being insensitive to domestic abuse with Lively facing pushback when her alcohol company Betty Booze was also promoting the film, given that alcohol can play a role in abusive relationships. There was more backlash when Lively shared in an interview that Reynolds helped rewrite a scene in the movie. People began speculating whether Reynolds had violated the writers strike.

Another public relations expert, Jed Wallace of Street Relations, was also working with Abel and Nathan on the alleged campaign to smear Lively. “We are crushing it on Reddit,” Wallace said to Nathan.

Nathan's employees had also messaged her, “We’ve started to see shift on social, due largely to Jed and his team’s efforts to shift the narrative.”

Nathan wrote to Abel, “And socials are really really ramping up. In his favour, she must be furious. It’s actually sad because it just shows you have people really want to hate on women.”

August 10, 2024: Journalist posts interview about Lively

As the narrative against Lively picked up steam, an old 2016 interview between the actress and Norwegian journalist Kjersti Flaa was uploaded online. In the YouTube video titled, "The Blake Lively interview that made me want to quit my job," Flaa mentions Lively's pregnancy, saying, "Congrats on your little bump."

Lively responded, "Congrats on your little bump" despite Flaa not being pregnant.

Flaa told The Daily Mail, “It’s time that people behaving badly in Hollywood, or anywhere else for that matter, gets called out for it.”

The YouTube video has been viewed 5.9 million times and has 30,000 comments. The clipped version of the interview spread online quickly, further fueling the negativity online around Lively.

Flaa wrote to the Times, "[The video] was neither coordinated nor influenced by anyone associated with the alleged campaign."

August 15, 2024: Baldoni tells Nathan to use Lively's and Reynolds' words against them

Baldoni proposes “flipping the narrative” on a positive story about Lively and her husband by “using their own words against them.”

In other instances, Baldoni is concerned about how the tactics used against Lively appears. He sent a text saying, “How can we say somehow that we are not doing any of this — it looks like we are trying to take her down.”

He even questioned whether bots were used to spin the narrative around Lively.

“I can fully fully confirm we do not have bots,” Nathan reassured. She said no digital team would “utilise something so obvious.”

August 16, 2024: The campaign is in full swing

Nathan sent an article to Abel, “Is Blake Lively set to be CANCELLED?” in which The Daily Mail refers to Lively in "hard to watch" videos and during a "tone-deaf" press tour.

“Wow. You really outdid yourself with this piece,” Abel said.

“That’s why you hired me right?” Nathan wrote. “I’m the best.”

Other texts from Abel state, "The narrative online is so freaking good and the fans are still sticking up for Justin . . . I see this as a total success, as does Justin."

"Narrative is CRAZY good. Majority of socials are so pro Justin and I don't agree with half of them," Nathan responded.

August 20, 2024: Co-star Brandon Sklenar defends Lively

In a statement posted on Instagram, Sklenar, who plays Atlas, Lily's second love interest in the film, came to Lively's defense after growing online distaste for the actress.

"Vilifying the women who put so much of their heart and soul into making this film because they believe so strongly in its message seems counterproductive and detracts from what this film is about. It is, in fact, the opposite of the point," he wrote.

He continued, "All I ask is that before you spread hate on the internet, ask yourself who its helping. Ask yourself if your opinions are based in any fact."

https://www.instagram.com/p/C-5nF_IJr73/?hl=en

August 2024: A company finds Lively was at the center of an "online attack" similar to Heard

In August, Lively commissioned a brand marketing consultant, Terakeet to investigate the vitriolic social media response. The company found she had likely been a part of a “targeted, multichannel online attack” similar to the one Heard faced that damaged her reputation.

The company could not find who was responsible for the attack but the company analyzed Google's search index for Lively's name. It found that 35 percent of the results were attached to Baldoni. The company said this was very abnormal given her decades-long career. It suggested that the media environment was being manipulated.

December 21, 2024: Lively files sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit against Baldoni and Wayfarer

TMZ first reported Lively filed the lawsuit against Baldoni for sexual harassment and a concerted effort to destroy her reputation. Lively cited that during filming for "It Ends With Us," Baldoni created a hostile work environment by crossing numerous personal and professional boundaries.

Lively claimed the spear campaign against her even targeted Swift. The NYTimes article showed evidence of Baldoni's public relations team saying they would "explore planting stories about the weaponization of feminism and how people in BL [Lively]'s circle, like Taylor Swift, have been accused of utilizing these tactics to ‘bully’ into getting what they want."

Baldoni's attorney said the lawsuit is Lively's way to "fix her negative reputation." He added that the claims are "false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt."

Lively said in a statement, "I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted.”

December 21, 2024: NYTimes posts exposé

The article titled, "'We Can Bury Anyone': Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine" exposes the alleged system at work attempting to discredit Lively's reputation and experiences with Baldoni and Heath.

December 21, 2024: Baldoni is dropped by talent agency

Talent agency WME dropped Baldoni the same day Lively's lawsuit was filed, the Daily Beast reports. Lively is also a client of WME and continues to be represented by the agency.

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December 22, 2024: Hoover posts in support of Lively

Hoover addressed Lively in the wake of the lawsuit and the NYTimes article. In an Instagram story, the "It Ends With Us" author wrote, "You have been nothing but honest, kind, supportive, and patient since the day we met."

She continued, "Thank you for being exactly the human that you are. Never change. Never wilt."

December 22, 2024: Lively's former cast members support her

Lively's former cast mates from "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" posted a statement to their Instagrams to "stand in solidarity" with Lively.

Actors America Ferrera, Alexis Bledel and Amber Tamblyn opened, “As Blake’s friends and sisters for over 20 years, we stand with her in solidarity as she fights back against the reported campaign waged to destroy her reputation.

“Throughout the filming of ‘It Ends with Us,’ we saw her summon the courage to ask for a safe workplace for herself and colleagues on set, and we are appalled to read the evidence of a premeditated and vindictive effort that ensued to discredit her voice," the statement read. "Most upsetting is the unabashed exploitation of domestic violence survivors’ stories to silence a woman who asked for safety. The hypocrisy is astounding.

“We are struck by the reality that even if a woman is as strong, celebrated, and resourced as our friend Blake, she can face forceful retaliation for daring to ask for a safe working environment. We are inspired by our sister’s courage to stand up for herself and others," it said.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DD5oh80OduT/?img_index=1

December 23, 2024: Amber Heard comes to Lively's defense

In a statement for NBC News, Heard also addressed the lawsuit. She said, “Social media is the absolute personification of the classic saying, ‘A lie travels halfway around the world before truth can get its boots on.’ I saw this firsthand and up close. It’s as horrifying as it is destructive.”

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Christmas comes early: Kim Kardashian covers “Santa Baby” in a chaotic music video

Kim Kardashian is ready to grant all your wildest Christmas wishes and fantasies.

In the reality television star's new cover and music video of Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby," she shows audiences she's not afraid to give singing another chance. More than a decade ago, the entrepreneur released a single called "Jam (Turn It Up)" in which she said, "That's like the one thing. I can't believe I did that."

Kanye West allegedly said ex-wife Kim Kardashian has "Jewish masters" according to lawsuit

But this time around Kardashian's voice is a distant lullaby heard faintly against a crackling record and the commotion in the music video. The song is subtle and sensual against the chaos of the video, which was produced by Kardashian's brother-in-law and Blink 182 rocker Travis Barker. We see Kardashian crawl around a Christmas house party, ditching her usual long, straight black hair for a short, messy blonde wig. She wears a powder blue cardigan, pink leg warmers and low-riding tan riding pants with a thong peeking out.

The '80s-style video directed by Nadia Lee Cohen and Charlie Denis feels like a fever dream as Kardashian creeps through fake snow. She encounters elves fixing the trashed house, models playing Twister in high heels, Jesus opening a fridge to check for food and a woman destroying a Christmas tree with garden shears.

Unexpectedly, at the end of the four-minute venture, the shakey VHS-style video reveals its director — a naughty Santa played by none other than Macaulay Culkin, who's now always associated with Christmastime viewing. The video ends with a smirk from the "Home Alone" actor.

Watch Kardashian’s “Santa Baby” video below.

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Nicole Kidman is a force of nature in “Babygirl,” the most mind-blowing erotic thriller in years

In the opening scene of Halina Reijn’s delightfully lascivious “Babygirl,” the high-powered shipping industry CEO Romy Mathis (Nicole Kidman) is having an orgasm. Or, at least that’s what we think is happening. All the indicators are there: Romy’s face, gasping in pleasure; her head tossed back in ecstasy; the crescendo of her groans as her husband, Jacob (Antonio Banderas), brings himself to climax just below her. But despite this convincing show, Romy is merely faking it, a detail we learn moments later when she scurries off to the privacy of her office. There, she throws herself and her laptop on the floor, touching herself with a flushed haste to the porn playing onscreen.

She’s able to build a teetering Jenga tower of psychosexual tension.

Reijn states her thesis at the very top of “Babygirl,” showing us the conventional, patriarchal image of a woman’s pleasure when the reality of Romy’s sexual gratification remains somewhere else entirely. For some, this sight will feel revolutionary. To others, it may be achingly on the nose. The diminishment of female sexuality is still a begrudgingly taboo subject, spoken about in hushed tones behind closed doors, but it’s hardly a novel one. And Reijn, who most recently directed the 2022 satirical horror-comedy “Bodies Bodies Bodies,” understands that she’s not breaking new ground by simply reminding us of the dissonance between image and reality. Her film begins at a point that other writer-directors would work up to slowly, and it’s because Reijn establishes this familiar base of social analysis from the jump that she’s able to build a teetering Jenga tower of psychosexual tension throughout the remainder of her character study.

The worst film performances of 2024

Keeping the structure stable until its inevitable fall requires a performer who is equally game for, well, games. In Kidman, Reijn finds a wholly committed muse, one willing to submerge herself so fully in Romy’s neuroses that the line between a revered actor simulating sex onscreen and a character consumed by her own pleasure blurs entirely. The role is Kidman’s most ferocious in years and once again cements her as one of the greatest — if not the greatest — performers of her time. Escaping Kidman’s gaze is only possible when she herself allows it to turn to the cherubic beauty of Harris Dickinson, who plays Samuel, an intern at Romy’s company. Samuel arrives during a pivotal moment, catching Romy in flux as she gears up for the next stage of her business at the same time she reaches peak sexual tedium with her husband. Though Romy and Samuel’s illicit affair is inevitable, where “Babygirl” goes after is not. Reijn’s film is completely unpredictable, switching lanes just when one least expects it. The volatility feels like its own lewd tease, and the ensuing excitement results in something extraordinarily intimate between the viewer, the filmmaker and “Babygirl” itself.

Antonio Banderas and Nicole Kidman in "Babygirl" (A24)

The vulnerability spread throughout “Babygirl” is evident from that very first scene when we watch Kidman splay herself on the floor. In this moment, Romy is controlled by insatiable need, and the way she flings herself onto the ground feels almost childlike in its carelessness, a juvenile desire to ride the feeling to its natural conclusion. It’s Freudian in a way that will make some people queasy. But Kidman isn’t debasing herself or regressing just for the sick sight of it all. Rather, Reijn is establishing a generalized discomfort that will cover “Babygirl” like the oily film that sits atop a fresh cup of coffee: It’s safe to consume, but if you stare at it too long, it becomes a strange symbol for all the things we stop noticing when life moves too fast.

For Romy, fast is the default setting. Every minute of the day has a decision attached to it. Romy is so caught up in her business that she’s nearly attacked by a dog on the street until a handsome stranger gives a whistle and stops the mauling moments before disaster. Finally looking up and away from her phone for the first time in God knows how long, Romy locks eyes with Samuel, calming the dog halfway down the sidewalk. “Good girl,” he repeats while stroking its fur. Suddenly, an erotic force has jammed its way into Romy’s vigorous inertia, throwing her velocity entirely out of whack. When she finds out shortly after that that Samuel was near her office because he’s an intern selected for the company’s new mentorship program, Romy is once again forced to repress her sexual desire as it bubbles to the surface. But this time the restraint isn’t derived from the fear of judgment; it’s borne out of the knowledge that any dalliance with Samuel could have dire consequences.

Romy’s too smart to make any rash decisions, but as it turns out, Samuel’s wits rival the big boss’. As part of the internship program, each candidate can select a mentor from a pool of higher-ups within the company. Naturally, Samuel selects Romy, who can’t seem to figure out how her name got on the list. Nevertheless, she’ll play the part of the diplomatic CEO whose door is always open. When Romy and Samuel are alone, however, their dynamic quickly turns into another story. Most everyone lives in fear of Romy’s glare, while Samuel not only meets it but holds it. Instead of merely nodding his head, Samuel asks questions and converses with Romy. His queries challenge her until Samuel oversteps a boundary when he tells Romy that he thinks she likes being told what to do, and from there, it’s game over — or, more fittingly, game on. What follows is a tête-à-tête for the ages that skillfully keeps the viewer on their toes as often as Romy is on her knees.

Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson in "Babygirl" (A24)“Babygirl” is hardly pornographic, nor is it explicitly fetishistic, as Reijn recognizes that it would be a disservice to Romy to neatly box in or label the desires of a woman discovering her primal self for the first time, decades into her life. The film does, however, often feel illicit, and necessarily so. The sex between Samuel and Romy is playful and communicative, and it’s that rapport between two willing parties that makes “Babygirl” a genuinely sexy film. Reijn avoids the bumper sticker-ism of “consent is sexy” and instead opts for a thorough conversation about what consent means between these two parties that more effectively reflects the nuances of the term. What Samuel and Romy have permission to do with each other and to each other is in constant discussion. Moving that established boundary line back and forth gives Reijn, Kidman and Dickinson a delicious opportunity to keep things strange. You’ll never know where a scene will go or where it will stop. Like sex, “Babygirl” is at its best when it’s unpredictable.

The role is Kidman’s most ferocious in years.

Capriciousness is where Reijn’s movie sets itself apart from any other flick that touches on similar subject matter — particularly the “Fifty Shades” series, which may be the most obvious comparison. But you can’t compare where you don’t compete, and the decidedly unsexy thrills between Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey can’t even begin to measure up to what Reijn has in store in here, particularly because “Babygirl” isn’t really an erotic thriller, it’s an erotic cinematic profile of a woman learning to live without humiliation. Instead of focusing solely on the convert nature of Romy’s desires just to pose established sociological questions about why they’re so clandestine, Reijn homes in on the shame that Romy feels when she expresses herself. There’s immense power in finding the person who can remove the thick, nasty film of ignominy, but that’s also where the risk comes in too. “Babygirl” slyly navigates the hazards dotting the road to liberation, and when things begin to come undone, there’s even room for Banderas to jump in and keep his character from being mere window dressing in Romy’s narrative.

Reijn is careful to remind us that prioritizing our id can have repercussions. Though the fallout is never quite as engrossing as the film’s middle section, it maintains an undeniable tension and allows Kidman to once again illustrate the complexities of her character and ensure that Romy is a believably three-dimensional being. Her version of “having it all” looks much different from the conventional ideals of a woman’s idyllic life suggested by fourth-wave feminism. It’s messy and filled with both love and desire, picture-perfect while openly flawed.

Harris Dickinson and Nicole Kidman in "Babygirl" (Courtesy of A24/Niko Tavernise)This is maybe best conveyed by a quote Kidman gave to Vanity Fair back in August, just as the film was making its world debut at the Venice Film Festival. Kidman talked about how necessary it was for Reijn to create a safe environment that would allow its actors to fully become their characters without suffering exploitation. Kidman spoke highly of her writer-director, while noting that the role required complete, raw sublimation, which is perhaps best highlighted in a scene where Romy orgasms with Samuel for the first time. “This is something you do and hide in your home videos,” Kidman said. “It’s not normally a thing that is going to be seen by the world.”

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That quote struck me long before I ever even got eyes on “Babygirl,” particularly Kidman’s words about “home videos,” which seem almost like an antiquated concept. But upon seeing the movie, it made clear sense. Nowadays, everything we take videos of is immediately buried in our camera roll, beneath screenshots of recipes and photos of suspicious moles. Rarely will someone take those videos and stitch them into a proper vignette anymore. And when we do, we’d certainly hide whatever darkness was occurring within our family or ourselves. What Reijn and Kidman pull off in “Babygirl” touches a kind of intimacy that barely exists now, further hidden beneath new technology that succeeds by depersonalizing our wants and turning us into cogs in a machine. When Romy finds herself outside of that stasis, finally thinking about something that isn’t her family or her job, it’s an eye-opening miracle. While “Babygirl” might be a highly stylized, intricate depiction of personal awakening, it’s a necessary reminder that getting what you want is as easy as being honest with yourself.

"Babygirl" is in theaters nationwide on Christmas Day.

Best of 2024

Trump & crypto: How friendly is too friendly?

With Donald Trump's inauguration a month away, cryptocurrency analysts are sounding the alarm on potential conflicts with his administration and the industry he has embraced.

Trump and his sons helped launch World Liberty Financial, a decentralized crypto platform co-founded by Steve Witkoff, a real estate developer and inauguration committee co-chair who Trump has named special Middle East envoy. The platform proclaims Trump its "chief crypto advocate" and his sons "ambassadors." The Trumps are not an "officer, director, founder, or employee of World Liberty Financial or its affiliates," according to a disclaimer on its website. But an entity affiliated with Trump, DT Marks DEFI LLC, is entitled to receive 75% of its revenues, the disclaimer says.

The platform gained little traction until Justin Sun, a Chinese-born crypto entrepreneur sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission for defrauding investors, became its largest backer in early December. Sun's $30 million investment and role as an adviser to the project raised concerns because his crypto network Tron has allegedly been used by militant groups like Hamas, according to Reuters’ reporting. Analysts say the partnership opens the venture to legal and diplomatic risks, and highlights the often opaque nature of cryptocurrency financing.

Trump's social media group might buy crypto trading firm Bakkt

In mid-November, the Financial Times reported another potential deal. Trump Media — the parent company of Trump's social media platform, Truth Social — was in talks to buy Bakkt, a crypto trading firm previously led by Kelly Loeffler, another co-chair of his inauguration committee. Since then, SEC filings show Trump has transferred all of his $4 billion stake in Trump Media to a revocable trust overseen by his son, Donald Trump Jr.

Representatives for Trump and Witkoff didn't respond to requests for comment on their crypto business. A spokeswoman for Trump has denied he is trying to profit from the presidency, and Sun has denied any wrongdoing.

“During the last Trump administration, many companies, foreign interests and others sought to curry favor with President Trump through using his hotels and properties,” said Mark Hays, a senior policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform. “But, with [World Life Financial], it's theoretically possible to make investments in a firm that could financially benefit the president-elect, pseudonymously, at the touch of a button from anywhere around the world. It's a black box tailor made for potential conflicts of interest and pay-to-play politics.”

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"Things could go very badly, very quickly"

Trump, an outspoken skeptic of crypto in his first term, reversed course on the 2024 campaign trail and said he would make the U.S. the "crypto capital of the planet." The industry poured tens of millions of dollars into electing him and other pro-crypto candidates. He has nominated crypto advocate Paul Atkins to take over the SEC from Biden appointee Gary Gensler, who since 2021 has led a crypto crackdown.

Bitcoin surged to $100,000 for the first time following the announcement. "CONGRATULATIONS BITCOINERS!!! $100,000!!!" Trump wrote on Truth Social. "YOU’RE WELCOME!!!"

“Many in the crypto industry are cautiously optimistic that the upcoming presidency will be more favorable toward crypto and digital assets compared to previous governments,” Fidelity analysts wrote in their 2025 market outlook report. “They hope the new administration will open the doors for long-awaited industry regulations, making it possible for the industry to grow domestically.”

But Amanda Wick, CEO of the Association for Women in Cryptocurrency, said, "We need to move toward responsible innovation. If the crypto industry pushes for deregulation or less regulation, things could go very badly, very quickly."

"We need to move toward responsible innovation"

A recent ruling on a case involving the crypto mixing platform Tornado Cash exemplifies a shift toward deregulation. In November, a federal appeals court with a Trump-appointed judge ruled that the Treasury Department overstepped its authority by sanctioning the platform.

The court ruled that Tornado Cash's smart contract technology couldn't be legally categorized as property, essentially blocking the government's attempt to penalize a platform allegedly used for laundering over $7 billion, including funds from North Korean hackers.

While some crypto players like Coinbase celebrated the decision as a "historic win for liberty," cybersecurity experts warned that deregulation could create dangerous precedents.

The ruling also underscored analysts' concerns that technological innovation and industry autonomy will take priority over stringent oversight, potentially leaving critical financial security gaps unaddressed.

“Notions that this ruling is a huge win for the industry may be a bit overstated,” Hays said. “But the ruling does capture a piece of the crypto industry's broader deregulatory strategy. Just like other players in the financial system, the crypto industry has [been] seeking out extremely pro-business, anti-consumer court venues like the 5th Circuit to roll back important regulatory safeguards or advance radical judicial strategies that stand to make it harder for authorities to protect consumers, investors and communities.”

A new approach could lead to broader systemic vulnerabilities in crypto regulation, with implications for national security, analysts said.

Sanctions have been a key economic tool used by the U.S. to sideline actors such as Russia. Earlier this year, the U.S. Treasury introduced sanctions on over a dozen Russia-affiliated crypto companies in order to cut off a regime that is “increasingly turning to alternative payment mechanisms to circumvent U.S. sanctions and continue to fund its war against Ukraine,” according to former Brian Nelson, the Treasury's former undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

“As the Kremlin seeks to leverage entities in the financial technology space, Treasury will continue to expose and disrupt the companies that seek to help sanctioned Russian financial institutions reconnect to the global financial system,” Nelson said in a statement in February.

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Joe Biden commutes sentences of nearly all federal death row inmates — except three mass killers

President Joe Biden heeded the calls of anti-death penalty campaigners and spared all but three federal prisoners from the threat of execution on Monday, commuting a total of 37 sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In a statement, Biden, who has overseen a moratorium on federal executions even as federal prosecutors continue to seek the death penalty, cast the move as an act of mercy. It comes after President-elect Donald Trump, during his previous term, executed 13 federal prisoners in the span of six months, more than the previous 10 presidents combined.

"One last chance": Biden's pardon of Hunter can't be his final act of clemency, Democrats say

"Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss," Biden said in a statement explaining his decision. But he argued that taking their lives would not constitute justice.

"[G]uided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vice President, and now President, I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level," Biden said. "In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted."

Those excluded from Biden's commutations are all mass murderers: Dylann Roof, a white supremacist who killed nine Black worshipers at a South Carolina church in 2015; Robert Bowers, who killed 11 congregants at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue in 2018; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who planted bombs at the Boston Marathon in 2013, killing three people.

about the death penalty

“Substantial evidence”: Ethics report says Matt Gaetz violated statutory rape and drug laws

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., paid for sex with a 17-year-old who "had just completed her junior year in high school," according to a House Ethics Committee report that accuses the one-time attorney general nominee of potentially spending more than $90,000 on sex and drugs while a member of Congress.

A draft of the final report, first obtained by CBS News and other outlets, was made public following a committee vote earlier this month to release the panel's findings. Gaetz, who was investigated for alleged sex trafficking by the Department of Justice, has not been charged with a crime.

Gaetz admits to "embarrassing" acts after Republicans join vote to release House ethics report

"The Committee determined there is substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress," the report states, per CBS News.

In particular, the report — based on interviews, text messages and a review of Venmo and PayPal receipts — accuses Gaetz of paying $400 to have sex with an underage girl, while noting that "she did not inform Representative Gaetz that she was under 18 at the time, nor did he ask her age."

Investigators also allege that there is "substantial evidence" that Gaetz routinely used illegal drugs, referred to as "vitamins" and "party favors" in text messages, some of which he appears to have purchased from his Capitol Hill office.

According to the report, several women said they "feared retaliation" if they spoke out about their experiences with the former lawmaker, according to CNN.

“While all the women that the Committee interviewed stated their sexual activity with Representative Gaetz was consensual, at least one woman felt that the use of drugs at the parties and events they attended may have ‘impair(ed their) ability to really know what was going on or fully consent,’” the report states. “One woman said, ‘I think about it all the time … . I still see him when I turn on the tv and there’s nothing anyone can do. It’s frustrating to know I lived a reality that he denies.’”

After the committee voted last week to release the report, Gaetz issued a statement admitting to "embarrassing" behavior but insisting he broke no laws.

"I probably parties, womanized, drank and smoked more than I should have earlier in life," Gaetz wrote.

about Matt Gaetz

Donald Trump’s threats against foreign nations are not about revenge

One of the more annoying conceits of the MAGA cult is its insistence that Donald Trump is some kind of religious figure dedicated to bringing world peace and mutual understanding among all of humankind. They insist that he's been cheated out of his well-deserved Nobel Peace prize. That anyone could believe that about the most hostile, aggressively insulting, vengeance-seeking, demagogue this country has ever elected to high office is enough to make you wonder if there are hallucinogens in the water supply.

Setting aside his promises to wreak revenge on his political opponents and round up and deport mass numbers of people, including American children, there is the simple fact that his first term was not without war or death at the hands of the U.S. military, as he and his acolytes so often claim. Despite his promise to end the "forever war" in Afghanistan, it continued under his watch. It was left to President Biden to do the difficult task of ending it and take the heat that Trump was too cowardly to take. And naturally, Trump criticized him for it.

It appears that he has decided that American First means a return to American expansionism.

He bombed Syria, carried out assassinations of foreign leaders and massively escalated the drone war, simply removing all accountability and transparency and creating what the ACLU called "a presidents' unchecked license to kill." He pardoned war criminals (at the behest of the man he now wants to put in charge of the Department of Defense.) He exhorted the heads of the Defense Department and Department of Homeland Security to shoot protesters and migrants. If this is a man of peace, the word has no meaning.

He's also supposedly an isolationist in the old "America First" tradition. MAGA argues that there will be no more "interventionism" abroad under Trump. It's none of our business what other countries do. If they decide to invade their neighbors and take their land, that's their privilege. We have no stake in any kind of international order or stability. In fact, Trump proposes to build "a great Iron Dome over our country, a dome like has never seen before" to keep us safe from everyone else in the world. Experts told ABC News that "it's unrealistic, unaffordable and unachievable." It's also unnecessary but I don't think anyone will be surprised if Trump's majordomo, Elon Musk, gets a fat government contract to attempt to make it happen.

What just happened in Syria, and who benefits most? Well, that part is easy

However, let's not fool ourselves that Trump is actually an isolationist. He never has been, at least in any coherent definition of the term. He generally prefers to use economic threats to bring the rest of the world to heel, but he is all about American dominance. And in his second term, it appears that he has decided that American First means a return to American expansionism.

It's hard to say what inspired him to start threatening to seize other nations' lands. Maybe he's just feeling his oats and thinks he pretty much runs the world like a Roman Emperor now. Or perhaps he's just watching his idol, Vladimir Putin, waging war against Ukraine and feels he should be able to do the same thing. Whatever the reason, Trump's been on a tear in the last month threatening America's neighbors (and some others) in increasingly hostile ways.

We knew that in the first term, Trump had mused about launching missiles into Mexico to "destroy the drug labs." He wanted to keep it on the QT back then, suggesting that "we could just shoot some Patriot missiles and take out the labs, quietly," and "no one would know it was us." But since then he's been openly calling for military action. But then virtually all the presidential candidates in the Republican primary were also slavering over the idea so it's not just one of his rash ideas that nobody took seriously.

Florida Governor Ron Desantis said he would "do it on day one" when asked if he'd send troops over the border. The allegedly moderate former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley told Fox News that "when it comes to the cartels, we should treat them like the terrorists that they are. I would send special operations in there and eliminate them just like we eliminated ISIS."

