Pardons for Sale

 Many posts have addressed the president's pardon power.

Kenneth P. Vogel and Susanne Craig at NYT:

In 2021, a convicted fraudster named Adriana Camberos was freed from prison when President Trump commuted her sentence.

Rather than taking advantage of that second chance, prosecutors said, Ms. Camberos returned to crime. She and her brother were convicted in 2024 in an unrelated fraud.

This week, Mr. Trump pardoned both siblings, marking the second time Mr. Trump had opened the prison gates for Ms. Camberos.

Their pardons were among a handful of clemency grants quietly issued by Mr. Trump this week.

Among the other lucky recipients: a man whose daughter had given millions to a Trump-backed super PAC, a former governor of Puerto Rico and a former F.B.I. agent — all of whom had pleaded guilty in a political corruption case.

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Three of the recipients were scheduled to be sentenced this month in a political corruption case related to accusations that former Gov. Wanda Vázquez of Puerto Rico had accepted bribes from Julio Herrera Velutini, a Venezuelan-Italian banker, in 2020.

In late 2024, while Mr. Herrera was facing felony bribery and other charges in the case, his daughter, Isabela Herrera, donated $2.5 million to MAGA Inc., a super PAC devoted to Mr. Trump and run by his allies.

In May, her father’s lawyer, Christopher M. Kise, who had served on Mr. Trump’s legal defense team, negotiated an unusually lenient deal with the Justice Department. Under the deal, which was authorized by a top Trump appointee, Mr. Herrera agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor campaign finance charge, disappointing career prosecutors who had pushed for a harsher sentence.

In July, Ms. Herrera donated another $1 million to MAGA Inc. She did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Trump this week pardoned Mr. Herrera, Ms. Vázquez and Mark Rossini, a former F.B.I. agent who had worked as a consultant for Mr. Herrera. All three had pleaded guilty in August to misdemeanor campaign finance charges.

Pink Slime in California

Many posts have dealt with misinformation, disinformation, and partisan pseudo-news sites.

Colin Lecher at CalMatters:

Earlier this year, as the political battle over Congressional redistricting brought California into the national spotlight, Facebook users were shown a curious series of ads.

The ads, from a straightforward-looking news site called the California Courier, often felt a lot like campaign commercials, linking to articles hammering Democrats in the state, including Gov. Gavin Newsom. Few punched in the other direction, toward Republicans. One said “California Democrats just rewrote their gerrymandering plan so voters will see their partisan map on the ballot this November.” Another called Proposition 50, which passed in November, “a scheme critics say is meant to undermine voter-approved protections and entrench one party rule in California.”

A reader who clicked through to the Courier’s website would find stories that largely align with a conservative view of the news, like a video of a child “riding a scooter through San Fran’s drug-ravaged streets,” or an anonymous piece that cites “confidential sources” cautioning against a “left-wing educator” running for a position with an Orange County school district.

What a reader would not find is any disclosure of the Courier’s ownership or funding, including what appear to be ties to a network of conservative organizations in California that, according to one researcher, scaled up a series of right-leaning news sites in three other states just ahead of the 2024 election.

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One of the named writers describes himself on social media as a “content creator” for the Lincoln Media Foundation, a conservative group, and links to Courier articles. Another shares a name with a Republican strategist based in Orange County, and a third lists a resume with conservative organizations in a short bio.

The Lincoln Media Foundation is tied to the Lincoln Club, a group based in Orange County that bills itself as “the oldest and largest conservative major donor organization in the state of California.” The club funnels anonymously-donated money to conservative candidates and causes.

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Researchers have taken to calling sites like those operated by Lincoln Media “pink slime” news, a name coined after a meat-industry additive. These sites don’t produce outright false news, like others, but they do not meet basic journalistic standards. That often means low-quality content and failing to disclose associations with outside organizations.

The sites generally aren’t designed to generate revenue, but to sway public opinion. The majority, according to researchers, lean toward a conservative agenda, and if the site’s stories gain traction on social media, they can travel widely.

 

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Social Media Influencers and Lobbying

Many posts have discussed social media. 

Maggie Severns, Natalie Andrews, Josh Dawsey, and Eliza Collins at WSJ:

Last summer, Donald Trump’s 28-year-old former campaign aide Alex Bruesewitz had some new advice for the president: reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug. “Nearly 70% of Republican voters support Trump on this. No brainer!,” he said to more than 640,000 followers on X.

