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美國123 – 開欄文
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瀏覽5,268 ｜回應35｜推薦3 |
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我本來想用「美國政情」、「美國報導」、或「美國風情」等做本欄標題；但它們或過於狹隘，或大而無當；難以滿足提綱挈領的功能。現在這個標題雖然不夠理想，至少俏皮一些。
由於當下的熱門話題在「政治」，以下先轉載兩篇這方面的評論。
扎卡瑞阿先生大作討論美國「國力」(本欄第二篇)。我不確定他所引用統計數字和他論點之間的相關性有多大，但一般而言，我同意他的看法。我曾說過，百足之蟲，死而不僵；50 – 100年內美國還是能夠跟中國平起平坐。此之謂：「瘦死的駱駝比馬大」。這也是我一向主張「中、美和則兩利，鬥則俱傷」的原因之一。這篇文章甚長，一時之間我也無法全部消化。有空再寫讀後。
奈教授曾任美國國安和外交官員；他的大作從外交政策討論美國明年大選結果對未來走勢的影響(本欄第三篇)。他對「美國優越論」基礎的分析，我並不苟同。以後有空再做評論。
除了政治評論外，有機會我會選擇一些其它方面的報導與分析。
我在美國住了近26年，在1993回台定居以前，我在美國的時間比我在中國的時間要長。在美期間，除了工作之外，我也花了些時間了解和接觸美國文化、企業、政治、社會、科技、和人群；雖然都只能說是皮毛，但在「認識美國」上還是不無小補。
如上所說，我真正的成長期在美國，根據「社會建構論」，我的行為與思考方式免不了些許美式「作風」。例如，我的「務實模式」與「現實主義」大都源於過去在美國的生活經驗。此外，我的「行文風格」常常不合中國士大夫「溫柔敦厚」的傳統，除了來自盧卡契的「意識型態」理論外，有一部分也受到美國學者間相互批評文字的影響。
本文於 修改第 3 次
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川普和法哲學保守派恩怨情仇 - Matt Ford
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請參見本欄上一篇。
我在網路上偶而會讀到「聯邦論者學會」網誌上的論文；它們的思路跟我差很大；印象中也就沒什麼敬意。讀了這兩篇報導/評論後，才知道其勢力如此之大。還不是一般的臭老九。
Trump’s War With Leonard Leo Could Expose a Conservative Legal Scam
The former Federalist Society power broker used the president to achieve judicial supremacy. Now all that work could get wrecked by the monster he turned loose.
Matt Ford, 06/03/25
Last week’s ruling by an obscure federal court on President Donald Trump’s tariff policy may be the most critical judicial decision of these first few months of Trump’s second term. A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of International Trade held that Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs in April were unlawful, effectively striking down the White House’s flagship economic policy.
The coalition of small-business owners that brought the lawsuit had raised a variety of legal and constitutional objections to Trump’s tariff policies. The panel concluded that any of them would suffice. “Regardless of whether the court views the president’s actions through the nondelegation doctrine, through the major questions doctrine, or simply with separation of powers in mind, any interpretation of [the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977] that delegates unlimited tariff authority is unconstitutional,” it explained.
Since a federal appeals court quickly blocked the ruling from going into effect while legal proceedings continue, however, the economic and legal implications are minimal—that is, until the Supreme Court is forced to step in and resolve this dispute. For now, the ruling’s greatest impact may be to widen a public fissure between Trump and the conservative legal movement.
In an unusually long post on his personal social media website last week, Trump described the court’s ruling in apocalyptic terms. “The ruling by the U.S. Court of International Trade is so wrong, and so political!” he claimed “Hopefully, the Supreme Court will reverse this horrible, Country threatening decision, QUICKLY and DECISIVELY. Backroom ‘hustlers’ must not be allowed to destroy our Nation!”
He even inadvertently showed why the ruling was correct in his explanation for why it was wrong. “The horrific decision stated that I would have to get the approval of Congress for these Tariffs,” he complained. “In other words, hundreds of politicians would sit around D.C. for weeks, and even months, trying to come to a conclusion as to what to charge other Countries that are treating us unfairly.” While Trump may wish it says otherwise, that is precisely what the Constitution requires by placing tariffs within Congress’s core powers.
But the most interesting part of his statement was a lengthy exhortation on the conservative legal movement and Leonard Leo, one of its leading figures. The three-judge panel consisted of an Obama appointee, a Reagan appointee, and a Trump appointee. That last one, Judge Timothy Reif, drew Trump’s ire in particular. “Where do these initial three Judges come from?” he wondered. “How is it possible for them to have potentially done such damage to the United States of America? Is it purely a hatred of ‘TRUMP?’ What other reason could it be?”
Trump attributed the setback to Leo and other legal conservatives who effectively handpicked most of his administration’s judicial nominees during his first term, including Reif. In doing so, he was unusually candid about how the judicial sausage gets made, so to speak. “I was new to Washington, and it was suggested that I use The Federalist Society as a recommending source on Judges,” he claimed.
This is true in the broadest sense, but it does not really capture the dynamic of what happened in 2016. Antonin Scalia’s unexpected death led to a 4–4 deadlock between liberals and conservatives on the high court. It also created a historic opportunity for Democrats. Filling the vacancy would have given liberals their first five-justice majority on the high court since the 1960s. Senate Republicans, led by then–Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, refused to hold a vote on any of Barack Obama’s nominees to prevent this ideological shift from happening.
At the same time, Trump’s nomination for president that year had created fractures within the Republican Party and raised the possibility that Hillary Clinton would win a four-year term as president—a nightmare scenario for a GOP that had spent the previous three decades treating her as some sort of demonic figure. Though some Republican senators suggested they would maintain the blockade if she won, others were less certain.
At the time, Trump had about as much interest in legal conservative theories as he did in medieval Bulgarian poetry. Conservative legal elites feared that he would choose his own slate of judicial nominees instead of the ones that they had been grooming for a generation. The two camps reconciled after Trump released a short list of Supreme Court nominees that September that he would choose from to replace Scalia if elected. The short list included some of the most prominent conservative jurists at the time; it gave former adversaries like Texas Senator Ted Cruz a rationale to openly endorse him.
After he won and took office, Trump relied on those same conservative legal elites to shape his overall judicial nominee strategy, fulfilling his side of the implicit bargain. “I did so, openly and freely, but then realized that they were under the thumb of a real ‘sleazebag’ named Leonard Leo, a bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America, and obviously has his own separate ambitions,” Trump explained in his recent post. “He openly brags how he controls Judges, and even Justices of the United States Supreme Court—I hope that is not so, and don’t believe it is! In any event, Leo left The Federalist Society to do his own ‘thing.’”
Leo, who was once a top figure in the Federalist Society, took a leave of absence from the organization to advise the White House on judicial nominees during Trump’s first term. His outsize role in the process—and his ensuing status as the de facto face of the conservative legal movement—led to magazine-length profiles that cast him as the power behind the Supreme Court’s figurative thrones. It also made Leo a major recipient of donations from right-wing billionaires who hoped to build upon his success.
I would be surprised, for what it’s worth, if Leo ever “bragged” that he “controls” any judges or justices, at least in such crude terms. The conservative legal movement’s typical approach is to identify and screen like-minded potential nominees who will advance the movement’s goals of their own free will. More direct forms of coercion and control would not only be a violation of judicial ethics but a lot of unnecessary work.
