Republicans Are Once Again Embracing a Vigilante

On Monday, Daniel Penny was acquitted of manslaughter and negligent homicide. On Saturday, he is expected to join President-elect Donald Trump at the Army-Navy college football game as the invited guest of his soon-to-be vice president, JD Vance.

Last year, Penny choked Jordan Neely, a homeless and severely mentally ill fellow passenger, to death on a New York City subway train. As a result of both his actions—Penny claimed he was protecting his fellow passengers, although there is no clear evidence they were in immediate danger—and his subsequent arrest, the 26-year-old former Marine quickly became a folk hero on the American right.

In a post on X on Friday, Vance confirmed reports that Penny had accepted his invitation to join him and Trump. “I’m grateful he accepted my invitation,” Vance wrote, “and hope he’s able to have fun and appreciate how much his fellow citizens admire his courage.”

Trump will also reportedly be joined by his scandal-ridden defense secretary pick, Pete Hegseth, as well as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, whom Trump is reportedly considering as a backup if Hegseth’s nomination falls through.

Like many on the American right, Vance and DeSantis have embraced Penny. “It was a scandal Penny was ever prosecuted in the first place,” Vance tweeted. DeSantis agreed, writing that “the acquittal of Daniel Penny is clearly the just and correct verdict. I must admit I was skeptical that a jury in New York City would reach a unanimous not guilty verdict, and the jury deserves credit for doing the right thing.”

Trump has been a regular presence at the annual Army-Navy game, which is also known as “The President’s Game” because it is often attended by the commander in chief. Penny’s presence as a guest of honor, meanwhile, upholds a Republican Party tradition of embracing vigilantes.

Kyle Rittenhouse, who in 2020 killed two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and who successfully insisted in court that he had been acting in self-defense, was feted by the party, receiving job offers from top GOP officials, as well as a standing ovation at a Turning Point USA conference. Mark and Patricia McCloskey, meanwhile, earned a 2020 Republican National Convention speaking spot for brandishing guns at peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters.

Penny currently faces a civil suit brought against him by Jordan Neely’s father, Andre Zachery.

One of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s top attorneys helping him craft America’s public health policy previously tried to push the government to scrap the polio vaccine.

Aaron Siri, a key legal adviser helping Kennedy select federal health officials for the Department of Health and Human Services, in 2022 filed a petition to force the Food and Drug Administration to end the approval and “pause distribution” of 13 vaccines, reported The New York Times. Those included vaccines that have effectively vanquished lethal illnesses from public life, including polio, tetanus, diphtheria, and hepatitis A.

Siri reportedly called for a randomized, double-blind clinical trial of the polio vaccine before allowing the FDA to re-approve it (the polio vaccine has already been subjected to 300 studies that took place before and after its approval in 1955). That would mean giving half of the children involved in the study the actual polio vaccine and providing the other half with a placebo, allowing half of the study participants to unknowingly be exposed to a deadly disease that causes organ failure and paralysis.

In private conversations, Kennedy has expressed that he’d like to see Siri serve as HHS’s general counsel, the agency’s top legal position, according to the Times.

Earlier this week, Trump announced that Kennedy would spend his time at the top of HHS researching an already thoroughly debunked conspiracy that ties vaccine usage to autism rates. (The researcher that sparked the myth with a fraudulent paper lost his medical license and eventually rescinded his opinion. Since then, dozens of studies have proven there’s no correlation between autism and the jab, including one study that surveyed more than 660,000 children over the course of 11 years.)

Kennedy—a virulent vaccine conspiracy theorist who doesn’t believe that AIDS is caused by HIV, insists that WiFi causes cancer, and has shared he had a brain-eating worm in his head—has promised to completely reshape America’s approach to public health.

Under Trump’s helm, Kennedy has sworn to remove fluoride from all public water systems—a 1945 public health decision that has reduced cavities and tooth decay in adults and children by as much as 25 percent, according to the American Dental Association.

During the “plandemic”, Kennedy likened 2020 vaccination efforts to the Nazi testing on “Gypsies and Jews,” referring to the jab as “a pharmaceutical-driven, biosecurity agenda that will enslave the entire human race and plunge us into a dystopian nightmare.” In the immediate wake of Trump’s November win, Kennedy swore that he had no intentions of taking vaccines away from the American public, claiming that he was on the side of vaccine “freedom.” But other Trump allies—even prior to Kennedy’s nomination to front the HHS—have envisioned a future where vaccines new and old are stripped from the market, threatening America’s public health in the process.

