A quick update on things missed over the holiday: Alleged journalist Mike Cernovich, best known for promoting the Pizzagate hoax, showed up on Reddit and encouraged users to ask him anything. It did not go well. At all.
The state of Wisconsin gave $3 billion in incentives to Foxconn to build a giant plant. Only they did not write the contract very well. It did not go well. At all.
Trump raged at refugees from Haiti (“they all have AIDS”) and Nigeria (“will never return to their huts after seeing the US”). He denies this. Immigration policy is, in general, not going well. At all.
Trump tweeted a statement thanking Turning Points USA, a group credibly accused of illegal politicking and racist bias.
A Palestinian girl was arrested for pushing soldiers away from her front door. A journalist from the mainstream, centrist, wide-circulation newspaper Maariv Daily called for collective rape as punishment: “In the case of the girls, we should exact a price at some other opportunity, in the dark, without witnesses and cameras.“
Firing Mueller may be impossible, but Trump is undermining the FBI elsewhere for partisan purposes.
Ed Burmila’s in The Baffler this time, with a warning about the looming danger of nuclear war: It’s a THAAD, THAAD, THAAD World. (See also this Twitter thread from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service professor Colin Kahl).
An iced tea company called Long Island Iced Tea didn’t feel that naming a nonalcoholic beverage company after an alcoholic beverage was misleading enough, so they changed their name to Long Blockchain. Shares soared because now it sounds like it’s related to BitCoin.
Jared and Ivanka’s landlord is getting a sweet deal on some mining leases from the Trump administration.
The latest sexual harassment allegations are at Vice Media, which is totally unsurprising. The surprise: the HR director who covered up their harassment problems used to work for Harvey Weinstein covering up his harassment problems!
Hey remember when
The evangelical owners of Hobby Lobby conspired with ISIS to smuggle ancient artifacts out of Iraq so they could hasten The Second Coming. We talked about this for like 3 days, max. It’s been a fucked up few years — T. Finn (@The_FinnSA) December 22, 2017
Freedom is Slavery
The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau head sure seems to be getting off to a quick start.
Mulvaney’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau no longer defines protecting consumers as part of its mission. https://t.co/7xWUi656gl — @mattyglesias December 22, 2017
Cultivating schadenfreude
10 pints into his evening, a London 22-year-old goes viral with a truly epic crotch injury. (He’s OK).
Cultivating joy
Baby bat getting belly-rubs.
Top 10 movies of 2007. No, not this year. 2007. He’s working on his own schedule, guys.
Forgot to wrap one last present…
Secretly Ironic 