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- Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer confidently commemorating D-day (June 6, 1944) instead of the actual "date which will live in infamy," the attacks on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941).
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Once again, we did it, Joe. (And Raphael.)
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It’s official! The GOP now has to reckon with the legacy and current reality of its one-time golden-goose/disgraced former president Donald Trump, who has been transformed into ballot-box poison for Republican candidates. The Republican Party has been in a period of “introspection” and “rebuilding” (read: blaming scapegoats) since its supremely embarrassing performance in last month’s midterm elections. Back then, many of Trump’s hand-picked candidates, who stridently peddled his Big Lie, faced humiliating defeats. On Tuesday, the pattern resumed in Georgia’s runoff Senate election. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) won re-election last night against his Republican challenger, former NFL star and Fox News puppet Herschel Walker, meaning Democrats will have a 51-49 majority in the next Senate.
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Many Republican leaders have directly or indirectly lashed out at Trump in frustration over the mounting defeats. Georgia was unique in this election season because of its two incumbent Democratic Senators in a sea of Republican statewide constitutional officers, led by hyperconservative Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA). Herschel Walker was indeed a particularly and hilariously bad candidate, to be sure. He kept lying about being a police officer (we still haven’t recovered from him flashing a fake badge at the debate) and was revealed to have pressured (and paid for) multiple former girlfriends to have abortions. But Walker’s official policy platform was no different from many sitting GOP Senators who don’t have severe CTE to use as an excuse.
- These midterms were structurally lopsided against Democrats, yet they ended up gaining a seat in the upper chamber. It seems there was a nationwide overestimation of both Trump’s popularity and the effect President Biden’s low approval rating would have on midterm races. But it was all worth it to see Fox News’ resident mean girl Laura Ingraham melt down as the race was called, capping it off with “I’m pissed tonight, frankly.” And hey, if the New York State Democratic Party hadn’t been corrupt and inept, Democrats might have kept both majorities! But I digress.
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Fortunately, the GOP’s Trump troubles are far from over.
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On a roll of inviting the dregs of the conservative movement to his Florida resort home, noted “Pizzagate” and QAnon conspiracy theorist Liz Crokin spoke at an event at Mar-a-Lago yesterday and later posed for photos with Trump himself. The event was billed as a fundraiser for a “documentary” on sex trafficking (one of the pillars of the QAnon conspiracy theory is that the world is controlled by a cabal of liberal elites operating a vast child sex-trafficking ring). The film’s website contains multiple falsehoods and claims of mass sex-trafficking in Hollywood. It boasts “Banned by YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and PayPal.” Congrats on the myriad factual inaccuracies!
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And the hits just keep on coming. Lawyers for Trump found reportedly at least two more items marked classified after an outside team hired by Trump searched a storage unit the former president uses in West Palm Beach, FL. Those documents were (again, reportedly) immediately turned over to the FBI. This search for classified materials was one of at least three in recent weeks. The contents of the classified materials remain, well, classified, but it indicates that Mar-a-Lago was not the only place where Trump illegally stored stolen, sensitive materials, and provides further evidentiary support that the former president and his team did not fully comply with a May grand jury subpoena.
Whether the Republican establishment likes it or not, they’re stuck with Trump both as a presidential candidate in 2024 and a figure of outsized influence in their internal party structure. But Trump’s political toxicity is the gift to Democrats that keeps on giving, and they should exploit it whenever they can.
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BIG NEWS everyone! Crooked Coffee’s best-selling coffee accessory, The Cold Brewer, is finally back in stock, just in time for the holidays. The Cold Brewer sold out in a few days when it first launched. And we all know that cold brew isn’t just a summer drink. I am all about year-round cold brew. There’s nothing better than waking up to delicious homemade cold brew, and The Cold Brewer makes it really easy and much more affordable than a daily Starbucks run.