Trump’s agita over the tariff ruling has him essentially retconning his first term in office, with Leo and the Federalist Society now recast as deep-cover adversaries. “I am so disappointed in The Federalist Society because of the bad advice they gave me on numerous Judicial Nominations,” Trump continued. “This is something that cannot be forgotten!” It’s true that Trump appointees have ruled against him and his policies from time to time, as is to be expected in a rule-of-law society. For a president who always expects fealty and submission, that would be tough to stomach.
The Roberts court has occasionally been an obstacle for some of the Trump administration’s policies. At the same time, all three of Trump’s Supreme Court nominees helped gut the disqualification clause so he could run for a second term last year. Two of them then voted to invent “presidential immunity” out of thin air to free him from most of his legal woes. Never before have a president’s own Supreme Court appointments rewritten the Constitution so drastically for that president’s personal benefit.
It would be easy to dismiss Trump’s fulminations; he often lashes out at his allies before later reconciling with them. But there are other signs that he is retooling his approach to judicial nominations for his second term in ways that might disempower the conservative legal establishment. Last week, for example, Trump announced that he would nominate Emil Bove to a vacant seat on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
“Emil is SMART, TOUGH, and respected by everyone,” the president claimed in a post on his personal social media network. “He will end the Weaponization of Justice, restore the Rule of Law, and do anything else that is necessary to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. Emil Bove will never let you down!” Bove has certainly never let Trump down. After working as one of his personal defense lawyers after Trump’s first term, Bove joined the Justice Department earlier this year and helped purge it of lawyers who expressed ethical or policy concerns about the Trump administration’s tactics.
Though Bove is undoubtedly conservative compared to, say, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, he is not one of the rising stars that the conservative legal establishment had groomed for future judicial vacancies and is not part of that powerful social network. The pick prompted significant pushback from legal conservatives on social media. “Whether the White House wants to acknowledge it or not, the caliber of its early judicial nominations will affect the number of vacancies it gets to fill,” Jonathan Adler, a William & Mary law professor, wrote on Twitter last month. “This is why the Bove nomination was a risky pick (even apart from the merits).”
Ed Whelan, a prominent legal conservative who played a role in the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation fight, shared Adler’s post and added more commentary in favor of it. “Just yesterday, a very conservative appellate judge told me that s/he wouldn’t take senior status because of concerns over who would be picked as successor,” Whelan claimed. In a later National Review column, he described Bove’s personal and professional faults at length. He also warned that Bove could be in line for the Supreme Court if another vacancy occurs during Trump’s second term. “Republican senators who have the foresight and sense to prevent this scenario should defeat Bove’s nomination,” Whelan concluded.
The conservative legal movement’s problem is that Trump does not really need them anymore. His grip over the Republican Party is ironclad. His various legal troubles have exposed him to a wide range of lawyers to install in the Justice Department, the White House counsel’s office, and the federal bench without deferring to Leo’s Rolodex. Trump values personal loyalty over ideological purity, so he does not really care what his appointees think about the nondelegation doctrine or Humphrey’s Executor or originalism, except insofar as it benefits Trump.
As a result, the movement’s 50-year quest to entrench its particular legal philosophy in American constitutional law has perhaps never been more successful and never been in greater peril. Legal conservatives finally achieved their goal of a Supreme Court that would strike down Roe v. Wade, gut civil rights laws, and demolish federal regulatory agencies with ease. Along the way they also installed a president whose increasing willingness to defy court orders could turn the federal judiciary into the world’s most prestigious debate club.
The Supreme Court’s conservative justices could make peace by overturning the panel’s ruling on Trump’s tariffs when they inevitably get the chance. In doing so, they would destroy any remaining credibility for their favored doctrines. Trump is imposing recession-inducing tariffs on America’s largest trading partners by invoking a 1977 law that doesn’t even mention tariffs and has never been previously used to raise them. If the major questions doctrine can’t stop that, then it exists only to derail Democratic presidencies and can thus be treated as the sham that it is.
Alternatively, the court could strike down the tariffs, save the American economy from self-inflicted disaster, and try to maintain the legitimacy of its ideological project. But that could also bring about a direct confrontation with a lawless president who is already willing to openly ignore court orders. After all, if Trump decided to continue collecting the tariffs anyway, what could Chief Justice John Roberts do about it? Direct the marshals to seize control of the Treasury’s payment system like DOGE did and give everyone refunds on Venmo?
I do not doubt that some—and perhaps many—legal conservatives would still accept the current state of affairs over one where a Supreme Court justice appointed by Hillary Clinton is casting the decisive vote on gun rights cases and making it impossible to overturn Roe for another 30 years. Leonard Leo himself may even be among them. But some of the ones who tolerated Trump surely must have heartburn over the scorpion-and-frog situation in which they now find themselves. If so, they’ve earned it.
本文於 修改第 2 次
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美國法學界和司法界的生態 -- Ian Millhiser
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請參見本欄下一篇。
Trump just threw one of his most powerful allies under the bus
Maybe it’s unwise to pick a fight with the folks who control the Supreme Court?
Ian Millhiser, 05/31/25
On Thursday evening, President Donald Trump publicly split with the Federalist Society, the powerful conservative lawyers’ group that he relied on to select judges in his first term. Thanks in no small part to Trump, a majority of the Supreme Court justices are associated with the Federalist Society, as are dozens or even hundreds of other federal judges.
But now, Trump apparently regrets his earlier partnership with the Society.
“I am so disappointed in The Federalist Society because of the bad advice they gave me on numerous Judicial Nominations,” Trump posted on Truth Social. He blames his decision to ally with the Society on the fact that he was “new to Washington” when he first became president, “and it was suggested that I use The Federalist Society as a recommending source on Judges.” He also names Leonard Leo, the co-chair of the Society’s board, a “sleazebag” who “probably hates America, and obviously has his own separate ambitions.”
It’s a bold move by Trump, because the Federalist Society derives much of its power from the fact that so many of its members have lifetime appointments to the federal bench. Promising conservative lawyers want to join — and pay dues — to the Society because it was seen as a pipeline to power. And the fact that its members have been able to shape policy on everything from abortion to race to student loans made it the premier right-wing legal group.
That’s not to say Trump will destroy the Society’s grip on the judiciary. In fact, he may have inadvertently strengthened it. Older Federalist Society judges and justices may be less likely to retire under Trump now that they know that he’s unlikely to rely on the Society to choose their replacement. And sitting Federalist Society judges and justices may view the Trump administration’s legal arguments with greater skepticism.
Trump’s breakup with the Federalist Society isn’t particularly surprising. At a recent Federalist Society conference on executive power, many of the speakers denounced Trump’s incompetence and warned that it would prevent conservatives from achieving lasting policy victories during this administration. Some argued that Trump’s signature economic policy, his tariffs, are illegal.
And Trump is right that Leo, and by extension, the Federalist Society and its judges, have “separate ambitions” that do not always align with Trump or the MAGA movement. While the Federalist Society certainly has plenty of members who are staunch MAGA loyalists, many of its judges still adhere to the more libertarian and less explicitly authoritarian approach that dominated the Republican Party before Trump took it over.
Speakers at the recent Federalist Society conference spoke openly about plans to diminish Trump’s power and shift authority toward the judiciary. Nor did the Federalist Society’s judges rally behind Trump’s failed attempt to overturn former President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. Some of them even actively pushed back – Trump-appointed Judge Stephanos Bibas’s opinion rejecting one of Trump’s attempts to overturn that election begins with the line “free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy,” and rejects Trump’s claims due to a lack of “specific allegations and then proof.”