That "terrorist" designation is important because that would give the White House quasi-legal authority to send in special forces or possibly even an invasion force. That's not off the table. Here is what Vice President-elect JD Vance said at the time:

"We need to declare the Mexican drug cartels a terrorist organization because that's exactly what they are. It allows our military to go into Mexico, to go on our southern border, and actually do battle with them."

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Rolling Stone reported last month that members of the incoming administration have been actively brainstorming "how much" to "invade Mexico."

Recently, Trump has decided that our neighbor to the north also looks mighty tempting. He's been taunting the Canadians with the idea that they should be the 51st state because the U.S. is supposedly "subsidizing" them which is his definition of trade. (He thinks that anything America pays for Canadian goods is a subsidy regardless of what we get in return.) That hasn't gone over very well among Canadians who know they are a sovereign country and are entitled to respect. So far, Trump hasn't threatened them with military action but with the way he's been talking, they probably shouldn't assume it's all just a big joke.

Over the weekend, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that he intends to take back the Panama Canal, which was given by treaty to the Panamanians back in 1977 with a full hand-off finally completely 25 years ago. He lambasted the country for allegedly charging "exorbitant fees" (of course) and said that if they don't change it he would "demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question.” When the president of Panama responded by saying, "the sovereignty and independence of our country aren’t negotiable" Trump posted "We’ll see about that!” and then later posted a picture of the canal with the words, "welcome to the United States canal."

We’ll see about that!

Donald Trump Truth Social 05:12 PM EST 12/22/24 pic.twitter.com/Vkp8r3iwJg

— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) December 22, 2024

pic.twitter.com/3xaubgZcrO

— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) December 22, 2024

On Sunday night the once and future president announced yet another possible conquest. While announcing the nomination of his ambassador to Denmark, he threw in this bizarre statement:

“For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”

You may recall it was reported that in his first term, Trump floated the idea of trading Puerto Rico for Greenland. He also believed that it could be bought from Denmark which was, according to Peter Baker and Susan Glasser in their book The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021, an idea he got from billionaire Ronald Lauder. He obsessed about the idea for months, causing much concern among members of his Cabinet. When the Danish Prime Minister called the idea absurd, Trump had a temper tantrum and canceled a planned trip to the country. So this latest declaration may be yet another of his vendettas.

As one BlueSky commenter quipped, "threatening to invade and annex all our neighbors sure does cross off another item on the list for the 'he's not technically a proper fascist!' folks." At the very least it sure does look like "Donald the Dove," as New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd fatuously named him back in 2016, is looking to make American territorial expansion great again. That Nobel Peace Prize is right around the corner.

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“I continue to be distraught”: Justice Riggs on the NCGOP’s efforts to throw out 60,000 votes

A heated battle over a close Supreme Court election in North Carolina escalated last week when the trailing Republican candidate asked a court to throw out 60,000 ballots cast in the November election, a move that Democrats and other critics have charged is a product of the modern GOP's increasing hostility to democracy.

The Republican, Appellate Court Judge Jefferson Griffin, had challenged sitting Democratic Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs in the race to sit on North Carolina's highest court. He sued the state board of elections on Dec. 18 after it denied his electoral challenge last week. Griffin then asked the Republican-majority Supreme Court to stop the board from counting more than 60,000 votes, including provisional ballots and those cast overseas, and requested an immediate pause on the certification of the election results. The state board of elections removed the case to federal court the next day.

In an interview with Salon, Justice Riggs said she is "saddened and disappointed" that the effort to contest her narrow victory has reached this point.

"As a sitting judge, I take a solid oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of North Carolina and the United States — as does every sitting judge or justice in the state court — and we have an obligation, moral and constitutional, to respect the will of North Carolina voters," Riggs said.

“What’s happening in North Carolina is sinister": NC GOP offers preview of Trump threat to democracy

Riggs, who was appointed to the Supreme Court seat in 2023, won the November election by just 734 votes out of more than 5.7 million ballots cast. Two recounts — one full machine and one partial hand recount — have since confirmed her slim victory, which isn't unprecedented in the state's Supreme Court elections.

In filing his election challenge, Griffin followed in the footsteps of President-elect Donald Trump and Arizona politician and Trump appointee Kari Lake, who both took aggressive and at times legally dubious actions to overturn their election losses. Griffin's escalation — bypassing state law that says county trial courts should hear appeals to election board decisions — also raises concerns about the precedent the GOP candidate's efforts set for the state's electoral processes going forward and whether it could serve as an election-denial model for others.

In the suit, Griffin's attorneys accuse the Democrat-controlled State Board of Elections of unlawfully and erroneously counting thousands of votes citing, in part, their incomplete voter registration applications — an argument the elections board rejected. Some registrations are incomplete because voters did not provide or were never asked to provide their driver's license or last four digits of their Social Security number.

A federal court ruling in favor of throwing out those votes would allow Griffin to take the lead in the race. The court, which is already hearing a related lawsuit from the North Carolina Democratic Party, could also rule against Griffin, which would prevent the GOP-led state Supreme Court from deciding in his favor. Indeed, U.S. Chief District Judge Richard Myers, appointed to the bench by Trump in 2019, last week ruled against Griffin's request for a temporary restraining order that would have blocked the certification of his loss.

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As a former voting rights attorney and sitting judge, Riggs said she views respecting precedent as an obligation, pointing to North Carolina court, federal court and the state board's bipartisan vote to reject these electoral challenges. She said it's concerning that the suit suggests one can attempt to retroactively change state election rules after an election took place, which would fly in the face of a long-held election law principle prohibiting changes shortly before a race so as not to confuse voters.

Also of concern, she said, are the implications of the challenge on North Carolina's voters and their electoral choices.

"There are real people behind these challenges, and it's not politics — it's people's lives and their rights," Riggs said.

The attempt to invalidate a broad swath of the votes touches almost every North Carolinian, either because they are on the list or know someone who is. Riggs noted that her own parents' ballots have been challenged and recalled seeing her mother's confusion and father's indignation — producing his military ID, utility bills and other documents — after learning they were included on the list of voters flagged as ineligible.

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"I continue to be distraught about the fact that my parents had about the best advice and insight they could receive because I was in this situation [to help them], and so many other North Carolinians did not," she said.

Riggs urged leaders across the nation to pay attention to the stories of her parents and other North Carolinians swept up in Griffin's legal effort to overturn her victory, "not out of any despair, but a sense of empowerment that we have to be vigilant" in defending democracy.

"We need to remember that this is about voters and their choices," she added. "Sometimes maybe democracy breaks your heart, but if you believe in the institutions and the dream that our founders had, I think you have to be willing to say, 'I am not going to try to burn things down if I don't win.'"

about election denial

“Put on your big boy pants”: Democrats rediscover a will to fight with government shutdown battle

Early last week, Democrats seemed to be hitting new lows in the post-election slump. Progressives were especially demoralized by the failure to elect Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., as ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. Democratic representatives instead gave the spot to a 74-year-old with esophageal cancer, Rep. Gerry Connelly, D-Va. It suggested Democrats weren't going to put up much resistance to the incoming president, Donald Trump. "Who's going to stand up to Trump if his actual opponents have embraced 'strategic silence' regarding all of his spiraling abuses?" lamented progressive pundit Brian Beutler in a newsletter headlined, "Democratic Capitulation Is Contagious." Everyone smart agreed that it was wise not to replicate the hair-on-fire-all-the-time tactics of The Resistance© for round number two of President Trump, but laying down and taking it also seemed like a poor idea.

Then Trump let billionaire Elon Musk bully him into shutting down a continued resolution to fund the government — a bill Trump obviously thought would be to his benefit — and all of a sudden, the fight came roaring back into Democrats. Musk basically wrote his own spending bill, with Trump meekly signing on. The two foolishly believed that Democrats would cave by voting for the new bill that eliminated funding to research childhood cancer and a provision to crack down on "junk fees," such as those that often double the face value of a concert ticket. Instead, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., saw a perfect opportunity to kick off Republican in-fighting, expose Trump's weaknesses as a leader, and educate the nation on how Republicans are in the thrall of maniacal billionaires. Democrats refused to vote for the Musk bill, and taunted Republicans for being too disordered to pass it, even with their House majority.

"Put on your big boy pants! Pass your own bill," Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., declared from the floor as the Musk bill went down in flames Thursday night. "We're only here because you guys can't agree amongst yourselves."

Friday night, hours before the government shutdown took effect, Democrats handed Musk —sorry, Trump — the first major loss of his presidency, a presidency which technically doesn't start for another month. The funding bill passed, with all the major provisions Musk tried to strip out returned. The fight left the Republican coalition divided and weakened. It also revealed that an aging, tired Trump is currently controlled by his biggest donor.

The media myth that Trump has a strong, unified coalition has solidified in the past six weeks, driven by the continued shock caused by his presidential victory in November. For those paying close attention, however, it's clear that the GOP is being held together with safety pins. MAGA was never coherent ideologically but held together by Trump's cult of personality. Now these days, as Heather "Digby" Parton wrote Friday, "Trump is just an old guy playing golf and holding court at his gaudy beach club in Palm Beach every night." He was always a bad leader, but he's increasingly old and addled, making keeping his party in line even harder. Musk is taking advantage of Trump's weakness by trying to make himself a shadow president, but he is an even worse manager of the party, both because he's not actually their leader and he's a less charming version of Trump.

