Top Democratic Senator Slams Biden’s “Shameful” and “Weak” Inaction on Gaza
Sen. Chris Van Hollen also talks to Mehdi about Kamala Harris’s election defeat and the mistake of touting a Dick Cheney endorsement.
Team Zeteo

“President Biden’s inaction, given the suffering in Gaza, is shameful,” Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland tells Mehdi on this week’s ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’. “I mean, there’s no other word for it.”

It’s not often that a top Democratic senator and long-term party loyalist unleashes on a sitting Democratic president, but Van Hollen – who has been critical of the US’s unconditional support for Israel since October 7th – doesn’t hold back in this wide-ranging and exclusive conversation with Mehdi and Zeteo.

The Media Needs a Reinvention Not Just a Wake-Up Call After Trump’s Surprise Win
Sharon Waxman, The Wrap

True. So what do the rest of us do? I’m not yet seeing the self-examination that is warranted. We need a collective brainstorm and a serious response as a profession. We have lost the room. Never in my life did I think that the scarcity of information that existed before the rise of mass media might be less risky for our democracy than an oversupply of information. Nor was I imaginative enough to think that a focused stream of misinformation would present a serious challenge to real reporting and news.

If people have moved away from network news and broadsheet newspapers to opinionated podcasts and TikTok lies, then that’s one signal of how things need to change. If more people are watching “television” on YouTube than on any given broadcast or cable network, then OK – the table stakes have changed.

Let the Autopsy Continue … Ten Reasons Trump Won — and Why We Must Soldier On
OLD GOATS with Jonathan Alter

1- Biden’s Selfishness, 2- Global Anti-Incumbent Headwinds, 3- The Migrant Crisis, 4- Covid Relief Checks, 5- Harris’s Race and Gender, 6- The Triumph of Fuck-You Politics, 7- Demagoguery, 8- 2019 Woke Bidding War, 9- Rightwing Disinformation, 10- Low-Propensity Voters

The Trump Sh*t Show Arrives in D.C.: Pete Hegseth, Elon Musk, and Trump himself. Buckle up.
Morning Shots Bulwark, William Kristol and Andrew Egger

I knew Pete Hegseth fifteen years ago when he was a young, pro-Iraq war veteran, moving in Weekly Standard/Project for a New American Century circles. He seemed to be an effective proponent of neoconservative foreign policy, and some of us wanted to think well of him and give him a hand on a promising career. I even weighed in (ineffectually) on his behalf when he ran for the Republican nomination for senator in Minnesota—against, as I recall, a Ron Paul–supporting America First type.

But as sometimes happens, my judgment and that of others was mistaken. Hegseth turned out to be personally untrustworthy, intellectually shallow, and politically opportunistic. He moved on and was encouraged to move on out of our world, and ended up in the orbit of Fox News and Trumpist sycophancy, where he fit in well.

The New Class Politics
Last Tuesday’s realignment was decades in the making.
Michael Baharaeen,  Persuasion

Looking at this picture, it’s hard not to see that the Democrats have now become the party of the very thing they have long fought against: the elites. This stands in sharp contrast to their longtime image as the party of the working class, which is further and further in the rearview mirror. According to political scientist Matt Grossmann, white college-educated voters this year became a plurality of the coalition for the first time ever, surpassing both non-college whites as well as voters of color.

Moreover, this new coalition risks putting the Democrats on electorally unsound footing. Although college graduates are more reliable voters than their non-college peers, they also constitute a much smaller share of the population. Without a meaningful share of working-class voters in the mix, the party will struggle to be competitive.

How Elon could disrupt Washington
Derek Roberson, Politico

Musk has nevertheless jumped straight into the fray: He spent today escorted by Trump on Capitol Hill, attending the House Republican conference meeting and otherwise familiarizing himself with the government that his $200 million helped elect.

It’s unclear yet whether even the most hawkish appropriators have the stomach for Musk’s proposed buzzcut. With promises to use his PAC to pick winners in upcoming Republican primaries, he potentially could have a lot of pull in Congress as a donor, but (very) early returns aren’t yet promising for his influence: The Senate GOP conference elected Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) as majority leader over Musk’s pet candidate, Rick Scott (R-Fla.).

Still, Musk will at least forcefully suggest the same ruthless management for the federal government that he’s deployed at X and Tesla (all while reassuring Tesla investors the appointment is only temporary). Given his extensive track record of public statements about his business empire and policy preferences, environmental, labor, and diversity, equity and inclusion spending could be on the chopping block.

Breaking down Donald Trump’s deportation agenda
Carlos Trujillo, a top Trump adviser on Latinos, discusses immigration under the second administration.
Brakkton Booker, Politico

The son of immigrants who defected from Fidel Castro’s communist Cuba, Trujillo applauds Trump’s recent decision to name immigration hard-liners Stephen Miller and Tom Homan as deputy chief of staff for policy and border czar, respectively. And he believes they’ll bring back two of Trump’s previous migration-deterrent policies: the so-called “safe third country” agreements and the “Remain in Mexico” program.

“Those hires are excellent ones and are going to help carry out the vision more than 74 million Americans — including Hispanics — voted for,” Trujillo told POLITICO.