Kennedy’s vaccine conspiracies aren’t just easily refutable, anti-vaxx hogwash—they’ve caused legitimate, real-world harm. Preceding a deadly measles outbreak on the Pacific islands of Samoa in 2019, Kennedy’s anti-vax nonprofit Children’s Health Defense spread rampant misinformation about the efficacy of vaccines, sending the nation’s vaccination rate plummeting from the 60-70 percent range to just 31 percent, according to Mother Jones. That year, the country reported 5,707 cases of measles—an illness that was declared eliminated by the United States in 2000 thanks to advancements in modern medicine (read: vaccines)—as well as 83 measles-related deaths, the majority of which were children under the age of five.

Since their invention, vaccines have proven to be one of the greatest accomplishments of modern medicine. The medical shots are so effective at preventing illness that they have practically eradicated some of the worst diseases from our collective culture, from rabies to smallpox—a fact that has possibly fooled some into believing that the viruses and their complications aren’t a significant threat for the average, health-conscious individual.

Buried in the massive list of nearly 1,500 people whose criminal sentences were commuted by President Joe Biden Thursday is the name of a Pennsylvania judge who took kickbacks for wrongfully sentencing minors to juvenile detention.

Former Luzerne County Judge Michael T. Conahan, along with another former judge, was accused of shutting down the county’s juvenile detention center and then receiving more than $2 million from for-profit detention facilities as part of a “kids for cash” scheme, according to The Citizens’ Voice.

In 2010, Conahan pleaded guilty to a federal racketeering charge and was sentenced to 17.5 years in prison, according to WNEP. Conahan’s prison time was cut short during the Covid-19 pandemic, when he petitioned for a compassionate release, and he was released to home confinement in 2020.

His stint in home confinement appears to be what qualified him for a commuted sentence.

People online were really not impressed by Conahan’s inclusion in Biden’s massive list.

“Wow. I think Biden’s commuting the sentence of this disgraced Pa judge is a big mistake. I covered this in my Pa media days. He was one of 2 judges receiving $$ to sentence kids to lengthy sentences in a for-profit juvenile prison,” wrote The Washington Post’s Heather Long in a post on X. “He ruined a lot of kids’ lives.”

The Nation’s Joshua A. Cohen couldn’t make sense of Biden’s decision. “What is his problem,” he wrote in a post on X.

“I remember this case. It was a shocking scandal, caused immeasurable harm, and seriously tainted an entire community’s faith in the justice system,” wrote Jose Pagliery of NOTUS in a post on X. “The conviction sought to rebuild that trust. How will these families feel now?”

“These commutation recipients, who were placed on home confinement during the COVID pandemic, have successfully reintegrated into their families and communities and have shown that they deserve a second chance,” Biden said in his prepared statement Thursday.

The statement added that Biden had also commuted the sentences of individuals who “would receive lower sentences if charged under today’s laws, policies, and practices.”

Biden executed the largest act of clemency in a single day in modern presidential history, including 39 presidential pardons and 1,499 commuted sentences. Clemency advocates are still pushing for him to extend pardons to some of those facing the death penalty—a group Trump is plotting to execute en masse upon entering office.

Elon Musk’s efforts ingratiating himself into Trumpworld are about to pay off.

Donald Trump’s presidential transition team has recommended that the president-elect quash a crash reporting requirement for self-driving vehicles. In an internal document obtained by Reuters, the team described the safety reporting condition as a mandate for “excessive” data collection, advising that the president-elect abolish the requirement entirely.

Doing so would radically alter the playing field for the burgeoning automated vehicle industry, decreasing transparency and making it more difficult for federal regulators to spark inquiries into dangerous practices. And Tesla would be the new policy’s biggest benefactor.

The electric vehicle company, which Musk heads, has reported the majority of automated vehicle crashes, more than 1,500, to federal safety regulators. And a Reuters analysis of data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, found that Tesla’s crash data accounted for 40 out of 45 of the fatal crashes reported through October 15.

