Everything was cool for communist Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in early December 1989.

He’d just come off another reelection campaign against nobody, winning a sixth five-year term in power in a vote at the XIVth Congress of the Romanian Communist Party the previous month, during which state media praised “masterly lecture by comrade Nicolae Ceausescu at the extended plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Romania,” in its November 11th edition.

Global media had reported on something different that day.

It’s not clear how much the average Romanian knew about the rapid developments elsewhere in Eastern Europe during that stretch. Their lives were pretty freaking miserable, even by the low standards of the Communist bloc. Ceausescu almost certainly knew about what had happened in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square six months earlier and probably felt some degree of confidence that he could crush any uprising with the same relative ease that Deng’s Chicom regime did.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed into law a bill formally declaring the American bald eagle the official bird of the United States, something that until now had carried no legal weight despite the raptor being associated with the nation for more than 248 years, the Associated Press reports.

It’s not clear what the legal weight of this official declaration now entails however.

In a Christmas miracle that will bring joy to children everywhere, and even to the big kids in all of us, 39 year-old accused pedophile Anthony Wayne Brooks of Riverside, California was found dead in his cell at the county jail on Sunday, KTLA reports, citing a Riverside Sheriff’s Department press release.

“On Sunday, December 22, 2024, deputies from the Robert Presley Detention Center found an unresponsive male inside a housing unit cell. Deputies and jail medical personnel performed life-saving measures until paramedics arrived, but the male was ultimately pronounced deceased.”

“Investigators from the Riverside Sheriff’s Office Corrections Central Investigations Unit responded and assumed the investigation. The inmate was identified as 39-year-old Anthony Wayne Brooks of Riverside. There were no signs of foul play,” said the department. The press release left out that, among other crimes, Brooks was facing five counts of lewd acts on a child under the age of 14.

So maybe there were plenty of signs of “fair play” and Brooks got Epsteined or something.

Florida Highway Patrol is seeking information on the identity of the jolly old saint who WFLA reports blasted away from them on County Road 486 near Tampa at speeds of over 120 miles per hour on Saturday night, adding “Anyone who recognizes this runaway Santa is asked to call *FHP (*347).”

Convicted felon President-Elect Trump’s team plan to immediately withdraw the US from the World Heath Organization next month, reimposing a tantrum move made when the fat fuck was looking for a scapegoat for his failures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic that President Joe Biden then undid in 2021, Reuters reports, citing a tip from a Georgetown professor close to the organization.

Israeli dictator Benjamin Netanyahu’s violent campaigns to keep himself in power perpetually have now, for the second year in a row, forced the cancelation of Christmas festivities in the Little Town of Bethlehem, legendary birthplace of the savior of humanity, Jesus Christ, the AP reports.

“Always the message of Bethlehem is a message of peace and hope, and these days, we are also sending our message to the world: peace and hope, but insisting that the world must work to end our suffering as Palestinian people,” said Mayor Anton Salman. The cancelation itself seems to be kind of a soft, mutual decision, rather than any one single official’s: There’s no Christmas tree, marching bands, crowds of tourists, or any such other elements of the town’s celebrations that marked the birth of Christ in the years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and then the war.

Yet imagine the city of Chicago nixed a Christmas tree lighting because of gang violence. It doesn’t take a PhD in political science to guess who the MAGA propaganda-industrial complex would be blaming for that. “CHRISTMAS IS CANCELED DUE TO THUGS IN CHICAGO! January 20th can’t come soon enough!” the tweets from Charlie Kirk and the other dickheads would scream in their tweets.

Well actually it wouldn’t be a stretch for them to blame Joe Biden for it being canceled in Bethlehem now in this timeline. After all, they blame him for the war having started in the first place because Hamas would’ve been too scared of Trump and all that unfalsifiable horseshit about Iran and so on.

It’s a convenient out for any MAGA Evangelical who might feel tempted to rage at Netanyahu.

