It’s almost Christmas and news producers across the industry are checked out of their jobs, so they used up whatever pre-taped segments they had for this weekend’s Sunday shows. That means that the media missed more than usual this week, as both members of Congress and segment producers alike decamped Washington for the comforting relaxation of home.
Most networks dedicated their time to repeating the same tired narratives about our government’s most recent shutdown scare. According to insiders, Donald Trump isn’t happy after the first big test of his leadership skills went down the toilet after Congress failed to pass his preferred debt deal. Less discussed was how Republicans caved to billionaire Elon Musk, protecting his corporate interests in China even as the House GOP hung working class people out to dry.
But big news stories don’t stop popping up just because the news media isn’t there to cover them. Consider these three especially newsworthy moments you definitely missed if you were glued to the television over the weekend. Let’s dive in.
Congress has made a bad habit of protecting its aging and ailing members, even if that means actively deceiving the American people as to their whereabouts. Think I’m exaggerating? This week, a reporter for the Dallas Express set out to find GOP Rep. Kay Granger, who, despite being the House Appropriations Committee Chair, hasn’t cast a vote since July. And find her they did: at “a local memory care and assisted living home she now calls home.
Granger’s Capitol Hill office phone is forwarded directly to voicemail, while her Texas district office appears to have been shuttered for weeks. According to a Dallas Morning News interview with Granger’s son, Brandon, the longtime public servant has “been having some dementia issues” but is in the “independent living” section of a complex that includes a memory care facility. Granger and her staff have continued to draw paychecks despite this absence. None of the national Sunday shows thought the story was worthy of headline coverage.
Now even some Republicans are saying enough is enough. Texas GOP executive committeeman Rolando Garcia slammed Granger’s deception as a “sad and humiliating way to end her political career,” adding that Granger was “already in visible decline when she ran for re-election in 2022.”
Granger’s team insists she will remain in office. Yikes.
By now Donald Trump’s Cabinet of Horrors is old news for the TV networks, and they’ve largely moved on from earlier major scandals involving Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegeseth and Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard. But overseas newspapers, including London’s The Guardian are writing with growing worry that Trump’s roster of dimwitted diplomats might soon put European and global security at risk. That … seems pretty likely, actually.
Whether it’sfake sheriff and failed Senate candidate Herschel Walker as Ambassador to the Bahamas, or convicted fraudster Charles Kushner as French envoy, or former Trump family hanger-on Kimberly Guilfoyle as America’s woman in Greece, it’s hard to imagine Trump nominating a less qualified and more scatterbrained set of foreign emissaries. Some of the most high-profile picks also know absolutely nothing about the countries they’ll be working in—especially NATO Ambassador nominee Matt Whitaker, who has no experience with military diplomacy, NATO, or Europe. Super!
Despite what the MAGA base thinks, ambassadorships aren’t just plush gigs handed out to friends. Some ambassadorships will play key roles in deciding the future of the Middle East, including the critical Turkish ambassadorship that Trump has offered to campaign donor and alleged foreign agent for the United Arab Emirates Tom Barrack.
It’s no surprise that many career foreign service officers are now debating retiring rather than answer to this long list of uneducated, uninterested nominees. That will leave America exposed abroad at a time of growing global unrest—exactly the situation that Russia, China, and other geopolitical adversaries want.
Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan has been one of Washington’s best-kept secrets, and this week, she racked up yet another win for consumers taken advantage of by the hotel and live event industries. On Thursday, the FTC finalized a rule requiring those businesses to disclose hidden “junk fees” upfront, part of Khan’s effort to improve transparency in the notoriously shady hotel booking and concert ticket purchasing world. Shockingly, even some of the FTC’s Republican commissioners stsupported the proposal.
Consumers collectively waste over 50 million hours every year trying to hunt down the actual price of hotel rooms and concert tickets that industry leaders like Ticketmaster do their best to bury under fees that often aren’t visible until the final step in an online purchase.
Consumers can thank music’s most successful woman for the FTC’s … swift action. The debacle around purchasing tickets for Taylor Swift’s recently-concluded Eras Tour lit a fire under the federal government, resulting in not just the new FTC rule, but also a bipartisan House bill to promote more transparency in how concert tickets, airline fares, and hotel rooms are sold.
Next, Congress says they’ll build on the FTC’s new rule by tackling price collusion and possible antitrust violations by the nation’s largest entertainment vendors and hospitality companies. But good luck achieving anything when the nation’s next president owns a chain of overpriced hotels and entertainment venues.
Keep the conversation going all week by sharing stories you think the media missed with me at @themaxburns on Bluesky! And remember: If you’re tuned to cable news, you aren’t even getting half of the story.
Until next week, keep your eyes peeled and stay inquisitive, friends—and Happy Holidays!
