It’s virtually Christmas and information producers throughout the trade are checked out of their jobs, in order that they used up no matter pre-taped segments they’d for this weekend’s Sunday exhibits. That signifies that the media missed greater than common this week, as each members of Congress and phase producers alike decamped Washington for the comforting leisure of residence.
Most networks devoted their time to repeating the identical drained narratives about our authorities’s most up-to-date shutdown scare. In line with insiders, Donald Trump isn’t blissful after the primary huge check of his management abilities went down the bathroom after Congress didn’t go his most popular debt deal. Much less mentioned was how Republicans caved to billionaire Elon Musk, defending his company pursuits in China even because the Home GOP hung working class individuals out to dry.
However huge information tales don’t cease popping up simply because the information media isn’t there to cowl them. Think about these three particularly newsworthy moments you undoubtedly missed if you happen to have been glued to the tv over the weekend. Let’s dive in.
The Lacking Member of Congress
Congress has made a nasty behavior of defending its growing old and ailing members, even when meaning actively deceiving the American individuals as to their whereabouts. Suppose I’m exaggerating? This week, a reporter for the Dallas Categorical got down to discover GOP Rep. Kay Granger, who, regardless of being the Home Appropriations Committee Chair, hasn’t solid a vote since July. And discover her they did: at “a native reminiscence care and assisted dwelling residence she now calls residence.
Granger’s Capitol Hill workplace cellphone is forwarded on to voicemail, whereas her Texas district workplace seems to have been shuttered for weeks. In line with a Dallas Morning Information interview with Granger’s son, Brandon, the longtime public servant has “been having some dementia issues” however is within the “independent living” part of a fancy that features a reminiscence care facility. e. Granger and her employees have continued to attract paychecks regardless of this absence. one of many nationwide Sunday exhibits thought the story was worthy of headline protection.
Now even some Republicans are saying sufficient is sufficient. Texas GOP govt committeeman Rolando Garcia slammed Granger’s deception as a “sad and humiliating way to end her political career,” including that Granger was “already in visible decline when she ran for re-election in 2022.”
Granger’s group insists she is going to stay in workplace. Yikes.
Trump’s Dopey Diplomats
By now Donald Trump’s Cupboard of Horrors is outdated information for the TV networks, and so they’ve largely moved on from earlier main scandals involving Protection Secretary nominee Pete Hegeseth and Director of Nationwide Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard. However abroad newspapers, together with London’s The Guardian are writing with rising fear that Trump’s roster of dimwitted diplomats would possibly quickly put European and international safety in danger. That … appears fairly probably, really.
Whether or not it’sfake sheriff and failed Senate candidate Herschel Walker as Ambassador to the Bahamas, or convicted fraudster Charles Kushner as French envoy, or former Trump household hanger-on Kimberly Guilfoyle as America’s girl in Greece, it’s exhausting to think about Trump nominating a much less certified and extra scatterbrained set of overseas emissaries. A number of the most high-profile picks additionally know completely nothing concerning the nations they’ll be working in—particularly NATO Ambassador nominee Matt Whitaker, who has no expertise with navy diplomacy, NATO, or Europe. Tremendous!
Regardless of what the MAGA base thinks, ambassadorships aren’t simply plush gigs handed out to mates. Some ambassadorships will play key roles in deciding the way forward for the Center East, together with the important Turkish ambassadorship that Trump has supplied to marketing campaign donor and alleged overseas agent for the United Arab Emirates Tom Barrack.
It’s no shock that many profession overseas service officers are actually debating retiring slightly than reply to this lengthy listing of uneducated, uninterested nominees. That can go away America uncovered overseas at a time of rising international unrest—precisely the state of affairs that Russia, China, and different geopolitical adversaries need.
Lina Khan vs. Junk Charges
Federal Commerce Fee Chair Lina Khan has been one in every of Washington’s best-kept secrets and techniques, and this week, she racked up one more win for customers taken benefit of by the resort and stay occasion industries. On Thursday, the FTC finalized a rule requiring these companies to reveal hidden “junk fees” upfront, a part of Khan’s effort to enhance transparency within the notoriously shady resort reserving and live performance ticket buying world. Shockingly, even a number of the FTC’s Republican commissioners stsupported the proposal.
Shoppers collectively waste over 50 million hours yearly making an attempt to search out the precise value of resort rooms and live performance tickets that trade leaders like Ticketmaster do their greatest to bury underneath charges that always aren’t seen till the ultimate step in a web-based buy.
Shoppers can thank music’s most profitable girl for the FTC’s … swift motion. The debacle round buying tickets for Taylor Swift’s recently-concluded Eras Tour lit a hearth underneath the federal authorities, leading to not simply the brand new FTC rule, but additionally a bipartisan Home invoice to advertise extra transparency in how live performance tickets, airline fares, and resort rooms are offered.
Subsequent, Congress says they’ll construct on the FTC’s new rule by tackling value collusion and doable antitrust violations by the nation’s largest leisure distributors and hospitality corporations. However good luck attaining something when the nation’s subsequent president owns a sequence of overpriced inns and leisure venues.
Attain out!
Preserve the dialog going all week by sharing tales you suppose the media missed with me at @themaxburns on Bluesky! And keep in mind: Should you’re tuned to cable information, you aren’t even getting half of the story.
Till subsequent week, preserve your eyes peeled and keep inquisitive, mates—and Glad Holidays!
