EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

NEWS NEWS

1. Trump AG Nominee: Matt Gaetz withdraws from consideration; Pam Bondi nominated with controversial history as Florida AG.

2. Russia Missile Test: Russia launches new intermediate-range ballistic missiles at Ukraine's Dnipro region, sending warning message to West.

3. Overtime Pay Block: Trump-appointed judge halts Biden's policy to expand overtime pay eligibility for workers earning under $58,000.

4. Brazil Coup Investigation: Bolsonaro and allies indicted over alleged plot to retain power after 2022 election loss.

NOT NEWS NEWS

1. Regulation Reform Plan: Economist proposes sunset rule strategy to cut regulations using Idaho's 95% reduction model as example.

2. Healthcare Spending: US healthcare spending as percentage of GDP has remained relatively flat since 2009, with slower Medicare growth.

3. Ghost Engineers Study: Research finds 9.5% of software engineers are "ghosts" who do minimal work, with higher rates in remote positions.

1.) Matt Gaetz withdraws his name for AG

[TS] Let’s pay close attention to the language in his resignation letter. He already resigned from office (he was serving in the 118th Congress, the 119th Congress runs January 3, 2025, to January 3, 2027).

“I do not intend to take the oath of office for the same office in the 119th Congress to pursue the position of Attorney General.”

Sounds like he’s leaving the door open to go back to Congress during the 119th. Maybe he’ll just join Trump’s administration. Maybe DeSantis will nominate him to the Senate (highly doubtful).

[UPDATE] Trump nominates Pam Bondi for AG

Quick list on Pam:

• 37th AG of Florida

• Received a $25,000 donation to her PAC from Trump’s foundation while her office was reportedly considering joining a lawsuit against Trump University for fraud. Following the donation, Bondi declined to join the lawsuit. Bondi's office justified nixing Trump U suit by saying she'd received only one customer complaint, but the AP found “at least 22 fraud complaints.” Both Bondi and Trump denied any wrongdoing, but the IRS later fined Trump for the improper use of nonprofit funds.

  • Trump charged $4,955 for Bondi's fundraiser to be held at Mar-a-Lago. He charged his own pres campaign $140,000.

• Bondi postponed a scheduled execution to attend a campaign fundraising event.

• Worked as a registered lobbyist for Qatar

• Has been associated with Scientologists through fundraising events and speeches at Scientology gatherings, but is not a scientologist herself.

• Bondi pressured two attorneys to resign who were investigating Lender Processing Services, a financial services company now known as Black Knight, following the robosigning scandal, as part of their work for Florida's Economic Crime Division. After the resignations, Bondi received campaign contributions from Lender Processing Services, though she denied any quid pro quo

• Co-hosted Fox’s “The Five” show even though she was still on the state payroll (as AG) in Florida.

• [TS] Bondi on Clinton: “Lock her up, I love that.” - from the folks who say (rightly), “Don’t politicize the justice department.”

[TS] She’ll fit right in.

2.) NYT: With Use of New Missile, Russia Sends a Threatening Message to the West

Footage of the (6) missiles:

Russian Missile Launch:

• Russia launched a new intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) toward Dnipro, Ukraine, claiming it was an experimental ballistic missile based on the RS-26 Rubezh design.

• The missile included MIRV (multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles) technology but did not carry nuclear warheads.

Escalation Concerns:

• The launch raised fears of potential nuclear escalation, as IRBMs and ICBMs can be nuclear-capable. However, the missile fired was confirmed to be non-nuclear.

• Ukrainian President Zelenskyy called this attack a severe escalation, emphasizing its scale and brutality.

International Reactions:

• The U.S. was briefly notified by Russia before the launch and informed Ukraine and allied nations to prepare for such developments.

• The Kremlin has updated its nuclear doctrine, lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons and intensifying tensions with the West.

Ukraine’s Response and Strikes:

• Ukraine recently used U.S.-made ATACMS and British Storm Shadow missiles to strike Russian targets, including a North Korean command post in Russia’s Kursk region, reportedly injuring a senior North Korean general.

Putin’s Remarks:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed the U.S. for escalating the conflict and justified the missile launch as a response to perceived aggression.

Regional Impacts:

• The missile targeted critical infrastructure in Dnipro but caused no casualties. Six additional missiles aimed at the region were intercepted.

