“So Trump — who didn’t spend a minute behind bars — about to swindle about 50 percent more than the total amount of money paid to the 97 innocent people who were incarcerated for more than 1,200 years in Texas. Or about 12 percent more than the total paid last year to 957 victims of police brutality in New York City.”
“The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Is Detaining People for ICE”.
“Everyone hates gas-powered leaf blowers. So why is it so hard to ban them?”
“Even the loudest and most adamantly anti-DEI MAGAnauts — people as far right as Adam Baldwin — who witness a character making even the slightest demonstration of the virtues of diversity, equality, and inclusion will perceive those virtues as virtuous. This is, to them, intolerable. It makes them mad and drives them mad because they perceive it as a personal attack. If a fictional character who has made choices that I refuse to make is thereby portrayed and perceived as good (even by me), then I am being portrayed and perceived as bad (even by me).”
“How the dollar-store industry overcharges cash-strapped customers while promising low prices”.
“Nordic countries that restructured parental leave, provided free child care, and created more flexible workplace norms that pull men into caregiving have higher fertility. Their rates hover around 1.4 to 1.6 — still well below replacement, but better. In Norway, Iceland, and Sweden, fathers who used their countries’ parental leave policies were more likely to have partners who welcomed a second child. Gender equality isn’t a magic fix, but doubling down on traditional roles seems to make things worse, not better.”
“The Trump administration’s policies on climate, cutting funding to key programs, reducing access to and limiting the collection of climate data, and slashing the ranks of federal regulators are contributing to an increase in property insurance rates for homeowners, said insurance industry analysts and experts.”
“The idea of males, including white males, being at the short end of the stick all of a sudden would be a truly ironic outcome.”
“Trump’s Own Mortgages Match His Description of Mortgage Fraud, Records Reveal”.
“The extinct rhinoceros, described in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, is the northernmost rhino known to have ever walked the planet — and it’s already reshaping scientists’ understanding of when many ancient animals spread across the continents.”
“ICEBlock Was Purged From the App Store. Now Its Creator Is Suing the Trump Administration.”
“When you ask why so much of corporate America is beholden to Trump now this is why. A big diversified corporation simply cannot compete and thus, in practice, can’t exist with a determinedly hostile administration.”
RIP, Bill Ratliff, former Texas State Senator and Lieutenant Governor, one of the last true moderate Republicans out there.
“The Main Beneficiaries of Trump’s Pardons? White-Collar Criminals Like Him“.
“But the widespread lack of interest in Kennedy’s role in the story has been glaring. This is one of the most powerful men in the country, the guy whose handpicked vaccine panel at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is currently undoing decades of lifesaving progress in public health. He allegedly spent a considerable amount of time having a virtual affair with a journalist during his campaign, then used her as a political resource as he plotted his ascent to the Cabinet. Even his denial, that he met Nuzzi only once, doesn’t deny it. And no one really seems fazed.”
“For the 1st time ever, 8 spacecraft are docked to the International Space Station. It’s the first time all the spacecraft docking ports on the current configuration of the ISS have been occupied.”
RIP, Raul Malo, leader of the country band The Mavericks.
RIP, Rod Paige, former HISD Superintendent, US Secretary of Education, football coach at Jackson State and Texas Southern, implementer of No Child Left Behind.
“An official complaint has been submitted to FIFA’s Ethics Committee, alleging “repeated breaches” of FIFA’s duty of political neutrality by its president, Gianni Infantino, while also requesting an investigation into the process that saw United States President Donald Trump receive the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize.”
“Many U.S. shoppers who order grocery deliveries through Instacart are unknowingly part of widespread AI-enabled experiments that price identical products differently from one customer to the next—sometimes by as much as 23 percent. Instacart’s algorithmic pricing experiments were found to be occurring through the platform at several of the nation’s biggest grocery retailers, including Albertsons, Costco, Kroger, Safeway, Sprouts Farmers Market, and Target.”
“In other words, Congress was perfectly capable of passing legislation—bipartisan legislation, even!—to address major national problems WHEN majority party leadership was willing to allow that to happen. And that happened when Democrats had agenda-setting power.”
““Peace on earth, good will to all” is the same thing Christians have been reciting every year at Christmastime for centuries, but those Christians can’t say it this year without being — correctly — perceived as “political” and “anti-Trump” and “anti-ICE” and “anti-MAGA,” because “peace and good will to all” is the opposite of everything that Trump and ICE and MAGA stand for.”
RIP, Jeff Garcia, actor and comedian best known as the voice of Sheen Estevez in Nickelodeon’s Jimmy Neutron franchise.
“NASCAR and the two organizations suing it, Front Row Motorsports and the Michael Jordan-owned 23XI Racing, reached a settlement agreement, an attorney said in court Thursday, ending the antitrust case the race teams brought against the league and its chairman and CEO, Jim France.”
Wishing former NBA player Jason Collins all the best.
RIP, Sophie Kinsella, bestselling author of the Confessions of a Shopaholic novels.
“It’s been a very cold and snowy December, but as luck would have it, we have a nice toasty dumpster fire to keep us warm. It’s been building for a while, but now it seems as though practically every prominent right-wing grifter is embroiled in at least one major public feud with another prominent right-wing grifter, to the point where they barely even have time to come up with insane conspiracy theories about the rest of us.” Be sure to see the very helpful who’s-feuding-with-whom spreadsheet at the end.
“The Trump administration has opened a new front in its war on “woke,” this time in a place few Americans ever think to look: the nation’s pocket change.”
RIP, Abraham Quintanilla, father and manager of the late Tejano music legend Selena.
RIP, Dave Ward, longtime Houston news anchor.