Critics and law enforcement groups, including the Justice Department, have torched the company’s “autopilot” and “full self-driving” claims, arguing that the branding has misled investors and consumers into believing that the cars are fully autonomous when they still require an active driver behind the wheel.

In a statement to Reuters, the NHTSA noted that the crash reporting data is “crucial” to evaluating the safety of these emerging technologies. Former agency employees noted to the outlet that such data was essential to investigations that led to a 2023 recall of some 125,000 Tesla vehicles over a seat belt defect.

“NHTSA said it has received and analyzed data on more than 2,700 crashes since the agency established the rule in 2021. The data has influenced 10 investigations into six companies, NHTSA said, as well as nine safety recalls involving four different companies,” according to Reuters.

Musk’s involvement in crafting the transition team’s policy could not be determined, and it’s still unclear if Trump actually intends to strip the requirement.

Jeff Bezos is planning to donate $1 million to Donald Trump’s inauguration committee, in the latest installment of tech billionaires sucking up to the president-elect.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Bezos, who just last month chose to spike The Washington Post’s endorsement of Kamala Harris in the name of so-called neutrality, is plotting to pour cash into the group planning Trump’s victory parties.

Bezos and his company decided to make the contribution earlier this week and notified Trump’s team that the money was coming, according to one person familiar with the matter. “Bezos is donating through Amazon,” one person close to Bezos told the Journal.

Earlier this week, Mark Zuckerberg, another tech billionaire who has taken to fawning over Trump (only after the president-elect publicly threatened him with imprisonment) also donated $1 million to the inauguration committee. For that reason alone, it’s difficult to imagine these donations as anything other than “obeying in advance.”

Amazon is also slated to stream the inauguration on Prime Video, which will be a separate in-kind donation valued at $1 million, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, gushed over Elon Musk Thursday, calling the technocrat billionaire who helped elect Donald Trump “the foremost champion of free speech in the tech industry.”

Blumenthal’s compliment for the far-right troll king came less than a week after he and Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn released a statement announcing that they had collaborated with X, Musk’s social media company, on changes to their new bill, the Kids Online Safety Act. That bill, by their own admission, featured a number of changes that had been spearheaded by the increasingly toxic social media platform.

“Led by X, the new changes made to the Kids Online Safety Act strengthen the bill while safeguarding free speech online and ensuring it is not used to stifle expression,” Blumentahl and Blackburn wrote in a statement. “These changes should eliminate once and for all the false narrative that this bill would be weaponized by unelected bureaucrats to censor Americans.

“We thank Elon and Linda for their bold leadership and commitment to protecting children online and for helping us get this bill across the finish line this Congress,” the pair added, implying that Musk and X’s CEO Linda Yaccarino had been directly involved in the process.

X has been supporting the KSOA, which has already passed the Senate, since the summer, so Blumenthal’s obvious posturing raises some concerns and questions. It is possible, of course, that this is all just politics: The Democratic senator is simply making nice with a powerful player with a sizable platform who could easily become a huge problem for both him and his currently bipartisan bill. It is possible, however, that Blumenthal is trying to play a longer game, hoping to influence the man who both stands to influence everything in the incoming Trump administration and who currently influences everyone (or at least everyone on X) via the endless stream of pro-Trump, right-wing propaganda he posts. That, however, is a losing battle for obvious reasons: Musk has little affinity—to put it mildly—for progressives like Blumenthal, Democrats in general, or the policy goals of any left-leaning group or politician. Attempting to influence Musk, moreover, is a mug’s game. For every Democrat in his ear, there are a hundred (likely more) arch MAGA loyalists. 

Democrats like Blumenthal might better spend their time warning their constituents of the creeping power of technocrats like Musk, who are plotting to dismantle essential features of the federal government via draconian cuts to public services and welfare programs, while pushing legislation that would effectively allow them to regulate their own industries and policies that would make them vastly richer than they already are.  

Donald Trump’s sudden appointment of one of his staunchest allies, two-time failed MAGA candidate and former news anchor Kari Lake, to run the federally funded international broadcasting service Voice of America has resulted in widespread concern and outrage, amid fears that she could transform it into a reactionary propaganda arm of the Trump presidency. Lake, for her part, has done little to assuage those fears.

“I am honored that President Trump has asked me to lead the Voice of America,” Lake wrote in a statement on social media. “@VOANews is a vital international media outlet dedicated to advancing the interests of the United States by engaging directly with people across the globe and promoting democracy and truth.

“Under my leadership, the VOA will excel in its mission: chronicling America’s achievements worldwide,” she continued.

But rules passed in 2020 could get in the way of her plans. Recent regulations prevent the head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media from hiring or firing Voice of America’s network leadership without the express approval of the International Broadcasting Advisory Board, a seven-person panel composed of presidential appointees, reported former Washington Post journalist Paul Farhi.

Of course, Trump has also not yet appointed anyone to lead the U.S. Agency for Global Media, further stretching the possibility of Lake’s appointment to the public network.

Meanwhile, Trump’s appointees to the not-yet-existent Department of Government Efficiency have promised to leverage recent Supreme Court decisions to slash and burn spending on beloved domestic public broadcasters. In a joint op-ed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy published in The Wall Street Journal last month, the duo said they would cut $500 million a year from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS, among other seismic blows to national programs.

NATO chief, Mark Rutte, warned members on Thursday that the international alliance must shift to a “wartime mindset,” predicting years of conflict with Russia as the superpower batters down Ukrainian forces.

“Russia is preparing for long-term confrontation, with Ukraine and with us,” Rutte said during a speech in Brussels in which he highlighted the short distance to where “Russian bombs are falling … Iranian drones are flying,” and “North Korean soldiers are fighting,” he said, referencing the complexity—and global nature—of conflict with Russia.

“We are not ready for what is coming our way in four to five years,” the secretary general continued. “It is time to shift to a wartime mindset, and turbocharge our defense production and defense spending,”

Raising the 32-nation alliance’s 2 percent defense spending is, according to Rutte, a “top priority.” Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister, called on NATO members to “stop creating barriers” between one another and their industries, calling it “simply unacceptable” that European banks and pension funds were refusing to invest in defense spending.

At one point during his speech, Rutte spoke directly to the defense industry, promising that more money was on its way while daring weapons manufacturers to “innovate and take risks.”

On the other side of the conflict, Russia has approved a draft budget that plans to increase its military expenditures through 2027 to more than 6.2 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. Rutte, however, predicts that could grow even more, to as much as 8 percent of the country’s GDP.

“That’s a third of Russia’s state budget—and the highest level since the Cold War,” Rutte said. “And Russia’s defense industry is producing huge numbers of tanks, armoured vehicles, and ammunition. What Russia lacks in quality, it makes up for in quantity—with the help of China, Iran, and North Korea.” Troops from North Korea—and military hardware and technology from China and Iran—have helped Russia recover from the heavy losses it has suffered in Ukraine, a shrinking pool of available recruits, and growing apathy about the war as it drags on.

President-elect Donald Trump has long threatened America’s withdrawal from the Western military and trade alliance, sparking condemnation from some of his former allies. In February, Trump claimed he once told a European leader that he’d allow Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies if they didn’t “pay” their “bills.” (NATO dues are determined by guideline rather than mandate, and the United States has never been shortchanged by other members. The Cold War organization has “no ledger that maintains accounts of what countries pay and owe,” according to former Obama staffer Aaron O’Connell, who explained to NPR in 2018 that “NATO is not like a club with annual membership fees.”)

While Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton cast doubt on the incendiary story, he didn’t question his desire to nix the strategic alliance. “Look, I was there when he almost withdrew, and he’s not negotiating,” Bolton said at the time. “His goal here is not to strengthen NATO, it’s to lay the groundwork to get out.”

One of Trump’s biggest and boldest campaign promises was that he would immediately end the Russian invasion of Ukraine—though his philosophy on how to achieve that was suspiciously scant of details and, at times, veered toward solutions that would invariably aid Russia. In June, meanwhile, Trump said he would be open to an increase in U.S. weapons aid to Ukraine so long as it shows up for peace talks with Russia, reported Reuters.

Trump’s advisers envisioned that the peace talks—which Trump promised to facilitate after reentering the White House—would also quietly include Ukraine seceding large, resource-rich regions of the country that is currently occupied by Russian forces. The concept was drawn up by retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg and Fred Fleitz, both former chiefs of staff in Trump’s National Security Council. Such a deal would put NATO in a precarious position.