3.) NEW REPUBLIC: A Trump Judge Just Nixed Overtime Pay for Millions—and Media Yawned

A Trump-appointed federal judge blocked President Biden’s policy to expand overtime pay eligibility for salaried workers earning less than $58,000 annually, leaving millions of workers without potential pay increases.

Biden’s rule sought to increase the current overtime threshold from $35,000 (set during Trump’s administration) to $58,000, benefiting around 4 million workers. The decision mirrors a similar court block of Obama’s attempt to raise the threshold to $47,000 in 2016.

The lawsuit was backed by MAGA Republicans, including Texas AG Ken Paxton, and business groups such as the National Retail Federation and the International Franchise Association, which represent major corporations like Walmart and McDonald’s.

4.) CNN: Brazil’s Bolsonaro and allies indicted in 2022 coup plot probe

The Brazilian authorities announced on Thursday that they were recommending criminal charges against former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro over his role in a broad plot to cling to power after he lost the 2022 presidential election.

[TS] No problem. Just run again, take power, and fire the prosecutors.

QUICK BITES:

1. ICC, who submitted applications for warrants of arrest for Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli PM Yoav Gallant, has now issued arrest warrants.

2. ABC: New details of Hegseth sexual assault claim documented in police report

1.   The woman who accused Pete Hegseth of sexual assault in 2017 told police at the time that he took her phone and blocked her from leaving his hotel room on the night of the incident, according to a 22-page police report

3. Economist visualizes Elon’s online activity:

1.   [TS] Gotta have scheduled posts or a terrible sleep schedule.

[RELATED] MPs to summon Elon Musk to testify about X’s role in UK summer riots.[TS] This is just silly. Not to mention the recent stories of UK police arresting citizens for social media posts are genuinely embarrassing (at least from an American perspective).

4. Senators Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) just introduced the Carbon Dioxide Removal Investment Act, which would provide a $250/ton tax credit for permanent CDR. Importantly, it's technology neutral. Any high-quality, permanent carbon removal would qualify.

5. Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) concedes race against Dave McCormick (R) for senate seat in PA.

5.) How could DOGE actually cut thousands of regulations?

Economist James Broughel outlines a sensible plan:

1. Each agency issues a sunset rule in the first few months of Trump's term. Model these after the Trump 1.0-era HHS sunset regulation.

2. The rules should apply to all CFR sections under an agency's control. An expiration date is inserted into its sections of code, founded on authority in the Regulatory Flexibility Act.

3. Set the sunset ~3 years out. Give ample time to review regs, but avoid the danger of a Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval.

4. After three years' time, agencies finalize regulations to re-codify the regulations they want to KEEP. Everything else expires.

This approach flips the burden. Agencies must decide what to keep as opposed to what to cut.

This is a proven model. Idaho cut or simplified 95 percent of its regulations since 2019 following an approach similar to this.

[TS] Why the focus on regulations? Let’s take a fairly straightforward example from our infrastructure: Building a transmission line. It takes 10 YEARS to do it. Why? Have a look:

[SEMI-RELATED] About 90% ($1.2B/year) of Federal contracts awarded to NGOs are noncompetitive awards.

21% ($33.1B/year) of Federal contracts are noncompetitive, as of this fiscal year.

6.) Health care spending as a portion of GDP has basically flatlined since 2009(ish)

[TS] So they bent it…

Per Mathew Zeitlin: “from 2000 to 2010, medicare spending per person grew faster than private insurance spending, but from 2010 to 2022 it grew at a substantially slower pace”

7.) ~9.5% of software engineers are “Ghost Engineers”

Stanford researcher Yegor Denisov-Blanch released his research on software engineering productivity based on data from >50k engineers from 100s of companies.

How do we know 9.5% of software engineers are Ghosts?

Our model quantifies productivity by analyzing source code from private Git repos, simulating a panel of 10 experts evaluating each commit across multiple dimensions.

We found that 14% of software engineers working remotely do almost no work (Ghost Engineers), compared to 9% in hybrid roles and 6% in the office.

Comparison between remote and office engineers:

On average, engineers working from the office perform better, but "5x" engineers are more common remotely.

Another way to look at this is counting code commits.

While this is a flawed way to measure productivity, it reveals inactivity: ~58% make <3 commits/month, aligning with our metric.

The other 42% make trivial changes, like editing one line or character--pretending to work.

Assume every company below has 9.5% of its software engineers doing virtually nothing, in line with our research findings.

Here's how much each could save annually by letting them go

[TS] Kind of hard to believe, but maybe I’m in the wrong line of work.