PRESIDENTIAL POWER: The Supreme Court appeared ready to hand Donald Trump more power following a hearing on the President’s effort to fire a member of the independent Federal Trade Commission.

  The court’s conservative majority appeared ready to overturn a 1935 precedent Chief Justice John Roberts referred to as “dried husk” that has protected such positions. The justices will also hear a case about firing a member of the Federal Reserve next month.

  President Trump wants ideological control of independent bodies. The FTC is already on board with his political agenda, notably weighing in on gender-affirming care for minors claiming it’s a matter of commerce not just medicine.

  At risk is the independence of as many as two dozen agencies. Justice Elena Kagan said giving the President firing power would “put massive, uncontrolled, unchecked power in the hands of the president.”

  Solicitor General D. John Sauer replied that, “In fact, our entire government will move toward accountability to the people.” 

THE REGIME: 

— Former Trump personal lawyer Alina Habba said she’s resigning as the temporary US Attorney in New Jersey following a court ruling that she has not been legally serving. The Justice Department might make an effort to re-install the lawyer who has no history as a prosecutor.

— President Trump is planning a $12 billion bailout for farmers who’ve been put on the brink of ruin by his trade tariffs. The White House says the money will go to corn, cotton, sorghum, soybean, rice, cattle, wheat, and potato farmers.

  Once again blaming President Biden, a White House spokeswoman said, “Today’s announcement reflects the president’s commitment to helping our farmers, who will have the support they need to bridge the gap between Biden’s failures and the President’s successful policies taking effect.”

— Thirteen former FBI agents photographed kneeling in public with protesters during a 2020 racial justice protest in Washington have sued the Trump administration, claiming that they were cut loose even though they had been cleared of any wrongdoing several years earlier.

— Immigration authorities on December 4^th detained as many as 20 immigrants at Boston’s Faneuil Hall just as they were about to take their oath of citizenship. The immigrants had passed their tests, but authorities said they came from some of the 19 countries that President Trump has declared to be high risk. 

— A Brazilian woman who is the mother of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s nephew must be released from ICE custody while she fights deportation, an immigration judge ruled yesterday.

— Trump on his social media feed attacked Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for opposing him on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files and giving an interview to “60 Minutes.”

  And this is only part of it: “She sort of reminds me of a Rotten Apple! Marjorie is not AMERICA FIRST or MAGA, because nobody could have changed her views so fast, and her new views are those of a very dumb person. That was proven last night when washed up, Trump hating, 60 Minutes “correspondent,” Lesley Stahl, who still owes me an apology from when she attacked me on the show (with serious conviction!), that Hunter Biden’s LAPTOP FROM HELL was produced by Russia, not Hunter himself (TOTALLY PROVEN WRONG!), interviewed a very poorly prepared Traitor, who in her confusion made many really stupid statements.”

FRUSTRATION: South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace writes in The NY Times that she’s frustrated about being able to get nothing done, get none of the issues voters care about to the floor. She says that when Democrats are in control, they do things.

  Mace says her party is more worried about losing the majority than giving voters what they want: “Today Republicans have a governing trifecta: the House, the Senate and the White House. If we fail to pass legislation that permanently secures the border, addresses the affordability crisis, improves health care and restores law and order, we will lose this majority. And we will deserve it.”

PLOT TWIST: In competition with Netflix which already reached a deal, the newly-formed entertainment behemoth Paramount/Skydance launched a hostile bid for Warner Brothers/Discovery.

  Paramount’s David Ellison said it’s an all-cash offer and $17.5 billion more than the Netflix deal. “We’re sitting on Wall Street, where cash is still king,” Ellison told CNBC in an interview. 

  President Trump and his family are in the middle of this. Trump met with Ted Sarandos, the co-chief executive of Netflix, before that that deal was sealed and he sat with Ellison at the Kennedy Center awards Sunday night hours before Ellison announced his bid. The private equity firm founded by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has a stake in the Ellison offer. 

  Netflix had planned to spin off the cable television divisions of Warner Brothers, including the news outlet CNN. Ellison says he wants to buy the whole company, which would give him ownership of both CNN and CBS News, now owned by Paramount.  Although Ellison is playing a big money game, he’s already been firing people across the company to pay for the Paramount/Skydance merger.

THE WAR ROOM: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reaffirmed that Ukraine is not willing to give up territory to Russia in order to win a peace deal with its invader. 

  Russia occupies about 20 percent of Ukraine. The deal under discussion even proposes that Ukraine give up territory not taken by force. “We definitely do not want to give anything up. That is what we are fighting for,” Zelensky said. “We have no legal right to do so under Ukrainian law, our Constitution, international law, or, to be honest, moral law.”

THE SPIN RACK: Honduras is seeking to arrest its ex-President Juan Orlando Hernández, the drug trafficker pardoned and released from prison by Donald Trump.

BELOW THE FOLD:  Late night host Jimmy Kimmel is getting the last laugh on Donald Trump with a new contract at least through 2027, “or until the world ends,” Kimmel said, “whichever comes first.” 

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