Yay! Christmas arrived early in the Kibwezi Forest: We just received the most beautiful gift, in the form of Lima Lima’s brand new baby boy! He is Lima Lima’s first child and our second Umani grandbaby. The story began on Tuesday, 3rd December 2024. That morning, Lima Lima and her fellow ‘nightclubbers’ linked up with the dependent orphans, as they always do. At the mud bath, we noticed Lima Lima rolling around on the dust pile, clearly trying to soothe her heavily pregnant belly. When she got to her feet, Keeper Evans put his ear to her side — as we joked, she was getting a house call from her personal obstetrician! The story began on Tuesday, 3rd December 2024. That morning, Lima Lima and her fellow ‘nightclubbers’ linked up with the dependent orphans, as they always do. At the mud bath, we noticed Lima Lima rolling around on the dust pile, clearly trying to soothe her heavily pregnant belly. When she got to her feet, Keeper Evans put his ear to her side — as we joked, she was getting a house call from her personal obstetrician! In hindsight, Lima Lima was in the early stages of labour.
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“bug-eyed fascist ideologues” We’ve warned plenty here about Christian nationalism, the New Apostolic Reformation, and the Seven Mountains mandate. Considering the Second Coming of Trump already features cabinet nominees associated with efforts to turn our democracy into a theocracy (what’s the big deal about swapping out two letters?), it’s time for another look. Amanda Marcotte this morning offers a hair-raising glimpse at Salon. “You think you ‘know’ what’s in it,” Marcotte introduces it on Bluesky, “but I promise it’s much crazier. I went deep in the research on this. Lots of quotes from Christian nationalists Trump has appointed, and experts.” Plenty of those, but some key points before you click over to read the whole thing: Just because we’ve heard this all before does not mean they are any less of a threat this time around. Believe them the first time. They don’t want to govern; they want to rule. The oligarchs behind Trump are in it for more money and power and because they are Randian adolescents. The Christian nationalists are after dominance with a capital “D.”
Oh great, another one: Donald Trump’s pick to head the Internal Revenue Service pressed the agency to investigate and consider stripping the country’s leading animal welfare group of its tax status after it supported an initiative to protect dogs, according to documents reviewed by The Lever. If former Missouri Republican Rep. Billy Long is confirmed to run the Internal Revenue Services (IRS), he would be in a position to strip — and effectively shut down — the tax status of such nonprofit groups whose missions he disagrees with. And Long could have new powers to do so if Congress enacts a pending House-passed bill to grant the Trump administration new powers to rescind the tax status of groups it deems “terrorist supporting organizations.” In 2011, Long signed a letter pushing the IRS to launch a probe of the tax-exempt status of the Humane Society of the United States, a nonprofit that focuses on animal welfare and opposes animal cruelty. The letter followed the Humane Society’s support of a successful Missouri ballot measure strengthening regulations on dog breeders.
Whether Trump abandons Pete Hegseth for Ron DeSantis, the reports that he’s been in talks with DeSantis about a cabinet position since last summer is a sad comment on Ron Desantis. Like so many others, he abandoned all sense of personal pride and integrity to suck up to a man who humiliated him in the most grotesque ways possible: Donald J. Trump plumbed new depths of degradation in his savage takedown of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a yearlong campaign of emasculation and humiliation that helped force one of the party’s rising stars out of the presidential race after just one contest and left him to pick up the pieces of his political future. In front of enormous rally audiences, Mr. Trump painted Mr. DeSantis as a submissive sniveler, insisting that he had cried and begged “on his knees” for an endorsement in the 2018 Florida governor’s race. In a series of sexually charged attacks, Mr. Trump suggested — without a shred of proof — that Mr. DeSantis wore high heels, that he might be gay and that perhaps he was a pedophile. He promised that intense national scrutiny would leave Mr. DeSantis whining for “mommy.” Mr.
Resistance could be fruitful Step back from the ledge. Take a break from news about the punishments the Jan. 20 Revolution plans to roll out against its enemies, and against friends who won’t publicly abase themselves before the king. “That wasn’t humiliating enough. Grovel lower!” Need a redoubt against Trumpism that doesn’t require a passport? Fifteen blue states, especially those in which Democrats control both executive and legislative branches, are preparing to hold the line against the incoming Trump administration’s predations. Their weapon of choice? Federalism. What a concept. Democrats and their lawyers have laid plans to defend reproductive rights and hold the line against mass deportations. But more than that, they’ve outlined “a new progressive vision of federalism—pugilistic and creative, audacious and idealistic.” They mean to “filch tactics” deployed to punishing effect by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott who has perfected a form of “hegemonic federalism” to work his will and annoy Democratic state governments.