Russia has made considerable advances in recent months, but its growing reliance on allies suggests that it is stretched perilously thin. An end to the war in Ukraine—particularly one that gives it much of the territory it desires—would be an enormous gift to the country and would put it on NATO’s doorstep. Article 5 of NATO’s treaty says that an attack on any member of the alliance will be treated as an attack on all NATO members: Should Russia look to invade Poland or one of the Baltic nations next, it could quickly spiral into a devastating global conflict.

Eric Adams is trying his best to get on the incoming border czar’s good side in the hopes that President-elect Trump blesses him with a pardon.

The corruption-addled New York City mayor met with Tom Homan on Thursday to discuss the city’s role in Trump’s imminent mass deportation plans. Homan is tasked with overseeing Trump’s “largest deportation operation in American history.”

Adams, who personally requested the meeting with Homan, has made it clear that he plans to fully cooperate with any and all of the Trump administration’s immigration plans. He even noted that he’d be open to helping place immigrants who’d been accused but not convicted of a crime in ICE custody, as he does not believe that people who “snuck in” deserve the right to due process. 

The meeting with Homan, who along with Trump has floated deporting entire families and killing birthright citizenship, drew sharp criticism from Adams’s mayoral opponents.

“We do not trust Mayor Adams to meet with Mr. Homan,” mayoral candidate Jessica Ramos said in a statement. “He has made it abundantly clear where he stands, saying migrants will destroy the city, spreading dangerous misinformation about immigrants’ constitutional rights, and cozying up to the incoming administration in the hopes that his corruption will be pardoned.” She went on to describe Adams as a potential “accomplice of mass deportations” that would “ruin the cultural and economic edge that makes our city special.”

“Since Eric Adams is seeking a federal pardon and the good graces of Donald Trump, this meeting has the potential to be dangerous to New York City,” said mayoral candidate and former City Comptroller Scott Stringer.

This is not the first time the mayor has made a blatant appeal to Trump. Adams has been federally indicted on charges of bribery, wire fraud, and soliciting political donations from a number of foreign nationals connected to the Turkish government. Earlier this month he compared his legal troubles to Hunter Biden’s, suggesting that he too was just a target of a politicized Justice Department, and should be pardoned. He simultaneously went on a rightward tilt during that speech, saying that “those who are here committing crimes, robbery, shooting at police officers, raping innocent people.… I would love to sit down with the border czar and hear his thoughts on how we are going to address those who are harming our citizens.”

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is reportedly working behind the scenes to tank Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s bid to become ranking member on the House Oversight Committee.

Punchbowl News reported Thursday that Pelosi, arguably the most powerful Democratic playmaker in a generation, is set on quashing the New York progressive’s shot at leading the House of Representatives’ key investigative arm.

Pelosi is making calls on behalf of Representative Gerry Connolly, a 16-year House veteran from Virginia, who is also running for the coveted leadership spot.

Last week, Pelosi told Politico who she wanted for one of the most influential positions in the House. “I have supported Mr. Connolly for that, should it be open,” she said.

Pelosi and AOC have had a somewhat tumultuous professional relationship, predicated on the slate of differences between establishment Democrats and a younger, progressive vanguard. Pelosi reportedly took issue with certain progressive tactics, like AOC’s “Abolish ICE” slogan, according to Ryan Grim’s 2023 book The Squad: AOC and the Hope of Political Revolution.

In 2021, Pelosi publicly criticized AOC and other members of the Squad for being the lone Democrats to withhold support for an immigration bill that she had backed. “All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world,” she told The New York Times in an interview. “But they don’t have any following. They’re four people, and that’s how many votes they got.”

AOC and her chief of staff publicly pushed back on Pelosi’s dismissive response, and Pelosi told them to back off, according to Politico. In a private meeting between the two women, things got particularly heated, according to Grim. Pelosi has nevertheless dismissed claims that there is bad blood between her and the Squad.

Meanwhile, AOC has garnered support  from an unexpected place: Representative James Comer, the Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee, who has spent years waging investigations into the political enemies of Donald Trump, including Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Tim Walz. “I’m a big AOC fan. Obviously, I don’t agree with very much of her policy, but I think she’s a good person,” Comer said on CNN Thursday.