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Musk and Trump are lamely trying to blame the chaos on Democrats. This effort is doomed precisely because the two narcissists have dominated the news cycle so thoroughly that it's likely many Americans are unaware Joe Biden is still technically president. Plus, government shutdown antics are coded as "Republican" in the imagination of both voters and the media, to the point where even the tremendously powerful right-wing propaganda machine can't confuse people on this issue.

Democrats are taking full advantage, and using this to drive home a simple but important message: Trump and Republicans are puppets of predatory billionaires. The "President Musk" jokes flew fast and furious, helping reinforce the point that Trump is in this to enrich himself and his friends, at the expense of the poor souls who believed his lies that he wanted to do something about inflation.

Democrats are taking full advantage, and using this to drive home a simple but important message: Trump and Republicans are puppets of predatory billionaires.

But what is perhaps even more important is how Democrats are using this situation to weaken Trump before he even steps into office. Jeffries has long understood the critical weakness of authoritarians: they claim to bring order, but in fact, they are chaotic. The rigidity, lack of empathy and aggression of authoritarians means they have a "my way or the highway" approach to all conflict. That can look "strong" to low-information voters when marketed as a campaign, which is how Trump won. But it means their coalitions tend to succumb to infighting quickly, as they're built mainly of people who think listening and compromise are weak, girly behaviors.

Jeffries learned this lesson well during the leadership fights that erupted after Republicans won a House majority in 2022. Instead of doing the smart thing and unifying behind Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as Speaker, MAGA Republicans decided to take an entirely incoherent stand against him. The debacle was humiliating, especially after multiple candidates for the role flamed out after McCarthy's pointless defenestration. Despite pleading from the centrist punditry for Democrats to save Republicans from themselves, Jeffries kept his caucus strong in their unwillingness to vote for any Republicans as Speaker.

Going no-contact with MAGA parents: Crucial self-care or the “unraveling of America”?

The strategy worked. Eventually, exhausted Republicans elected now-Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, a man who had no experience and had never even faced a serious challenger in running for office. The GOP caucus was weakened and its members continue to be suspicious of each other. They have been moribund in passing legislation and even their attempts to gin up fake controversies with committee power went nowhere. Now it looks like Johnson may face a McCarthy-like ouster, though it's even harder to imagine who could possibly step up to fill the thankless role of leading an ungovernable caucus of far-right loudmouths, all of whom think they're right about everything and will brook no argument, much less entertain compromise.

On paper, Trump is going into office with a strong hand of controlling both houses of Congress. In theory, this should smooth the way to passing all sorts of legislation and enacting the lengthy and terrible Project 2025 agenda. In practice, organizing Republicans is like trying to get 15 wasted frat boys to take comprehensive notes on a lecture on Kantian philosophy. And that was before Trump just let Musk sow even more disorder for seemingly no other reason than Musk is bored and has a wine-glass-fragile ego. Demobilizing your opponents before they even take power is quite the move.

Senate Democrats are already feeling emboldened enough to start making real moves, such as pressuring Republicans into actually reading an FBI background check into Fox News host Pete Hegseth, Trump's nominee for Defense Secretary. In fact, Trump's entire clown car of nominees offers many opportunities to stoke division among Republicans, by forcing them to argue over topics like "do vaccines work?" or "should it be okay if people keep worrying the head of intelligence is a Russian asset?" All it takes is a little discipline and a little spine, and Democrats can get Republicans to hate each other so much that getting work done feels impossible for the would-be fascist leaders.

about this topic

Why Joe Biden should grant mercy to some of America’s worst criminals

With President Joe Biden’s term winding down, the subject of clemency has heated up. Biden now finds himself in a bind familiar to many of his predecessors. The bind arises because clemency is a vast and virtually unregulated power. Presidents can use it to show mercy to political allies, corrupt cronies, and people they think have been treated unfairly. They can even spare family members. Or they can refuse to use the clemency power at all. They don’t need a reason to grant clemency other than that they choose to do so. As a result, any time presidents grant pardons and reprieves, they risk being denounced as arbitrary, capricious, or corrupt.

Biden’s recent pardon of his son Hunter stands as a vivid example of the risks presidents face. Even Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders said it set a “dangerous precedent.” And only twenty percent of the American public approve of what Biden did.

Since then, Biden commuted the sentences or pardoned 1500 people in what the Associated Press labeled the “biggest single-day act of clemency.” With less than a month remaining in Biden’s time in the White House, many are asking, “What next?”

For anyone opposed to capital punishment, the answer is clear: Biden should commute the sentences of everyone on the federal death row.

Those calling on him to do it include people like Democratic Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, James Clyburn of South Carolina, Mary Scanlon of Pennsylvania, and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, as well as progressive groups and religious organizations.

On December 9, a coalition of 134 “civil liberties, civil and human rights, faith-based, academic, and social justice organizations” joined the effort to persuade Biden. A mass clemency would “bring the United States closer in line with the nearly two-thirds of countries that have fully abolished capital punishment.” They asked the president “to reflect on what a higher sense of morality and duty calls upon us to do.,” arguing that clemency for people awaiting execution would be an essential step on “(t)he road to equity and reconciliation.”

I agree with them. Biden may not be able to end the federal death penalty, but he can and should ensure that no one currently on federal death row will be executed when President-elect Trump returns to the White House.

Why Democrats can't get over the grief of losing to Donald Trump

Many of the forty people awaiting execution at the federal facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, are there because of arbitrariness, discrimination, or official misconduct in the death penalty system. Biden could commute their sentences and claim that it was just that he did so.

But others on federal death row pose hard choices for Biden and may make it difficult to persuade him to issue a mass commutation. The hardest of those choices involve Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black people at a church in 2015; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombers; and Robert Bowers, who murdered 11 people at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pa.

It is a big ask to suggest that the president commute their sentences, especially since in the first two of those cases, the administration fought in the courts to uphold their death sentences, and in the Bowers case, the administration went forward with a death penalty prosecution begun under President Trump.

As the Associated Press reported last January, referring to the president’s views on the death penalty, “President Joe Biden campaigned in part on a promise to abolish it but has taken few concrete steps to do so. The Justice Department has… shown a continued willingness to use it in certain cases.” It “has authorized the continuation of only two death penalty cases he inherited, including another mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue motivated by hate.”

That is why those who do not want the president to commute all federal death sentences are spotlighting Roof, Tsarnaev, and Bowers. Let me offer a few examples of their arguments.

The National Review recently pushed against any mass clemency. It claimed that grating clemency to “unquestionable perpetrators of notorious acts of mass terror…. can be justified by no motive other than to resist the death penalty across the board.”

“It would,” the Editorial Board contended, “be one further shabby coda to Biden’s presidency … if he simply nullified the law imposing death on terrorists, mass shooters, and other perpetrators of monstrosities in his own misguided quest for absolution.”

It “is not mercy; it is vandalism.”

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Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby echoed this theme. “Biden,” he said, “is being urged to issue a mass commutation of the 40 killers on federal death row not as an act of compassion — not because they merit mercy — but as a way to invalidate a federal law that the activists disapprove of. “

Jacoby was particularly exercised by the thought that Biden might spare the lives of Tsarnaev and “the other monsters on the federal death row.” Unsurprisingly, he noted, "Those monsters include Dylann Roof and Robert Bowers.”

Jacoby concluded that such monsters “deserve…. the worst penalty our legal system allows.”

Even Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has joined the fray. Like the others, his criticism focused on Roof, Tsarnaev, and Bowers. As he put it, If the president grants a mass clemency, “it would mean commuting the death sentences of the mass murderer who slaughtered black churchgoers at Mother Emanuel in Charleston….and the perpetrator of the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.” McConnell took pains to point out that none of them “were victims of systemic racism” or had “inadequate counsel.” With these comments, he was trying to foreclose arguments that a Biden commutation could be justified to rectify miscarriages of justice.

McConnell contended that a mass commutation “would mean that progressive politics is more important to the President than the lives taken by…murderers.”

And he bored down on Jacoby’s designated death row monsters. Granting them clemency, McConnell concluded, “would mean that society’s most forceful condemnation of white supremacy and antisemitism must give way to legal mumbo jumbo.”

McConnell speaks as if he does not understand what clemency is. Anyone who does would know that clemency cannot be rightly characterized as a form of “legal mumbo jumbo.” Quite to the contrary, the law stays out of the way and gives the president tremendous leeway. So, presidents like Donald Trump have loved the pardon power.

Jacoby frames things differently, saying that Roof, Tsarnaev, and Bowers do not deserve mercy. I agree, but only because no one can deserve mercy. As I have written, “Unlike justice,… mercy is precisely what cannot be deserved.”

In fact, even some who oppose capital punishment might agree that Roof, Tsarnaev, and Bowers deserve a severe punishment for their unspeakable crimes. When Biden commutes their sentences, as I hope he will, he should make clear that they are “perpetrators of monstrosities.”

But that does not settle the question of how our country should respond to their horrible crimes. Now is the time for Biden to say that the government should not put to death even people who do unspeakable things.

He will have a heavy burden of persuasion. It is a lot easier for abolitionists to convince people that we should not risk executing the innocent or perpetuating racial discrimination than it will be to get Americans to agree that Roof, Tsarnaev, and Bowers should be spared.

