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Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that the U.S. is considering sending officials to liaise with Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), the rebel group that spearheaded the toppling of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and is now leading a transitional government. “We’ve been in direct contact, and we’re also looking at getting people on the ground in Syria,” Blinken said in an interview with Bloomberg. “We need to see concrete action, not simply positive declarations.” HTS, which began as an al-Qaeda splinter group, remains a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization. Separately, the Department of Defense (DOD) revealed Thursday that 2,000 American troops were operating in Syria, more than double the previously disclosed number. A Pentagon spokesman said the elevated troop presence predates the fall of the Assad regime.
- The House of Representatives failed Thursday evening to pass a funding bill to avert a government shutdown. The final vote was 174 to 235, with 38 Republicans joining 197 Democrats in opposition despite President-elect Donald Trump backing the measure. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson put the bill on the floor the day after Trump—along with Tesla CEO and Trump confidant Elon Musk—torpedoed his original spending bill negotiated earlier this week. Without additional funding, the government is due to shut down this Saturday at 12:01 a.m.
- The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) temporarily prohibited drone flights in parts of New Jersey near critical infrastructure. The agency published 22 temporary flight restrictions in the Garden State on Wednesday that the FAA said came “at the request of federal security partners.” A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement, “We continue to assess there is no public safety threat relating to the reported drone sightings,” adding that the restrictions were requested “out of an abundance of caution.” Meanwhile, the DOD said Thursday that anti-drone equipment able to detect and disable drones is in the process of being deployed in New Jersey.
- Drivers and warehouse workers at Amazon facilities in at least four different states went on strike Thursday after the Teamsters union voted in favor of the move. Approximately 10,000 workers support their efforts according to the Teamsters, although it’s unclear how many joined the picket lines yesterday. Amazon has argued that the Teamsters do not represent workers and that the workers are actually employed by external delivery service partners, not by the company.
- U.S. life expectancy increased to 78.4 years in 2023, up from 77.5 years in 2022, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The increase is attributed to largely declining death rates from COVID-19, heart disease, and drug overdoses. Life expectancy has yet to reach the pre-pandemic level of 78.8 years in 2019.
- A Georgia appeals court removed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Thursday as the prosecutor in the state’s election interference case against Trump and his co-defendants. However, the Georgia court rejected a motion from the defendants to dismiss the indictment altogether. The ruling involved allegations that Willis benefitted financially from her relationship with a special prosecutor assisting Willis’ case against Trump. “While we recognize that an appearance of impropriety generally is not enough to support disqualification, this is the rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings,” the court said in a ruling that overturned a lower court decision.
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‘Fighting Day and Night’
The last time we covered the nation of Georgia, we noted that the October parliamentary elections could potentially be “the final hinge point for Georgia’s future.” The Russia-aligned ruling party, Georgian Dream, kept its hold on power in those elections, but they were rife with signs of corruption and government interference.
Over the last two months, the battle between Georgia’s largely pro-European citizens and a government bent on consolidating power and moving away from the West has only grown. The nation is still riven by protests, with two futures in the balance: the West or Russia.
For more than a year, Georgian Dream has carried out a pivot toward Russia, expressing increasing hostility toward the U.S. and Europe. Bidzina Ivanishvili—a Georgian billionaire with a net worth that is roughly a quarter of Georgia’s GDP and who made his money through investments in Russia in the 1990s—founded the party and spearheaded the warming of relations with Moscow.
During the campaign, Georgian Dream cast the election as a choice between war and peace, arguing that the opposition were tools of a “global war party,” consisting of the U.S. and European allies, responsible for Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia and the invasion of Ukraine. Some Georgian Dream lawmakers even blamed the conspiracy on …
As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. Our 1,710-word item on Georgia’s recent wave of protests is available in the members-only version of TMD.
Worth Your Time
- In his blog The Homebound Symphony, Alan Jacobs revisited some questions about family raised in Christopher Lasch’s 1978 book, Haven in a Heartless World: The Family Besieged. “Some critics on the Right denounced it as Marxist, while other critics on the Left denounced it as reactionary,” Jacobs writes. “On both sides there was, I think, a failure to understand what Lasch was primarily trying to do, which was to demonstrate the woeful inadequacy of then-current social-scientific thinking about the family—and to indicate some of the dire consequences of that inadequacy. … One of the difficult questions Lasch raises is this: Why had parents, in the decades preceding the writing of the book, so often acquiesced in being sidelined? Why had they agreed to allow schools and institutions linked to schools—primarily clinical counseling of various kinds —usurp the role of formation that had once been essential to the family?
- Writing for Works In Progress, Nick Whitaker dove into the world of pour-over coffee in this fascinating exploration of the history and potential future of coffee shops. “In the U.S., almost every coffee shop serves drip coffee,” Whitaker writes. “It’s made from a machine similar to the ones many Americans have at home. You put a filter paper full of coffee grounds in, the machine dispenses hot water over it, and a pot is filled with coffee. There are many ways of brewing coffee, though. One is especially elegant, technical, and ritualistic: the hand-brewed pour-over. In the last 20 years, pour-over has become a symbol of quality and craft in coffee. Pour-over is a challenge for coffee shops. Many are proud to offer it, but the time-consuming process interrupts service and often produces inconsistent results. How to brew the perfect cup of coffee remains a vexing question. Like espresso, new technologies might be poised to revolutionize coffee brewing at home and in the café.”
Presented Without Comment
Axios: Rand Paul Floats Elon Musk for House Speaker
Also Presented Without Comment
President-elect Donald J. Trump posted the following yesterday morning on Truth Social after his Wednesday night dinner with Jeff Bezos, the latest in a string of tech CEO visits to Mar-a-Lago:
EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND!!!
In the Zeitgeist
If you enjoyed the portrayal of combat in Alex Garland’s Civil War, you’ll probably like his latest project, Warfare. The movie, co-written and co-directed by ex-Navy Seal Ray Mendoza, tells the real story of a sniper overwatch mission he was a part of in Iraq in 2006.
Toeing the Company Line
- In the newsletters: Will Rinehart outlined how the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) could fall short, and Nick Catoggio unpacked Elon Musk’s role in tanking the government funding bill.
- On the podcasts: Sarah Isgur, Jonah Goldberg, and Steve Hayes discussed the potential government shutdown and how Musk fits into the incoming administration in the latest edition of The Dispatch Podcast.
- On the site: Michael Warren explores RFK Jr.’s popularity, Charles Hilu breaks down the government funding chaos and the implications for Speaker Mike Johnson, and Kevin D. Williamson argues Congress is stuck in an “ad-hocracy” when it comes to spending and budgeting.
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