January 7, 2025
Before I launch into today’s news, a definition:
blatherskite
Merriam-Webster.com
ˈbla-t͟hər-ˌskīt
noun
1. a person who blathers a lot
2. nonsense, blather
POTUS-elect Pounces on Panama, Expounds on Expansion
In a press conference earlier today from his Mar-a-Lago resort, President-elect Donald Trump spoke about quite a range of issues. The biggest newsmakers of the bunch, though, weren’t so much about “making America great again” — but more making it bigger. This included retaking control of the Panama Canal and buying Greenland. He declined to rule out military or economic actions as methods. He also wants to “get rid of that artificially drawn line” between the United States and Canada, and rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America”. (It should be noted that the leaders of Panama, Denmark, and Canada have all stated emphatically what Trump can do with his expansionistic desires. I’d anticipate a similar response from Mexico.)
Ups and Downs for Trump’s Legal Cases
In other Trump news, a New York appellate court today denied his bid to halt sentencing set for Friday for his conviction in the porn star hush money case. This is after the judge overseeing the case, Juan Merchan, rejected a request for delay yesterday. Merchan gave a potential preview of his sentence by stating that he was not inclined to send the 34-count-felon to prison, but was looking favorably at a sentence of “unconditional discharge”, which means Trump would be a guilty felon, but would not owe any fines, probation, or prison time.
Also today, Judge Aileen Cannon blocked Special Counsel Jack Smith from releasing a report on his investigations into Trump’s mishandling of classified documents and attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The U.S. District Judge — who was put on the bench by Trump during his first term, and has since done everything she could to delay and dismiss the case — directed the Justice Department not to release the report until after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit rules whether or not Smith’s appointment as Special Counsel was legal.
Meta: Who Needs Fact-Checking?
Facebook parent company Meta announced today that it would be ending its fact-checking program, and bring back more political content to its platforms. As part of this and other moderation reforms happening across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, Meta would be ending restrictions on topics like immigration and gender, and reducing oversight of topics like general oversight, except on topics like1 terrorism, child sexual exploitation, drugs, fraud, and scams.
It should be noted that the fact check program was put in place in response to massive amounts of misinformation that was published on its platforms following the 2016 U.S. election, and had massively expanded leading into 2020. However, those efforts were frowned upon by right-wing activists who claimed that preventing them from spreading their misinformation was politicized censorship.
- Correction posted on 2025-01-08 ↩︎
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