But opposing the death penalty means opposing it in even heinous cases. The American legal system offers other means of punishment; indeed, it may be that enduring a lifetime of imprisonment is the harshest punishment,

If the state should not be in the business of killing its citizens, and President Biden has said many things that suggest that he holds to that view, then he should grant clemency to everyone on federal death row, even to the worst of the worst.

Unless the president and others who oppose capital punishment are willing to say and do so, capital punishment will never be abolished in the United States. Now is as good a time as any to begin that work.

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The forgotten children

This time of year depictions of the Baby Jesus in a manger are everywhere as a commercial cue, an object of worship, as a depiction of the essence of innocence. That biblical diorama with the Christ Child at the radiant center, surrounded by Joseph and Mary, then the three wise men with the shepherds on the periphery, represents a concentric circle of care so many of our world’s children suffer for the lack of.

From the killing fields of Gaza to the shooting galleries that can be any American elementary school, dead children are seen as justifiable collateral casualties to a worthy military objective or hapless incidental victims of a society that worships guns.

Yes, tens of millions of Americans just voted to return a man to the White House who implemented a policy as president that separated thousands of infants and children from their migrant parents exposing them to prison-like conditions, sexual abuse and generational trauma. Days before Christmas, Republicans in Congress tried to ram through a spending bill that strips childhood cancer research from the federal budget.

Inflicting maximum pain on them was the point and millions of Americans evidently embrace that. In the turbulent days ahead of promised partisan retribution we will no doubt all have the option to choose just what kind of America we want to live in, one of faith and abundance or fear and scarcity.

Objectively, a family, a nation, even a civilization’s measure of enduring success has to be the survival and nurturing of its progeny. And yet, even here in the United States, the world’s wealthiest of nations, we are coming up very short.

As a study published in the journal JAMA Network Open last month found, one in four child deaths after an emergency room visit in the U.S. were preventable because they resulted as a consequence of the reality that 80 percent of the nation’s hospitals were poorly equipped to handle pediatric cases. As New York Times reporter Emily Baumgaertner noted, the study found that for just an $11.84 or less investment per child in making the E.R. more child-centered thousands of young lives could be saved every year.

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A few weeks later, Baumgaertner reported yet another alarming trend—"from 2019 to 2021, the [U.S.} child death rate rose more steeply than it had in at least half a century” adding that came “despite all of the medical advances and public health gains” made over that same period.

Dr. Coleen Cunningham, the chief pediatrician at Children’s Hospital of Orange County, told the Times that digging deeper into this data, the uptick was composed of cases in which the deaths were “almost always preventable.”

“Deadly car accidents among tweens and teen climbed nearly 16 percent,” the Times reported. “Murders went up 39 percent. Fatal overdoses more than doubled. New patterns emerged with race and gender, Black and Native children dying at much higher rates than white children. And the disparities — which had been narrowing — were now widening again. Black kids were mostly shot by other people. Native American kids mostly shot themselves.”

The Times continued. “But guns were at the center of it all, replacing car crashes as the leading killer of kids. Gun deaths alone accounted for almost half of the increase in young people. They are now equivalent to 52 school buses of children crashing each year.”

And things are deteriorating for millions of children that are living in the United States where overall childhood poverty spiked from 5.2 percent in 2021 to 12.4 percent in 2022 and then hit 13.7 percent. This unprecedented spike was a direct consequence of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WVA) and all of the Congressional Republicans refusing to renew the Expanded Child Tax Credit, consigning millions of children back into poverty after briefly lifting them out of it briefly during COVID.

Newsweek reported, that in addition to the southern and some western states, that have all traditionally had elevated child poverty rates, we saw a 14 percent rate or higher in states with “high levels of wealth like Texas, California, New York and Florida.”

Digging deeper into county-by-county level data compiled state by state by the United Way that looks at households that live nominally above the outdated federal poverty measure but struggle month to month to survive, we see a dystopian picture of a 21st-century feudalism taking hold.

In the Bronx, 54 percent of the households live below poverty or struggle to cover essentials. In Claiborne Parish, Louisiana 72 percent can’t get by without deprivation. In Hudspeth County, Texas its 75 percent, according to the United Way’s Asset Limited-Income Constrained-but Employed matrix.

Unlike the federal poverty measure conceived in the 1960s, the United Way’s ALICE data points includes the local costs of housing, childcare, energy, transportation, food and other living expenses.

This stress at the bottom was happening as wealth concentration at the very top was accelerating. Inequality.org reports that four years ago, the U.S. had 614 billionaires with an aggregate wealth of $2.947 trillion. By March of this year, there were 737 billionaires with a combined wealth of $5.529 trillion, an astounding 87.6 percent jump.

Meanwhile, the incoming Trump appointees vow to shred the already anemic social safety net through which too children are already falling through.

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Why conservatives are now obsessed with raw milk

Earlier this month, public health officials rang alarm bells when a suspected case of bird flu in a California child may have resulted from the kid drinking raw milk. Fortunately, the child ultimately tested negative for bird flu, but the incident brought to the forefront yet again the potential dangers of consuming so-called raw milk, also known as unpasteurized milk, while the country is dealing with a bird flu outbreak that appears to be escalating. Just this week, the state of California declared bird flu a health emergency, and health officials announced they discovered a severe case in a Louisiana resident.

At the same time, the H5N1 avian flu virus has been detected in raw milk over the last month. One product, from a company called Raw Farm, led to a recall. While one might expect this would lead to consumers avoiding the product, raw milk sales are up by 65% . Red states, like Wisconsin, are even preparing for the raw milk industry to grow under a Trump presidency.

Raw milk health risks significantly outweigh any potential benefits

For decades, raw milk has been consumed by alternative health types, typically those who intersected with the “raw food” movement, a diet fad where people would eat only raw food. But recently it’s become popular among conservatives. It’s not hard to see where this is going. As scientists and public health officials warn consuming raw milk is unsafe amid the bird flu outbreak, conservative politicians and extreme wellness advocates are increasingly becoming bigger proponents of it, trying to create an "us versus them" situation. Mark McAfee, the CEO of the California-based company Raw Farm, — the company that recalled their raw milk after it was detected in California — recently claimed that public health regulators don’t want raw milk to “thrive.” The country’s potential incoming Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long promoted the consumption of raw milk. Just this past summer, Kennedy bragged to an audience at an event that he only drinks raw milk, and more recently, claimed the Food and Drug Administration’s so-called “war on public health” includes “suppression” of raw milk.

How did raw milk become an alternative health trend MAGA conservatives can rally around?

“Since the pandemic, we have seen a strong nexus between wellness culture and the far right,” Dr Stephanie Alice Baker, Associate Professor at City St George’s, University of London, told Salon. “This could be seen as part of a return to tradition, but more so an emphasis on purity and the sanctity of the body.”

Indeed, what alternative health types who might have previously been viewed as “progressive” and far-left have in common with many Trump supporters is an anti-establishment sentiment. Both can unite around the idea that the past was better in some way than the present, which might include a time when the country didn’t pasteurize its milk. Some might call this declinism, the belief that a society or institution is on the decline, and it tends to spark a romanticized nostalgia, which can manifest as a raw-milk comeback being promoted by so-called homesteaders on social media and conservative politicians alike.

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“It builds on the assumption that unprocessed products are healthier and more nutritious,” Baker added. “What is rarely discussed are the health risks associated with consuming unpasteurized milk.”

Pasteurization began in the United States in the 1890s after the discovery of germ theory to control the hazards of highly contagious bacterial diseases which could be easily transmitted to humans through raw milk. It played an important role in decreasing infant mortality at the time. Once pasteurization became more common, infectious diseases with high infant mortality rates decreased by 50%. The CDC states today that pasteurization is “crucial for milk safety,” which can kill harmful germs that can cause illness. But raw milk advocates say that drinking unpasteurized milk is a “natural” food that contains more amino acids, vitamins, minerals and fatty acids. There have also been claims that it's better for those with lactose intolerance, asthma, and allergies. However, those claims have been widely discredited.

“The distrust of pasteurization is part of the distrust of big food corporations and industries in general,” Baker said. “It builds on the idea that nature is perfect in its original state.”

Derek Beres, co-host of the Conspirituality Podcast which investigates wellness grifters, told Salon he recalls buying and consuming raw milk in 2008 in Brooklyn, New York. At the time, and he said this remains true today, part of the appeal to raw milk was that it’s had “little contact with modern society.”

“And that is just absurd, but that is how people in these spaces think,” Beres said. “I think now because of the MAHA [Make America Healthy Again] movement, it’s become a much bigger issue than it was before.”

"The distrust of pasteurization is part of the distrust of big food corporations and industries in general."

RFK Jr., Beres said, helped bring raw milk into the spotlight this year. However, its rise in popularity, especially among conservatives, is a reflection of people not trusting the system. But this line of thought can be fatal, literally, especially when it comes to health. For example, it was recently reported that flu vaccines among kids were at a record low within the last decades despite pediatric influenza cases rising. In September, the CDC reported that the total number of U.S. pediatric deaths for the 2023-2024 season was 200, exceeding the previous high reported for a regular flu season.

“It’s just evidence of people not trusting any system,” he said. “And I hate to be so reductive, but every time it comes back to ‘owning the Libs’”

There is also, Beres said, an undercurrent of “chemophobia,” as in a fear of chemicals.“Which underlies all of this wellness grifting,” Beres said. “But the irony in this case, is that there are no chemicals, it’s just heating, but because it falls under the broader umbrella of intervention, people don't care.”

