One thousand Florida manatees are on the brink of starvation because manmade pollution has depleted their food supply, and the US Fish & Wildlife Service will test a plan to feed wild manatees without making them dependent on human food sources, the Associated Press reports.

USFWS, state officials and private groups are joining resources on a test program to feed a few of the sea mammals in an isolated location at a Florida Power & Light plant in Cape Canaveral, where manatees congregate in cold winter months because of the warm water discharge from the plant.

The test will involve dropping green vegetables like lettuce, cabbage and spinach to the animals via a conveyor belt to minimize contact with humans.  In Florida, it is illegally for people to directly feed manatees.

The estate of British author George Orwell has approved a new version of his classic dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four written from a feminist perspective, with Winston’s lover, Julia, as protagonist, The Guardian reports.

Set in an invasive totalitarian state, Nineteen Eighty-Four tells the story of Winston Smith, a worker in The Ministry of Truth, which in its very Trumpian manner rewrites history to match the narrative of Big Brother, the supreme power in Oceania.

“[I]n some ways she was far more acute than Winston, and far less susceptible to Party propaganda … She also stirred a sort of envy in him by telling him that during the Two Minutes Hate her great difficulty was to avoid bursting out laughing,” Orwell writes describing Julia in the novel. “But she only questioned the teachings of the Party when they in some way touched upon her own life. Often she was ready to accept the official mythology, simply because the difference between truth and falsehood did not seem important to her.”

In a rare bipartisan show of support, a $768 billion defense spending bill passed the House by a 363-to-70 vote Tuesday after partisan provisions were excluded from the final bill, the New York Times reports.

The final legislation removed a requirement for females over the age of 18 to register with Selective Service; a repeal of the 2002 Iraq War authorization; and sanctions for a Russian pipeline that was 95% completed during the Trump administration.

The allotment provides additional funds for military efforts to detect, identify, prevent and avenge cyberattacks, and it provides funds to increase cybersecurity.  The bill funds initiatives to counter Chinese aggression and to assist Ukraine against Russia. 

The Boeberts have your six, @RepThomasMassie!

(No spare ammo for you, though) pic.twitter.com/EnDYuXaHDF

— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) December 8, 2021

“The President has claimed executive privilege,” says former White House Chief of Staff (and used shirt salesman) Mark Meadows says.  “I’m going to honor that. Not going to be the first Chief of Staff to waive that. It’s not mine to waive.”

The President hasn’t claimed executive privilege.  Donald Trump has, but it’s not his to claim because he’s not president.  And besides, Meadows told Hannity about discussions he and Trump had on January 6th, presumably voiding any executive privilege.

“Roger Stone, a 3rd witness under subpoena, told the 1/6 committee he, too, will invoke the 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid testifying & producing documents. He joins Jeffrey Clark & John Eastman in pleading the 5th.” —Luke Broadwater of the New York Times

Determined to avoid another perceived failure to help Americans overseas, the Biden Administration is considering plans for evacuating Americans from Ukraine, which is currently under threat of a Russian invasion, if hostilities increase, CNN reports.

The Pentagon is leading the logistics effort, while the State Department is updating administration and Congressional leaders on the situation along the Russia-Ukraine border, where Russia has amassed troops and equipment.

“The Department of Defense is a planning organization and must be ready for any manner of contingencies around the world. We do a lot of thinking about a lot of scenarios. But there is no demand signal for civilian evacuations in Ukraine, and it would be wrong to conclude that there is an active effort in the Pentagon to prepare for them,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said in a statement.

“Well, military action could mean that we stand off with our ships in the Black Sea and we rain destruction on Russian military capability, it could mean that,” Republican Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker said on Fox Business.  “It could mean that we could participate, and I would not rule that out.  I would not rule out American troops on the ground.  We don’t, do you know we don’t rule out first use nuclear action.”

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have reportedly reached an agreement on a debt ceiling deal that would gain the support of at least 10 Republican Senators to pass, the Washington Post reports.

The proposal will not raise the debt ceiling–which must be addressed again by mid-February–but instead it allows Democrats to use a Senate procedure to avoid the need for Republicans to vote on the measure.

The bill will have the support of Democrats in the House, with Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrangling support among her caucus and House Republicans bidding to see who can make the most outrageous floor speech against the bill.  Pelosi intends to bring the bill for a vote on Tuesday night. 

In a time when science deniers cling to the results of a single study to dispute mainstream medical recommendations, justifying their use of a horse dewormer or an antimalarial drug instead of tested drugs to fight a pandemic, a new report might give them fodder for their online comments.

According to the Associated Press, scientists undertook the task of replicating fifty experiments written up in respected science journals like Cell, Science and Nature between 2010 and 2012.  The papers presented some of the more hopeful advances in oncology in the past 20 years, and those results were used to promote groundbreaking treatments for cancer patients. In 54% of the re-stagings, the scientists could not replicate the results of the originally described experiments.

The inability to duplicate results does not rule out eccentricities in the singular results from being effective in the fight against cancer; it means that the results were not as certain as initial reviews of the data presented. 