In his Thursday night post announcing that he and Leo are never getting back together, Trump pointed to a recent decision by the US Court of International Trade, which struck down an array of Trump’s second-term tariffs, as a triggering event. Notably, one of these three judges, Timothy Rief, is a Trump appointee.
So it appears that one of the most fruitful partnerships in the conservative legal movement’s history is now over. This divorce is likely to diminish both Trump’s power and that of the Society in the long run.
Trump is likely to pay a big price for breaking with one of America’s most powerful institutions
The Federalist Society is America’s most powerful legal organization in large part because it has such a comprehensive network of right-leaning and right-wing lawyers. Top law students often join the Federalist Society because the Society can help place them in clerkships with some of the most prestigious judges. The Society’s events give young lawyers a chance to network with senior members of their profession who can connect them with other hard-to-obtain job opportunities. And, because senior lawyers often have a decades-long relationship with the Society, the Society can easily vet them for ideological loyalty if they seek a political appointment such as a federal judgeship.
This network also means that the Federalist Society has historically provided a valuable service to Republican presidents. If a federal judicial vacancy arises in, say, Idaho, the president and his top advisers are unlikely to know which members of the Idaho bar are both highly skilled and ideologically committed to the GOP’s goals. But the Federalist Society has both a student and a lawyers’ chapter in Idaho. So it can identify highly qualified right-wing candidates for the bench and pass that information on to the White House.
Without access to this network, Trump is likely to struggle to identify nominees as quickly as he did in his first term, and there are already signs that he’s relying on alternative networks to find his second term judges — a shift that may diminish the Society’s influence in the long run, because lawyers hoping for a political appointment will no longer gain an advantage by joining it.
When Trump announced his first slate of second-term nominees in early May, for example, half of them were lawyers in GOP-controlled state attorney general’s offices. These offices might provide Trump with a stream of loyal nominees in red states, but it is unclear how he will identify judicial candidates in blue states where elected officials are unlikely to fill their offices with lawyers sympathetic to the MAGA movement.
The Federalist Society also provides right-of-center lawyers with a forum where they can debate their disagreements and often achieve consensus. Once such a consensus is reached, moreover, Federalist Society events help popularize that consensus among legal conservatives, while also communicating to ambitious young lawyers which policy positions they need to hold in order to secure the Society’s aid when those lawyers seek political appointments.
This means that judges chosen by the Society tend to have uniform views on a wide range of legal questions, even if those views are unusual within the legal profession as a whole. The Federalist Society, for example, has long popularized a theory known as the “unitary executive,” which would give the president full control over all federal agencies, even if Congress tried to give those agencies’ leaders a degree of independence. This theory played a central role in the Republican justices’ shocking decision in Trump v. United States (2024), which established that the president has broad authority to use his official powers to commit crimes.
If Trump stops drawing from the Federalist Society when he selects judges, in other words, his second-term nominees are likely to hold views that diverge from those of many sitting Republican judges, even if those nominees might broadly be described as “conservative.” And that could set back the conservative cause.
Before the Federalist Society’s founding, for example, President Richard Nixon picked four justices that he believed to be conservative. But three of them joined the Court’s abortion rights decision in Roe v. Wade (1973), and Nixon-appointed Justice Lewis Powell wrote a seminal opinion in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), which kept affirmative action alive for several decades.
It’s also possible that many sitting Federalist Society judges and justices will view Trump with greater skepticism now that he’s no longer aligned with an organization that they closely identify with. Because the Federalist Society has been a central part of many lawyers’ and judges’ professional life for decades, these senior professionals often identify strongly with the Society and react negatively to perceived slights against it.
In 2020, for example, the US Judicial Conference Committee on Codes of Conduct withdrew a proposal to discourage federal judges from belonging to ideological bar associations like the Federalist Society after that proposal triggered widespread backlash among judges aligned with the Society. When it comes to Trump, many of the lawsuits challenging his tariffs are backed by conservative legal organizations that historically have aligned with the Federalist Society; his attacks on the Federalist Society could make such organizations more likely to challenge him.
Trump’s split with the Federalist Society, in other words, may prove to be one of the most consequential legal developments of his second term. It is likely to make Republican judges less ideologically homogeneous, which increases the likelihood that any given panel of judges will vote against a conservative litigant. And it also means that many sitting judges will be less likely to retire under Trump, and more likely to view the Trump administration’s legal arguments with skepticism.
本文於 修改第 1 次
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美國會向蘇聯那樣垮台嗎？ -- James Krapfl
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下文從比較抽象的「立國之道」和一般民眾的「思考模式」兩個層面來看美國前景。值得深思。
Will the U.S. collapse like the Soviet Union did?
James Krapfl, 03/11/25
“You’re next,” said a Russian historian I interviewed in 1993 about the Soviet Union’s collapse in late 1991. I was an American student in St. Petersburg, and he was referring to the United States.
His argument was informed by a pseudo-scientific demographic theory that would eventually find favour in the Kremlin, but more remarkable to me then was the hopefulness with which he spoke.
If this man is still alive, he must be feeling vindicated. America’s current retreat from its engagements around the world — from gutting USAid to abandoning European allies — constitutes a surrender of power comparable in living memory only to Mikhail Gorbachev’s unilateral withdrawals from Afghanistan, Eastern Europe and elsewhere between 1988 and 1991 — right before the Soviet Union’s collapse.
Accompanying both foreign policy about-faces, we can’t miss profound shifts in the two states’ ideological foundations.
Destabilizing master signifiers
Gorbachev justified his “restructuring” or perestroika by invoking the Soviet Union’s founding father, Vladimir Lenin. He did so, however, by observing that the historical Lenin had pragmatically modified policies according to circumstances. That called into question the mythological Lenin — an infallible hero whose virtues could not be questioned.
The Russian-born American anthropologist Alexei Yurchak argues that Lenin was the Soviet system’s “master signifier.”
As long as his sacredness remained unquestioned, referring to Lenin could legitimize a range of policies and actions. Viewing Lenin through a historical lens, however, called his sacredness into question. It consequently became impossible for Soviet citizens to agree on what policies and actions were legitimate. This crisis of meaning allowed chronic political, economic and social problems to suddenly to become devastating.
America’s master signifier is its Constitution, reverentially enshrined in Washington, D.C., rather like Lenin’s body is in Moscow. Under President Donald Trump, however, violations of the Constitution have become routine, and the federal government’s legislative branch has shown little will to guard its powers from executive encroachment. Like Lenin under Gorbachev, it seems that the sacred centre of America’s political system has become destabilized.
As a written contract, a constitution is easier to interpret than the thoughts of a dead man. Lenin’s advantage, however, was that he could embody traits considered virtuous in the Soviet system. Where could Americans look for that same type of guiding light?
For most of American history, it was George Washington — the first president who swore to uphold the Constitution.
George Washington’s America
As a hero of the Revolutionary War, Washington could have become king.
Army officers, frustrated at the central government’s weakness after the war under the Articles of Confederation, considered a coup d'état. Washington — the army’s commander in chief — could have led the overthrow (as Oliver Cromwell had or Napoleon Bonaparte would).
Washington refused, and after British capitulation in 1783, he relinquished his command to Congress.
In 1789, after the Constitution was ratified as a legal solution to the problems of confederation, Washington was unanimously elected president. After two terms, however, he rejected suggestions that he stand for a third.
He frequently stressed the importance of habit in human affairs and reasoned that, if he clung to power, Americans might not get accustomed to peaceful and regular rotation of office. By retiring, he transferred much of the reverence that had accrued to him onto the Constitution.
Remembering Washington
Washington’s birthday falls on Feb. 22, and Americans began observing it while he was still alive. In 1879, U.S. Congress made the day a federal holiday, an occasion for celebrating the example of selfless public service and respect for the rule of law that “the father of his country” had embodied.
So it remained until 1971.
In that year, the Monday Holiday Act went into effect. Adopted in 1968 at the behest of the business lobby, which saw in three-day weekends an opportunity for sales, the act moved Washington’s birthday commemoration to the third Monday in February.
Since many states also celebrated Abraham Lincoln’s birthday and the new date fell between his and Washington’s, some began calling it “Presidents’ Day.” When nationwide advertisers and calendar-makers adopted the term in the 1980s, it came to seem official.
The name change, of course, eroded the holiday’s connection to Washington, and insofar as it remained more than a shopping day, it came to be associated with all the presidents, effectively cheapening it. Though the federal holiday officially remains “Washington’s Birthday,” few Americans know that.
The dangers of mythologizing
The shift happened to coincide with a wave of revisionist historiography that pointed out Washington — a slave-owner — was not perfect.
All historiography is revisionist in the sense that historians revise existing interpretations on the basis of new evidence. For those who wanted an untainted idol, however, it appeared either that Washington could no longer fit the bill or that historical facts had to be massaged.
Ever since, historical assessments have tended to get lost in culture wars, where neither side can accept a real person with both reprehensible and admirable traits.
In the Soviet Union, however, most citizens found it difficult to think historically about Lenin because, under the conditions of dictatorship, open public debate based on factual information about him had been impossible.
Dictatorship depends on mythological thinking that worships heroes and does not expose contradictions between official pronouncements and reality. In the early 1990s, Russians failed to establish the rule of law for a similar reason: they could not overcome the habit of mythologizing, which made them prioritize personality over policy.
The personality they chose as independent Russia’s first president — Boris Yeltsin — lacked Washington’s respect for the rule of law.
Losing sight of Washington
Thanks to Washington, the U.S. got off to a better start. But by abandoning the widespread commemoration of his historically exceptional deference to the rule of law, Americans have have lost an opportunity to practise historical thinking in the public sphere.
Not only has mythological thinking encroached, but it is now even possible for a president to style himself as a monarch and to emulate Napoleon, as Donald Trump has.
The Constitution — America’s master signifier — has lost its ability to unite citizens around a shared sense of meaningfulness.
Will Washington’s country be next?
James Krapfl is Associate Professor of History, McGill University
Disclosure statement
James Krapfl does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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抖音恢復上線 – D. Howley等
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TikTok says 'in the process of restoring service' after going dark in US, citing Trump 'clarity'
Daniel Howley, Alexis Keenan and Ben Werschkul, 01/20/25
TikTok said Sunday afternoon it was in the process of restoring service to its US users after going dark overnight when a new law banning the app took effect at midnight.
In a post on X Sunday afternoon, TikTok said, "In agreement with our service providers, TikTok is in the process of restoring service. We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive."
In a social media post on Sunday, Trump asked tech companies to "not let TikTok stay dark" and reiterated his plan to issue a reprieve once he takes office.
"I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security,” Trump posted. “The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order."
TikTok's statement followed roughly two hours later.
Beginning late Saturday, US TikTok users were shown a message saying the app wasn't available, citing the new law.
The alert also mentioned Trump by name saying, "We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office."
On its website, TikTok told users they could still login to download their data. As of Sunday afternoon, that message had been updated to read: "We're working hard to resolve this issue. Thank you for your patience."
Still, many on Capitol Hill — not to mention outside experts — questioned whether Trump will have the authority to make good on these promises.
Some of Trump’s closest political allies are also the most outspoken critics of TikTok, and have so far stood by the law that they passed last April with strong bipartisan margins.
In a statement early Sunday, Republican Sens. Tom Cotton and Pete Ricketts said, "now that the law has taken effect, there’s no legal basis for any kind of 'extension' of its effective date." Cotton added earlier this week on the Senate floor that "there will be no extension, no concession, and no compromises for TikTok."
House Speaker Mike Johnson, another top Trump ally, also raised questions Sunday, telling NBC he wanted to see the current law enforced and that he is "really heartened to see that Google and Apple and Microsoft have taken the steps to comply with the law."
The back-and-forth between Trump, TikTok, and US lawmakers will remain in acute relief on Monday, with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew expected to be in attendance at inauguration events.
Rolling shutdown
Access to TikTok began getting cut off for some US users about 90 minutes before the new law took effect late Saturday. The app was also unavailable via Apple's App Store in the hours leading up to midnight. Videos intermittently loaded on TikTok for a time, but the app also showed a blacked-out screen indicating network issues.
Saturday night's rolling cutoff for US TikTok users followed a report from The Information which said Oracle (ORCL), which manages TikTok's US servers, was set to begin shutting down servers that host TikTok's data as early as 9:00 p.m. ET.
The law that has resulted in TikTok's shutdown doesn't outright ban the app, but rather it prohibits users from accessing the platform through app stores, like those run by Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG, GOOGL), and cloud services unless parent company ByteDance sells itself to an owner that is not controlled by a country the US considers adversarial.
Congress has accused ByteDance of having close ties to the Chinese government and alleges that the Chinese Communist Party could force the company to provide it with information on US users or otherwise spread propaganda on the platform.
But the outcry from users and TikTok's backers forced President Joe Biden and Trump to respond. Even with Trump's assurances Apple and Google that his administration won't enforce the law, it's not guaranteed that his — or any other administration — would do so in the future. Each time the companies don't comply with the law they'd have to pay a fine of $5,000 each time a user accesses the social media app.
Trump will have to either convince Congress to overturn the ban or find some other way to work around it if he wants to keep the service up and running, and neither of those is simple.
'It's a good thing for Meta'
Should TikTok's ban eventually come to pass, one of the biggest winners could be one of TikTok’s long-term critics: Meta (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In particular, Instagram, owned by Meta, could see a sizable uptick in advertiser dollars if TikTok bites the dust.
“In general, it’s a good thing for Meta,” William Blair research analyst Ralph Schackart told Yahoo Finance. “We estimate in a note potentially 60% to 70% of TikTok spend could move to Instagram and it monetizes at around 3x the rate of TikTok.”
Social media companies have been chasing TikTok’s formula in an attempt to copy the social media platform’s success for some time. Reddit (RDDT), for example, offers its own short-form video feed that could entice former TikTok users looking for a broader kind of social media site complete with various message boards and communities.
Snapchat (SNAP) could also grab users who would have otherwise spent time on TikTok — and the advertising dollars that follow. But as Morgan Stanley managing director Brian Nowak points out, Snap would have to ensure it can keep those TikTok refugees coming back over and over again — as TikTok does — if it hopes to hold onto that ad revenue.
Pinterest (PINS) also stands to get a boost if TikTok is forced to go dark. While the app doesn’t have much in common with TikTok as far as overall design, it could offer an opportunity for online retailers looking to drum up e-commerce sales, something TikTok has managed to do thanks to its army of influencers.
With additional reporting from Ben Werschkul.