After Trump's victory, 54% of Americans think fighting will stop in the Middle East, poll finds https://t.co/yqI63oF2nv

— John Solomon (@jsolomonReports) December 24, 2024

“President-elect Donald Trump appears to be entertaining an American territorial expansion that, if he’s serious, would rival the Louisiana Purchase or the deal that netted Alaska from Russia,” CNN writes in the lede to their Monday story headlined “Trump is teasing US expansion into Panama, Greenland and Canada,” which takes up the top spot on their homepage. That means it’s a big deal.

Actually not even sure why the Hitler version of the headline was necessary. Could’ve just played this as straight as CNN knowingly did with their increasingly insufferable fucking sanewashing.

“Kīlauea volcano began erupting this morning, December 23. Fissures on the caldera floor are erupting lava fountains and feeding lava flows in Halemaʻumaʻu and on the downdropped block within Kaluapele (the summit caldera). Eruptive activity is confined to Halemaʻumaʻu and the downdropped block within the caldera, and a plume of volcanic gas is blowing downwind to the southwest. No unusual activity has been noted along Kīlauea’s East Rift Zone or Southwest Rift Zone,” says a USGS bulletin on an obnoxious cry for attention from a volatile pit of fury.

“Webcam images indicate that the new eruption commenced within Kaluapele (the summit caldera) in Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park at 2:20 am HST. The main eruptive vent is located on the southwest side of Kīlauea’s summit caldera, generating lava flows onto Halema‘uma‘u crater floor and the downdropped block area to the east. Between approximately 2:30 am and 4:30 am, vents briefly opened to the north-east along the caldera floor but these vents have since slowed,” the bulletin continued, warning that the angry maw could continue spewing fiery shit all over everyone.

To the woman who made an ugly comment toward me and toward my kid just now in public… you *almost* put a damper on my kid’s Christmas spirit.

But thankfully after a heartfelt convo, instead you helped me once again educate my kid about how deranged you people really are.

The…

— Nancy Mace (@NancyMace) December 23, 2024

Continued Mace after the cutoff: “The death threats on me and my kids, the assault, the harassment, as if it weren’t enough for you fools on the Left, you have to try to humiliate me and you tried to humiliate my kid in public too. You’ll never succeed. You’ll never win because I’m gonna hold the line despite your best efforts. Merry Christmas!” And then this reply:

And why mom carries or has security who carry… the threats are real unfortunately

— Nancy Mace (@NancyMace) December 23, 2024

So yeah. We’re an incident or two away from child protective services being a “woke” scam.

Several sources on convicted felon President-Elect Trump’s crew of scumbags and sycophants tell Politico that the Orange God Emperor’s patience with lowly supplicant House Speaker Mike Johnson is as thin as Trump is fat due to Johnson’s failures to fulfill unrealistic legislative demands.

“The president is upset – he wanted the debt ceiling dealt with,” a Trump minion said, explaining how Trump felt “blindsided” by the initial spending deal – even though Johnson claimed, probably honestly, that he had been in constant contact with Donald’s team before Elon Musk blew up the bill.

And then, to make it look like he was reasserting control, Trump decided he wanted the debt ceiling bumped up or eliminated altogether, leading to the collapse of both the bill and quite possibly Johnson’s chances of retaining the gavel just 10 days from now. “No one thinks he’s strong. No one says, ‘Damn, this guy’s a fighter,'” said another mushroom polisher of Mike Johnson.

It’s almost like Johnson could have looked at what happened to Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, Mike Pence, and so on to realize that it will never be enough. Ever. There will be no peace, no safety, no self-respect for those toiling at the mercy of the pornstar-fucking tyrant’s petty whims.

Sad. Very sad. Total Obummer. Statutory rapey former Congressbro Matt Gaetz’s pointless case against the House Ethics Committee seeking an injunction to block the release of the report on his conduct that leaked anyway has landed in front of Obama-appointed DC Circuit Judge Amit Mehta, who will probably laugh him out of court even faster than a MAGA judge.