What Bruesewitz left out of the post: A political-action committee funded by legal marijuana’s biggest players had just paid him $300,000.

Trump’s return to the White House has transformed the federal government and upended the business of lobbying, creating a new class of Washington operatives that blur the lines between consulting, advocacy and journalism.

Corporate and foreign interests that used to rely primarily on paid lobbyists to pitch their case to lawmakers and administration officials are instead pouring money into trying to get their cause promoted by a group of young, conservative influencers known to be close to Trump’s staff.

A camera-ready pack of Gen-Z social-media natives—many of whom were too young to vote when Trump announced his first run for office—are reaping the rewards. They don’t work for traditional news outlets and are thus unshackled from newsroom ethics rules, such as the typical ban on accepting gifts worth more than $25. They don’t have to follow the disclosure laws that apply to big-money super PACs or lobbyists. And they have large followings eager to hear pro-Trump views, a gold mine for those looking to sway both Washington and the public.

Israel made plans over the past year to spend $900,000 on an influencer campaign with a U.S. audience, according to disclosure documents, as Israel fights negative sentiment on the right. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with conservative social-media stars on at least two of his visits.

The solar energy and health industries have paid thousands of dollars to influencers to support their interests, according to people who have been offered or participated in such deals. Qatar, beverage interests and others have courted those with online political followings.

MAGA influencers are turning access to the White House into lucrative new businesses. Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale has pivoted from campaigning to running a prominent firm that specializes in connecting influencers to companies and others willing to pay for their posts.

Perfidy

Many posts have discussed foreign policy, war powers and the US military.

 Charlie Savage et al. at NYT:

The Pentagon used a secret aircraft painted to look like a civilian plane in its first attack on a boat that the Trump administration said was smuggling drugs, killing 11 people last September, according to officials briefed on the matter. The aircraft also carried its munitions inside the fuselage, rather than visibly under its wings, they said.

The nonmilitary appearance is significant, according to legal specialists, because the administration has argued its lethal boat attacks are lawful — not murders — because President Trump “determined” the United States is in an armed conflict with drug cartels.

But the laws of armed conflict prohibit combatants from feigning civilian status to fool adversaries into dropping their guard, then attacking and killing them. That is a war crime called “perfidy.”

Retired Maj. Gen. Steven J. Lepper, a former deputy judge advocate general for the United States Air Force, said that if the aircraft had been painted in a way that disguised its military nature and got close enough for the people on the boat to see it — tricking them into failing to realize they should take evasive action or surrender to survive — that was a war crime under armed-conflict standards.

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U.S. military manuals about the law of war discuss perfidy at length, saying it includes when a combatant feigns civilian status so the adversary “neglects to take precautions which are otherwise necessary.” A U.S. Navy handbook says lawful combatants at sea use offensive force “within the bounds of military honor, particularly without resort to perfidy,” and stresses that commanders have a “duty” to “distinguish their own forces from the civilian population.”

Government Ownership of the Means of Production

Friedrich Engels:  "The proletariat seizes the public power, and by means of this transforms the socialized means of production, slipping from the hands of the bourgeoisie, into public property."

On December 9, Tad DeHaven wrote at The Dispatch:

The first Trump administration ushered in a new era of industrial policy, attempting to reshape the macroeconomic landscape through the use of tariffs. The Biden administration built upon its predecessor’s interventions, championing massive subsidies for the semiconductor and green energy industries. In his second term, Trump has raised the tariff ante and taken an alarming step further by directly inserting the federal government into the corporate boardroom.

Over the past six months, the administration has unilaterally engineered a series of deals that give the federal government ownership stakes in a portfolio of private companies. It’s a seismic and disturbing development in federal policymaking—and it’s not done. Congressional Republicans, who would be foaming at the mouth were this occurring under a Democratic administration, have thus far chosen to sit on their hands.

Here’s a quick recap:

• June: Trump issues an executive order allowing Japan’s Nippon Steel to purchase U.S. Steel in exchange for a “golden share,” giving the president extensive control over U.S. Steel’s operations.
• July: The government becomes the largest shareholder in MP Materials, a company that produces rare earth metals.
• August: The administration announces that the government is taking a 10 percent equity stake in Intel, becoming the storied American semiconductor company’s largest single shareholder.
• September: An equity deal is reached with Lithium America, including a share of its joint venture with General Motors on the Thacker Pass lithium project in Nevada.
• October: The U.S. acquires stakes in Canadian-based Trilogy Metals, inserting the government into a joint venture with Australia’s South32 to develop the Ambler mining district in Alaska.
• October: A deal is reached with the Canadian owners of Westinghouse to finance nuclear reactors in exchange for the government receiving a share of future profits, with an option to require an initial public offering of Westinghouse and convert the profit share into a 20 percent ownership stake.
• November: The U.S. acquires stakes in rare-earth magnet manufacturer Vulcan Elements, alongside a complementary agreement with rare-earth processor ReElement Technologies that includes warrants giving the government the right to buy stock later.