Alexis Keenan is a legal reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow Alexis on X @alexiskweed.
Email Daniel Howley at dhowley@yahoofinance.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley.
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抖音在美國下線 -- J. Guynn
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TikTok banned: Wildly addictive app unplugs as fans mourn. Will Trump save it?
Jessica Guynn, USA TODAY, 01/19/25
With the flip of a switch, TikTok went dark in America.
Instead of the high-velocity carousel of viral morsels, around 10:30 p.m. ET − 90 minutes before the shutdown deadline −TikTok users in the U.S. received a pop-up saying: "Sorry, TikTok isn't available right now."
"A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can't use TikTok for now," the message read. "We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!"
Under the ban, app store providers and internet hosting services could face hefty fines for making TikTok available to Americans. Apple's app store pulled the app. The Information reported that cloud computing provider Oracle directed staff to shut down the servers hosting TikTok.
TikTok’s abrupt disappearance marooned over 170 million monthly users who made the wildly addictive short-form video app a central part of their daily lives, from teenagers who kept up with friends and trends to creators who earned a living and a shot at internet fame there.
Now they are struggling to adapt to a world without it.
Before TikTok shuttered, one user posted a video in his bathrobe and cowboy boots, lugging a carry-on and a bottle of laundry detergent for his with more than 300,000 followers. “Me arriving to China Jan. 19 so I can still use TikTok.”
“It’s like summer camp is over and we will never see our camp friends again,” one user commented on the video that got millions of views. “I'm literally best friends with a whole bunch of strangers and I'm gonna miss all of you so damn much,” commented another.
Late Saturday night, fans mourned on other social media platforms.
"Just watched TikTok shut down in real time. First the likes and comments stopped working, then saving was disabled, then no new videos would load, then I was kicked out," one user wrote on X. "The last TikTok I could see was of someone peacefully bopping along to if I were a fish."
TikTok ban: The long goodbye
TikTok’s future had been flickering for weeks.
Concerns that Beijing could manipulate content to shape U.S. opinion and gather sensitive user data through the Chinese-owned app prompted a congressionally mandated ban unless TikTok sold off its U.S. operations. Supreme Court justices upheld that ban Friday, exhausting the company’s legal options.
President-elect Donald Trump is working on options to postpone the ban but TikTok did not wait for an eleventh hour reprieve and instead pulled the plug.
CEO Shou Chew posted a video on the app thanking Trump and pledged: "More to come."
"We believe behind the scenes there is significant activity from both financial and strategic tech buyers for the golden TikTok asset," Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives said.
James A. Lewis, a technology policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said TikTok may regret shutting down with its fate up in the air.
“Once they do that, their market value goes way down and they are never getting those users back,” Lewis said. “What’s a big deal is TikTok’s user base, the 170 million fanatical users who love TikTok, and that’s what people want to get their hands on before it blows up. So it’s just really a big gamble for TikTok to do this.”
TikTok was America's pop culture capital
TikTok could still come back from the dead in America if Trump finds a workaround or if it divests its U.S. operations. Chinese officials have discussed the possibility of allowing Elon Musk to invest in or take control of its U.S. operations. Trump told NBC News he expects to "most likely" implement a 90-day hold.
For now, none of that is much consolation to the faithful throng fans of TikTok, especially those who came of age on it.
For an app with Chinese DNA, TikTok ruled America as its pop culture capital.
Unlike Instagram, Facebook or Snapchat, TikTok didn’t build on social connections, but on raw videos from random strangers that you could not wait to share with your friends.
Powered by a highly secretive algorithm, the app exploded in popularity during the Covid-19 pandemic and never looked back.
Americans became so hooked on everything from hot takes to hard news and skin care to sports that they often commented that their habit-forming “For You” page knew them better than they knew themselves.
That captive audience made TikTok an influential player in Hollywood and on Madison Avenue, not to mention in shopping carts as viral products flew off store shelves after trending there.
TikTok came with the good (raising money for people down on their luck, sharing a few laughs with cubicle comedians or finding solace in grief), the bad (glorifying school shooters ) and the ugly (amplifying white supremacy). And while it came under fire for exposing kids to real-world dangers, it also provided a sense of belonging for young people who didn't always feel welcomed in their families or communities, such as those exploring their identity as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer.
TikTok was far more than shopping and dancing trends, said Jennifer Grygiel, an associate professor of communications at Syracuse University who studies social media. "People also found community that they weren’t finding on other platforms like X or Instagram."
Where will TikTok users go now?
Mega social media platforms usually suffer a long death, shedding relevance and users as they’re slowly usurped by a new innovative generation of upstarts, like Facebook muscling out Myspace.
TikTok’s demise is a different story. It’s going out near the height of its popularity, the casualty of a geopolitical conflict that many of its younger U.S. fans can’t relate to.
With its fate in limbo since April when President Joe Biden signed a law to address national security concerns, TikTok users watched the drama unfold as Chinese parent company ByteDance and creators joined forces with the company to fend off the law in court, arguing a sale is impossible and the ban is unconstitutional.
TikTok users struggled to be demure (another viral TikTok trend) but, in the end, many of them didn’t stick around for the Supreme Court to rule or for the federal ban to take effect. They’d already begun exploring a universe of new alternatives with RedNote dominating downloads.
“We saw this protest bubble up even in advance of TikTok leaving,” Grygiel said. “The public didn’t wait. They preempted TikTok’s decision.”
But where will they go now? India is a cautionary tale for TikTok refugees desperate for something that can take its place on their screens. No obvious successor is waiting in the app store.
Old standbys like Instagram and YouTube may get an uptick as creators urge their fans to follow them there but they don’t hold the same appeal for young users.
A slew of copycat services was not much of a substitute for young adults in India. Many are still mourning the app’s absence nearly five years after New Delhi banned it.
\(This story has been updated with new information.)
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美國政黨政治的始作俑者-Ted Scheinman
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樊比仁是美國第八任總統。
Martin Van Buren Created America’s Partisan Political System. We’re Still Recovering
The eighth president of the United States, the so-called little magician, saw political parties as the key to achieving power
Ted Scheinman, January/February 2025
When Martin Van Buren arrived in Washington to be sworn in as a senator in 1821, he told a friend he planned to “build up a party” for himself. It was an odd time to be party-mongering, and Van Buren an unlikely party-monger. Republican James Monroe had run unopposed in the 1820 presidential election, and “every politician in Washington, with varying degrees of enthusiasm … was calling himself a Republican,” writes James M. Bradley in Martin Van Buren: America’s First Politician, a lively and illuminating new biography of our eighth president—the first to be born a U.S. citizen. Absent a strong opposition party, Van Buren lamented that politicians were appealing less to ideals and more to personalities, and wished, as he put it in an 1827 letter, to unite citizens through “party principle,” rather than “personal preference.”
Born in 1782 to a tavern-keeping family in Kinderhook, New York, Van Buren had little schooling but made himself a lawyer, rising to the heights of power despite his lack of military experience or strong family ties to ensure patronage. At 5-foot-6, he was considered notably short, and friends and foes called him the “little magician” for his outsize political talents. He proceeded swiftly from senator to secretary of state, vice president and president. And though he failed to win a second term, Bradley says, “He built and designed the party system that defined how politics was practiced and power wielded in the United States.” We are living in the world Van Buren created.