Media's suck-up moment https://t.co/usimJ9uOcb

— Axios (@axios) December 23, 2024

“Fearing political retribution and strained by new business challenges, media companies that once covered President-elect Trump with skepticism – and in many cases, disdain – are reconsidering their approach,” Axios reports in a “humblebrag” about how they (mostly) were way ahead of the curve on that during a campaign season that saw major innovation in the both-sides-iverse.

“Why it matters: Trump’s decisive victory in November has forced media executives to put their business interests ahead of their personal politics,” the visionaries behind “Be Smart” write, sharing their corporate leadership’s secrets to success in a changed business environment.

“State of play: Amid a record media trust deficit, outlets once critical of Trump are now making overtures to the former and future president, and the majority of American voters who voted for him,” Axios continues with an air of distance as if they’re reporting on, say, the Japanese fishing industry’s challenges amid lowered trade barriers in the Indo-Pacific region…

A draft of the fabled House Ethics Committee’s report on former Congressbro Matt Gaetz obtained by John Solomon’s shitty website says “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,” that last corruption and obstruction bit over Gaetz having “intentionally withheld information” about a free plane ride from the Bahamas with women and that he “clearly understood that he had acted contrary to House Rules by accepting private plane travel but chose to try to cover up his actions rather than comply with the Committee’s request.”

The report finally points to why Gaetz never ended up getting charged with statutory rape or sex trafficking of a woman who was 17 years old at the time of their encounters: Prosecutors likely never found any solid evidence that he actually knew she was that young. “The Committee received testimony that Victim A and Representative Gaetz had sex twice during the party, including at least once in the presence of other party attendees. Victim A recalled receiving $400 in cash from Representative Gaetz that evening, which she understood to be payment for sex. At the time, she had just completed her junior year of high school. Victim A said that she did not inform Gaetz that she was under 18 at the time, nor did he ask her age. The Committee did not receive any evidence indicating that Gaetz was aware that Victim A was a minor when he had sex with her,” the draft said.

Despite convicted felon President-Elect Trump’s claims that he can just unilaterally put an end to birthright citizenship via an executive order, sources on his team of scumbags tell CNN the actual plan is to prompt a lawsuit by refusing to issue a passport to a citizen with undocumented parents, harassing women here on visas over “birth tourism,” or some other similar bullshit move – the idea being they would take a case all the way to the Supreme Court and get them to overturn the 1898 ruling in US v Wong Kim Ark which made it the law of the land, just like they did with Roe v Wade.

“Something has to kick off the legal battle,” said one of the Orange Fuhrer’s minions. Just as they did when fatass first started making noises about the 14th Amendment in a last-minute panic before the 2018 midterms, Trump’s crew are again planning to argue that undocumented immigrants and their children are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the US, which doesn’t make any fucking sense.

If they’re not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, then they aren’t subject to the laws either, which would mean prosecuting Tren de Aragua members for any crime is unconstitutional and those guys can do whatever they want, as if there’s “diplomatic immunity” or something. Now of course it’d be silly to expect that Los Supremos would be stupid enough to rule in such a way, which is just one among many reasons why most legal experts think the case is headed for a dead end.

Rehashing his Saturday night Truth Social rant so now you know he’s “serious” convicted felon president-Elect Trump on Sunday told the crowd at some Turning Point cult gathering that Panama isn’t adhering to some vague codicil of the treaty that restored their sovereignty over the former Canal Zone US territory, therefore the fat fuck is threatening war just days before the 25th anniversary of the handover. Maybe someone remind him that John McCain was born there.

Might get him to stop barking up this tree if he can be convinced that makes McCain an immigrant.

The fat bastard also told the crowd at the MAGA event that Elon Musk can’t be president because he wasn’t born here – laughing nervously too – as if everyone mockingly calling him “President Musk” didn’t already understand that important and immutable constitutional requirement.

Well asserting that it “feels like” a drug-addled Boer billionaire who just blew up a spending bill for no reason is the “prime minister” in a country that does not and never will have such an office is one way to spin Republicans – their past and future president included – just looking like complete fucking wimps for obeying his capricious whims. It’s not a good way to spin it, but it’s a way.

