Paraguay's President Quits, Gets Impeached Anyway

Read the episode (Narration script)

Greetings once again and welcome to Political Science. It's Friday, November 6th. Let's see what the hell's been going on.

In Paraguay, a bank that claimed about sixty percent of the country's adults as customers has collapsed, and it has taken the president most of the way down with it. On Thursday, Santiago Peña announced his resignation by video. Minutes later, the lower house of Congress voted seventy-eight to nothing to impeach him anyway.

The bank is Ueno. Under Peña, a decades-old finance company won a digital banking license, handed out cash back on groceries, sponsored the national soccer team and put its name on the main stadium. It also collected around eight hundred million dollars in public money, including state pension and health funds. Peña held shares in its holding company until early last year and appointed the former head of its predecessor company to run the central bank, which supervised it.

This week regulators seized Ueno and froze about three million customers' accounts. Retirees lost access to pensions paid through it. Its own employees couldn't reach their salaries. Riot police fired rubber pellets at crowds chanting for Peña's head.

Peña apologized and denies wrongdoing. Lawmakers pressed ahead with impeachment because opposition senators argue that a simple resignation preserves his path to a lifetime Senate seat, with protections that could shield him from prosecution. Congress hasn't accepted the resignation, the Senate summoned him to present his defense Friday, and the attorney general has opened three criminal investigations. Even his political mentor, former president Horacio Cartes, backed impeachment. Congress has approved a process to repay depositors, who are now lining up at other banks hoping to get their own money back.

In California, Governor Gavin Newsom commuted every death sentence in the state on Thursday. That's five hundred and forty-eight people, now serving life without parole, the largest clearing of a death row in modern American history.

California hasn't executed anyone since 2006, and Newsom imposed a moratorium in 2019. What changes is permanence: a future governor can't restart executions for these people. His office noted that two hundred and twenty waited fifteen years or more just to be assigned the lawyer they're entitled to for challenging their convictions. Newsom acknowledged the decision could surface excruciating memories for victims' families. The death penalty itself stays on the books. Only voters can remove it, and they declined to in 2012. In 2016 they voted to speed executions up.

On the same day, Florida, Alabama and Indiana each carried out an execution. Florida's was its nineteenth this year, tying its record.

In Somalia, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud unlawfully extended his own term. His four-year mandate expired in May, and the extra year parliament approved in March can't apply to it, the court said. The court also voided his firing of the chief justice the day before. A former prime minister accused the president of sending security forces into the court, and photos in Somali media appeared to show armed personnel inside. The court gave political leaders thirty days to agree on an election plan and ninety to hold a vote.

In Washington, President Trump's two-hundred-and-fifty-foot triumphal arch won final approval Thursday night and was blocked a few hours later. The National Capital Planning Commission voted eight to four after a call-in hearing that ran nine and a half hours and crashed repeatedly. Administration appointees voted for it, District of Columbia representatives against. Early Friday, Judge Tanya Chutkan halted construction for fourteen days.

Earlier Thursday, Trump signed an order declaring the gold-trimmed Oval Office a national monument, so that, in his words, no one can rip it down to build something in a slightly different shape. The order itself preserves the next president's right to redecorate. On the desk while he signed was a red cap reading "Veto."

Harmeet Dhillon, head of the Justice Department's civil rights division, resigned Thursday, the department's first senior departure since Democrats won Congress. Under Dhillon, the division dropped many discrimination cases and turned toward admissions and antisemitism claims at universities. It sued more than two dozen states for their voter rolls and lost every case. Attorney General Todd Blanche praised her service. Democrats take over House committees in January, with the Justice Department expected near the top of their list.

And in Mississippi, Democrat Scott Colom now leads Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith by about eighteen hundred votes, with up to twenty thousand ballots outstanding and voters able to fix affidavit ballots until Tuesday. The state Republican chairman says Republicans will accept a lawful result. Colom's breakout ad was built on Hyde-Smith answering a question about beef prices by noting that there are so many proteins to choose from.

That should do it for today. And remember, if you keep your expectations low, you'll never be disappointed. Thanks for listening, see you next time.