According to a Tuesday letter addressed to committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.), Biden agreed to testify before the committee on Dec. 13 — as long as the hearing was public. In the letter, Biden’s attorneys quoted Comer’s own demand, issued in November, that given Biden’s “willingness to address this investigation publicly up to this point, we would expect him to be willing to testify before Congress.”

The letter added that open-door proceedings “would prevent selective leaks, manipulated transcripts, doctored exhibits, or one-sided press statements.”

Republicans would not have it. “Hunter Biden is trying to play by his own rules instead of following the rules required of everyone else,” Comer wrote in a statement. “That won’t stand with House Republicans.”

Through a package of proposed reforms to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, or TANF, the administration plans to shore up the U.S. social safety net. The regulations are intended to ensure that more federal and state welfare dollars make it to low-income families, rather than being spent on other things or not spent at all.

The proposal, drawn up by the federal Administration for Children and Families, is open for public comment until Dec. 1. Once comments are reviewed, officials plan to issue final regulations that could take effect in the months after that, heading into the 2024 election.

There is recent precedent for that sort of perpetual protest candidacy. In 2016, Bernie Sanders didn’t concede defeat until the Democratic convention in late July, even though by every objective standard Hillary Clinton had clinched the nomination in early June. But it was a very close race that was still contested right up until the final primaries. So perhaps a better analogy for a prospective perma-campaign by Christie would be Ron Paul’s 2012 campaign, which fought for delegates — and threatened to disrupt party harmony — months after Mitt Romney had nailed down the nomination.

Most people in West Maui get water from the county’s public water system. But Martin-built developments such as Launiupoko, a community of a few hundred large homes outside of Lāhainā, draw their water from three private utility systems that he controls, siphoning underground aquifers and mountain streams to fill swimming pools and irrigate lawns. More than half of all water used in the Launiupoko subdivision, or around 1.5 million gallons a day, goes toward cosmetic landscaping on lawns, according to state estimates. Just over a quarter is used for drinking and cooking.

The scale of this water usage is stunning: According to state data, Launiupoko Irrigation Company and Launiupoko Water Company deliver a combined average of 5,750 gallons of water daily to each residential customer in Launiupoko, or almost 20 times as much as the average American home. The development has just a few hundred residents, but it uses almost half as much water as the public water system in Lāhainā, which serves 18,000 customers.

Historian Joshua Zeitz wrote on X, "This guy represents California in Congress — one of 9 current states whose territory the US won in part or whole during the Mexican War of 1848."

"These guys spent so much time erasing American history that they forgot to read it," wrote BET host Marc Lamont Hill.

Five former Trump officials and conservative allies told Reuters that even as Trump weighs harsher anti-migrant measures, they are concerned about implementing a new version of the 2018 "zero tolerance" policy that separated thousands of children from their parents at the southwest border.

They said they worry about a repeat of the widespread public backlash provoked by the original policy.

"The family separation that resulted from the zero tolerance caused an uproar in the country," said Tom Homan, a former Trump immigration official who could join a second administration. "The best way to do it, rather than deal with all that chaos that comes with it, is to keep them in a residential center together and have their hearings together."

Now, it's perfectly true that there was never a time in America when everyone just got along beautifully. Our history of racism and xenophobia alone puts the lie to that. But Trump's intolerance truly is ecumenical in that it could be any group, any individual, any foe or (former) friend at any given moment. It's entirely self-serving.

It's making more and more people embrace political violence. The recent American Values Survey from Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) in partnership with the Brookings Institution think tank found that one in three Republicans agree that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country” – up from 15% in 2021. (22% of Independents and 13% of Democrats agree, all numbers having increased since 2021.) The truly frightening number is that among those who believe the Big Lie, 46% believe they may resort to violence, as well as 41% of Trump fans and 41% who buy into the "Great Replacement Theory." 39% of Christian nationalists are ready to take up arms to "save the country." Those numbers represent tens of millions of Americans.

For all of Donald Trump’s rhetorical innovations, personality quirks, and alleged criminal malfeasance, what has made him truly unique as a political figure is how much he has merged fan culture with American politics. It’s not unusual for Americans to idolize presidents—Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama are still actively revered by many—but no other president has inspired the same level of merchandise lines or themed car flags. A MAGA bumper sticker often isn’t simply a statement of loyalty; it’s a cultural signifier of community much like the dancing bear bumper sticker is for a Grateful Dead fan.

Nowhere is this more clear than at Trump’s rallies. He’s turned his campaign events into something that has more in common with a Bruce Springsteen concert than a Harry Truman whistle-stop tour.

In a statement, the White House said Biden will use the Defense Production Act to improve the domestic manufacturing of medicines deemed crucial for national security and will convene the first meeting of the president’s supply chain resilience council to announce other measures tied to the production and shipment of goods.

...

The Defense Production Act of 1950, which was passed to streamline production during the Korean war, was last used in early 2021 during the coronavirus pandemic to accelerate and expand the availability of ventilators and personal protective equipment.

The plaintiffs’ arguments in Moore v. United States have little basis in law — unless you think that a list of long-ago-discarded laissez-faire decisions from the early 20th century remain good law. And a decision favoring these plaintiffs could blow a huge hole in the federal budget. While no Warren-style wealth tax is on the books, the Moore plaintiffs do challenge an existing tax that is expected to raise $340 billion over the course of a decade.

But Republicans also hold six seats on the nation’s highest Court, so there is some risk that a majority of the justices will accept the plaintiffs’ dubious legal arguments. And if they do so, they could do considerable damage to the government’s ability to fund itself.

The UAW won’t be fighting its next battle alone, either. One of the most interesting aspects of the new UAW tentative agreements at Ford, GM, and Stellantis is that they are all timed to expire on April 30, 2028. If those contracts expire without reaching a satisfactory new deal, the UAW will be ready to strike on May Day, otherwise known as International Workers Day.

...

What’s more, the UAW hopes it won't be hitting the picket lines alone. Fain has called on other unions to time their contracts to expire during the same period and “flex [their] collective muscles.” No, you’re not imagining things — the head of a major US labor union is calling on the rest of the movement to come together and start planning a general strike.

Starting November 23, when the international sexual health organization MSI Reproductive Health Services opens the doors to its first Cancún reproductive health center, a pregnant American from a US state where abortion is banned could find the procedure to be both more affordable and more accessible in Mexico. Quintana Roo, the Mexican state where Cancún is located, has become one of at least a dozen Mexican states to decriminalize abortion in the last two years amid a series of judicial rulings that have strengthened reproductive rights, culminating in a September Mexican Supreme Court ruling that made state laws criminalizing abortion unconstitutional nationwide.

While $710 is not an insignificant sum for a pregnant person living near the poverty line in America, it could still turn out to be several hundred dollars less expensive than the costs associated with obtaining similar treatments in post-Dobbs America, where 14 states have banned abortion completely, and four more have restricted it to the first trimester. A surgical abortion alone can cost more than $1,000 in the US, on top of out-of-state transportation and lodging needs. All these factors came into play when MSI planned its Cancún annex, which is being funded by an anonymous US donor.