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A mysterious group linked to Patagonia has been accused of making what appear to be illegal “straw donor” contributions.

The post Patagonia’s Ties to a Dark-Money Operation Bankrolling Democratic Candidates appeared first on The Intercept.

The House Ethics Committee released the Gaetz report today. It was even worse than we thought: Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., paid for sex with a 17-year-old who “had just completed her junior year in high school,” according to a House Ethics Committee report that accuses the one-time attorney general nominee of potentially spending more than $90,000 on sex and drugs while a member of Congress. A draft of the final report, first obtained by CBS News and other outlets, was made public following a committee vote earlier this month to release the panel’s findings. Gaetz, who was investigated for alleged sex trafficking by the Department of Justice, has not been charged with a crime. “The Committee determined there is substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress,” the report states, per CBS News.

But it’s not just about mental acuity I’ve been on a rolling rant lately about the age of Democrats in top leadership. I’m not the only one concerned about the gerontocracy. Charlie Sykes comments on the disappearance of Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), 81, who seems to have vanished from Congress in July. “Since early September, my health challenges have progressed making frequent travel to Washington both difficult and unpredictable,” Granger said in a statement to Axios this week. She’s now in an assisted living facility. Her son told reporters she’s having “dementia issues.” Sykes writes: Once again, the moral questions of America’s political gerontocracy reveal themselves. This is an especially sensitive subject, because so many of us have loved ones—parents, grandparents, siblings—who are in cognitive decline. They deserve our consideration, compassion, and honesty. That’s also true for members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, and presidents. But the stakes there are much higher, and in those cases, sometimes compassion means being truthful about when it’s time to move on.

As I had hoped, Joe Biden commuted the death sentences of all but three federal prisoners to life without parole. Considering that he is a committed Catholic and the pope himself petitioned him to do it, I’m not surprised. He left three heinous mass murderers (Tree of Life, Boston Bombing and the Charleston Church) on death row which is disappointing for those of us who believe that the principle at stake is that the state should not be in the business of killing people. But I can understand why he would do it, particularly considering the inevitable blowback for the commutations, which is fierce. Salon reports: President Joe Biden heeded the calls of anti-death penalty campaigners and spared all but three federal prisoners from the threat of execution on Monday, commuting a total of 37 sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In a statement, Biden, who has overseen a moratorium on federal executions even as federal prosecutors continue to seek the death penalty, cast the move as an act of mercy.

Tom and Jerry in The Night Before Christmas (1941)The toys under the tree accurately represent what was available at the time. This is also the first time Tom and Jerry called a truce. If they can do it, maybe we all can.Merry Christmas, everyone. 🐈🐭🎅 pic.twitter.com/DMzxFH3b1m — The Sting (@TheStingisBack) December 24, 2024 Tom and Jerry in The Night Before Christmas (1941) The toys under the tree accurately represent what was available at the time. This is also the first time Tom and Jerry called a truce. If they can do it, maybe we all can. Merry Christmas, everyone. — Thanks again, folks, for your generosity. I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. Here’s hoping you have a lovely Christmas Eve, whether you celebrate with friends and family or are happily solo relaxing and enjoying the long winter night. (Or for those of you in the southern hemisphere, enjoying the beautiful summer weather!” ) Happy Hollandaise! cheers,digby

Trump’s on a new crusade to seize territory One of the more annoying conceits of the MAGA cult is its insistence that Donald Trump is some kind of religious figure dedicated to bringing world peace and mutual understanding among all of humankind. They even insist that he’s been cheated out of a well-deserved Nobel Peace Prize. That anyone could believe that about the most hostile, aggressively insulting, vengeance seeking, demagogue this country has ever elected to high office is enough to make you wonder if there are hallucinogens in the water supply. Setting aside his promises to wreak revenge on his political opponents and round up and deport mass numbers of people, including American children, there is the simple fact that his first term did not feature no war or death at the the hands of the US military as he and his acolytes so often claim. Despite his promise to end the “forever war” in Afghanistan it continued under his watch. It was left to President Biden to do the difficult task of ending it and take the heat that he was too cowardly to take. And naturally Trump criticized him for it.

Nate Cohn at The Upshot makes a useful observation in his newsletter today (gift link) There’s a lot about politics that’s hard to predict, but there’s something you can count on every four years: One party loses a presidential election, and the recriminations begin. Every four years, the post-election fight seems to play out the same way. Every move of the losing campaign is questioned and scrutinized. The party’s center blames the activists for alienating swing voters. The activists blame the center for failing to mobilize the base. And no matter what, you’ll find each pundit concluding that the party’s way forward is to do exactly what that pundit has been arguing for all along. While you might not guess it from my tone, these debates do matter. They shape the strategy of the next midterm campaign, they can change the policies supported by elected officials, and they even influence how ordinary voters cast their ballots in future presidential primaries. Still, there’s a reason you could probably tell my eyes roll at the prospect of most election postmortems. In hindsight, they don’t usually look great.

I wish I could say with confidence that a headline like that (on Christmas Eve no less!) Matt Gaetz is toast but I’m afraid I just can’t. Even that headline in the Wall St. Journal probably doesn’t hurt his chances of winning office or becoming a Fox star. MAGA loves him. I could easily see him becoming the Governor of Florida. It’s possible that the only thing normal people will get out of this disgraceful episode is Gaetz’s departure from the back bench of the House and some moments like these: Classic Meidas moment pic.twitter.com/xndiBP3fL2 — MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) December 24, 2024

Thanks again, friends. I am so very grateful for your support after all these years. I can hardly believe it, to tell you the truth. It’s a Christmas miracle every year. It means we can keep going over the next year as we confront whatever this weird political zeitgeist is about to bring us. I wanted to take a moment today to say thank you to my good friend Tom Sullivan. He has been holding down the morning shift for many years here at Hullabaloo and I thank my lucky stars every day that I asked him to contribute here all those years ago. I had liked him the minute I met him and his lovely wife Sarah at a Netroots confab back in the day and I especially liked his writing and commentary. He’s a natural blogger, someone who understands the form (and yes, there IS a specific form) and executes it perfectly. I couldn’t ask for anything more in a co-blogger. But Tom is also doing God’s work down in North Carolina which has become a petri dish for right wing electoral shenanigans.

Not so fast It’s one of the classic blunders. Not the most famous — “never get involved in a land war in Asia” — nor the most recent — “everything Trump touches dies” — but it’s up there. Men assume their expertise in one area of human endeavor makes them experts in another. (It’s always men, isn’t it?) President Elon Musk and billionaire-dilettante Vivek Ramaswamy are joining the Trump 2.0 administration (1st classic blunder) to operate as his proposed, informal Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Never having worked in government before, the pair mean to “to cut the federal government down to size.” And inflict pain on the little people. Piece of cake. Except. The irony come Jan. 20 is that Trump, the naif in 2016, now brings experience, if not wisdom, to his White House job. Musk and Ramaswamy are the overconfident naifs (2nd classic blunder). MSNBC’s Jen Psaki invited Bob Bauer, former White House Counsel to Barack Obama and Jack Goldsmith, former Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel under George W.