As regulars are well aware, I did not vote for Donald Trump to be President. Indeed, I’m 0 for three on that score, having voted for his Democratic opponent in 2016, 2020, and 2024 despite having voted Republican in all eight previous presidential elections for which I was eligible. Nonetheless, I have expressed my frustration multiple times since the election that President Biden, whose administration was soundly defeated* in the election, has used the lame duck period to “Trump proof” the government, rushing to carry out policies that the voters just rejected** and endeavoring to make it harder for the victor to carry out the policies he was elected to enact.
This, however, goes both ways. We only have one President at a time and Trump is currently interfering with the affairs of state in ways I find quite problematic. While I find it unseemly, I don’t much mind that foreign heads of state are flocking to Mar a Lago to kiss the ring; the leader of the free world needs to be able to hit the ground running and establishing relationships and setting expectations during the transition enables all concerned to plan for the future. But, to take the latest example, intervening at the 11th hour to scuttle a budget deal
that would have kept the government running during the holidays is not something a President-Elect should be doing.
Ultimately, while I believe both Biden and Trump are violating longstanding norms, the problem is the absurdly long transition period between administrations. Trump was elected on November 5—over six weeks ago. He won’t be sworn into office until a month from tomorrow—a day short of 11 weeks after the election. (And, yes, I’m fully aware that the inauguration was in March until the passage of the 20th Amendment in 1933.)
By comparison, our cousins across the Pond manage to get a new PM clapped into 10 Downing in as little as two days after an election. France, which also has a presidential system (although a very different one) executes the transition in less than a week.
Certainly, it would take some planning to make our transitions faster. It would, for example, require candidates to announce their intended nominees for major cabinet posts ahead of time so that they could be vetted and confirmed quickly. But the current system is not only wildly undemocratic but creates truly perverse incentives.
*I’m aware that, as laggard states slowly counted their votes, the margins shrank considerably from what they appeared to be on Election Night. Trump appears to have won slightly less than a majority of the vote. Nonetheless, he swept all seven of the “swing states” that both candidates spent most of their resources on and made gains over his 2020 totals in virtually every county in the country.
**Parsing voter intentions when there is a binary choice is, to be sure, complicated. I voted for the Democratic nominee in the last three elections despite having significant policy disagreements with each of them; presumably, a lot of folks who voted for Trump disagreed with him on some issues. Regardless, he made his stance on immigration, Ukraine, and several other issues rather clear for a very long time.
The court decisions were a victory for Northwest consumers, who would have seen grocery store competition crumble. According to Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, Albertsons and Kroger operate “more than 300 locations
in the Evergreen State, accounting for more than 50% of the state’s grocery sales.”
In a one-mile radius in my neighborhood, we would have had one specialty market (Trader Joes); one national chain (Safeway and QFC); and one membership store (Costco). There has never been a Sam’s Club in this neighborhood to compete with the baby Costco (a business center).
A two-mile radius adds a specialty market (an Asian market, Ranch 99); one employee-owned regional chain (WINCO); and one national chain (a baby Walmart). A Fred Meyer, part of Kroger, is in that extended radius; prices at QFC and Safeway are routinely 10% or more than those at Fred Meyer.
This historic win protects millions of Americans across the country from higher prices for essential groceries—from milk, to bread, to eggs—ultimately allowing consumers to keep more money in their pockets. This victory has a direct, tangible impact on the lives of millions of Americans who shop at Kroger or Albertsons-owned grocery stores for their everyday needs, whether that’s a Fry’s in Arizona, a Vons in Southern California, or a Jewel-Osco in Illinois.
Without waiting for the ink to dry on Tuesday’s decisions, Albertsons sued Kroger
“for breach of its contract agreement, alleging Kroger caused the merger to be blocked. Albertsons said that Kroger failed to exercise its ‘best efforts’ and to take ‘any and all actions’ to secure regulatory approval of the merger.”
Albertsons and Kroger argued that they needed to merge to compete with Walmart, Costco and Amazon
. This is fallacious. Costco is a membership store. Walmart is a department store with groceries, like Fred Meyer. QFC and Safeway are modern grocery stores that do not sell camping and sporting equipment, clothes or furniture. Amazon’s food sales are a fraction of the grocery stores.
Consolidation means higher prices for consumers, lower ones for farmers and suppliers
In 2021, The Guardian reported that “for 85% of the groceries analysed, four firms or fewer controlled more than 40% of market share
. It’s widely agreed that consumers, farmers, small food companies and the planet lose out if the top four firms control 40% or more of total sales.”
Four or fewer corporations control 93% of soda sales
Three cereal companies control 90% of breakfast items
Four or fewer control 80% of toothpaste and 80% of toilet paper sales.
Four or fewer control 80% of candy and 60% of snack bars
Four yogurt companies control 75% of sales
That’s why blocking this merger is somewhat like locking the barn door after the horses have escaped.
It’s an illusion of choice.
Be wary of graphs that exaggerate food sales. For 2023, “Amazon’s e-grocery sales
were approximately $36,400,000,000″ but its total sales were $574,800,000,000. Although we may think of Walmart as a “grocery store,” its revenue
for the twelve months ending October 31, 2024 was $673,819,000,000, which includes a LOT of items that are not groceries.
In early Genesis, God has an important task: To create the world
. He could have done so with a breath, a wink, a smile, a thought or nothing at all. Instead, he creates the world in a way that will simultaneously introduce one of the most important ideas in the Torah.
God creates the world with nine, “And God saids” – teaching us how important words are. If God creates his world with words and we are created in his image – then we, too, create our world with words.
This theme continues in the plague sequence in Exodus. The text often refers to the “word of God” and the “word of Moses” – when it could have just as easily said “God” and “Moses.” The Torah does this
to impress upon us that the world is moved by words – and to provide a contrast to Pharaoh, who constantly went back on his word during that sequence.
The Torah later teaches us that there is nothing theoretical or abstract about this. In Numbers 30, Moses gives the people a message from God. “If a man will take a vow to Hashem or swear an oath to establish a prohibition upon himself, he shall not desecrate his word; according to whatever comes from his mouth he will do.” Whether making a commitment to act (a vow) or attesting to the veracity of something (an oath), God demands that a man must do whatever he says.
This seriousness of words is reflected in the Hebrew language itself. The Hebrew word for word and thing are the same (davar) – reflecting the belief that words, though free and easy to use, are as real and powerful as any physical object.
Fast-forward to the contemporary era. In his 2023 State of the Union Address, President Biden
said that the “climate crisis” is “an existential threat.” This is as strong and as urgent a set of words as a person could use – as an “existential threat,” of course, is a threat to our very existence.
The urgent boldness of this pronouncement was not unique. The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Secretary of State John Kerry, Vice Presidents Al Gore and Kamala Harris, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and countless others have all said the same thing, using the same words.
How do we know? Each of us knows how we would respond to a genuinely “existential threat
.” If someone believes that he will die unless he takes medication, he will take the drug. If someone believes that his child is in danger, he will drop everything to rush to her. If someone believes that a hurricane is coming, he will board up his home and get out of town.
Everyone reacting to what he truly believes to be an existential threat will do something significant personally – and not just talk about it, or tell others what they should do.
The aforementioned leaders who speak about climate change as an “existential threat” seemingly never do anything to act accordingly. They consume enormous amounts of energy in their homes, fly private and eat meat.
The older generation of people who proclaim that climate change is an “existential threat” might not take their words seriously.
Fast-forward to the generation of their children. Kathleen Clark, the House Democratic whip, proclaims that “there is no question that the climate crisis is the existential threat of our time.” In 2022, she told NBC of her child who wakes up with nightmares
about climate change. There is nothing unusual about her child.
In 2021, Lancet Planetary Health published the results of a study of 10,000 people between the ages of 16-25 from around the world. The study found that 59% of young people are “very or extremely” worried about the climate, and that 45% of young people feel so bad about climate change that it affects their “daily life and functioning.”
And it’s not only their “daily life.” A widely reported 2017 study by Environmental Research Letters measured the increase in one’s carbon footprint caused by various activities. An individual can cut his carbon footprint by .25 metric tons by washing clothes in warm water, .82 tons by becoming a vegetarian, 2.4 tons by never going in a car – and 58.6 tons by not having an additional child.
A report from Morgan Stanley concludes: “Having a child is 7-times worse for the climate in CO2 emissions annually than the next 10 most discussed mitigants that individuals can do.”