He added that when it comes to conservatives supporting and promoting raw milk, a part of this trend can be attributed to the Reagan era

“America is built on this idea of rugged individualism and that that has always been the connective tissue between the right and the left in conspirituality spaces,” he said. “Reagan's tenure really kind of hits the modern version of this, when the idea is that individual health is all that matters.”

Meanwhile, reports continue to roll in about the dangers of raw milk during this time — and it’s not only humans who are at risk. The Los Angeles Health Department reported that it’s possible two cats died of bird flu after consuming raw milk.

“The risk of H5 bird flu remains low in Los Angeles County, but this suspected case of the virus in a pet cat that consumed raw milk is a reminder that consuming raw dairy products can lead to severe illness in cats," Dr. Barbara Ferrer, Director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, said in a media statement.

about bird flu:

“Any actor worth their weight is a character actor”: Why Margo Martindale loves her Hollywood label

Margo Martindale, the three-time Emmy Award winner, is so well-regarded for her acting that she plays an animated version of herself on "BoJack Horseman" where she is called "esteemed character actress Margo Martindale." She has taken on indelible roles in prestige dramas from "Million Dollar Baby" to "August: Osage County" to "Justified" and "The Americans, but what Martindale has never been, until now, is a leading lady.

In Prime Video's new series, "The Sticky," produced by Jason Blum and Jamie Lee Curtis, Martindale plays a maple syrup farmer named Ruth, who resorts to desperate measures when her livelihood is threatened. The show is loosely based on the Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist with Martindale at the center of the stick-it-to-the-man adventure. "It's fun to be No. 1 on the call sheet," the 73-year-old Texas native said during our recent "Salon Talks" conversation. "Might be stepping up in the world. You never know, though," she joked.

During a career in which she's played icy murderesses and doting grandmas, Martindale says that Ruth is "different from anything I've done." And as for that sometimes backhanded label of "character actress," Martindale's never minded it a bit. "I think that any actor worth their weight is a character actor," she says. "That's what acting is about to me."

Watch my frank and entertaining "Salon Talks" with Martindale here, or read it below, to hear more about "The Sticky," her "Hannah Montana" moment and the two acting dreams that are still on her bucket list.

The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

You are the star of the new Amazon Prime series, “The Sticky.”

It's kind of exciting, I have to say. Now, this sounds obnoxious, but it's fun to be No. 1 on the call sheet. And I have help with my co-stars [Chris Diamantopoulos and Guillaume Cyr], they're fantastic.

Is this your first time starring in something?

Yes, really, it is. I did do a short film for Alexander Payne called, “Paris, je t'aime,” and I was the only one in it, so I was the star of it. [Payne] said, "I've written a part for you. I've never written anything for anyone before, and all I can say is, will you come to Paris and do it?" And I said, "Yes."

Tell me a little bit about the character you’re playing in the show.

She's a maple syrup farmer. She's at the end of her rope. She is broke and furious and is trying to keep her husband alive in the house and doesn't have any money, and is mad as hell at the government for taking her syrup away and putting it in a warehouse. Not all of it, but some of it.

"You're going to root for me in this one."

You got this role in an interesting way. This is not a role that was written for you.

It wasn't written for me, no. I don't know that it was written for anyone, but it was given to, and who they wanted for the part, was Jamie Lee Curtis, and she was unable to do it.

I get a phone call one afternoon and she said, "Hello, my name is Jamie Lee Curtis. Look, I was going to do the show, but I can't work out my schedule and I thought, 'Who is like me that I could call to do this?'" And she said, "Of course, Margo Martindale." In my head I go, "Margo Martindale is like Jamie Lee Curtis? I don't know in what world that is." But she said, "So, will you come and do it?" I said, "I'll read it, yeah." "No, you'll do it, right?" I said, "Well, send me the script. I'm interested." "You'll do it." I said, "I'll probably do it, but I have to read it first." Anyway, I'd never talked to her before or anything.

And now here you are in this really fun adventure that's also about trying to stick it to the man. You get to do a lot of fun things in this.

It is trying to stick it to the man. It's also extremely satisfying. I drive a tree through a town and I crash the tree into the office of the [maple syrup] association, my nemesis. It was physically demanding, and I did all the driving of that tree. I stood in the snow for hours.

I was at the height of my rage when the [show] opens and then I go higher, but also I collapse and crash down when I'm out of steam. It was so fun and so different from anything I've done, really, even though [I played] a very strong woman, like a lot of women I've done. But it was a different emotional journey than I have had.

To be in the position where you’re leading the cast, were you thinking of other actors you've seen lead shows?

Yes, I thought about all that, and about setting the tone of the group, knowing to be kind to everyone. Appreciating all the actors that are working on it, every single one. That's the way it happened to me when I was the one person coming in for two scenes. That's the hardest thing you can do because it's not your home and you feel like an outsider. You can't screw up. Being on a show that you have a home, it takes a lot of pressure off. People that are coming in and doing one episode, it's really so much harder. So you’ve got to be nice to everyone.

You're having a moment. You've reminded me lately of when Ruth Gordon won her first Oscar at about the same age you are.

Oh, [“Rosemary’s Baby.”] I loved her.

She was in her late-ish 60s, and when she won her first Academy Award she said, "This is so encouraging." So I want to know, is this encouraging?

[Laughter.] It's encouraging. Might be stepping up in the world. You never know, though. It's a fickle world.

What does this mean to you in terms of now? Maybe you have more leverage and could do something like direct?

Oh, I wouldn't have one bit of interest in that.

What do you want to do now that you're the star?

Well, just what the next job is, and if it's challenging enough to make it fun for me. That's it.

The phrase “esteemed character actress” is deeply associated with you thanks to “BoJack Horseman.” When people say “character actress,” I imagine there are different meanings that that has in Hollywood.

People think of that very differently. I think that any actor worth their weight is a character actor because you are playing a character and trying to find a new person. Not you, a new person, you morph into somebody else. That's what acting is about to me. But then you have movie stars, that's a whole world that I don't really know about.

You've been at this a long time, doing parts as a workman journeyman actor. You've said you were typecast for a while, and “Justified” changed that. What were you typecast as?

I did a lot of plays and a lot of Southern plays. I remember doing a play written by Jim McLure called “Laundry and Bourbon.” We premiered it at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, and it was wildly funny.

"All through the '90s I did movies and then, really what changed the tone of what I was doing was 'Million Dollar Baby.'"

I looked up every theater in the United States that was doing that play in their rep season, and I called them directly and I said, "Look, I originated the role of Hattie and I would love to come to your theater and do it." I got several bites and that got me into regional theater. And they said, "Well, if you come do that, would you do this play, too?" Which was great.

“Steel Magnolias” of course changed my career again. That's how I got in the movies, because everybody in Hollywood came to see “Steel Magnolias,” which I did the original of. That's how I got my first movie in 1989.

All through the '90s I did movies and then, really what changed the tone of what I was doing was “Million Dollar Baby,” because that's the first bad person I'd played, really. Then I got another bad person, and then I got “Justified,” and that blew the roof off for me.

"August: Osage County's" Margo Martindale: "I'm really pretty versatile. Now people are allowing me to be"

Are you typecast in a different way now? Do people say, "We want somebody who's going to break fingers."

Well, yeah, but I think that also people realized that I had an imagination that could make lots of different people. Instead of just the Southern gal, I could actually do accents and do other things, and it opened up a wholly different world for me. I could play Bella Abzug [in “Mrs. America”], for example.

You're a New Yorker, you've lived here for 50 years now. How do you do it? What does it take? You live in a walk-up apartment?

I do. I think the city's gone through many different phases. When I first came here, it was pimps on my block, and there was prostitution in that Upper West side. That changed when [Mayor Rudy] Giuliani came in. It changed the whole world of safety. This is the truth, because you felt like you could take your children out on the street. Then 9/11 happened and that brought everybody together in a way that was incredible. I find the survival instinct of New Yorkers incredible because they come together. Hopefully we'll all come together again to make it better.

This is a polarizing moment we’re living through. “The Sticky” feels like a good respite from that. What is it about this show that you think speaks to us right now?

I think it's extremely fun. I think it's an escape. I think it's quick, fast-paced, wacky, wild, touching, embracing, and I think you're rooting for the bad guys.

And who doesn't want to root for the bad guys? You've played a lot of bad guys I didn't root for.

Well, you're going to root for me in this one [Laughter.]

At this stage in your career where you’re having this moment, what is it that you want to do? Is there a role you haven't yet played that you really want to play? Is there a genre you still haven't tackled, or is there something you want to go back to?

I'd like to play somebody English. I'd like to also do a musical, but only singing one song. You're not going to want me to sing more than one song. I do have a movie coming out, “The Twits,” based on Roald Dahl's book. I'm playing Mrs. Twit, and I do sing David Byrne's music in the movie.

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Fleetwood Mac: Messy tendrils and fascinating side quests help illuminate band’s enduring allure

Fleetwood Mac’s legacy is often considered in broad strokes. The turbulent romantic relationship (and subsequent breakup) of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. The timeless music on (and tawdry intra-band drama associated with) 1977’s blockbuster LP “Rumours.” The group’s many moments of debauchery and complex romantic entanglements. The ambitious 1979 double LP “Tusk.” How the group weathered many lineup changes, including a tour with Neil Finn and Mike Campbell after Buckingham was asked to leave the band.