In the first decades of the Republic, leaders had generally called themselves Federalists or Republicans, but “few imagined that parties would be a permanent feature of the nation’s political life,” Bradley writes. “They expected parties to disband once the Republic was more secure and its great issues settled.” Van Buren plowed ahead, with the thoroughly modern view that parties were not a regrettable necessity but a revolutionary means of achieving and using power. With Andrew Jackson, he co-founded the Democratic Party in 1828, cannily banking on Jackson’s personal appeal to win that year’s election; Van Buren became Jackson’s vice president, and the Democrats dominated politics until 1860. “He didn’t think that politics should be a hobby for gentlemen to practice in their spare time,” Bradley says. “A party had to have an organization, a structure, a personality, and it should be run by professionals.”
As early as 1819, Van Buren had called slavery “a moral evil,” but he appeased its partisans frequently. “There was a dark side to Van Buren’s ascendancy,” Bradley writes. “The Democratic Party became a vehicle for the expansion of slavery, the forced expulsion and dispossession of Native peoples from the eastern United States, and imperial conquest of the West.” Indeed, Van Buren helped professionalize the use of race “in different and effective ways as a wedge issue in elections and political debates,” Bradley says. “These practices are still very prevalent today.” The main difference? “Van Buren never could have conceived of a party system where big money plays such an enormous role.” Still, Bradley says, “in many ways,” today’s politicians “are using [Van Buren’s] playbook.”
Ted Scheinman is a senior editor for Smithsonian magazine. He is the author of Camp Austen: My Life as an Accidental Jane Austen Superfan.
Filed Under: American History, American Presidents, Political Leaders, Politics
This article is a selection from the January/February 2025 issue of Smithsonian magazine
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「三權分立」在美國還行得通嗎？ -- John Fritze
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中國有句老話：「物必先腐也而后虫生之」；美國聯邦最高法院中，坐著一到兩位性侵疑犯，兩位納賄犯；要想別人不忽視其決定都難。何況，羅伯慈首席大法官帶頭吹、舔後(該欄2024/07/07)，還妄想「司法獨立」，這不是找罵挨嗎？這又應了中國另一句老話：「人必自侮，然後人侮之」
Roberts warns against ignoring Supreme Court rulings as tension with Trump looms
John Fritze, CNN, 01/01/25
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts slammed what he described as “dangerous” talk by some officials about ignoring federal court rulings, using an annual report weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office to stress the importance of an independent judiciary.
Officials “from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings,” Roberts wrote in the report, released by the Supreme Court on Tuesday. “These dangerous suggestions, however sporadic, must be soundly rejected.”
The chief justice didn’t detail which officials he had in mind – and both Republicans and Democrats have hinted at ignoring court rulings in recent years. Still, Roberts’ year-end message landed days before the January 20 inauguration of a president who has repeatedly decried the federal judiciary as rigged.
Trump’s agenda – particularly on immigration – could put the incoming president on a collision course next year with a Supreme Court he has helped to build by naming three conservative justices during his first term.
“Every administration suffers defeats in the court system – sometimes in cases with major ramifications,” Roberts wrote. And yet, he added, “for the past several decades,” both parties have respected court decisions and have headed off the kind of constitutional confrontations that arose during the civil rights era when some southern states declined court orders to integrate.
Roberts, in particular, pointed to decisions by the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations to enforce school desegregation rulings. In 1957, for instance, President Dwight Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock to integrate its schools after officials sought to defy Supreme Court decisions that found segregated schools unconstitutional.
Roberts lamented that “public officials,” whom he also did not name, had “regrettably” attempted to intimidate judges by “suggesting political bias in the judge’s adverse rulings without a credible basis for such allegations.” Those attempts, he warned, are “inappropriate and should be vigorously opposed.”
As in past years, the chief justice avoided direct mention of the controversies and challenges brewing within the Supreme Court itself – including lingering questions about ethics, a weekslong scandal this year over controversial flags hoisted at Justice Samuel Alito’s properties and sagging public confidence in the nation’s highest court.
In a series of interviews before the election, Vice President-elect JD Vance raised doubts about his fidelity to Supreme Court decisions. In a 2021 podcast, as The New York Times previously reported, Vance urged Trump to respond to adverse court rulings “like Andrew Jackson did and say, ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”
The likely apocryphal quote came in response to an 1832 decision Jackson opposed that dealt with Native Americans.
Trump himself has often blasted federal courts – including the Supreme Court – over adverse decisions. A spokesman for Trump’s campaign earlier this week slammed the “political weaponization of our justice system” in a response to a federal appeals court ruling in New York that upheld a jury’s verdict finding that the former president sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll.
Democrats, too, have toyed publicly with declining to enforce court decisions. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez drew criticism last year for suggesting on CNN that the Biden administration “ignore” a district court decision that would have halted Food and Drug Administration of the abortion pill mifepristone. The Supreme Court paused that decision and, in June, tossed the lawsuit challenging wider access to the drug.
Roberts has repeatedly used his year-end report to tout the importance of an independent judiciary and to sound an alarm about threats of violence against judges. Two years ago, in a similar vein, he stressed that “a judicial system cannot and should not live in fear.”
In this year’s report, Roberts added that “hostile foreign state actors” had accelerated attacks on the judiciary and other branches. In some instances, he said, “bots distort judicial decisions, using fake or exaggerated narratives to foment discord within our democracy.”
The report lands at the end of a year in which the conservative 6-3 majority granted former presidents sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution – and on a timeline that allowed Trump to avoid a trial on federal charges in two cases before the November election. This fall, the court is delving into transgender care bans and a First Amendment challenge to a bipartisan ban on TikTok.
“The role of the judicial branch,” Roberts wrote, is “to say what the law is.”
But, he added, “judicial independence is undermined unless the other branches are firm in their responsibility to enforce the court’s decrees.”
For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
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我不記得是否有人在歷史學或國際政治領域用過「後美國」一詞。讀完這篇報導後(該欄2024/12/31)，我相信2025在後世很有可能被戲稱為： 1 A. A. (1 Anno Americana)。我這樣說的理由有三個：
1) 它是川普2.0的第1年；也就是美國加速衰落的開始。
2) 金磚九國將正式朝「大金磚」(或金磚國協)邁進(該欄開欄文)。此處請參考文末所附「相關閱讀」。
3) 美國政府將對烏克蘭戰爭制定新政策。如果川普不再繼續支援烏國，世局將立即呈現以下兩個狀況之一：
3a) 北大西洋公約國家取代美國成為支援烏克蘭的主角；或者
3b) 俄國佔據烏國全部或大部份土地。
不論最後出現那一種情況，它們都是美國退出世界舞台的序曲。
此外，印尼、泰國、和馬來西亞加入「大金磚」別具意義，其立竿見影的作用是：
a) 由於它們是「東協」會員，美國主導的AUKUS和「印太聯盟」將名存實亡。
b) 它們也都是東南亞地區舉足輕重的國家。三國的加入將成為「全球南方諸國」的風向指標。G-7或將淪為二流國際組織。
這是我以上「後美國」觀點的基礎。
相關閱讀(包括各篇文章提供的超連結)：
* 大金磚的魅力
* 《金磚世界秩序的到來》要點譯述
* 金磚五國近況及展望
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「後真相」之社媒戰和網路戰 - Matt Hamilton
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這是最近在美國媒體上炒得火紅的案子。我並不熟悉案情，對它也沒有什麼興趣。轉載這個「八卦」的原因在於：給《如何面對「後真相」時代》提供一個案例(該欄2024/12/28)。狄拉福羅爾教授坐在象牙塔中，自說自話的分析「後真相」；這篇報導則呈現「後真相」在現實生活的「功能」-- 摧毀對手的武器。
The question sending shockwaves through Hollywood: How did Blake Lively get those damaging texts?