It’s the perfect gift for the coffee-lover in your life or for yourself, because having fresh cold brew in the fridge makes for a perfect afternoon pick-me-up or the ideal grab-and-go when you’re running late in the morning. Plus, if you’re still gift shopping, we have 3 exclusive Holiday Box gift sets available, one for every hard-to-shop-for person on your list. Each box includes 2 bags of coffee plus a fun activity, whether it’s baking the perfect donut, crochet-ing the coolest little penguin, or crafting up a funny refrigerator poem with our custom magnetic poetry set. Perfect for your roommate, your dad, or that dreaded round of “White Elephant” with co-workers.
Head to crooked.com/coffee to grab yours today before they sell out…again.
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German police have arrested at least 25 people tied to an alleged far-right extremist plot to overthrow the country’s government. Prosecutors say the group was influenced by QAnon conspiracy theories and espoused doctrine similar to far-right groups in the United States and across Europe. One-hundred and thirty raids have been conducted across Germany targeting the suspected terrorist organization, which calls itself Reichsbürger (“Reich citizens”) as they allegedly planned an attack on the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament. While only 25 individuals were detained, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office has accused around 50 people of forming a terrorist organization in an effort to eliminate the constitutional order of Germany and establishing a new state modeled after the German Reich of 1871. The group allegedly planned to storm the Reichstag (Nazis really need to get some new moves because this one is played-out), attack the national power grid, and depose the federal government in order to take power by force. Yikes!!
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Correction from yesterday: The Supreme Court heard arguments in Moore v. Harper, the controversial “Independent State Legislature Theory” case, today, with even some of the Court’s conservative justices sounding skeptical of the fringe, bad-faith legal theory.
Congress is poised to terminate the 2021 vaccine mandate for members of the military, despite Defense Secretary Llyod Austin’s support of its continuation, a major capitulation from Democrats.
A report from the Justice Department’s inspector general stated that a series of mistakes in the Federal Bureau of Prisons directly led to notorious Boston gangster Whitey Bulger being beaten to death in 2018 just hours after being moved to a West Virginia prison. The men accused of killing Bulger were clearly somehow made aware of his arrival beforehand.
The Minnesota state pharmaceutical board filed a civil lawsuit against cannabis retailer Northland Vapor, alleging that the company sold edible products containing more than 50 times the state’s legal limit for THC. If anyone has a hookup for those products, let us know.
China announced today that many of its most stringent “zero-Covid” policies will be rolled back, an apparent response to the weeks of protests across the country.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for an unknown matter, suspected to have been raised by conservative groups who claim that her attendance at the 2021 Met Gala exceeded the value of permissible gifts.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been named Time’s Person of the Year. I guess I will have to try harder to be noticed next year.
The New York Times is preparing for more than 1,100 of its union staffers to go on strike Thursday, in what could be the biggest walkout at the paper of public record in almost 50 years. Take a few days off Wordle and don’t cross the picket line!
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Many Western media outlets reported on monday that Iran had abolished its morality police based on a comment made by the country’s attorney general Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, without the context that it had not been confirmed by any other wings of the theocratic government, and that Montazeri’s statement had no bearing on national policy. Iranian state media has denied the morality police has been abolished. On Monday, the country’s sizable protest movement began a concerted effort to hold three days of strikes in which thousands of businesses closed in several parts of the country. Teachers, students, factory workers, and other groups in key sectors are staging strikes and sit-ins as well. The strikes are unlikely to extract concessions from the obstinate leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni, but they are an important component in keeping domestic and foreign pressure on the Islamic Republic after three months of nationwide protests.
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Relive those dreamy National Park memories by giving the gift of Parks this holiday!
Perfect for the nature lover on your list!
From ready-to-ship gift boxes, to home goods, to apparel, to camp gear, we’ve got you covered. Did you know, the National Parks system shoulders a multi-billion dollar deficit? When you support Parks Project, you join our mission to leave it better than we found it. To date, we have contributed over $2,500,000 to projects that restore habitats in parklands.
Check out what's in store.
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