Leah McElrath
‪@leahmcelrath.bsky.social‬
GOP Rep. Nancy Mace’s former political strategist announces he fired her as a client months ago, calls her a “total loser,” alludes to “extreme narcissism,” and says “the victim card” is “really her only play.”

Mace has recently been engaging in unceasing transphobic rhetoric for attention.




December 20, 2024 at 3:40 PM

The Kyiv Independent - Orban says Hungary proposing ‘trick’ to keep Russian gas shipments via Ukraine

by The Kyiv Independent news desk
December 21, 2024 2:34 PM



Hungary is in talks with Moscow and Kyiv hoping to keep open gas shipments via Ukraine, the country’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Dec. 21.

Ukraine has said it will not extend the transit agreement for Russian gas through its territory, set to expire on Dec. 31.

The decision has prompted concerns from Hungary and other nations, and Orban has now hinted at a potentially unconventional solution to keeping the route open for Budapest.

"We are now trying the trick ... that what if the gas, by the time it enters the territory of Ukraine, would no longer be Russian but would be already in the ownership of the buyers," he said in comments reported by Reuters.

"So the gas that enters Ukraine would no longer be Russian gas but it would be Hungarian gas."

/snip

BrooklynDad_Defiant! - 'Homeless' is NOT a Lie

Take it from a guy who has been there and back

BrooklynDad_Defiant!
Dec 19, 2024



In the New Testament, Jesus told his disciples "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Now, imagine that "person who is rich" is a billionaire, in fact, imagine he is the richest person on the entire planet, who believes that homelessness is a lie.

I kid you not.

For full context, Elon Musk's exact quote is "In most cases, the word “homeless” is a lie. It’s usually a propaganda word for violent drug addicts with severe mental illness." The full context doesn't make the quote any less absurd.



Imagine being wealthy enough to set a pile of $44 billion dollars on fire just to install yourself at the top of an idiotic bro stack, and STILL have enough money left over to end world hunger and end homelessness... but you think the word homeless is a lie.

Well, as a person who has himself been homeless, I can confirm that it is NOT a lie.

/snip

WSJ - (archived: https://archive.ph/iWtew ) Biden Weighs Commuting Sentences of Death Row Inmates

Amid pleas from religious and civil-rights groups, president is considering whether to convert death sentences to life without parole

By Jess Bravin and C. Ryan Barber
Dec. 20, 2024 6:11 pm ET

WASHINGTON—President Biden is considering commuting the sentences of most, if not all, of the 40 men on the federal government’s death row, people familiar with the matter said, a move that would frustrate President-elect Donald Trump’s ability to resume the rapid pace of executions that marked his first term.

A broad coalition of religious and civil-rights groups has been pressing Biden to take the step, and the effort gained momentum earlier this month after Pope Francis, in his weekly address, prayed for the commutation of America’s condemned inmates. If their death sentences were commuted, the prisoners, all convicted of murder, would serve life without parole. Biden, a devout Catholic, spoke with Francis on Thursday and is scheduled to meet with him at the Vatican next month, the White House said.

A decision from the president could come by Christmas, some of the people said. A principal question is whether the president should issue a blanket commutation of all the condemned men, or whether death sentences should remain for the most heinous convicts, these people said.

A White House spokesman said that no final decision had been made.

Attorney General Merrick Garland, who oversees federal prisons, has recommended that Biden commute all but a handful of the sentences, the people familiar with the matter said, excepting a few terrorism and hate-crimes cases. The Justice Department had no immediate comment.

/snip

NBC News - House passes bill to avoid a shutdown, sending it to the Senate hours before the deadline

The bill, which keeps the government funded through March 14, must still pass the Senate before 12:01 a.m. to avoid a shutdown.

Dec. 20, 2024, 11:51 AM EST / Updated Dec. 20, 2024, 6:11 PM EST
By Scott Wong, Sahil Kapur, Ali Vitali, Julie Tsirkin and Kyle Stewart

WASHINGTON — The Republican-controlled House on Friday evening passed a short-term bill to avert a government shutdown, just hours ahead of a deadline that would force U.S. troops, border patrol agents, air traffic controllers and millions of other federal workers to work without pay during the holidays.

The vote was 366-34, with all opposition coming from Republicans and one member voting present. It capped a tumultuous week in the House that foreshadowed how the new Congress in January might deal with a mercurial Donald Trump back in the White House. A two-thirds vote was needed because the bill came to the floor under a fast-track process.