Matt Hamilton, 12/29/24
When actress Blake Lively went public this month with the explosive accusation that her “It Ends With Us” co-star and producer Justin Baldoni and his team developed a campaign to "smear" her in the press for reporting on-set sexual harassment, she marshaled powerful evidence: her opponents’ own words.
A trove of text messages Lively submitted to California’s Civil Rights Department appeared to show Baldoni, his production company and two publicists affiliated with the company plotting "social manipulation," among other tactics, to fend off any airing of Lively's grievances and preserve Baldoni's reputation.
"All of this will be most importantly untraceable," Melissa Nathan, one of the crisis publicists, said in a text.
The text messages — rife with bravado, boasts and intrigue — have fueled a scandal that has rocked the entertainment industry and spotlighted the ruthless underbelly of the Hollywood publicity machine.
Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, has denied the existence of a smear campaign and said that the “cherry-picked correspondence” showed normal internal planning for crisis scenarios on a film that grossed more than $350 million. Freedman said the planning came after Lively “enlisted her own representative … to plant negative and completely fabricated and false stories with media.”
Amid the damaging revelations, one question has stood out: How did Lively and her team obtain the candid, private chats of Baldoni’s public relations team?
The answer in part shows the tangled web of personalities and businesses drawn into the dispute, and the confluence of legal and public relations strategies at play.
“I’ve never seen a case like this,” said Neville Johnson, the veteran entertainment litigator who has represented actors, musicians and other artists for nearly 50 years. Calling it “modern warfare in law,” Johnson was surprised on two fronts: the lengths to which publicists allegedly went to protect Baldoni, and that Lively’s team had procured such a potent tranche of text messages before filing their California civil rights complaint. “The biggest battle we face these days is obtaining evidence from the other side.”
Lively’s attorneys have been circumspect about the provenance of the text messages. Her complaint contains a footnote stating that the messages, including a 22-page compendium of texts submitted as an exhibit with the complaint, came through the "legal process, including a civil subpoena.” Some of the messages are redacted or have the senders’ and recipients’ names omitted.
But Stephanie Jones, the founder of Jonesworks — the publicity firm that has represented Tom Brady, Jeff Bezos and, until recently, Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios — effectively outed herself as the source of the damaging communications in a lawsuit she filed Dec. 24.
With Jonesworks as the publicity firm for Baldoni and his company, Jones would seemingly have been aware of the alleged smear campaign against Lively. But Jones disavows involvement and contends that a former subordinate, Jennifer Abel, and others close to Baldoni cooked up the plan as part of a broader "conspiracy," which also included starting a rival publicity firm.
In her lawsuit, Jones accused Abel of "conspiring" to attack Jonesworks, steal the firm's clients, coordinate the “media smear campaign” against Lively and then “publicly pin blame for this smear campaign on Jones.”
In addition to suing Abel, Jones sued Baldoni and Nathan, the crisis public relations professional whose blunt text messages have rocketed across social media.
The dizzying set of allegations in Jones’ 52-page lawsuit made clear that after terminating Abel on Aug. 21, Jones had Abel’s company-issued phone “forensically preserved and examined in detail.”
"Abel and Nathan’s covert take down and smear campaigns were revealed in black and white on Abel’s company-issued phone following her termination," Jones said in her lawsuit.
In a statement, a member of Lively’s legal team confirmed that the text messages in Lively’s complaint were sourced from Abel’s phone and that the material came from a subpoena against Jonesworks.
How, when and where that subpoena was issued remains a mystery.
“The additional details about Ms. Lively’s investigation, including the lawful subpoena, will be produced during discovery,” the statement said.
Experts were at times flummoxed and impressed by how Lively managed to get hold of the text messages in the absence of a lawsuit. The state civil rights complaint she filed, which alleged sexual harassment and retaliation, could be a precursor to a lawsuit.
Some states, including California and New York, allow for discovery, or the gathering of evidence from various parties to learn about the facts of a dispute, before a lawsuit has been filed. But this type of pre-litigation discovery rarely happens in California, attorneys said.
If Lively’s lawyers took that route in California, they would have had to know that the evidence existed in the first place, then petition a judge and argue that there was a risk the evidence could be spoiled or not preserved. A spokesperson for the L.A. Superior Court said the court does not maintain records of such petitions.
“I’ve been doing this for decades and I’ve never seen it done before, but it can be done,” said Johnson, the entertainment lawyer. As an example, he said, lawyers may seek a subpoena to prevent a car involved in a crash from being demolished and request to examine it before filing suit.
James Spertus, a West Los Angeles litigator and former federal prosecutor, said the subpoena was “most likely” issued in another case and “then used in this one.”
For example, the subpoena could have been issued during a closed-door arbitration proceeding, attorneys said. Lively's complaint named several firms and PR professionals involved in "It Ends With Us" as well as Baldoni's production company, but Jones and Jonesworks were notably absent. Attorneys for Jones did not respond to an email seeking comment about the subpoena.
Some attorneys speculated that the subpoena had the hallmarks of a so-called “friendly subpoena,” where one side is seeking records from another party, who can use the subpoena as legal cover. Put another way, the owner of the records may want to give them up, and the subpoena allows them to say they were forced to comply.
Whatever the origin story, the texts have been curated and released by both Jones and Lively, effectively torpedoing their adversaries in one fell swoop.
The potency of the texts derives from their moment-to-moment chronicle of how Baldoni and his team discussed Lively. In a strategy document for Baldoni that Lively filed with her complaint, his publicity team identified "several potential scenarios at play here which we should be prepared for, should [Lively] and her team make her grievances public."
“He wants to feel like she can be buried,” Abel wrote of Baldoni in a text message.
“We can’t write it down to him. We can’t write we will destroy her,” Nathan replied to Abel. “You know we can bury anyone. But I can’t write that to him.”
The precise nature of the help that Nathan and her firm, The Agency Group PR, provided to Baldoni and his production company is unclear. The text messages suggest that the publicists pitched negative stories about Lively to friendly media outlets. In her complaint, Lively alleged that Nathan enlisted Jed Wallace, formerly of Southern California and now based in Texas, who in turn "weaponized a digital army ... to create, seed and promote content that appeared to be authentic on social media platforms and internet chat forums."
Then, Baldoni's team supplied the "manufactured content to unwitting reporters," propagating a narrative that was negative toward Lively and her husband, actor Ryan Reynolds.
A Daily Mail piece from this summer was published with the headline, “Is Blake Lively set to be CANCELLED?” and noted "hard to watch" videos of Lively that had surfaced online, triggering "a growing backlash against apparently diva-style behaviour caught on camera."
Abel texted Nathan, “You really outdid yourself with this piece.”
“That’s why you hired me right? I’m the best,” Nathan replied.
According to Lively's complaint, Baldoni's team was trying to keep Lively's allegations about his improper behavior from leaking online and in the press. In text messages cited in the complaint, Nathan appears to indicate that news coverage of human resources complaints stemming from "It Ends With Us" was scuttled through the team's efforts.
Lively's complaint asserted that Baldoni criticized her body and weight, was "constantly hugging and touching cast and crew" and inserted "improvised gratuitous sexual content" into the film, which is about a woman overcoming domestic abuse.