Last week, the White House announced a preliminary agreement to acquire a stake in xLight, a startup developing technology to enhance extreme ultraviolet lithography ma

Trump administration officials have made it clear that more deals are forthcoming. Potential targets include defense contractors, quantum-computing companies, and, according to Reuters, “deals across up to 30 industries, involving dozens of companies deemed critical to national or economic security.”

Home Court Advantage

 Many posts have discussed the independence of the judiciary.

Mattathias Schwartz and Emma Schartz at NYT:

President Trump has found a powerful but obscure bulwark in the appeals court judges he appointed during his first term. They have voted overwhelmingly in his favor when his administration’s actions have been challenged in court in his current term, a New York Times analysis of their 2025 records shows.

Time and again, appellate judges chosen by Mr. Trump in his first term reversed rulings made by district court judges in his second, clearing the way for his policies and gradually eroding a perception early last year that the legal system was thwarting his efforts to amass presidential power.

Pope Leo on the Meaning of Words

ADDRESS OF POPE LEO XIV TO MEMBERS OF THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS ACCREDITED TO THE HOLY SEE  Hall of Benediction Friday, 9 January 2026

The purpose of multilateralism, then, is to provide a place where people can meet and talk, modeled on the ancient Roman Forum or the medieval square. At the same time, in order to engage in dialogue, there needs to be agreement on the words and concepts that are used. Rediscovering the meaning of words is perhaps one of the primary challenges of our time. When words lose their connection to reality, and reality itself becomes debatable and ultimately incommunicable, we become like the two people to whom Saint Augustine refers, who are forced to stay together without either of them knowing the other’s language. He observes that, “Dumb animals, even those of different species, understand each other more easily than these two individuals. For even though they are both human beings, their common nature is no help to friendliness when they are prevented by diversity of language from conveying their sentiments to one another; so that a man would more readily converse with his dog than with a foreigner!” [6]

Today, the meaning of words is ever more fluid, and the concepts they represent are increasingly ambiguous. Language is no longer the preferred means by which human beings come to know and encounter one another. Moreover, in the contortions of semantic ambiguity, language is becoming more and more a weapon with which to deceive, or to strike and offend opponents. We need words once again to express distinct and clear realities unequivocally. Only in this way can authentic dialogue resume without misunderstandings. This should happen in our homes and public spaces, in politics, in the media and on social media. It should likewise occur in the context of international relations and multilateralism, so that the latter can regain the strength needed for undertaking its role of encounter and mediation. This is indeed necessary for preventing conflicts, and for ensuring that no one is tempted to prevail over others with the mindset of force, whether verbal, physical or military.

We should also note the paradox that this weakening of language is often invoked in the name the freedom of expression itself. However, on closer inspection, the opposite is true, for freedom of speech and expression is guaranteed precisely by the certainty of language and the fact that every term is anchored in the truth. It is painful to see how, especially in the West, the space for genuine freedom of expression is rapidly shrinking. At the same time, a new Orwellian-style language is developing which, in an attempt to be increasingly inclusive, ends up excluding those who do not conform to the ideologies that are fueling it.

Unfortunately, this leads to other consequences that end up restricting fundamental human rights, starting with the freedom of conscience. In this regard, conscientious objection allows individuals to refuse legal or professional obligations that conflict with moral, ethical or religious principles deeply rooted in their personal lives. This may be the refusal of military service in the name of non-violence, or the refusal on the part of doctors and healthcare professionals to engage in practices such as abortion or euthanasia. Conscientious objection is not rebellion, but an act of fidelity to oneself. At this moment in history, freedom of conscience seems increasingly to be questioned by States, even those that claim to be based on democracy and human rights. This freedom, however, establishes a balance between the collective interest and individual dignity. It also emphasizes that a truly free society does not impose uniformity but protects the diversity of consciences, preventing authoritarian tendencies and promoting an ethical dialogue that enriches the social fabric.