TRUMP REGIME

Newsweek - President-elect Donald Trump has announced a sweeping plan to change the way U.S. elections are carried out."We need to get things straightened out in this country, including elections," he said..."We're gonna do things that have been really needed for a long time," he said. "And we are gonna look at elections. We want to have paper ballots, one day voting, voter ID, and proof of citizenship."

He went on to denounce a recent law passed in California that prohibits local governments from requiring voters to present identification when casting their ballots at the polls. "In California they just passed a law that you're not even allowed to ask a voter for voter ID. Think of that. If you ask a voter for their voter ID, you've committed a crime. We're gonna get the whole country straightened out," he said.

Independent, UK - The think tank behind Project 2025, the conservative blueprint linked to President-elect Donald Trump, is launching an effort to back Trump's imperiled selection for secretary of defense in its latest attempt to wield influence in the incoming Republican administration.Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said Thursday that his group will spend $1 million to pressure senators unwilling to back Pete Hegseth, whose nomination to lead the Pentagon has come into question due to his views on women serving in combat and reports about his personal behavior. A number of Republican senators have declined to commit to backing Hegseth or have asked for more information about his drinking and treatment of women.

"It'll be messaging right now with their constituents about how out of step they are with the Trump agenda," Roberts said in an interview, who argued that criticism of Hegseth was being driven by "the establishment." 

Time -  The working class’s continued attraction to Donald Trump has long rankled his opponents, who argue that his biggest first-term policy accomplishment, the 2017 Tax and Jobs Act, disproportionately benefited the wealthy. They see the President-elect as exploiting fears about cultural change and immigration to sell working people a bill of goods.The history of another conservative populist — former Alabama governor George Wallace — indicates that such fears are well founded. Wallace is most remembered for the racism and racial violence he unleashed on civil rights protestors in the state during his first term as governor (1963-1967). Yet, looking at his subsequent, oft-forgotten time as governor in the 1970s and 1980s sheds light on Trump’s populist appeal, while also underscoring the likelihood that his business-friendly policies will actually hurt his base of working-class voters.

Wallace continuously wielded populist rhetoric and maintained support from working-class white Alabamans. Yet, after the successes of the civil rights movement in the 1960s threatened to dilute his power base, the governor joined forces with special interest groups to promote policies intended to protect big business at the expense of everyday Alabamans. The result was sky-high sales taxes, poor public services, and limited economic mobility.

 NBC News - Nearly 100 former national security officials signed a letter questioning whether Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is fit to become the director of national intelligence.

David French, NY Times  - On Tuesday, when the president of South Korea (briefly, as it later turned out) declared martial law, my phone lit up with questions from my friends and media colleagues — could this happen here? Could President Donald Trump (or any American president) unilaterally impose martial law? As I write in my latest article for Opinion, the answer isn’t as reassuring as they would hope. While the American Constitution does not explicitly grant presidents the power to impose military rule, the Insurrection Act and ambiguities in the Constitution’s war powers combine to grant presidents far more power than they should possess.

Under current law, the president can order troops onto American streets when deemed necessary, and it’s unclear whether the courts would even try to stop a presidential power grab. And the problem goes beyond the president: Red state governors have already tried to unlock war powers by declaring that illegal immigration represents an “invasion.” We are not South Korea, but we are at risk. It’s time to reform American law. Read more

 Guardian - At least 11 picks for strategic positions after Trump returns to the White House in January have either achieved billionaire status themselves, have billionaire spouses or are within touching distance of that threshold.The net result will be the wealthiest administration in US history – worth a total of $340bn at the start of this week, before Trump further boosted its monetary value by trying to appoint at least three more billionaires.