The tumult continues: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation Monday after nearly a decade in power, bowing to rising discontent over his leadership and growing turmoil within his government signaled by the abrupt departure of his finance minister. Trudeau, the latest incumbent to be driven out amid rising voter dissatisfaction worldwide, said it had become clear to him that he cannot “be the leader during the next elections due to internal battles.” He planned to stay on as prime minister until a new leader of the Liberal Party is chosen. “I don’t easily back down faced with a fight, especially a very important one for our party and the country. But I do this job because the interests of Canadians and the well being of democracy” are “something that I hold dear,” said Trudeau, who was initially teary-eyed at the announcement outside his official residence. He said Parliament, which had been due to resume Jan. 27, would be suspended until March 24. The timing will allow for a Liberal Party leadership race.
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Oh, that’s rich The leaders of the incoming Republican administration share the same first and middle intials, just in reversed order: D.J. Trump and J.D. Vance. I’m trying to decide if they stand for Delayed Justice or Justice Denied. On the delay and deny front, Juan M. Merchan, the New York trial judge overseeing Donald Trump’s “hush-money payment to a porn star” trial, denied a Monday request by Trump’s lawyers to delay his Friday sentencing, reports The New York Times: Although Mr. Trump’s lawyers had implored the judge to postpone the sentencing, Justice Merchan dismissed their claims as “a repetition of the arguments he has raised numerous times in the past.” Mr. Trump is now poised to escalate his effort, court filings show, turning to a New York appeals court in hopes that it will intervene in his case. Late Monday, Mr. Trump’s lawyers filed a civil proceeding against Justice Merchan before the appeals court, challenging two of the judge’s recent decisions to uphold Mr. Trump’s conviction. Mr. Trump’s lawyers will argue to the appeals court that Mr.
Aaaand: More threats: The average price of eggs in the US today is $3.02.
As a new year begins and the blog starts fresh in 2025, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on the highlights of the blog in 2024. In case you missed any of our posts the first time round, the five most viewed posts of last year were: We hope you enjoyed the blog … Continue reading Our top five posts of 2024
It’s a snow day in Baltimore and that means one thing–a post about cocktails! Full disclosure: I wanted to share these before New Year’s Day, but I’m lazy. And distracted. And lazy. Let’s be honest. I’m just really, really lazy. But better late than never, right? These two new Bloody Marys are the result ofContinue reading Snow Day Bloody Marys (Hemingway and Doritos)
Compare and contrast On this Sunday morning, a question springs to mind: How much of an idiot is “Captain Underpants“? Elon Musk is beside himself that President Biden awarded philanthropist George Soros the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his pursuit of “global initiatives that strengthen democracy, human rights, education, and social justice.” (Biden gave the award to 18 others, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.) Musk posted a meme mocked up to show Biden handing the medal to the evil Emperor Palpatine. “Must be the lighting,” he quipped. Naturally, the right is as incensed that their liberal bogeyman received the award as it wasn’t when Donald Trump awarded one to Rush Limbaugh during a State of the Union Address in recognition of Limbaugh’s Three Decades Hate. What draws attention to Musk besides his infantile sense of humor, his inability to string more than 10 words together in most of his tweets, and his turning Jack Dorsey’s world forum into a MAGA cesspool, is the contrast with a real genius.
Rolling back your voting rights Michael Podhorzer finds, as Digby posted on Saturday: the defining feature of American politics this century is that neither party can “win” elections anymore; they can only be the “not-loser.” Donald Trump was the not-loser in November. (It’s just what he wanted for Christmas.) Trump “won the same share of the eligible population” in 2024 as he did in 2020 while the Democrats’ share dropped 3.5% from 2020. Hurrah!The country did not turn more MAGA. That’s little consolation for the left and doesn’t change the facts on the ground. In an age where facts don’t seem to matter, those facts nevertheless could get suckier under Trump 2.0, writes Sam Levin for The Guardian: Donald Trump could use a second term atop the justice department to gut enforcement of US federal voting laws and deploy an agency that is supposed to protect the right to vote to undermine it, experts have warned. Trump has made no secret of his intention to punish his political enemies and subvert the American voting system.
You know that Elon Musk is sitting next to Donald Trump every night at Mar-a-Lago, talking to foreign leaders, kibitzing with fellow billionaires and whispering in the ear of the soon-to-be most powerful man on earth. You may have also heard that he’s exercising his own power on the internet to influence congressional leaders and fight for dominance over MAGA. He’s branching out. He wrote an op-ed in a conservative German newspaper endorsing the neo-Nazi right party, saying they are Germany’s only hope (and causing the editorial editor to resign from the paper.) And now there’s this: In the first three days of 2025, Elon Musk commandeered global politics through dozens of rapid-fire,often inflammatory posts to his 210 million followers on X. The world’s richest person called for the release of a jailed British far-right extremist. He shared a post pressing King Charles III to dissolve Parliament and order a new general election, as he posted memes and a flurry of attacks directed at Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Chesebro has admitted what he did and has been sanctioned numerous times, even pleading guilty in the Georgia case. But in the end it was a tiny price to pay and he was one of the few has paid anything. What a slap in the face to honest people everywhere that these people have been put back in power. It’s a shocking indictment of our country one from which I wonder if we’ll ever be able to recover.
I’m afraid that’s exactly what they will be proposing. Trump wants a “one big beautiful reconciliation package.” Speaker Mike Johnson told Republicans on Saturday that President-elect Donald Trump wants one reconciliation package, instead of the planned two that Republican leadership has been pushing, three people in the room where discussions took place told POLITICO. Johnson’s message came as Republicans are meeting behind closed doors at Fort McNair to map out their strategy for passing a sweeping border, tax and energy package that will be the heart of their legislative agenda. Trump told Johnson that he wants “one big beautiful bill,” the Louisiana Republican recounted at the retreat, per three lawmakers. Trump’s decision is a break from Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s pitch for a two-bill strategy that would have seen Republicans pass a border and energy bill first followed by a tax bill. Johnson had also previously indicated there would be two bills — though that was viewed as more of a deference to Trump’s perceived preference and a way to notch quick wins for his agenda.