The legislation now heads to the Senate which must pass it before 12:01 a.m. to avert a shutdown.

The package funds the government at current levels through March 14, and includes disaster aid and a farm bill — while stripping out a debt limit extension demanded by President-elect Trump earlier in the week.

Just three days ago, bipartisan House and Senate leaders struck an agreement to keep the government’s lights on, but Trump and his billionaire confidant Elon Musk killed the deal, insisting at the 11th hour it needed to extend or abolish the debt limit to make way for Trump’s agenda next year.

/snip

The Democrats
‪@democrats.org‬

December 20, 2024 at 2:48 PM

MSNBC / Chris Hayes - Violent crime rates are down. Trump and the GOP are noticeably silent about it.

Maybe the falling crime rate will get more attention in a few weeks … when Trump starts taking credit for it.

Dec. 20, 2024, 3:51 PM EST
By Chris Hayes

This is an adapted excerpt from the Dec. 19 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”

One of the “established facts” from President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign — which Republicans just blatantly helped perpetuate — was that crime was up under President Joe Biden. Trump said as much just last week. “We have a country now that’s overridden with crime,” he told NBC News’ Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press.”

“We have to get the criminals out of our country,” Trump continued. “We have to bring down crime. People have to be able to walk across the street and buy a loaf of bread without being shot.”

The problem with that, as we have been reporting for years on “All In,” is that it just isn’t true. Violent crime, particularly murder, saw an unprecedented spike in 2020 — when Trump was president. It continued going up under Biden for a while, but for the last two years, we have seen historic declines nationwide, according to FBI data.

More data keeps rolling in. According to the Real-Time Crime Index, crime is dropping nationwide in pretty much every major city. The biggest drops are in murder rates, which are down by more than 50% in New Orleans and Philadelphia this year, compared with two years earlier. Burglary rates also experienced a double-digit drop across many major cities.

That general trend holds across the board. When crime was going up back in 2020, everyone had their theories and scapegoats. Critics on the right blamed the George Floyd protests and the “radical Democrats” going “soft on crime” and calling to defund the police.

/snip

Raw Story - 'Not going to get better': GOP bemoans chaos as they realize Trump agenda in jeopardy

Matthew Chapman
December 20, 2024 3:49PM ET

Republicans have just gone through days of chaos on Capitol Hill after tech billionaire Elon Musk blew up a bipartisan continuing resolution by threatening to fund primaries of GOP lawmakers, which forced Republicans to replace it with a slimmed-down, partisan version that cut several vital programs, only to watch that version fail to pass it as dozens of their own members revolted.

And according to Semafor's Burgess Everett, it's settling in for some GOP lawmakers that when they take unified control of Congress in January, things are only going to go further off the rails.

“One of the things that I’ve learned about myself, the older I get, the more sanguine [I am] … because otherwise I’d be a screaming mess,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) told Semafor. “It’s not going to get better, like early in the year particularly.”

The shutdown threat comes at a moment when Republicans ought to be rallying together to plan out passing President-elect Donald Trump's agenda, which includes a border security bill and an extension of certain sunsetting provisions of his 2017 tax cut package.

Sen. John Thune (R-SD), the incoming Majority Leader himself, had a similar attitude as the GOP flails to try to keep the government open during Christmas. “Shutdowns are never good. I mean, nobody wins,” he said. He raged against Democrats for not securing the funding earlier in the year and leaving them with the mess in the lame duck session — but acknowledged all of this is a problem for the Republican agenda.

/snip

NYT - See which federal workers would be affected if a spending bill doesn’t pass.

By Lazaro Gamio and Noah Weiland
Dec. 20, 2024, 3:32 p.m. ET

A government shutdown would have significant consequences for more than two million federal employees. Some would be forced to report to work and the rest would be furloughed. None would be paid during the shutdown.

More than two million federal workers would be affected by a shutdown




Both furloughed workers and the employees who would continue working during a shutdown would receive back pay once the president signs a new spending deal into law.

Federal agencies have devised their own plans for a shutdown, including who would be furloughed. Who is furloughed and who must report to work will depend on whether their duties are necessary to protect the government’s operations.

Some of the largest government agencies, including the departments of defense and the treasury, would see more than half of their employees furloughed. The Environmental Protection Agency and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, would each have at least 90 percent of their employees furloughed.

/snip