The logic is clear: one who takes words seriously – one who believes that climate change is an “existential threat” – would refrain from having children
. And that is exactly what young people are deciding.
The Lancet study showed that 36% of young people are “hesitant to have children” because of climate change. This data is reflected in the Morgan Stanley report: “the movement to not have children owing to fears over climate change is growing and impacting fertility rates quicker than any preceding trend in the field of fertility decline.”
So – the Torah is absolutely right about words. One can use them nonseriously, but they will eventually reveal their deeply significant essence – to such an extent that one who proclaims climate to be an “existential crisis” and goes about business as usual is likely to have made himself the parent of an “extremely” anxious child
who does not give him grandchildren.
Even this year, Campbell is doing the same old. It’s seldom talked about when it works, but when it doesn’t, it’s a never-ending conversation.
But despite what you might think about Campbell’s coaching, Lions lineman Josh Paschal
says the team has zero issue with it.
“Honestly, we all love it. We love playing for him. When people think that somebody’s not doing something great, I just feel like if you change it up, then you’re going out of your identity,” Paschal said in a recent interview with Fox News Digital. “What I love about him so much is he sticks to his identity, he knows who he is as a coach, as a man, and it’s not gonna change.”
One thing that’s for certain about Campbell, though, is he is a leader, and the Lions would run through a wall for him.
“I promise you, it would be a Monday at 8 a.m. hearing a speech, and you are ready to rumble right there,” Paschal joked. “If anybody needs to get motivated, just a regular 9-5 type of person and get motivated for a workout, wake up in the morning and watch one of his speeches.”
The Lions sit at 12-2 atop the NFC North, so it’s hard to do much complaining about Campbell, who has turned the organization around completely.
This may just be the best Lions team of all time, as their offense is one of the best in the league. But they do face a challenge with their second outdoor game of the season in a frigid Chicago on Sunday.
For Breitbart Fight Club Members only, every week we reveal our top five articles based on reader engagement. These are the stories that our readers were talking about for the past week.
Tom Homan, President-elect Donald Trump’s border czar, said he believes Venezuela will take back violent gang members who entered the US illegally, but he had spoken to other countries who assured him they would also be willing to take them in.
Members of the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua have been reported in dozens of cities across the country. The gang’s foothold in some communities was a talking point
for Trump and his running mate
Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) during the campaign.
Trump vowed to deport them all back to their country of origin. During an interview with Fox News host Griff Jenkins on Saturday, Homan
said he had spoken to leaders in countries who assured him they would take members of the gang if Venezuela declined.
On Fox News Live, Jenkins asked Homan to weigh in on the recent arrests of members of the gang in Colorado and New York. Homan ripped the Biden administration for saying the migrants had been vetted and added:
The good news is you got President Trump coming into office on January 20th, [Tren de Aragua] is on notice, and ICE officers across the country are prepared to go out and target public safety threats. [Tren de Aragua] is on top of that public safety threat. So, their days are numbered. I can’t wait till we get an administration to take care of these people because they’re going to be arrested. They’re going to be detained and they’re going to be removed. I’ve been talking to several different countries that if Venezuela don’t take them back, we got other countries are stepping up to say they will. So they will be deported.
Jenkins noted Venezuela does not have a repatriation agreement with the US. He then aired a clip of Trump saying previously that Venezuela would take the Tren de Aragua members back whether they like it or not.
He asked Homan if he believed Trump could broker a deal to send back criminal migrants to all of their respective countries of origin.
Homan said there would be a “one-way” negotiation that would result in the migrants being deported.
“President Trump’s a strong president,” Homan said. “He’s not going to put up with this.”
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain photo via Max Pixel
WSJ
(“Ukraine Says It Killed Senior Russian General in Moscow Scooter Bombing“):
Ukraine carried out one of its most audacious operations on Russian soil early Tuesday, killing the commander of the unit designed to protect Russia’s troops from chemical, radiological and biological attack, by blowing up a scooter on the snowy streets of Moscow.
Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov is the most senior commander to be killed in the heart of the Russian capital since the start of the war in Ukraine. The head of the Russian Armed Forces’ Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense Troops, Kirillov was killed outside a residential building along with his assistant, Russian law-enforcement authorities said.
Ukrainian officials said the killing was a special operation by the Security Service of Ukraine, the country’s primary domestic intelligence agency, known as the SBU.
