Comment on Bernanke: Despite employment slowdown, economy growing moderately

As a U. S. Senate committee held a confirmation hearing for Russell Vought—Republican President-elect Donald Trump's pick to head the White House Office of Management and Budget—progressive critics underscored what they called the extremism of the controversial nominee, who played a key role in crafting a proposed initiative to expand executive power and purge the federal civil service. Vought—who was questioned Wednesday by members of the Senate Homeland Security Committee—served as both acting director and director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) during Trump's first term.

Rachel Maddow is expanding her on-air presence for the first 100 days of President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, the network announced Monday. Via CNN: Maddow’s show, MSNBC’s highest rated program, has only aired once a week since 2022 when she stepped away to focus on other projects, including films, books and podcasts.

The fatuous felon called in and started rambling on Newsmax about how he tried to save Los Angeles during his first term as doddering old man in chief: They, they're gonna try and blame the fires in Los Angeles is they'll probably try and blame us for that You know, I was when I was president.

On Fox News' Outnumbered, host Gerri Willis defended the cadre of billionaires trying to rule the United States of America by sucking up to Trump. I mean, they've created so many good things for us! Ugh. Fox News is predictably in love with uber-rich tech broligarchs who support Demented Donald. WILLIS: Where is the credit for these guys?

Yet another deal has been signed between a publisher and a GenAI leader. Paris startup Mistral and news outlet Agence France-Presse (AFP) announced today that they are combining their services to improve AI responses. The deal provides Mistral’s chatbot — imaginatively named Le Chat — with access to all of AFP’s text stories.  According to Mistral, the integration will bring “enhanced factuality” to the AI assistant.