“In all likelihood, more eligible voters cast ballots for Joe Biden than Donald Trump. We found limited instances where ineligible persons voted or attempted to cast ballots. We found no evidence of more than one vote being cast in the name of the same voter. And our analysis of the results and voting patterns does not give rise to an inference of fraud” says the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) in the toplines of the conclusions to their review of the 2020 election in the state.

The real dick punch to the MAGA clowns in the report comes with “Donald Trump won communities that used Dominion voting machines with 57.2%, an increase from 2016. WILL’s review found that jurisdictions that used Dominion voting machines had no effect on the expected vote total.”

This is all of course tempered with usual song and dance of “It is almost certain that in Wisconsin’s 2020 election the number of votes that did not comply with existing legal requirements exceeded Joe Biden’s margin of victory” in the opener. What they want to say is that Biden’s margin of victory was wholly comprised of votes that do not meet the legal requirements – but they can’t since they don’t have all of the evidence necessary to conclude as much. They’re perfectly happy concluding that those votes might have theoretically made the difference, however.

Most of the recommendations at the end of the report for improving “election integrity” are reasonable enough – which is why they probably just aren’t going to fly with Republicans. Stuff like adding security cameras to ballot drop boxes, defining a statewide standard for curing ballot errors, and counting early ballots starting the day prior to election day aren’t going to be all that interesting to fanboys who want to eliminate ballot drop boxes, curing, and early voting altogether. But the proposed changes are probably going to be the least of WILL’s problems now that they’ve committed the grave heresy of concluding that Joe Biden won Wisconsin legitimately in 2020.

Twenty years ago today, minus three days, an attack on American film made its way to VHS and DVD, nearly six months after it first devastated theaters. Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer, masterminds of 1995’s action hit Bad Boys, 1996’s even bigger action hit The Rock, and 1998’s mostly stupid and melodramatic asteroid apocalypse hit Armageddon, came together again to capitalize on World War II’s resurgence in cinema following 1998’s epics Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line. Toss in the historical romance of 1997’s Titanic and the then-upcoming 60th anniversary of the real-life attack and all the warning signs were there. Pearl Harbor was inevitable.

This movie really sucked. With its tedious romance between an Army fighter pilot “Rafe” (God that name sucks) played by Ben Affleck (with a terrible southern accent) and a nurse played by Kate Beckinsale, plus a love triangle with Rafe’s boyhood best friend and wingman Danny played by Josh Hartnett is fucking unwatchable. It takes at least 90 minutes until the attack actually happens, and even then the action is punctuated by excruciatingly bad acting and dialogue.

“Today, we honor and remember the 2,403 American Patriots who gave the ultimate sacrifice 80 years ago on a date which will live in infamy. The unforgettable attack on Pearl Harbor that also badly injured 1,178 brave soldiers and sank four U.S. Navy battleships solemnly reminds us of our Country’s unwavering resolve and the courage of those who served with honor in the Second World War – and those who continue to defend our Nation” says the Orange Pharaoh in a statement.

“Mark Meadows has informed the Select Committee that he does not intend to cooperate further with our investigation despite his apparent willingness to provide details about the facts and circumstances surrounding the January 6th attack, including conversations with President Trump, in the book he is now promoting and selling. Even as we litigate privilege issues, the Select Committee has numerous questions for Mr. Meadows about records he has turned over with no claim of privilege, which include real-time communications as the events of January 6th unfolded.”

“We also need to hear from him about voluminous official records stored in his personal phone and email accounts, which were required to be turned over to the National Archives in accordance with the Presidential Records Act. Tomorrow’s deposition, which was scheduled at Mr. Meadows’s request, will go forward as planned. If indeed Mr. Meadows refuses to appear, the Select Committee will be left no choice but to advance contempt proceedings and recommend that the body in which Mr. Meadows once served refer him for criminal prosecution” – Reps Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney, Chair and Vice Chair of House January 6th Committee joint statement.

We’re not saying that the American right, despite their fervent denials of connections between the Putin regime and the Trump regime, are huge fans of Putin. They’re the ones saying it.

Devin Nunes took on the Swamp and won.

America will miss his leadership in Congress.

But we know he’ll continue the fight for free speech with President Trump.

God Bless them both!

— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) December 7, 2021

The remains of the Charlottesville, Virginia statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee, dismantled in 2017 will be melted down and turned into a yet-to-be-designed public arts project by a local Black-led nonprofit, NPR reports. Our hope with ‘Swords into Plowshares’ is to create something that transforms what was once toxic in our public space into something beautiful that can be more reflective of our entire community’s social values” said Andrea Douglas, director of the Jefferson School American Heritage Center, which makes sense because recycling is a total lib thing to do.

In related news, a really stupid, ugly statue of Confederate General and later Ku Klux Klan founder Nathaniel Bedford Forrest was removed from a property in Nashville, Tennessee on Tuesday.

“Emerald is still with Newsmax, however her contract ends in January and we will not be renewing it. We appreciate the work she has done on-air for the network” says Newsmax in a statement about the “Luciferase” idiot and former B-movie actress Emerald Robinson they employed to ask questions at White House press conferences.