Crooked Media - What A Day: Lake of fired

- Former Democratic Rep. and 2020 presidential primary candidate Tulsi Gabbard, ending up exactly where we knew she would.

After a truly humiliating midterm performance (we love to see it), and as we await whatever drek Donald Trump has in store tonight, the GOP is scrambling to try and salvage the scraps they have going into the next Congress.
 

• Let’s start with the good news. Democrat Katie Hobbs won the Arizona governor’s race, flipping the seat and assuring that the state didn’t fall into the hands of pro-Trump Republicans ahead of 2024. Election denier Kari Lake lost by some 20,000 votes, proving that if you’re trying to win independent voters, it’s probably a bad strategy to spend most of your campaign shitting on the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and his family in a state that elected him to the Senate six times. Being completely out of touch with reality didn’t help her, either. MAGA world is, naturally, freaking out over her loss, as she was among Trump’s most prized handpicked candidates. Lake still hasn’t conceded, obviously.
   

• Dems far outperformed expectations up and down the ballot, but the GOP is nevertheless closing in on a slim House majority. Having no clear path to a majority in the House is disappointing for Dems, but the silver lining is that they will be contending with a severely fractured and diminutive Republican majority. In a secret-ballot vote of the GOP conference, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy defeated even-more-conservative Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) in the GOP nomination for Speaker of the House. The tally was 188-31, meaning McCarthy has a long way to go to get to 218 votes from the full House on January 3. Already members of the so-called Freedom Caucus like Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) say there is “nothing” he could do to earn their vote for speaker. In a bizarre but plausible best-case-scenario, this could result in Democrats leveraging these numbers to get the House GOP to nominate a “moderate” Republican as Speaker to get to 218 votes. 
   

• The embarrassing spot the GOP finds itself in falls against a backdrop of a 9 p.m. ET Tuesday speech from disgraced former president Trump (sorry, morning readers), who is expected to announce his candidacy for president. According to a Huffington Post analysis of the latest available Federal Election Commission filings, Trump has hoarded over $94 million in fundraising that he notionally raised to support other Republican candidates. The Don conducted an 11th-hour campaign-spending push through his super PAC, but only spent $15 million across five battleground states—proportionally less in total than he spent trying (and failing) to defeat Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) in the GOP primary.

But wait, there’s more election news we should all know.
 

• Again, and we really can’t stress this enough, Democrats still need to win the Senate runoff in Georgia. Raphael Warnock’s campaign and other Democratic groups filed lawsuits against the state of Georgia to overturn guidance from the Republican secretary of state holding that counties can’t offer Saturday voting ahead of next month’s runoff election. This challenge to the arbitrary rule imposed in 2016 will be fraught with meaning not only for the runoff, but for all future elections in the all-important Peach State where Republicans continue to deploy every voter suppression tactic in the book.
   

• Speaking of the Senate, GOP leadership drama is not contained to the House of Representatives. Senate Republicans have decided to push forward with leadership elections tomorrow despite calls from the far wing of the party for delay. Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) announced a challenge to current Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for the top GOP leadership spot in the upper chamber, the first opposition McConnell has faced in his 15 years at the helm. McConnell replied by saying that Scott is free to run against him, but he doesn’t plan to lose to a first-term Senator. [Cut to all of us at home with popcorn shouting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” at our TVs and computer screens] A self-cannibalizing Republican Party is all we could ask for this holiday season.

As fun as it is to point and laugh at a shambolic GOP, Democratic leadership has to use this time wisely and exploit their weaknesses while they’re down, or risk ceding ground in the next congressional election.

Your Toolkit to Fight Book Bans and Classroom Censorship

Imagine not being able to freely talk at school about our country's history of slavery – or not being able to access books from your public library simply because they speak to issues that impact all of our daily lives, including topics related to race, gender, and sexuality.

This is exactly what state lawmakers across the country are trying to make happen – and it's not only an attack on students' right to learn, it's a threat to everyone's First Amendment rights.

Our lawyers are in courtrooms across the country right now fighting for our freedom to learn free from censorship and discrimination. But here's the thing: We need your help.

Our efforts will be the most powerful and successful when we have a strong backing from the people behind us. So we're going to make this quick – we made you a toolkit to help combat classroom censorship efforts in your own school and school districts.

Whether you're a student or just someone who cares about the freedoms of our educational spaces, this toolkit has all you need to take action in your immediate region – from how school governance rules work to tactics for organizing in your community.

Grab your toolkit today and thank you for being with us on the forefront of this fight for the First Amendment.

For students and educators everywhere,

The ACLU Team

The Polish government says a Russian-made missile killed two Polish citizens near the border of Ukraine today after it convened an emergency security and defense meeting. Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau summoned the Russian ambassador and demanded an explanation for the deadly blast, while President Biden discussed the unfolding crisis of an attack (though perhaps an unintentional one) on a NATO ally with Polish president Andrzej Duda. According to the White House, President Biden also had a separate call with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The explosion followed an intense wave of Russian airstrikes on cities across Ukraine today, which caused widespread blackouts and destruction of residential buildings in the nation’s capital of Kyiv. President Biden remains in Bali for the G-20 Summit, which Russian President Vladimir Putin did not attend, sending his errand boy Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in his stead.

The man accused of breaking into the San Francisco residence of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and attacking her 82-year-old husband Paul with a hammer, David DePape, has pleaded not guilty to federal criminal charges today. We’re still pretty sure he’s guilty.

Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker and wife of Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) testified yesterday that film producer Harvey Weinstein raped her in 2005 when she was beginning her career as a producer and actor. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the city of Kherson yesterday following Russia’s withdrawal. 

New intelligence suggests that Russia may have delayed announcing its withdrawal from the city of Kherson to avoid giving the Biden administration a political win ahead of last Tuesday’s midterms. As we’re all aware by now, Putin is nothing if not a petty bitch. 

Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) has moved closer to victory in the still-undecided Los Angeles mayoral race, with an updated vote tally that has her leading billionaire real-estate tycoon and Republican-until-five-minutes-ago Rick Caruso by four points. Few things in life would be more satisfying than seeing a billionaire light $100 million of his own money on fire in a vanity campaign only to lose. 

A new environmental project in California will capture floodwaters in some areas to ease crippling droughts in others. 

Retail giant Walmart offered a $3.1 billion legal settlement over the toll of prescription opioids sold at its pharmacies, the latest major drug-industry player to offer such a payout for damages. 

The world’s eight-billionth person was born today. Also, experts say that over-consumption by the wealthy, not overpopulation, is draining the world of its resources. 

The Food and Drug Administration announced today that it will review guidance and rules about manufacturing baby formula as part of a strategy to prevent bacterial illnesses similar to the one caused by contamination of Abbott Laboratories products earlier this year. The agency will also consider whether to establish a dedicated group of investigators and reshuffle staff across two of its divisions to better support the regulatory oversight of infant formula. The shutdown of Abbott’s plant in Michigan caused a nationwide formula shortage. Another measure that might help? Enforcing antitrust laws so that one company doesn’t control most of the nation’s baby-formula production.

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Election denier and Nevada GOP Senate candidate Adam Laxalt has conceded to Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV). 

Election denier and Arizona GOP Senate candidate Blake Masters has conceded to Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ).

A judge has overturned Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, which has been effect since July.

President Biden and Indonesian President Joko Widodo announced a climate-finance deal providing $20 billion to help Indonesia move away from coal power. 

Wholesale inflation saw its fourth straight decline, another signal that inflation pressures are easing in the United States.