Kyiv has sought to use targeted attacks against Russian military commanders, prominent pro-war figures and military installations far from the front to gain an edge in the nearly three-year-old war with its giant neighbor that has left tens of thousands dead and destroyed several Ukrainian cities. Ukrainian forces have been accused of using drones to attack the Kremlin as well as planting explosive devices and using close-range gunfire to target high-profile figures in Russia.
Russian authorities classified Kirillov’s killing as an act of terror.
After the explosion, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, said Kyiv was trying to “prolong the war and death” and promised “inevitable retribution,” according to state newswire TASS. “Law-enforcement agencies must find the killers in Russia and everything must be done to destroy those who ordered it who are in Kyiv,” Medvedev said, blaming Ukraine’s military and political leadership for the attack.
The U.S. had no previous knowledge of the operation, according to a Pentagon official.
“The United States was not aware of the operation in advance and we do not support or enable these kinds of activities,” said Pentagon spokesperson Air Force Maj. Gen Pat Ryder.
On Monday, a day before his killing, the SBU named Kirillov as a suspect in an investigation of war crimes, for allegedly ordering the use of banned chemical weapons in Ukraine.
“By order of Kirillov, more than 4,800 cases of enemy use of chemical weapons have been recorded since the beginning of the full-scale war,” the service said.
I suspect that there was at least informal coordination with US leadership before making such an audacious move. Certainly, the Biden administration has radically loosened the reins in its lame duck phase.
Whether Kirillov ordered the illegal use of chemical weapons in Ukraine, I simply don’t know. Regardless, he’s clearly a legitimate military target in a war started by Russia; the idea that this is “terrorism” is risible.
The Telegraph
(“North Korean soldiers accidentally kill Russian troops because of language barrier“):
North Korean soldiers have accidentally killed eight Russian troops after a misunderstanding caused by the language barrier, according to Ukrainian intelligence .
According to HUR, Kyiv’s military intelligence, the deadly incident occurred when “fearful” North Koreans opened fire on vehicles from Russia’s “Akhmat” Chechen legion in Kursk, which Moscow is trying to recapture from Ukraine.
It said that Russia has faced problems commanding North Korean troops because of the communication issue.
HUR did not specify when the incident took place but announced separately on Monday that Ukrainian forces had killed or wounded some 30 North Korean soldiers over the weekend during fighting in the Kursk region.
The losses happened around the villages of Plekhovo, Vorobzha and Martynivka, HUR said, adding that three North Koreans were missing near Kurilovka.
It marks the first time that casualties from Pyongyang have been reported since the US confirmed in late October that around 10,000 North Korean soldiers had entered the war.
AP
(“A couple hundred North Korean troops killed, wounded in battles with Ukrainian forces“):
A couple hundred North Korean troops fighting alongside Russian forces against Ukraine have been killed or wounded during battle in the Kursk border region, a senior military official said Tuesday.
The official didn’t provide details on exactly how many have been killed, but said the North Korean forces don’t appear to be battle-hardened, which contributes to the number of casualties they’ve had. The official was providing the first significant estimate of North Korean casualties, which comes several weeks after Ukraine announced that North Korea had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in the almost 3-year war.
The White House and Pentagon on Monday confirmed that the North Korean forces have been battling on the front lines in largely infantry positions. They have been fighting with Russian units and, in some cases, independently around Kursk.
Alas, the next paragraph anticipates my concern:
The casualty disclosure comes as the Biden administration is pressing to send as much military aid as possible to Ukraine before President-elect Donald Trump takes over. But a senior defense official told reporters Tuesday that the Defense Department may not be able to send all of the remaining $5.6 billion in Pentagon weapons and equipment stocks intended for Ukraine before Jan. 20, when Trump is sworn in.
For most of the war, I have struggled to envision an endstate. At its outset, pretty much everyone, myself included, expected Russia to roll to easy victory. Ukraine’s fierce resistance quickly punctured that notion, made possible through the combination of years of training by the US and other NATO countries, huge material and intelligence support, and admirable grit in the face of horror on the part of the Ukrainian people. Yet, both sides had established maximalist gains that the losses of the war have only served to reinforce.
Trump has given every indication that U.S. support will dry up under his watch. We’ll see if our European allies can fill the breach. For now, at least, the Ukranians can revel in good news.
