I really don’t like Christmas as an obligatory gift-giving occasion and source of stress. These are my last-minute donations in honor of family members. (Bunch of links coming; don’t know how many anti-spam triggers will get flipped.)

• Zoe Empowers — empowering orphans and vulnerable children, primarily in Africa, but also in India. I’ve been involved for years. These kids are a-ma-zing. (My mother-in-law and wife turned me on to this.) — https://zoeempowers.org/

• Haiti Reforestation Project — Empowering community development in rural Haiti. My sister has been involved for years. — https://haitireforest.org/

The two above empowerment efforts are 100% run (in-country) by indigenous staff. Zoe enters a community only by invitation, and they work with local community leaders to identify kids most likely to benefit. There’s a lot more, but this is a toot.

• Al Otro Lado — Immigrant services in California. My father-in-law, a retired Methodist minister, has been involved for years. — https://alotrolado.org/

• The Florence Project — same, but mostly Arizona. (This was my own choice.) — https://firrp.org/

• Brooklyn Community Housing and Services — because I got panhandled on the subway. (This wasn’t last-minute, but it was earlier this year, so I’m throwing it in.) — https://bchands.org/

https://www.propublica.org/article/jefferson-griffin-north-carolina-supreme-court-challenge-election-integrity-network

Republicans.

At this point, I’d expect a senior party member put his arm around this guy’s shoulder and say, “Son, it’s time to give it up.”

But, no. Because they’re all in. Cheri Beasley didn’t do this.

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/12/counting-up-the-victims-of-genocide

https://news.usni.org/2024/12/21/u-s-super-hornet-shot-down-over-red-sea-in-friendly-fire-incident-aviators-safe

«The Super Hornet, assigned to aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75), was flying over the Red Sea when guided-missile cruiser USS Gettysburg (CG-64) fired upon it, according to the CENTCOM statement.»

A career-limiting move, I believe some refer to this as.

«it’s incontrovertible that a billionaire who has a bunch of investments in China and wants to make more all of a sudden disrupted a normal congressional process that was going to restrict that investment with a bunch of lies from his media platform. And lo and behold, when the new funding bill emerged, the outbound investment feature was dropped. In fact, all traces of provisions related to China were removed from the bill.

Donald Trump preens as someone determined to “get tough” on China. But he’s empowered someone with serious business entanglements in China to seemingly serve as a barrier to any policies related to China over the next four years.

The current White House resident (remember him) picked up on this. In a statement, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre noted that “Republicans are breaking their word to support a bipartisan agreement that would lower prescription drug costs and make it harder to offshore jobs to China.” The prescription drug reference has to do with a major reform of pharmacy benefit managers, which was also taken out of the new bill.

So Donald Trump, alleged leader of the realignment of populist Republicans, scuttled a spending bill primarily to shield the richest man in the world’s investments in China and the profits of UnitedHealth Group, owners of the second-largest pharmacy benefit manager.»

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-12-20-government-shutting-down-elon-musk-factories-china/

Thank you, Mastodon, for turning me on to this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kay_Granger

Sic transit gloria mundi, I guess.

How did I miss this?

«Under the agreement, hard-line conservatives would agree to raising the threshold to force a vote on ousting the Speaker from one member to nine members. The mechanism has been a key point of contention within the House GOP conference since McCarthy’s ouster. Hard-line conservatives were adamant about keeping it to one lawmaker before Wednesday.

In exchange for that concession, other members would drop the proposed rules changes — spearheaded by those in the Main Street Caucus — that aimed to punish members for rebelling against the majority of the party in ways that risked grinding legislative activity to a halt. Proposed penalties included removing members from committees if they support a motion to vacate against a Republican Speaker.»

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4989395-republicans-oust-speaker-motion-to-vacate-deal/

https://www.newsweek.com/republican-house-majority-victoria-spartz-2002016

«”I will stay as a registered Republican, but will not sit on committees or participate in the caucus until I see that Republican leadership in Congress is governing. I do not need to be involved in circuses. I would rather spend more of my time helping @DOGE and @RepThomasMassie to save our Republic, as was mandated by the American people,” she said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

In another post, Spartz added, “@realDonaldTrump, @elonmusk and @VivekGRamaswamy are our only hope to drain the swamp through reconciliation, and we can come up with more than $2T to fully offset tax cuts. The swamp is very deep, @DOGE!”

Newsweek has contacted Representative Spartz for comment via email.

While some Republicans were confused by Spartz’s decision on Monday, it allegedly came in response to the House GOP Steering Committee not giving her a sought-after post on the House Ways and Means Committee, sources told Politico.»

Another snowflake. Pretty sure AOC won’t do this if she loses.

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5043821-donald-trump-des-moines-register-ann-selzer-lawsuit/

Man, what a snowflake.