“I know how dirty Donald is.”
— Jeffrey Epstein, quoted in an email released by House Democrats.
“I know how dirty Donald is.”
— Jeffrey Epstein, quoted in an email released by House Democrats.
“The U.K. has long been torn between two mutually exclusive desires: Voters want European levels of welfare with American levels of taxation,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“By accident or design, that debate is slowly being resolved in the direction of higher taxes, as Britain’s Labour government prepares its second major tax increase in as many years.”
“The turning point in the government’s longest shutdown didn’t involve President Trump or Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Instead, after the Senate adjourned for the day and most reporters had emptied out of the halls, a small group of breakaway Democrats and an independent slipped unnoticed into the office of Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD).”
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“Japan’s new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, is known as an inveterate workhorse. She often skips social gatherings and has openly rejected the idea of work-life balance,” the New York Times reports.
“But even by Ms. Takaichi’s standards, it was surprising when she emerged from her Tokyo residence shortly after 3 a.m. on a recent day to convene a meeting with aides ahead of an appearance before Parliament.”
“Ms. Takaichi has drawn criticism for holding the meeting, which took place on Friday and has become known in the Japanese news media as the ‘3 a.m. study session.’ The issue is especially sensitive in Japan, where there have been high-profile cases in recent years of karoshi, or ‘death from overwork.’”
“America’s Roman Catholic bishops on Wednesday rebuked the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation campaign in a rare and near-unanimous statement that framed the immigration crisis in starkly moral terms,” the New York Times reports.
Punchbowl News: “So who won? No one. This record-breaking shutdown was bad for the country, bad for the economy and especially bad for Congress as an institution — particularly the House. It was bad for hundreds of thousands of federal workers, it was bad for law enforcement, bad for military service members.”
“And closest to home, it was bad for the legions of Capitol Hill aides and employees who had to work without getting paid.”
“There were two competing visions about how this impasse would end. Democrats swore that President Donald Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune would cave and negotiate on health care. Republicans said they wouldn’t — and they didn’t. After more than 40 days of stalemate, Democrats folded a hand that was getting worse by the moment.”
Politico: “The bipartisan deal to end the funding lapse includes a long-term agreement on just three of the dozen bills lawmakers need to finish each year to keep cash flowing to federal programs. And those three measures are some of the easiest to rally around — including money for veterans programs, food aid, assistance for farmers and the operations of Congress itself.”
“Together, they represent only about 10 percent of the roughly $1.8 trillion Congress doles out each year to federal agencies. Under the deal, everything else is funded on a temporary basis through Jan. 30 at levels first set by Congress in March 2024, when Joe Biden was president.”
“That leaves behind major open decisions about the vast majority of discretionary dollars — including for the military and public health programs — along with the stickiest policy issues. It doesn’t help that House and Senate leaders still haven’t agreed on an overall total for fiscal 2026 spending, amid GOP divisions over how deeply to cut.”
“Secretary of State Marco Rubio left a meeting of major foreign allies on Wednesday saying that he had heard no objections to ongoing U.S. military strikes targeting what the Trump administration has described as drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific,” the New York Times reports.
“But speaking to reporters on the sidelines of their official meetings at the Group of 7 foreign ministers meeting in Canada, two senior European diplomats called the Trump administration’s lethal attacks illegitimate.”
“But Mr. Rubio showed little concern about charges that the strikes, which Pentagon officials say have killed dozens of drug smugglers tied to Venezuela’s government, lack legal justification.”
“From New Jersey to California, the Trump administration has installed handpicked federal prosecutors by sidestepping the customary confirmation process, drawing legal challenges that have clouded the cases they brought,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The most consequential test of the president’s maneuvering comes Thursday, when a judge will weigh the legitimacy of the U.S. attorney who is prosecuting a pair of President Trump’s perceived adversaries, former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.”
“President Trump’s long friendship with Jeffrey Epstein came to an apparent end in the mid-2000s. But Mr. Epstein remained intently focused on Mr. Trump for years afterward, seeking to exploit the remnants of their relationship up until his arrest on federal sex-trafficking charges in 2019,” the New York Times reports.
“In more than 20,000 pages of Mr. Epstein’s typo-strewn emails and other messages released by a congressional committee on Wednesday, Mr. Epstein insulted Mr. Trump and hinted that he had damaging information on him.”
Washington Post: Epstein wrote that Trump knew of sexual abuse but didn’t participate.
“The Republican-led House approved a spending package to reopen the government late Wednesday, sending the measure ending the record-long 43-day shutdown to President Trump’s desk for his signature,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The legislation passed the House on a 222 to 209 vote, largely along party lines.”
A discharge petition spearheaded by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) secured its 218th signature on Nov. 12, a crucial step to force a House floor vote on a bill that would compel the U.S. Department of Justice to release all files in its investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the Louisville Courier Journal reports.
“House Democratic leadership presented fresh polling to rank-and-file members this afternoon, arguing their party won the shutdown even amid fury on the left over Senate Democrats’ decision to fold after a 40-plus-day impasse,” Punchbowl News reports.
“Voters blamed “Trump and Republicans in Congress” for the shutdown over Democrats by a 14-point margin, 48% to 34%… Independents blamed the GOP over Democrats, 46% to 24%.”
“Gov. Gavin Newsom’s former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, has been charged with stealing $225,000 from a campaign account held by Xavier Becerra, who was then secretary of Health and Human Services under President Joe Biden,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
“The teams of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch have been in touch since Mamdani’s Nov. 4 general election win, and the two have a meeting scheduled,” Politico reports.
“The previously unreported moves represent the first sign Mamdani is following through with his campaign pledge to ask Tisch to remain atop the nation’s largest police department.”
“House committee chairs will begin having listening sessions next week with groups of Republican members on health care policy and the fate of expiring Obamacare subsidies,” Politico reports.
“A series of exchanges between Jeffrey Epstein and Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury Secretary, suggest a far cozier and intimate relationship than was previously known,” the New York Times reports.
“Emails between the two were released Wednesday by House Republicans, along with more than 20,000 pages of documents. They show the two men bantering, sometimes multiple times a day.”
“President Donald Trump told Republicans in Congress to stay away from House Democrats’ push to force the full release of Jeffrey Epstein-related files after the Nov. 12 release of three emails from the disgraced financier that mentioned the president’s name,” USA Today reports.
Said Trump: “There should be no deflections to Epstein or anything else, and any Republicans involved should be focused only on opening up our Country, and fixing the massive damage caused by the Democrats!”
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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