In other words, Fleetwood Mac is often considered synonymous with drama. And while there’s no denying that the band’s history possesses as many twists, turns, and curveballs as a soap opera, the group wouldn’t be such an object of enduring fascination without its songs — and the songwriters behind them.

These outrageous antics actually pushed Fleetwood Mac’s career forward.

Of course, the band’s music also thrived because of their interpersonal challenges. Take Nicks’ discussion about the demo of “Sara,” which was 16 minutes long. “It was about myself, Sara, Mick and what all of us in Fleetwood Mac were going through at the time,” she said. “It was a saga, with many verses people haven’t heard.” (In other words, consider this their version of Taylor Swift’s cathartic 10-minute epic “All Too Well.”)

Fleetwood Mac is "the great American story"

An emphasis on the latter two things distinguishes Mark Blake’s excellent new book “Dreams: The Many Lives of Fleetwood Mac.” The secret is that Blake, who’s also written books about Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin manager Peter Grant, treats Fleetwood Mac like any other band: He includes interesting facts that casual or new fans might not know — for example, that Buckingham refined a unique approach to guitar while stuck in bed with glandular fever—and peels back the mythology and attempts to find the truth behind tabloid stories and rumored tall tales. For example, one chapter asks, “Did Mick Fleetwood attend a fancy-dress party dressed as Jesus?” (Answer: Yes, Stevie Nicks’ October 1988 Halloween party.)

Blake doesn’t ignore the debauchery that’s at the heart of the band’s existence, particularly the activities during their late 1970s and early 1980s heyday. But unlike other Fleetwood Mac books, he doesn’t let these outlandish details overshadow the band’s creative output. In some cases, Blake demonstrates that these outrageous antics actually pushed Fleetwood Mac’s career forward.

Take the time on the “Tusk” tour that Mick Fleetwood had 50 chickens sent to a hotel room as a prank. Unsurprisingly, the birds trashed the room, leaving tour manager John Courage to remove them posthaste. (Another reason for the urgency? Dennis Wilson happened to be drunk in the bathtub with lit cigarettes, which wouldn’t exactly mesh well with the dry straw in the room.) The cleaning costs were huge, as were the “Tusk” tour expenses, which is what led to the group’s 1980 “Live” double album.

Given these mind-boggling, strange-but-true anecdotes, Blake wisely doesn’t try and structure the book like a conventional narrative. “‘Dreams’ is what publishers call a ‘mosaic biography,’” he writes on his website, “meaning it’s a mixture of short chapters, longer chapters, mini-essays, observations and anecdotes, rather than one big unwieldy slog through the band’s complicated story.”

That format suits Fleetwood Mac’s story well, since messy tendrils and fascinating side quests abound, encompassing things like the commercially ignored (but criminally underrated) Buckingham Nicks project from 1973, several years before the duo joined Fleetwood Mac; why the band’s iconography includes so many penguins; and the various members’ solo careers. And then there was that time in 1974 when the band’s then-manager, Clifford Davis, put together a band of fill-in musicians under the name Fleetwood Mac when the actual band had some internal issues to work through. (Spoiler alert: People noticed, and this experiment only lasted a few shows.)

Their immense self-awareness about their strengths and flaws drove them to greatness.

“Dreams: The Many Lives of Fleetwood Mac” is also distinguished by Blake including original interviews he conducted with Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, John McVie and the late Christine McVie, Jeremy Spencer and Peter Green, as well as other collaborators. The musicians are clearly at ease with Blake, giving him candid insights that feel fresh and illustrate their senses of humor and savvy perspectives. Nicks in particular is her usual candid self; for example, when speaking on Buckingham: “I loved him before he was a millionaire. I washed his jeans and embroidered stupid moons and stars on them.”

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The book starts by giving Green, who navigated mental health challenges after leaving Fleetwood Mac, his due as the band’s founder. This leads to comprehensive look at the group before Buckingham and Nicks joined — a fascinating (and also lesser-known) era that boasts its own ups and downs. At the same time, Blake also addresses the last few years of the band with the same meticulous eye, leading up to Christine McVie’s unexpected 2022 death and the subsequent end of the group. He softens this blow, however, with a brief but lighthearted chapter about Nicks’ wildly popular Barbie doll. And, fittingly, the book ends with a chapter on Christine, summarizing her life and accomplishments — and ending by noting her jubilant appearance at a 2020 Peter Green tribute concert.

“Dreams: The Many Lives of Fleetwood Mac” illuminates the fact that our enduring fascination with Fleetwood Mac has a lot to do with their complexity — and the collision between perfection and messiness. That’s not a knock on the band; if anything, their immense self-awareness about their strengths and flaws drove them to greatness.

And in the end, Fleetwood Mac are savvy about using drama to their advantage. As Buckingham noted to the New York Times about his dripping-with-tension onstage interactions with Nicks: “We are aware that’s part of the appeal, and we’re playing off it. But it’s also real. Who’s to say where the line is, where the show stops and reality starts? We always brought out the voyeur in everyone.”

about musicians through books

Regulators target Grubhub’s “pricing shell game” in $25 million settlement agreement

Grubhub, one of the country’s largest food delivery platforms, has agreed to pay $25 million to settle allegations from the Federal Trade Commission and the Illinois Attorney General that it engaged in deceptive and unfair practices targeting restaurants, delivery drivers and consumers. The settlement, announced on Friday, will include substantial changes to Grubhub’s business practices as part of a broader crackdown on “junk fees.”

The charges stem from a multi-year investigation that revealed a pattern of misconduct by Grubhub. According to the FTC, the company misled diners about delivery costs, blocked users from accessing their accounts and funds, falsely advertised earnings to potential delivery drivers and listed restaurants on its platform without their consent.

These practices, regulators said, were aimed at driving growth and market dominance at the expense of transparency and fairness.

Federal rule bans junk fees hidden in hotel, event ticket prices

“Our investigation found that Grubhub tricked its customers, deceived its drivers and unfairly damaged the reputation and revenues of restaurants that did not partner with Grubhub — all in order to drive scale and accelerate growth,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. “Today’s action holds Grubhub to account, putting an end to these illegal practices and securing nearly $25 million for the people cheated by Grubhub’s tactics. There is no ‘gig platform’ exemption to the laws on the books.”

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, whose office collaborated with the FTC on the investigation, echoed these sentiments. “This settlement is the culmination of a multi-year investigation into deceptive and illegal business practices perpetrated by Grubhub,” he said. “I remain committed to holding businesses like Grubhub accountable for their deceptive business practices.”

One of the central allegations in the case involved Grubhub’s practice of adding unaffiliated restaurants to its platform without their permission. By listing restaurants without consent, Grubhub artificially inflated the number of options available to diners, a strategy regulators say created a misleading perception of the platform’s size and reliability. The complaint notes that this practice harmed both diners and restaurants; customers often encountered outdated menus and chaotic ordering systems, while restaurants were left to manage frustrated diners and unpaid bills. In some cases, Grubhub drivers used company credit cards that were declined, leaving restaurants without compensation for prepared meals.

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The complaint also alleges that, for years, Grubhub “hidden the true cost of its delivery services — a tactic that a former executive called a ‘pricing shell game.’”

“Grubhub has advertised that diners will pay a single, low-cost amount for Grubhub’s services in connection with a delivery order,” the FTC wrote in a statement. “In reality, Grubhub tacks on junk fees, resulting in a final price that is often more than double what it originally advertised. These surprise fees are often labeled as ‘service fees’ or ‘small order fees,’ but they are simply delivery fees in disguise.”

Regulators also took issue with Grubhub’s handling of user accounts. The complaint details how the company blocked access to accounts with significant gift card balances — often without explanation or recourse. These blocks disproportionately affected vulnerable individuals, including new parents and those facing health challenges who had received gift card funds from friends and family.

"Our investigation found that Grubhub tricked its customers, deceived its drivers and unfairly damaged the reputation and revenues of restaurants that did not partner with Grubhub — all in order to drive scale and accelerate growth."

“According to the complaint, diners were left with no ability to regain access to their accounts or money,” the statement from the FTC continued. “Diners who complained to the company were not told their account was blocked, or if they were told, they were not given any meaningful way to contest the block, and the complaint notes that in one month alone, 97% of locked accounts were never unlocked.”

Under the terms of the proposed settlement, Grubhub will be required to implement sweeping changes to its operations. The company must disclose the true cost of delivery upfront, eliminate hidden fees and provide a straightforward cancellation process for Grubhub+ subscribers. It is also prohibited from listing restaurants on its platform without their consent and must ensure that all claims about driver earnings are accurate and substantiated.

Additionally, Grubhub must notify users when their accounts are blocked and provide a clear process for appealing such decisions.

While the $25 million settlement is a fraction of the $140 million judgment initially sought, regulators noted that nearly all of the funds will be used to compensate consumers harmed by Grubhub’s practices. The company’s inability to pay the full amount led to a suspension of the larger judgment, but the FTC warned that misrepresenting its financial status could trigger full payment.

In a statement, Grubhub contested the allegations, but said settling was the best way forward for the companies.

“At Grubhub, we're committed to transparency so that every single day diners, restaurants and drivers can make well-informed choices to do business with us,” a Grubhub spokesperson told National Restaurant News. “While we categorically deny the allegations made by the FTC, many of which are wrong, misleading or no longer applicable to our business, we believe settling this matter is in the best interest of Grubhub and allows us to move forward."

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