Give Congressman Tony Gonzales some credit for his effort here at least, even if he made himself and his party look like even more of complete fucking wimps. He still tried. Sort of.

The American freight rail industry is an absolute colossus: Nearly 140,000 miles of track nationwide, more than 19.3 billion tons in goods moved in 2020, a major employer of military veterans as about 1/6th of the hundreds of thousands of railroad workers are former service members, just to name a few of the impressive facts and figures according to the Association of American Railroads.

An Indianapolis man on Saturday night got just a small taste of the raw power of this economic engine – one that operates with four times the energy efficiency than the trucking industry – when he tried to drive around a crossing gate. Per WTHR, the unidentified man was driving an Audi sedan when the full force of America’s railroading industry came barreling down the track, dragging the vehicle at least 75 feet before tossing it aside like a toy. The sheer mass of the industry required this tiny cog in its machine a mile to come to a halt after one of its proud workers hit the brakes.

“Those crossing guards are there for a reason. It’s not worth it to beat a train by three minutes,” said Indianapolis Metro PD Captain John Arvin, speaking to the titanic power of US freight rail.

Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin was downright offended that Dems would ever question Elon Musk’s proximity to power given the value of the contracts his companies hold with the US government when Hunter Biden had 27 shell companies something something, so suck on that, libs.

The thing with whatabouting is that it’s supposed to carry an implicit concession to it. For example, if a Trump fanboy says “Hillary acid-washed 33,000 classified emails!” then the liberal he’s arguing with says “Well Trump stole dozens of classified documents from the White House and got indicted for it. He only got away with it when that piece of shit judge he appointed tossed the case to help him get election again,” the intent of that response being “If you’re angry that Hillary was supposedly so careless with classified emails then why aren’t you angry about Trump being even more careless with actual physical copies?” which is an acknowledgement that maybe Hillary’s handling of classified info was questionable, if not criminal. It’s also directionally sound. Trump’s crime was worse than Hillary’s “crime” – if it even was a crime. She sure as shit didn’t get indicted, despite Trump controlling the Justice Department and repeatedly ordering them to prosecute her.

Markwayne inverts that here by saying some incompetent drug abuser who needed help paying his auto loan bills having 27 shell companies is a bigger deal than some incompetent drug abuser who is also the wealthiest man in history pulling the future President of the United States’ strings to protect his factories in China and this grow even wealthier. In conclusion, Markwayne Mullin is a twat.

Reporters with the Dallas Express – which has been described by trustworthy lefty hellraiser Texas journo Steve Monacelli as “right-wing propaganda under the guise of being non-partisan and objective” – nevertheless have broken open a pretty freaking major story: Republican Texas Congresswoman Kay Granger, who up until last term chaired the House Appropriations Committee, has allegedly been living in a dementia/memory care facility since being found wandering the streets of her Dallas-area neighborhood at some point after the last time she cast a vote on July 24th.

Granger, who announced her retirement back in October 2023 and will be replaced by freshman Congressman-Elect Craig Goldman, had not been heard from at all and yet still her staff (and presumably House Republican leadership, who had to know what was happening) made no formal announcement that she was incapacitated. Nobody answered the phone at either her DC or her district offices. Kind of too late now to make a scandal out of it since the 118th Congress is finished as is the damage to the GOP’s majority caused by the 81 year-old’s stealth early retirement.

Bo French, chairman of the far-right extremist Tarrant County GOP, was pretty pissed, telling the Express that “the lack of representation for CD-12 is troubling to say the least. At a time when extraordinarily important votes are happening, including debt ceiling, disaster relief, farm bills and border issues, Kay Granger is nowhere to be found. The margin in Congress is razor thin and the lack of a Republican vote representing CD-12 disenfranchises 2 million people. We deserve better.”

Worth asking how this asshole didn’t notice Granger was AWOL and look into it himself. Maybe the Republican voters in Tarrant County deserve better than Bo French leading their local party.