Kamala Harris' Long Day
Plus: Evading congestion pricing, expelling Hondurans (and the U.S. military), and more...
Today, Kamala Harris has to certify the results of the vote she lost: It's January 6, time to certify the election results (no shamans needed). The person who presides over this process is the vice president, which means that Harris is in one of the most awkward positions possible. Whatever kind of day you have, Harris is having a worse one!
Al Gore had to do this back in 2001, and Richard Nixon in 1961, so it's not the first time in American history that a veep has been forced to carry out the office's constitutional duties in this way.
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"This is the first time in 100 years that a candidate for the presidency announced the result of an election in which he was defeated and announced the victory of his opponent," said Nixon at the time, saying that he did not think "we could have a more striking and eloquent example of the stability of our constitutional system." (The previous vice president to find himself in that position? John Breckinridge, two months before the Civil War.)
"In our campaigns, no matter how hard they may be, no matter how close the election may turn out to be, those who lose accept the verdict and support those who win," said Nixon. Kumbaya. Let's hope Harris can channel some of this energy today.
Following the chaos four years ago, the government adopted new rules in 2022 making it more difficult to object to a state's certification. Though members of Congress may still choose to object, their statement "needs to be in writing and signed by one-fifth of the members of the House (the lower chamber) and one-fifth of the Senate (the upper chamber)," per the BBC. The election results have not been widely contested this time, and today's proceedings are likely to be drama-free.
So it begins: Honduras' president (and premiere charter city antagonist) Xiomara Castro has threatened to expel the U.S. military from the country if President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his deportation scheme. "Faced with a hostile attitude of mass expulsion of our brothers, we would have to consider a change in our policies of cooperation with the United States, especially in the military arena," said Castro on Wednesday. "Without paying a cent for decades, they maintain military bases in our territory, which in this case would lose all reason to exist in Honduras," continued Castro.
I suppose if you exclude the $190 million in foreign aid doled out to Honduras each year, Washington doesn't pay "a cent." And if you ignore all the trade between the Honduras and the U.S.—its top trading partner and largest destination for exports—then I suppose there's no reason to maintain the relationship. There is also something strange about opposing your own citizens coming home, even under such coercive circumstances.
Pew estimates that, in 2022, about half a million Hondurans were living as undocumented immigrants in the U.S.; that's about 5 percent of the country's population (10 million). Castro could feasibly be worried about economic ruin that might come from loss of remittances, which at this scale could affect an awful lot of families—some estimates say one in four. But there's also the question of whether undocumented immigrants sending home remittances is a good, viable long-term strategy for the country lifting itself up out of poverty.
Of course, the U.S. has a long and dirty history of inserting itself into Central American politics. It's not on its face a terrible idea to ask why our own country maintains military bases within Honduras, ostensibly for running humanitarian aid missions of questionable efficacy. Castro is probably all bluster, and we don't yet know what form Trump's deportation mission will take. But get ready for a lot more of this variety of back-and-forth between Trump and world leaders pissed off by his deportation plans, or his tariff plans, or both (if you're Mexico).
Scenes from New York: New York City's new congestion pricing, which makes entering Manhattan below 60th St. by car more expensive, has generated the most beautiful Reddit threads and TikTok schemes. I know many libertarians are cool with congestion pricing, but I am not, as I do not want to take the Death Train. Regardless, I'll be following this tracker over the coming weeks because I'm curious about whether traffic volumes will be substantially altered.
QUICK HITS
- There's a new episode of Just Asking Questions with nuclear influencer/Brazilian model/all-around cool gal Isabelle Boemeke! Last week we had Byrne Hobart (more here) and next week we have Tyler Cowen, all truly awesome guests! Please subscribe to our new channel, we're so close to 4,000!
- Good riddance to Justin Trudeau?
- Corpse President strikes again: "President Joe Biden is indefinitely blocking offshore oil and gas development in more than 625 million acres of US coastal waters, warning that drilling there is simply 'not worth the risks' and 'unnecessary' to meet the nation's energy needs," reports Bloomberg. We've known all along that he likes high gas prices, but I didn't know he also wanted to preserve them for years to come.
- "This past fall, the Seaside School District became one of the first in Oregon to ban cell phones for both middle and high schoolers, forcing kids to lock their devices in pouches near the school entrance until the end of the day," reports The Free Press. "Seaside has joined thousands of schools nationwide in recently banning smartphones, as a growing body of evidence shows they're linked to falling test scores and rising rates of teen mental illness. This January, just over two million students will return to phone-free schools as statewide bans go into effect in Virginia and South Carolina. The following month, the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest in the nation, will join them."
- The very tragic story, courtesy of The New York Times, of the woman who was burned to death on the F train in Brooklyn last month.
- In case you missed it: Semafor asked a bunch of pundits what they got wrong in 2024. The responses are illuminating, in part because about half were genuinely reflective while about half were obtuse. Anyway, this—like publishing the votes of entire newsrooms—should be standard practice.
