Kitchen Table Issues

Voting Your Relative Out of the Country

This is the time of year when we see a lot of those holiday advice columns about how to interact with relatives with different political views. But that conversation becomes a whole lot more difficult when one family member's political choices could result in another family member being kicked out of the country. As he often does, Eli Saslow gets to the heart of the American moment in the NYT (Gift Article): The Alienation of Jaime Cachua. His friends and family members in Rome, Ga., voted to support mass deportation. Now he’s scrambling to stay in the country. "'I’m going to be straight with you,” [his father in law, Sky] told Jaime. 'I voted for Trump. I believe in a lot of what he says.' ... 'I figured as much,' Jaime said. 'You and just about everyone else around here.' ... 'It’s about protecting our rights as a sovereign country,' Sky said. 'We need to shut down the infiltration on the border. It’s not about you.' ... It is about me.'"

+ Meanwhile, about all that American worker rhetoric: "Trump’s own businesses sought to hire more foreign guest workers this year than any other year on record, according to a CNN review of government labor data. Companies linked to some of Trump’s top political backers and administration picks also have been given the green light to use guest workers this year ... Elon Musk, who spent hundreds of millions of dollars to help elect Trump, is the CEO of Tesla, which this year alone has requested and received US government permission to hire about 2,000 highly skilled foreign workers. Musk’s Neuralink startup as well as X Corp also received approval for such laborers."

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ABC: Always Be Caving

"ABC News should never have caved. They might well have prevailed if they had hung in there. The legal bar is very high for libeling a public figure, and Trump is the ultimate public figure. Instead, this outcome encourages Trump in his attacks on the press — and he needs no encouragement. As one law professor told the Times, what ABC News did was very unusual. News organizations generally don’t settle 'because they fear the dangerous pattern of doing so and because they have the full weight of the First Amendment on their side.'" Margaret Sullivan on ABC's decision to pay $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by Donald Trump: The Disney-owned news outlet broke Rule 1 of resisting autocracy: 'Don’t obey in advance.'"

+ Of course, we don't know all the details from behind the scenes. Brian Stelter offers up a few possibilities for why ABC News settled with Donald Trump for $15 million.

+ Whatever the reason, the move sets a bad precedent. One you can bet will have repercussions. NYY (Gift Article): Trump and His Picks Threaten More Lawsuits Over Critical Coverage.

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On Guard

"High-end security for the uber-wealthy is nothing new. But over the past several years, the country’s richest families have taken more interest in their personal safety than ever before, according to interviews with four executives in the billionaire-protection industry." The NYC brood-daylight shooting of a health care executive (and its nonstop coverage) brought the issue of security to the forefront. But as Bloomberg (Gift Article) explains: The Ultra-Wealthy Were Bulletproofing Homes Even Before CEO Murder. "People just weren’t sure what was going to happen,” said Harris, who founded the [security] company in 2018 and saw an uptick in business during and after destabilizing events like Covid, the George Floyd protests and the 2021 storming of the US Capitol." The issue underpinning this (and so many other stories from perceptions about the economy to who gets to buy elections) is our growing economic divide.

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ET Drone Home

I was a consumer drone early adopter. One day I flew my toy lower than usual and within minutes, our neighborhood email chain lit up with a feverish dialogue about who or what was surveilling the area. Once I let folks know it was me, I started getting requests like, "Can you get a view of that large yacht that's been anchored nearby for weeks?" The drone sightings in New Jersey are more mysterious and getting a lot more attention — all the way to Congress. Mystery drone sightings continue in New Jersey and across the US. (It's possible we all just needed a mystery threat to take our mind of the threats we know are real. Maybe I should start flying my drone again. My neighbors could use the distraction.)

+ CNN: Why you shouldn’t try to shoot down a suspected drone. (TLDR: What goes up must come down.)

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Extra, Extra

Again: "A teacher and a student are dead after a shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, police said. The suspect, who was a teenage student at the school, is also dead and multiple people are injured, according to authorities." Here's the latest from CNN. Related: Start-up putting ammo vending machines in grocery stores plans to grow.

+ Captagon Wrong: "Analysts estimated the Assad regime netted $5bn annually from the trade, a value many times larger than the official budget." In addition to the mass murdering of his own citizens, Assad also ran a full-on narco state. Sacks of chemicals, plastic fruit … and millions of pills: inside a Damascus Captagon factory. Plus, "The illegally manufactured version is usually referred to as captagon (with a small c). It is sometimes called 'chemical courage' because it is thought to be used by soldiers in war-torn areas of the Middle East to help give them focus and energy." What is the drug captagon and how is it linked to Syria’s fallen Assad regime?

+ Northern Exposure: The incoming US president is already having a big impact ... in Canada. Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Resigns, in Blow to Trudeau’s Hold on Power. "Ms. Freeland had been playing a prominent role in formulating Canada’s response to the incoming Trump administration, leading a team of government officials preparing for the transition to a new president." It's not just North America. It's tough being an incumbent these days. Germany's Scholz loses a confidence vote, triggering new elections.

+ Cruise Control Some areas love the business that cruise ships bring. Other areas feel like they've been turned into giants bus stops. "The cruise ship industry is so powerful. But we’re going to eradicate them like any other invasive species." In some port towns, it’s residents vs. cruises.

+ Softbank's Hard Sell: "SoftBank is back in the Donald Trump flattery business, pledging to invest $100 billion into U.S. companies over the next four years." There's a good chance you saw that news today as the headlines were on just about every site I visited. What was less clear in those headlines is that Softbank had already raised this fund and planned to invest it in US companies over the next several years. The Trump announcement was pure PR. And, as per usual, it worked.

+ Hunter Gatherer: Colorado's Travis Hunter wins 2024 Heisman Trophy in closest race since 2009. Hunter, who plays on both sides of the ball, had a historic year. Gretchen Walsh had a historic day. Gretchen Walsh finishes short course swim worlds with 11 world records, 7 gold medals.

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Bottom of the News

"The carnival-casino era of cryptocurrencies has come back with a vengeance, riding a broader wave of investment in bitcoin that was itself spurred by the election of Donald Trump. It’s minting millionaires while potentially harming others — yet everyone, even the losers, seem to be in on the joke ... Yes, it’s called Fartcoin. Yes, it is totally useless. And yes, it has nevertheless tripled in value over the past week to a market capitalization of more than $700 million. (And they said I was crazy when I put all my money into natural gas futures...)