What America’s deadliest roads have in common
David Zipper, Vox

The beginnings of a paradigm shift in transportation policy
With deaths among US pedestrians and cyclists hitting a 40-year high in 2022, a growing number of state DOTs are starting to acknowledge that maximizing vehicle speed is not the only goal that matters on urban roadways. The Pennsylvania DOT, for example, is now working with Philadelphia to at last bring lane redesigns, bus lane improvements, and speed cameras to Roosevelt Boulevard. On the other side of the country, the head of the Washington state DOT has requested $150 million from the state legislature to address the shortcomings of legacy highways.

Trump’s mass deportation plan.
Isaac Saul, Tangle

Trump’s mass deportation plan. In the week after the election, President-elect Donald Trump reaffirmed his campaign promise to deport millions of immigrants living in the United States illegally. He has also started identifying high-ranking immigration officials to carry out the policy.

Trump has brought on Stephen Miller, a longtime immigration hardliner, as his deputy chief of staff. He chose Tom Homan, a former ICE director and the face of some of Trump’s most restrictive policies from his first term, as “border czar.” He has also chosen Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD), who supported his first term’s travel ban on select Muslim-majority countries, to lead the Department of Homeland Security.

Critical Nonprofit Policy Issues the Next President and Congress Will Face
Chief among them are the expansion of the charitable tax deduction and the 1969 law governing foundations.
Ben Gose, Chronicle of Philanthropy

Donald Trump is expected to tap U.S. Senator Marco Rubio to be his secretary of state, sources said, putting the Florida-born politician on track to be the first Latino to serve as America’s top diplomat once the Republican president-elect takes office in January.

Rubio was arguably the most hawkish option on Trump’s shortlist for secretary of state, and he has in past years advocated for a muscular foreign policy with respect to America’s geopolitical foes, including China, Iran and Cuba.

Over the last several years he has softened some of his stances to align more closely with Trump’s views. The president-elect accuses past U.S. presidents of leading America into costly and futile wars and has pushed for a more restrained foreign policy.

President-elect Donald Trump plans to nominate John Ratcliffe to serve as his director of the CIA, the Trump-Vance transition said Tuesday.

The former four-term Republican member of Congress served in Trump’s first term as director of national intelligence, where he burnished his reputation as a close ally of the president — and as similarly distrusting of the nation’s spy agencies.

President-elect Donald Trump has asked U.S. Rep. Michael Waltz, a retired Army National Guard officer and war veteran, to be his national security adviser, a person familiar with the matter said Monday.

The nod came despite simmering concerns on Capitol Hill about Trump tapping members of the House, where the final tally is still uncertain and there are worries about pulling any GOP members from the chamber because that would force a new election to fill the empty seat. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter before Trump made a formal announcement.

The move would put Waltz at the forefront of a litany of national security crises — ranging from the ongoing effort to provide weapons to Ukraine and escalating worries about the growing alliance between Russia and North Korea to the persistent attacks in the Middle East by Iran proxies and the push for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah.

In picking Fox News Channel host Pete Hegseth to lead the Department of Defense, President-elect Donald Trump has selected a military veteran and popular conservative media personality with a large following of his own.

Hegseth, 44, has developed a close rapport with Trump, who also reportedly considered him for a post in his first administration. Hegseth has lobbied Trump to release service members accused of war crimes.

Hegseth has served in the military, although he lacks senior military or national security experience.After graduating from Princeton University in 2003, Hegseth was commissioned as an infantry captain in the Army National Guard, serving overseas in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as at Guantanamo Bay.

Stefanik, a staunch defender of Israel, is the president-elect’s first Cabinet pick for his second term.

President-elect Donald Trump has tapped House Republican Conference chair and longtime ally Rep. Elise Stefanik, of New York, to serve as ambassador to the United Nations.

Stefanik, 40, has been a staunch defender of Israel in its response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks and has been outspoken over the last year about antisemitism on college campuses. A day before last week’s election, Stefanik reiterated her call for the defunding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East because she alleges it has been infiltrated by Hamas.

Across a series of experiments in a study published in the journal Nature Human Behavour, we found that ChatGPT does boost creativity, especially in everyday, practical tasks. Here’s what we learned about how this technology is changing the way people solve problems, brainstorm ideas and think creatively.

ChatGPT’s strength lies in its ability to combine unrelated concepts into a cohesive response. Unlike Google, which requires users to sift through links and piece together information, ChatGPT offers an integrated answer that helps users articulate and refine ideas in a polished format. This makes ChatGPT promising as a creativity tool, especially for tasks that connect disparate ideas or generate new concepts.

Across a series of experiments in a study published in the journal Nature Human Behavour, we found that ChatGPT does boost creativity, especially in everyday, practical tasks. Here’s what we learned about how this technology is changing the way people solve problems, brainstorm ideas and think creatively.

ChatGPT’s strength lies in its ability to combine unrelated concepts into a cohesive response. Unlike Google, which requires users to sift through links and piece together information, ChatGPT offers an integrated answer that helps users articulate and refine ideas in a polished format. This makes ChatGPT promising as a creativity tool, especially for tasks that connect disparate ideas or generate new concepts.