Sigh: A hearing of the bipartisan task force investigating the assassination attempts against President-elect Donald Trump devolved into a shouting match when Republican Rep. Pat Fallon accused acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe of “playing politics” when he attended a 9/11 memorial event with the nation’s top leaders. Yelling between the two broke out after Fallon displayed a photo of Trump, President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Vice President-elect JD Vance at the event in New York City in September. Rowe was standing directly behind Harris, then a candidate for the presidency, in the second row. “Who is usually, at an event like this, closest to the president of the United States, security-wise?” Fallon, of Texas, asked Rowe. “The SAC of the detail,” Rowe answered, referring to the special agent in charge of security. Fallon then questioned whether the acting director was serving in that role at the 9/11 memorial. Rowe did not answer directly.
Oh, the stories behind these stories It’s getting noticed, that story I mentioned Tuesday about Judge Jefferson Griffin, the losing Republican N.C. Supreme Court candidate’, and his desperate attempt to cancel 60,000 votes in an effort to narrow the 734 vote gap between himself and sitting Justice Allison Riggs. Judd Legum’s Popular Information: The contest between Griffin and Riggs was very close. The initial count showed Riggs with a lead of 734 votes out of 5.5 million cast. Griffin then exercised his legal right to request a machine recount of all ballots. After that recount, Riggs was still ahead by the same margin. Griffin has now requested a second recount of the ballots, this time by hand. Under North Carolina’s procedures, there will first be a hand recount of 3% of the ballots cast. If the North Carolina Election Board determines that the partial hand recount revealed a sufficient number of discrepancies to suggest the outcome could change, a full hand recount will take place. There is nothing particularly unusual about requesting recounts in close elections.
Look who’s complaining about partisan manipultion of the courts: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) vented his displeasure Monday after two Democratic-appointed federal judges reversed their decisions to retire in what appear to be efforts to stop President-elect Trump from nominating their successors. McConnell called the unusual decisions to forgo retirement following Trump’s sweeping victory last month a “partisan” gambit that would undermine the integrity of federal courts. “They rolled the dice that a Democrat could replace them, and now that he won’t, they’re changing their plans to keep a Republican from doing it,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. You cannot make this shit up. McConnell is the guy who held open a lifetime appointment Supreme Court seat until Trump could fill it and then rushed through another one so that he could again allow Trump to fill it. Shamelessness is their superpower.
Brian Beutler’s newsletter today proposes the idea that in light of the Hunter Biden pardon statement, in which Biden alluded to serious prosecutorial abuses in the case, that Biden needs to tell everything they know about Trump’s and the Republicans’ abuses before he leaves office. He writes: We don’t know what these Democrats chose to leave buried. But the Hunter Biden saga, culminating in his Sunday pardon, and his father’s accompanying statement justifying the decision, all suggest the party still fails to grasp the importance of sunlight, accountability, and clear communication. The election is over and they lost, but now the question is whether they will cede all power to the GOP in six weeks without doing everything they still can to inform and protect the country Between the lines, it’s clear Biden knows quite a lot that never made big splashy headlines.
Like Trump’s loyalty is a one-way street. So is hypocrisy where the press is concerned. Kevin Kruse, the Princeton historian, caught my attention Monday night when he posted the cancellation of his Washington Post subscription. Kruse posted a screenshot of the Post’s landing page making the Hunter Biden pardon out to be the biggest national story since Nov. 5. In disgust, Kruse threw up his hands and hit “cancel. “ The Post’s front page caught me by surprise because I was otherwise tied up with North Carolina Republicans trying to cancel 60,000 votes, including those of several friends. More on that in a minute. Marcy Wheeler has an explanation for the blanket coverage of a non-story: How Jeff Bezos Smothered Pete Hegseth News because Hunter Biden Was Pardoned of Already Declined Charges Author/journalist Mikel Jollet replied that the focus perfectly encapsulated what’s wrong with American journalism: Is it a story? Sure. But every newspaper in America devoting front page headlines to Hunter fucking Biden while Trump appoints a cabal of rapists, racists and con-men to positions of enormous power is MADNESS.