Lively also said that Baldoni "pressured" her into adding nudity into a scene where her character was to give birth and that the "chaotic" set was open to cast and crew; that Baldoni's production partner, Jamey Heath, had showed Lively a video of his own wife's naked body as she gave birth, which Lively initially thought was pornography; and that Baldoni had his "best friend" play the role of gynecologist, which was "invasive and humiliating."
Before the cast resumed filming after the Hollywood strikes, Lively initiated a meeting about her allegations, according to the complaint. Other female cast and crew members had also reported concerns about the work environment, including sexual harassment. The producers agreed to institute protections against this behavior.
Baldoni's representatives have denied misconduct and called the allegations against him and his team "completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious."
Freedman, the attorney, said in a statement that Lively's "negative reputation" derived from "her own remarks and actions during the campaign for the film" along with "interviews and press activities that were observed publicly, in real time and unedited, which allowed for the internet to generate their own views and opinions."
The high-profile case — a decade after the hack and release of Sony Pictures executives' crude and frank emails — has offered an evergreen reminder: Be careful what you put in writing.
ABC News recently paid $15 million to settle a case filed by President-elect Donald Trump, who alleged that anchor George Stephanopolous defamed him. The settlement talks came after the judge ruled that Stephanopoulos and Trump had to sit for depositions and turn over emails and text messages.
In a lawsuit filed against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems, internal emails and text messages emerged that showed the unvarnished opinions of Tucker Carlson and other Fox personalities around Trump’s bogus claims that the 2020 election was stolen. “Do the executives understand how much trust and credibility we’ve lost with our audience? We’re playing with fire, for real,” Carlson texted colleagues.
In the dispute between singer Kesha Sebert and the songwriter and producer Lukasz Gottwald, known as Dr. Luke, whom she accused of sexually assaulting her, the producer’s harsh comments about the singer’s weight became public during litigation.
“Please keep her on her diet. No need to reply further. THANKS!” Gottwald wrote.
The dispute also unearthed the public relations plan that Sebert’s team devised to help amplify her case, incite "a deluge of negative media" on Gottwald, fuel the #FreeKesha movement and secure a more favorable contract arrangement.
To Melanie Cherry, the associate director of the Public Relations and Advertising program at USC Annenberg School of Communications and Journalism, the Lively case will further reinforce “why publicists and crisis PR teams must be diligent in keeping communications with clients and internal teams secure and private.”
“The role of a publicist should remain in the background,” she said, “rather than becoming part of the story.”
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Read more:
Justin Baldoni's ex-publicist sues over alleged Blake Lively smear campaign
As Blake Lively sues 'It Ends With Us' co-star Justin Baldoni, collaborators take her side
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Secretly recorded videos are backbone of corruption trial for longest-serving legislative leader
Sophia Tareen, 12/12/24
CHICAGO (AP) — Hours of secretly recorded videos and phone calls have offered a rare glimpse into how the longest-serving legislative leader in American history operated behind closed doors.
As the corruption trial of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan stretches into its third month, testimony has covered his multiple alleged schemes, from kickbacks involving the state’s largest utility company to Chinatown developments benefiting his private tax firm.
Jurors have heard from a congresswoman, former state legislators and the government’s star witness: a former Chicago alderman who secretly wore a wire.
Here’s a closer look at the ongoing trial:
The charges
Madigan, who was speaker for over three decades, is charged in a 23-count indictment for bribery, racketeering, wire fraud and other crimes.
Prosecutors allege he exploited his unmatched influence not only as the Illinois House speaker but also as head of the state's Democratic Party for personal gain and to amass even more power. A tax attorney, he’s also accused of benefiting from private work that was illegally steered to his law firm.
The trial has shown how Madigan worked, with the lines between his political and personal roles intertwined.
For instance, meetings often took place at his downtown law office, whether they were for political or legal work. Elected officials or his political advisors were often present alongside business contacts. Even in meetings about tax work, he was called “the speaker," the recordings show.
In one 2014 meeting secretly recorded by a businessman also working undercover, a City Council member introduced Madigan to hotel developers for a Chinatown project. Madigan pitched his firm’s business.
“We’re not interested in a quick killing here. We’re interested in a long-term relationship,” Madigan said. “In terms of the quality of representation that you get from this law firm, we don’t take a second seat to anybody. “
Afterward, the alderman told a businessman: “If he works with the speaker, he will get anything he needs for that hotel.”
Star witness
One of the most-anticipated parts of the trial has been the testimony of former Chicago Alderman Danny Solis. A council member for 23 years, Solis led the powerful zoning committee.
As Madigan sought business for his tax firm, Solis met with Madigan over projects in the alderman’s ward, which then included Chinatown and the trendy West Loop neighborhood near downtown.
But unknown to everyone — including his family — Solis was working for federal agents, recording meetings and phone calls.
“It was critical that the undercover work I was doing remain secret,” Solis, 75, testified in court.
He told jurors that federal agents approached him in June 2016 and he agreed to cooperate to avoid prison for admitted wrongdoing including bribery.
However, Solis could be a problematic witness.
He faced massive financial issues, marital problems after an affair and ethical lapses, including accepting favors from a developer who arranged for Solis to get Viagra and massages “that turned sexual.” He also testified he acted on requests from federal agents, including proposing that Madigan appoint him to a board after he left office.
Defense attorneys called Solis unreliable and blasted his financial wrongdoing, including misspending campaign funds for a trip to Puerto Rico, his son’s school tuition and a car.
“As an alderman and as chair of the zoning committee, you committed many crimes, is that correct?” Madigan attorney Daniel Collins asked Solis during cross examination.
“Yes,” Solis said.
Other witnesses have included U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinksi, who testified about Madigan’s influence in 2018 while she worked as an advisor for Gov. JB Pritzker.
The recordings
Some of the Solis videos are shaky and it's unclear how he recorded them. There’s extended footage of ceilings and office walls. Many calls are short.
But they show how Madigan, who famously didn't have a cellphone or email address, operated.
In January 2018, Madigan called up Solis and asked about a proposed West Loop apartment building.
“Is that going to go ahead? You know why I’m interested,” Madigan says.
Solis asks if Madigan knew the developers.
“No, but I’d like to,” he says.
Solis told jurors that Madigan’s influence would be helpful to him, so he provided introductions.
“I wanted to curry political favor with Mr. Madigan,” Solis told jurors.
The schemes
A sweeping investigation of public corruption in Illinois has already produced convictions of other elected officials and Madigan’s former chief of staff.
Among other schemes, Madigan is accused of using his influence to pass legislation favorable to electric utility ComEd. In return, ComEd allegedly offered Madigan loyalists kickbacks, contracts and jobs where they did little or no work.
“When Madigan saw an opportunity to enrich himself, he took it,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Streicker told jurors.
Defense attorneys have painted Madigan as a devoted public servant, calling him "incorruptible.”
Madigan, who has has “adamantly” denied wrongdoing in the past, hasn't spoken publicly during the trial. He spends the proceedings watching witnesses and jurors intently, often taking notes. Family members including his daughter, former Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, have attended court.
Also standing trial with Madigan is longtime confidant Michael McClain, 76, who already has been found guilty in a separate, related case. Last year, federal jurors convicted McClain and three others of the bribery conspiracy involving ComEd.
The trial is expected to extend into mid-January.
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