Groundwork Collaborative: “It’s become a defining feature of modern life: the steady grind of small hassles that eat away at our time, patience, and wallets. Everyday interactions that should be simple too often turn into fraught ordeals, leaving people feeling overwhelmed, ignored, or jerked around.”
“We call it the ‘Annoyance Economy’ — what we pay in time, fees, and irritation to navigate our daily lives.”
NBC News: “It’s exceedingly rare for a federal grand jury to reject prosecutors’ attempts to secure an indictment, since the process is stacked in the government’s favor. Federal grand juries need a minimum of 16 members to have a quorum, and they max out at 23 members. Just 12 grand jurors need to agree that the government had probable cause to indict, a threshold much lower than the unanimous ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ standard that a petit jury needs to convict.”
“In 2016, the Justice Department investigated more than 151,000 suspects, but grand juries returned just six ‘no bills,’ per DOJ statistics. The vast majority of assistant U.S. attorneys will go their entire careers without being rejected by a grand jury like this. As NBC News previously reported, the lawyers who attempted to bring the case are political appointees, not career prosecutors.”
Gallup will no longer measure presidential approval ratings, the Washington Post reports.
In October, Kari Lake was spotted waiting in a White House lobby, hoping to see President Trump, The Atlantic reports.
Said one Trump operative: “Kari has been here for hours. She’s going to run, and she’s asking for the endorsement.”
“Lake, who was rumored to be mulling a run for Congress in Arizona, eventually shared her pitch with a low-level aide who conveyed no enthusiasm for a third Lake candidacy, the same person said. The other Republican operative offered a similar account.”
“That’s the gaslightiest gaslighting shit I’ve ever heard in my life.”
— Joe Rogan, talking on his podcast about the Trump administration claiming Jeffrey Epstein did not run a sex trafficking ring.
“The House is set on Wednesday to consider a Democratic-written measure that would rescind tariffs President Trump imposed on Canada last year, taking a largely symbolic but politically consequential vote that Republicans have fought for a year to prevent,” the New York Times reports.
“It is unlikely to have any practical effect given that Mr. Trump almost certainly would veto it, but the measure’s movement through the House reflects frustration among some GOP lawmakers about Congress continuing to cede its authority over trade matters to the White House, and concern that voters are being hurt by the levies.”
New York Daily News: Democrats force vote to rebuke Trump’s tariffs on Canadian imports.
Just published: End of Days: Ruby Ridge, the Apocalypse, and the Unmaking of America by Chris Jennings.
How a historic standoff enabled the conspiracy-laden politics of the Trump era.
Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “In our first handicapping of state legislature control for the 2026 cycle, we find 15 chambers that are competitive—either Leans Republican, Toss-up, or Leans Democratic.”
“That’s slightly higher than the number we found at a similar point in the 2022 and 2024 election cycles.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani told state lawmakers that the only way out of the city’s $12 billion budget gap is to raise taxes on the wealthy, the New York Post reports.
Said Mandani: “I’m asking for a 2% raise in personal income taxes on the most affluent New Yorkers, someone earning $1 million a year. The top 1% of New York City can afford to contribute $20,000 more in taxes.”
“The Trump administration has withdrawn all federalized National Guard troops from U.S. cities, after its repeated attempts to surge forces into Democrat-run states encountered judicial roadblocks,” the Washington Post reports.
“The pullout was quietly finalized late last month, occurring with no public acknowledgment from the White House or the Pentagon. It was a remarkable turnabout after President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had insisted the mobilizations were necessary to combat what they claimed was unchecked violence and to support enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws.”
“The Internal Revenue Service improperly shared confidential tax information of thousands of individuals with immigration enforcement officials, appearing to breach a legal fire wall intended to protect taxpayer data,” the Washington Post reports.
“When we say ‘The future is female,’ I get where that’s coming from. But to a young guy, that kind of sounds like the future is not for them.”
— Texas U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico (D), quoted by The Atlantic, on Democratic messaging.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told Democrats today that there are two options for President Trump’s upcoming State of the Union address, Punchbowl News reports.
They can either boycott or they sit there in “silent defiance.”
Jeffries wants to make sure there’s no repeat of last year’s sign waving.
From The Five on Fox News:
JESSE WATTERS: I was walking on my street, a car drives by and I give him a wave. He rolls down the window and says, “F U fascist.” He doesn’t know I’m a fascist!
JESSICA TARLOV: Yes, he does. You’re on TV.
Will Gottsegen: “Since taking office, Trump has established himself as the face of crypto through his flagrant promotional tactics (remember those limited-edition bitcoin-orange sneakers?), his sweeping deregulation efforts, and, of course, his family’s investments in digital assets. The Trumps have now made hundreds of millions of dollars from cryptocurrencies, according to recent estimates.”
“Despite these links, crypto’s fate isn’t solely tied to the Trumps. There’s no single cause for the current downturn, but it demonstrates that a president’s intervention—even intervention as consistent as Trump’s—can only do so much to keep cryptocurrencies afloat.”
“What we’ve allowed to become normalized is completely deviant. This is code red.”
— California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), quoted by The Atlantic.
“At least two dozen U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees and contractors have been charged with crimes since 2020, and their documented wrongdoing includes patterns of physical and sexual abuse, corruption and other abuses of authority,” the AP reports.
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.
