For Eric Adams, Albania Is the New York Of the Balkans
Hello, it’s the weekend. It’s The Weekender ☕️
There is a long list of famous and infamous people whose roots can be traced back to Albania, including pop singer Dua Lipa, Mother Theresa, dictator Enver Hoxha and the late comedian John Belushi. And now disgraced former New York City mayor Eric Adams has joined the ranks of famous Albanians.
On Friday, the Albanian Daily News reported that Adams was granted citizenship via a special decree from the country’s president, Bajrant Begaj. This news was later confirmed by other media.
In fact, it all fits the Adams brand. As mayor, he liked to declare that various cities around the world shared a kinship with New York. Since leaving office late last year, Adams has appeared in Dubai and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Adams’ son, Jordan Coleman, also had a fledgling career in reality TV and rap based in Albania. And even though he was vying to rule the Big Apple, it was never really clear whether Adams actually lived in the city.
Additionally, Adams is also a noted lover of international travel. In 2024, he was indicted for accepting bribes from foreign sources, including cheap plane tickets and hotel stays. The charges were controversially dismissed by President Donald Trump’s Justice Department, but the scandal helped derail Adams’ re-election bid.
As Adams continues his research into cryptocurrency tokens and other international business ventures, it is worth noting that Albania has a robust extradition treaty with the United States. Adams did not respond to a text message from TPM, so we have no idea what he is doing in Albania or where he might end up next. However, it was perhaps Ms. Lipa, that other famous Albanian, who summed up the situation best in her 2023 hit song “Houdini,” in which she noted, “I come and I go.”
“I’m not here for long,” Lipa sang. “Catch me or I’m going to Houdini.”
This is something the star has in common with his (newly) Albanian compatriot. Catch Adams while you can! Today is Tirana. Tomorrow? Who knows!
-Hunter Walker
Should people calm him down with this whole “TACO” thing?
The TACO debate reached new heights this week when President Trump threatened to rain destruction on Iran. The world collectively held its breath Tuesday, waiting to see whether Trump would follow through on his warning about wiping out “an entire civilization,” possibly via nuclear war, or find a way to deescalate the situation at the last minute. In what has become somewhat predictable behavior from our very erratic president, he eventually backtracked, saying that both sides had agreed to a two-week ceasefire. (Which has not held since).
Shortly after the announcement, social media filled with cheers of “TACO Trump” and that disturbing AI image of the president’s head superimposed on a hard taco. But amid the celebration and mockery, many critics asked if we could finally put an end to the “TACO” nickname. Joking about avoiding war crimes, focusing on the president rather than the Iranian people whose lives remain in peril, and taunting Trump as a “chicken” for not acting on his most destructive and murderous impulses may not be the best trend, they pointed out.
“Please stop saying TACO. We’re talking about an ungodly number of people who could die or be maimed. Now is not the time for cutesy internet slang. We need to move away from this bizarre desensitization,” wrote Jared Yates Sexton, political analyst and author of the Dispatches From a Collapse State newsletter.
The nickname debate dates back to Trump’s first term. Many of Trump’s enemies have adopted wacky names for him (insert your cheeto and Drumpf comments here); others on the left groaned in response, wondering if it was a good idea to make Trump the permanent main character instead of talking about the damage his policies were causing and proposing solutions, and looking at what they saw as the cheesy online “blue MAGA” movement. Supporters of the nickname countered that they were simply trying to maintain some levity in the face of an extraordinarily gloomy news cycle and bring the larger-than-life president down to size — just as he does with all of his nicknames made to mortify his political enemies.
The epithet “TACO” – or “Trump Always Chickens Out” – emerged last May, when a Financial Times columnist pointed out that the president would quickly walk back announcements of high tariffs when markets predictably panicked. That columnist, Robert Armstrong, expressed concerns that the nickname might reach the famously thin-skinned president and provoke him into action.
“I have this slight worry that now that he knows the expression, and it’s stuck in his head, he’ll stop chickening out, which is exactly the outcome I don’t want,” he told CBC.
It’s definitely worth considering!
—Allegra Kirkland
Another threat to mifepristone moves closer to the Supreme Court
Judge David C. Joseph, a Trump appointee to the Louisiana District Court, issued a credulous opinion this week about the supposed dangers of mifepristone — but did not impose on Louisiana the abortion restrictions it wanted, at least for now.
The red state wants to reimpose restrictions on the drug, primarily requiring in-person dispensing and banning dispensing by mail. These restrictions were temporarily lifted during the COVID pandemic and the FDA officially codified them in 2023.
Joseph put the case on hold, highlighting the Trump FDA’s claims that it is reevaluating the safety of mifepristone (an anti-abortion mainstay). Louisiana appealed to the ultra-conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The case echoes FDA vs. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicineanother attempt to ban or restrict mifepristone. A unanimous Supreme Court rejected this initiative in 2024, ruling that the anti-abortion doctors who had filed the complaint did not have standing to act.
Louisiana v. FDA has similar status issues; the state, with its near-total ban on abortion, is looking for wounds on which to base the challenge to the lifting of restrictions.
Joseph swallowed the state’s tenuous and largely hypothetical arguments.
“In this post-Dobbs In the regulatory context, there is evidence that REMS 2023 was approved without adequate consideration, at least in part, as part of an effort to circumvent the ability of anti-abortion states to regulate abortion,” he wrote. “Similarly, there is evidence that the consequences of this action were predictable: out-of-state providers and associated entities would expand access to mifepristone in ways that would reach jurisdictions like Louisiana. These actions are causing concrete and ongoing harm to Louisiana, as detailed below.
This is a complete inversion of federalism, where a federal agency must be responsive to state-level abortion regimes. Louisiana has also made some classic anti-abortion arguments, including that it might have to pay for mifepristone-induced emergency room visits for Medicaid recipients.
-Kate Riga
DOJ faces another setback in election data crusade
A federal judge on Thursday dismissed the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Massachusetts — the latest legal setback in a series of similar actions against the DOJ’s ongoing crusade to seize sensitive state voter data.
Few states complied with the department’s unprecedented request for election data, prompting the DOJ to file lawsuits against thirty states in an attempt to force them to comply with the Trump administration’s excesses.
So far, the DOJ has demanded private voter data from at least 44 states and Washington, DC. This data includes things like social security numbers and driver’s license numbers. It’s unclear exactly what the DOJ intends to do with this information, but the entire campaign, as experts told TPM, is undoubtedly a way to stoke fears about the security and integrity of the nation’s election system — and a way for the Trump federal government to try to exert lawless control over states’ rights to administer elections.
The DOJ’s data requests extensively cite provisions of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), and the Civil Rights Act of 1960 (CRA) to justify their request. But none of these laws give the DOJ the authority to demand this type of protected data.
In his ruling Thursday, former President Barack Obama-appointed district court judge Leo Sorokin noted that the DOJ failed to provide a “basis” for its request.
“The United States’ complaint fails for the simple reason that the Attorney General’s request was inconsistent with Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the law on which it purports to rely,” Sorokin wrote in his ruling.
“The Attorney General’s request for the Massachusetts statewide voter registration list was apparently deficient. It failed to satisfy a mere requirement imposed by Congress as a prerequisite to obtaining records under the authority of the Civil Rights Act of 1960,” the order states.
Thursday’s decision is the fifth such loss for the DOJ’s election data campaign so far.
In recent months, federal courts have also thrown out cases in Oregon, California and Michigan. And a federal judge in Georgia threw out a similar case in January because the lawsuit was filed in the wrong city.
—Khaya Himmelman
