Happy Monday, happy December! Hope your turkeys were moist and your MAGA relatives were quiet! What did we miss during our holiday news break?
Well, Pete Hegseth has been committing mass murder in the Caribbean, and/or war crimes, after WaPo reported he directly ordered survivors of a boat bombing to be finished off. So revolting and criminal that even Republicans on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees say they are planning to conduct some actual oversight. (Washington Post gift link / WaPo archive link)
Meanwhile, Trump has declared airspace around Venezuela closed. Is Hegseth hoping to shoot down a commercial airliner next? (WSJ gift link)
And in case anyone might have believed that the boat attacks were actually about drugs, Trump pardoned the former President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who actually did enable all of the narco-trafficking that Trump is accusing Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro of doing. “We are going to stuff the drugs up the gringos’ noses, and they’re never even going to know it,” Hernández once bragged. (NY Times gift link)
It’s about the oil. And Republicans are not even pretending it isn’t! Rep. Maria Salazar: “Venezuela for the American oil companies will be a field day.”
Oh.
One member of the West Virginia National Guard was murdered in Washington, DC, and another is clinging to life, shot allegedly by CIA-trained Afghan Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who was granted asylum by the Trump administration itself earlier this year. So Trump is blaming Somalian refugees in Minnesota, and ending all asylum for everyone. (NPR)
Trump cancelled the Q3 GDP report. Two quarters of declining GPD = recession! But it’s not a recession if you don’t know you’re in it, right? (New Republic)
Secretary of DHS, Kristi Noem, admitted on national TV that she knowingly defied a court order with those deportation flights to El Salvador. Will there be consequences? (NBC)
Seems like it should be a bigger deal that a Republican legislator in Indiana said he is worried if he goes against Trump’s redistricting wishes, his house will be firebombed. (The Atlantic archive link)
Trump’s approval rating is at its lowest ever, again! Now 36 percent. Sad. (Gallup)
What in the Doublemint gum? Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas he’s retiring, and endorsing his own twin brother for his seat. LOL whut?! (AP)
Also Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon says he thought about resigning after he saw the US’s Russian-written Ukraine “peace plan.” (Axios)
Tennessee’s special election is tomorrow, and Democratic candidate Aftyn Behn is neck-in-neck with Republican candidate Matt Van Epps, in a district Trump won by 22 points last year. (The Tennessean) He’s having a normal one about it!
If Matt Gaetz endorses discount horse pills, they must be good. Also Trump sounds pretty scared! Openly disdains Country music, oh no!! (On a 2020 podcast, Behn said of Nashville: “I hate the city, I hate the bachelorettes, I hate the pedal taverns, I hate country music, I hate all of the things that make Nashville apparently an ‘it’ city to the rest of the country. But I hate it.” Behn now explains, “I always want Nashville to be better, right? I want Nashville to be a place where working people can thrive. Sure, I get mad at the bachelorettes sometimes, I get mad at the pedal taverns. But you’re talking to someone who has cried no less than 10 times in the Country Music Hall of Fame.”)
In other news.
Protestors in New York City have been thwarting ICE’s plans. (Time)
Dr. Vinay Prasad, the director of the FDA’s vaccine division, claims that the COVID vaccine has killed 10 US children, without offering any evidence of that. (JoeMyGod)
Pulp put out a Johnny Cash cover this week, timely! Who doesn’t love country music, and turkey? Well, not everyone. And that is fine!
Thank you for being Wonkette’s friend! We have no paywall ever and no ads. We’re brought to you by people like you! The button below will let you donate one time or monthly, in any amount of your choosing.
Do you prefer Venmo? Here’s a button you will like.







Hello from Rome, hanging with Becca and Shy. Pix later.
In the meantime, your hed gif info: https://martiniambassador.substack.com/p/deep-sea-bumpy-snailfish
Does anyone have a spare instruction manual for the Domestic Canine, Border Collie model?
https://substack.com/profile/155629128-cakeswelike/note/c-182980916?r=2kno7c