POLITICO:
Supreme Court rejects Trump’s bid to halt his hush money sentencing
The high court’s action clears the way for the president-elect to be sentenced for his criminal conviction in Manhattan on Friday.
Trump is now virtually certain to make history as the first convicted felon to become president.
Two of the court’s Republican appointees — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett — joined the court’s three Democratic appointees to turn down Trump’s last-ditch attempt to avert the sentencing.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, the court’s remaining Republican appointees, dissented.
Trump’s attorneys argued that the criminal sentencing would interfere with his duties related to the presidential transition and risked undermining national security. But the Supreme Court’s one-page order scoffed at those arguments.
…
The four dissenting justices did not explain their rationale for siding with Trump.
The following stories flesh out a problem Elon Musk poses for governments around the world. He’s a loose cannon and, to put it mildly, is factually challenged about much of what he claims. This focuses on the UK, but it’s just as true here.
NBC News:
Who is Tommy Robinson and why does Elon Musk want him freed from jail?
Robinson is serving an 18-month jail sentence for contempt of court, a charge stemming from a libelous video in which he falsely claimed a refugee teenager was a violent thug.
Widely disliked in Britain, Robinson’s 19% popularity rating is even lower than Musk’s at 26%, according to the latest findings published in October by YouGov, a British polling company.
“But he will become less fringe if people adopt him — and that’s the risk you have here,” according to Scott Lucas, a University College Dublin professor specializing in British and American politics. “Tommy’s an icon for certain far-right groups — and Musk knows that.”
Andrew S. Roe-Crines/The Conversation:
All British politicians should immediately distance themselves from the foreign interference of Elon Musk
British politics entered the new year in a state of online siege from the incoming US government’s ironically named “efficiency tzar” and discourse provocateur (aka “troll”), Elon Musk.
Musk’s claimed cause is the way the British government has dealt with cases of abuse and grooming – cases which have been investigated by the National Crime Agency. Musk has recently discovered a scandal that has been the subject of much debate and investigation in the UK already.
He now posts on X (formerly known as Twitter) several times a night, sharing his thoughts on the matter, and appears determined to associate prime minister Keir Starmer and the wider Labour party with the horrific scandals, suggesting they are complicit with the rape gangs by failing to act while he was director of public prosecutions.
Needless to say, the legal system is more complex than Musk implies, and the political action is limited by what is legally possibly. But that does not prevent Musk from politicising the scandal to attack Starmer.
POLITICO:
Elon Musk faces UK backlash after boosting far-right activist Tommy Robinson
X owner and Donald Trump ally accused of spreading “poison” after he backs jailed activist.
Elon Musk is facing fierce criticism from British parliamentarians after he called for far-right ringleader Tommy Robinson to be released from prison.
The X owner and key ally of Donald Trump tweeted Thursday morning that authorities should “free Tommy Robinson.”
Robinson, the controversial English Defense League founder whose anti-immigration rallies in the U.K. attract thousands, was jailed for 18 months last October after breaching a court order.
The following is not notable because of content, it’s notable because it exists. Bluesky is now embeddable at Daily Kos. I will use it when I can, though much of the foreign news and politics is still much more prominent at Twitter.
Sam Shirazi/Blue Virginia:
Loudoun Looking Up for Democrats, Central Virginia Opportunities, Clues for November
On Tuesday, Virginia Democrats got some much needed good news, as they held SD32 and HD26 in eastern Loudoun County to maintain their narrow (21-19 in the State Senate, 51-49 in the House of Delegates) majorities in the Virginia General Assembly. Democrats also did better than expected in the GOP-held, “red” SD10 in Central Virginia.
It’s hard to make big conclusions based on these special elections, especially with a snowstorm perhaps leading to lower Election Day turnout. At the same time, these elections can offer some clues about Virginia elections going forward.
x
BTW, we shouldn't discount the Emerson College poll simply because it's so early, but maybe we shouldn't put a ton of weight on it either? For comparison, here are some early polls in the 2017 VA gov election, which Ralph Northam ended up winning by 9 pts. bluevirginia.us/2025/01/new-...
— Blue Virginia (@bluevirginia.bsky.social) 2025-01-09T20:59:09.350Z
Daniel Nichanian/Bolts:
The Local Elections That Will Define Criminal Justice Policy in 2025
Big-city mayor, prosecutor, and sheriff elections this year could carry high stakes for policing and punishment.
As executive director of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, Amy Torres cheered on state officials in recent years for passing new protections to shield immigrants from arrest and detention. In 2019, she supported the Democratic attorney general’s directive to restrict how local law enforcement can partner with federal immigration services. Then two years later, she watched as New Jersey lawmakers banned public and private contracts for immigration detention in the state.
But now Torres is nervous about what 2025 may bring. A lawsuit threatens to unwind the law against immigration jails, and the attorney general’s directive is still not codified into law, meaning that a new official who is more hostile to immigrants’ rights could quickly undo it. And New Jersey is electing many of its state and local leaders this year in a host of races that will test much more than just candidates’ openness to immigration detention.
“Somehow I have been dreading 2025’s cycle for even longer than I did 2024’s,” Torres told Bolts about New Jersey’s upcoming elections. “It’s not guaranteed that we’re going to get the protections that these communities deserve.”
Zach Beauchamp/Vox:
9 predictions for Trump’s second term
What the author of Vox’s newsletter on conservatism thinks will happen — and why.
With that in mind, I still want to engage in a bit of an exercise: to try to lay out what I think is true about the American right today, and then make some tentative predictions about the upcoming Trump administration based on those premises.
The idea isn’t just to make guesses for the sake of guessing. Rather, it’s to generate some testable predictions for my view of Trump and the right — to see whether my ideas are pointing me in the right direction, and to adjust them if they prove wrong. I’ll be doing that retrospection in my newsletter On the Right; if you’re interested and/or want the chance to tell me I’m wrong, please subscribe!
The above is behind a paywall, but it’s an interesting exercise. Zach presents the reasoning (cult of Trump, anti liberal bent) to guess that there will be an attempted purge of civil service and plenty of Trump administration infighting.
Cliff Schecter on Trump and SCOTUS:
