“Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan was found guilty of a felony count of obstructing federal agents seeking to make an immigration arrest outside her courtroom, a precedent-setting case that has been closely watched nationally and drawn passionate protests,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
“The case thrust Dugan, a judge for nine years, into the center of the clash between the judiciary and the Trump administration over its crackdown on illegal immigration.”
“It all might make more sense if he actually were drinking. By all accounts, President Trump doesn’t touch the stuff. So when his own chief of staff said that he has ‘an alcoholic’s personality,’ she was talking about his larger-than-life nature rather than his consumption,” the New York Times reports.
“Yet in some ways, it may be an apt description for a president who seems even less inhibited than ever in a way that has many in Washington and beyond shaking their heads or even wondering if the leader of the free world has lost it. The word often whispered by Republicans and shouted by Democrats and Never Trumpers is ‘unhinged.'”
“The U.S. Coast Guard on Thursday deleted language from its new workplace harassment policy that had downgraded the definition of swastikas and nooses from overt hate symbols to ‘potentially divisive,’ an abrupt turnaround after the more lenient interpretation of those items was allowed to take effect this week despite objections from Congress,” the Washington Post reports.
TikTok has signed a deal to sell its U.S. entity to a joint venture controlled by American investors, Reuters reports.
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“Perhaps the board isn’t aware that the Kennedy Center is the memorial to the president of the United States, John F. Kennedy. Would they rename the Lincoln memorial? The Jefferson? That would be an insult to great presidents. This too is an insult to a great president. Notwithstanding their short-sighted action, it is and will remain the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”
— Tim Shriver, nephew of President John F. Kennedy, quoted by Deadline.
“Frustration is mounting inside the Justice Department as it races to redact thousands of pages of files related to Jeffrey Epstein before they must be released Friday,” CNN reports.
“A substantial number of redactions are needed, one of the sources said, and the documents each attorney is processing since Thanksgiving week can number more than 1,000 — a time-consuming task that likely will come down to the wire.”
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s newly tapped director of appointments, Catherine Almonte Da Costa, resigned on Thursday afternoon after her history of antisemitic online posts — including complaining about “money hungry Jews” — was exposed, Jewish Insider reports.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), a sharp critic of Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), said she won’t try to take away his gavel, despite her disapproval of his leadership and management of the House GOP conference, Bloomberg reports.
Said Mace: “I was asked to be a part of that, and I declined. I don’t see nine members coming forward to oust the speaker. Not happening.”
President Trump is planning to issue an executive order establishing two new federal holidays: Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas, Axios reports.
It’s not clear if this would be a one-off move or a longer term shift.
President Trump’s handpicked board voted Thursday to rename Washington’s leading performing arts center as the Trump-Kennedy Center, the AP reports.
Of course, the building is statutorily named the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Sarah Palin’s bid for a new libel trial against The New York Times was rejected by a New York federal judge who also refused Palin’s request that the judge recuse himself, the AP reports.
“I’ll give you a little anecdote: Stephen Miller was perhaps the most concerned about the portrait session. He asked me, ‘Should I smile or not smile?’ and I said, ‘How would you want to be portrayed?’ We agreed that we would do a bit of both. And then when we were finished, he comes up to me to shake my hand and say goodbye. And he says to me, ‘You know, you have a lot of power in the discretion you use to be kind to people.’ And I looked at him and I said, ‘You know, you do, too.’”
— Vanity Fair photographer Christopher Anderson, quoted by the Washington Post.
Charlie Cook: “These results raise some interesting questions. First, why do Republicans perform better than Democrats in the U.S. House, state Senate, and state House seats in the purple states, even though Democrats do better at the U.S. Senate and gubernatorial level in those seven?”
“Second, why do Republicans win a higher share of state legislative seats in blue states (35 percent of state Senate seats, and 38 percent in state Houses), than Democrats do in red states (23 and 27 percent, respectively)? Republicans also hold majorities in two blue-state legislative chambers (both in New Hampshire). In contrast, Democrats hold no such majorities in red states.”
“My hunch is that these results are the product of decades of Republicans investing far more money in local, county, and state party-building than Democrats, with the Obama years a key period when his party could and should have done much more. Indeed, the last time Democrats made down-ballot party-building a priority was during the years 2005-2009, when Howard Dean chaired the Democratic National Committee.”
The U.S. military was blindsided by President Trump’s announcement of a blockade of Venezuela, the New York Times reports.
“Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a batch of 68 photos obtained from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein on Thursday, one day before the deadline for the Trump administration to release a much larger group of Epstein files,” CBS News reports.
“The release includes images of lines from the novel ‘Lolita’ written on a person’s body; various travel documents; a screenshot of text messages about an 18-year-old from Russia and more. The photos can be accessed here.”
Tom Nichols: “The president of the United States just barged into America’s living rooms like an angry, confused grandfather to tell us all that we are ungrateful whelps.”
“When a president asks for network time, it’s usually to announce something important. But tonight, Donald Trump did not give anything like a normal speech or address. He was clearly working from a prepared text, but it sounded like one he’d written—or dictated angrily—himself, because it was full of bizarre howlers that even Trump’s second-rate speech-writing shop would probably have avoided…”
“In effect, Trump took to the airwaves, pointed his finger, and said: Quiet, piggy.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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