Washington Post:
After backing Trump, low-income voters hope he doesn’t slash their benefits
Voters in the struggling Pennsylvania city of New Castle backed Trump hoping he’d curb inflation. But the incoming president will be under pressure to cut spending.
“He is more attuned to the needs of everyone instead of just the rich,” Mosura, 55, said on a recent afternoon. “I think he knows it’s the poor people that got him elected, so I think Trump is going to do more to help us.”
Trump carried the Pennsylvania city of New Castle by about 400 votes, becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to win here in nearly 70 years. More than 1 in 4 residents live in poverty, and the median income in this former steel and railroad hub ranks as one of the lowest in Pennsylvania.
New Castle’s poorest residents weren’t alone in putting their faith in Trump. Network exit polls suggest he erased the advantage Democrats had with low-income voters across the country.
Note that the holidays lead to short APRs, as there’s a dearth of American political news. Let the pundits have their holiday joy because next year is going to be tough on everyone.
Jonathan V Last/The Bulwark:
2025 Will Be Worse. But Also Better.
The interregnum is over. The work starts now.
The last four years were pretty good. We drove a stake through COVID’s heart. The economy was strong. Wages were up, unemployment stayed low. Crime dropped like a stone. Was there bad stuff mixed in there, too? Sure.1 But that’s always the case. We live in a fallen world.
And yet, over the last four years I’ve felt like I was witness to a slow-motion train wreck.
…
Then the train actually crashed. The slow-motion ended and we started moving in real-time. And since then I’ve felt . . . free?
That’s not the right word. It’s not a good feeling, looking around you and seeing the carnage. But at least the anxiety of waiting for the worst to happen is over. I’m no longer anticipating the coming of a great conflagration. The fires are burning and now it’s time to get to work.
Maybe “free” is the right word after all.
Salt Lake Tribune:
Kera Birkeland, lawmaker behind Utah’s anti-trans laws, resigns from Legislature
The Republican lawmaker’s announcement comes after she won reelection this fall to Utah’s House District 4 and weeks before the beginning of the 2025 general legislative session.
Birkeland was appointed to fill a vacancy in House District 4 — which covers portions of Daggett, Duchesne, Morgan, Rich and Summit counties — in April 2020. She won reelection with 60% of the vote last month.
Her House replacement will be chosen by the Republican delegates in District 4.
Sounds like it’s for family and personal reasons, but she leaves the mess behind.
StatNews:
CDC says H5N1 bird flu sample shows mutations that may help the virus bind to cells in the upper airways of people
The mutations likely developed post-infection, the agency said
The mutation seen in both viruses is believed to help H5N1 adapt to be able to bind to cell receptors found in the upper respiratory tracts of people. Bird flu viruses normally attach to a type of cell receptor that is rare in human upper airways, which is believed to be one of the reasons why H5N1 doesn’t easily infect people and does not spread from person-to-person when it does.
Scott Hensley, a professor of microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, cautioned against reading too much into data from two severe cases, though he admitted the CDC’s report was “enough to raise my eyebrows.”
“It’s not great. It’s not great news,” Hensley told STAT.
And in South Korea, where the drama isn’t over, from the New York Times:
South Korea’s Acting President Faces Impeachment Vote
As the nation’s president awaits an impeachment trial over an ill-fated martial law bid, its prime minister and interim leader may face an ousting of his own.
Mr. Han had been made acting president just earlier this month, after the National Assembly impeached and suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol on Dec. 14 for putting the country under military rule for the first time in 45 years.
Now, barely two weeks into Mr. Han’s tenure as acting president, the main opposition party has filed a motion for his impeachment as well. The move came after Mr. Han refused on Thursday to appoint three judges to fill vacancies in the Constitutional Court, the body that will be deciding whether to reinstate or remove Mr. Yoon.
The opposition has pushed for Mr. Han to sign off on nominees to fill the bench in the nation’s highest court, but Mr. Yoon’s governing party has argued that only an elected president has the power to appoint justices.
Seth Masket/TUSK:
We’re not ready for the chaos
Trump will get a sliver of the policy he wants but all of the disorderHere’s the thing. Trump doesn’t and won’t have the formal powers to do a lot of the things he talks about doing. He can’t just unilaterally take back the Panama Canal or buy Greenland or make U.S. states out of Canadian provinces. He can’t just toss Liz Cheney in jail. He can’t just end Obamacare and replace it, or lower prices or hand eastern Ukraine over to Russia. He can’t compel companies to end DEI hiring practices or trans-friendly employee policies. And he can’t simply deport 10-20 million residents with the wave of his hand.
But he definitely thinks he can do at least some of this. And more importantly, he can create a lot of chaos and panic in the process.
Rep. Stansbury on Trump’s “ modern McCarthyism”:
