We Are So Back… Meidas Beats Fox in Digital Views
Ben Meiselas and MeidasTouch Network
In the latest Playboard YouTube Charts just released, MeidasTouch Network has taken the lead over Fox News in YouTube views and engagement. Playboard, the leading website tracking YouTube channel performance, shows MeidasTouch surging ahead. MeidasTouch Network had previously led Fox News in the three months before the election, but Fox News took the lead after the election and held it for over 20 days. As of November 26, MeidasTouch has reclaimed its spot at the top.

The Strongman Fantasy (updated 11/24)
Timothy Snyder, Thinking about…
Once this process begins, it is hard to stop.  At the present stage of the strongman fantasy, people imagine an exciting experiment.  If they don’t like strongman rule, they think, they can just elect someone else the next time.  This misses the point.  If you help a strongman come to power, you are taking part in the elimination of democracy

Trump promises Day 1 tariffs
Mike Allen, Axios AM

Trump’s declarations on Truth Social are a wake-up call for those in Washington and on Wall Street who thought his tariff talk was mostly bluster.

• In a series of posts, Trump said the new tariffs were tied directly to stopping the flow of drugs and migrants.
• A tariff of 25% on all goods coming from Canada and Mexico would take effect on Jan. 20, he said.
• Imports from China would face a 10% tariff “above any additional Tariffs,” he wrote. He had previously spoken of a 60% tariff on Chinese goods.

Trump’s tariffs collide with an ‘abundance’ agenda
Derek Robertson, Digital Future Daily
The whole idea of tariffs, meant to protect national industries by adding costs and friction to global trade, contrasts sharply with the optimism he’s created in tech and energy quarters that a try-anything administration might open the door to an “abundance agenda,” lowering barriers to growth and boosting American industry, technology and energy production.

AM Headlines

Axios AM   Smerconish  The Hill Morning Report   CNN Breaking News

PM Headlines

Axios PM    Politico Nightly

Associated Press   Digital Future Daily (Politico).   NPR Politics

Resistance HQ Bulletin 14, 11/26/24
Ron Filipkowski, Meidas +

… Trump’s Cabinet of Losers – 17 of his nominees have lost elections.

… He did nominate 5 billionaires and multiple people who inherited fortunes though, so they are winning at getting rich that’s for sure.

Like Morning Joe, Merrick Garland just surrendered to Donald Trump
Dean Obeidallah, The Dean’s Report
This is how democracies die.

Again, Garland and Scarborough have chosen to surrender to Trump—just as we can expect others will going forward. We must not. As Prof. Snyder tells us: “Do not obey in advance.”  Instead, we must take the fight to Trump. That is the way we protect our freedoms, our self-determination and our Republic.

What’s going to happen next?
Steve Schmidt, The Warning

What happens next is going to be a malicious experiment. The American president, who is among the lowest and worst of men, imbued with every character of smallness and malice that a person can hold, will soon exercise unrestrained power and the immunities of his office to do as he pleases. He will do exactly what he said he was going to do.

The American people, generally speaking, have a real lack of imagination around what that is going to look like, and how it is going to impact them. MAGA will become a true experiential proposition.

They aren’t going to like it, and from that, the Democratic Party can cut the anchor around its ankle and start moving forward again.

Republicans Thought They Were Getting A Bro-Podding Business Guy. They – And We – Are Getting A Russian-Backed Monster
Hopium Chronicles By Simon Rosenberg

Who is a ‘journalist’?
Chris Cillizza, So What
“Is Joe Scarborough a journalist?”
“Is Joe Rogan a journalist?”

The Morning: The Art of the Deal?
Chris Cillizza, So What

A 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada?! Big deal! (Trump, in a subsequent, er, Truth, said he would impose a 10% tariff on China as well.)

If Trump goes through with this pledge against the America’s three biggest importers, it would have colossal economic impacts. While the average person likely has no idea how tariffs work, here’s the simplest explanation:

Trump charges foreign companies/countries more to bring goods into the U.S.
Importers raise prices in order to keep making the same profits
Those price increases get passed down to American consumers.

Scoop: Trump eyes AI czar
Mike Allen, Axios AM

Zoom in: The AI czar will be charged with focusing both public and private resources to keep America in the AI forefront.

1. The federal government has a tremendous need for AI technology. The new czar would likely work with agency chief AI officers, which were established in President Biden’s AI executive order, and could survive Trump.
2. The person also would work with DOGE to use AI to root out waste, fraud and abuse, including entitlement fraud.
3. The office would spur the massive private investment needed to expand the energy supply to keep the U.S. on the cutting edge.

The Rise of Anthropic powered by AWS
Michael Spencer, AI Supremacy

• I made a list of the 30+ “Starter Packs” around AI on Bluesky if you are interested in the comments of this post. Follow me on Bluesky for more insights and resources like this.

Amazon has agreed to invest another $4 billion in Anthropic, OpenAI’s biggest rival, even as their product feature timeline has accelerated. The new funding brings the tech giant’s total investment to $8 billion, though Amazon will retain its position as a “minority investor”.

Amid lull in tit-for-tat missile exchange, Iran and Israel seek to control the online narrative

Shirvin Zeinalzadeh, Arizona State University
The longtime foes have so far been able to put the lid on an all-out war. But their mutual battle over narrative and information is raging hot as ever.

Election reform was on the ballot – voters largely said ‘no’

Matthew May, Boise State University
Voters proved hesitant to overhaul the election systems they were already familiar with, as almost all of the reforms in nine ballot measures across seven states and Washington failed to pass.

I am a scholar of the Rosenberg case. I didn’t always think Ethel was innocent − but I now believe she was not a spy

Lori Clune, California State University, Fresno
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed in 1953 for conspiring with the Soviets. A newly declassified memo debunks the government’s case against Ethel, and her sons want their mother exonerated.

Polling in the age of Trump highlights flawed methods and filtered realities

Spencer Goidel, Auburn University; Eliana DuBosar, Auburn University; Zoe Nemerever, Auburn University
Democrats’ surprise at the results of the 2024 presidential election is partly a result of pollsters’ inaccuracies and partly of partisan filter bubbles.

We’ve never seen a political donor this loud, proud, and culturally influential.

President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk have become an inseparable duo. Since Trump’s reelection, the richest man in the world — and one of Trump’s top campaign donors — has been a shadow trailing him at his Florida residence. The tech billionaire has taken center stage in the incoming administration, promising to slash $2 trillion from the federal government’s budget.

“We are in an era that I call ‘in-your-face oligarchy,’” says Jeffrey A. Winters, a professor at Northwestern who researches oligarchs and inequality. Twenty years ago, it was a challenge to get his students to understand that there were oligarchs in the US. Now, he says, “I have a very hard time getting students to accept the idea that there’s democracy.”

JD Vance has been pushed aside by Donald Trump’s new buddy.

President-elect Donald Trump has got to be feeling good right now. His running mate, JD Vance? Not so much.

In the weeks since Election Day, Trump has been busy announcing his picks for various Cabinet roles and basking in the glow of his second campaign win.

At his side has been First Buddy Elon Musk, the billionaire who once said he’d rather “stay out of politics” and then set that side to barnstorm Pennsylvania on Trump’s behalf has settled in nicely and become a central figure in the transition, making himself home at Mar-a-Lago and tweeting up a storm about his new advisory role.

Rivals worry the SpaceX boss will rig the playing field for space exploration in his favor.

Musk’s SpaceX and Bezos’ Blue Origin have been dueling to be the most technologically advanced company in the private space flight sector. Investments from the federal government have propelled the companies but also forced them to compete over resources. The matter came to a head in 2021 when SpaceX snagged a multibillion-dollar contract for a moon landing mission and Blue Origin sued the federal government over it. Blue Origin lost that case but was later awarded its own contract to create other technology for a moon mission.

Recently, Blue Origin has been trying to thwart some of SpaceX’s work with the federal government.

How will Elon Musk shape the future of Artificial Intelligence in 2025 and beyond? Let’s dive deeper. A new kind of Government is forming.

Elon Musk clearly wants as much power over the future of AI’s capabilities as possible. With a place in Donald Trump’s administration, and Tesla’s stock surging after Trump’s victory in the elections (up 45% in the past month), Elon Musk is literally on top of the world – of course President-elect Trump will be sworn in at his inauguration. The presidential inauguration is always held on Jan. 20, as specified by the Constitution’s 20th Amendment and by January 21st, Elon Musk will more or less by the Chief AI Officer of America.

“Musk now sits at the heart of the US government, yet requires no Senate approval for his actions and can continue to work in the private sector.”