Comment on Democratic Hopes for a Wave Election Diminish

“Senate Republican leaders are signaling they’re comfortable with President-elect Donald Trump dismissing FBI Director Christopher Wray before his 10-year term expires,” Semafor reports. “And GOP senators sound open to confirming Trump loyalist Kash Patel, a vocal critic of a bureau he claims has been captured by the ‘deep state,’ as its next leader.”

New York Times: “Support for pardoning Hunter Biden had been building for months within the family, but external forces had more recently weighed on Mr. Biden, who watched warily as President-elect Donald Trump picked loyalists for his administration who promised to bring political and legal retribution to Mr. Trump’s enemies.” “Mr.

Jeffrey Toobin: “Fortunately, Mr. Biden has time to redeem, or at least improve, his legacy on pardons. To state the obvious, the younger Mr. Biden is not the only person who got a raw deal from prosecutors. For better or worse, the lame duck period of modern presidencies has served as pardon season, and the president now has the chance to take some bold steps for people who don’t have friends, or a father, in high places.

“Wisconsin public worker and teachers unions scored a major legal victory Monday with a ruling that restores collective bargaining rights they lost under a 2011 state law that sparked weeks of protests and made the state the center of the national battle over union rights,” Politico reports. “That law, known as Act 10, effectively ended the ability of most public employees to bargain for wage increases and other issues, and forced them to pay more for health insurance and retirement benefits.”

“Warren Stephens, an investment banker and billionaire who donated to President-elect Donald Trump’s rivals before eventually supporting him in the 2024 race, was tapped as Mr. Trump’s ambassador to Britain on Monday,” the New York Times reports. “The selection of Mr. Stephens for the ambassadorship, a plum posting that often goes to one of the largest donors to presidential campaigns, was in part a nod to the American Opportunity Alliance, a big-money network of Republican donors in which Mr.

On Sunday, with less than two months remaining in his presidency, President Biden issued a full and unconditional pardon to his son Hunter, convicted in June on three felony charges related to federal gun crimes and on three felony tax offenses in September. Reactions have been mixed: many have criticized Biden, who argues that his son’s convictions were politically motivated, for setting a poor precedent and breaking a promise not to intervene.