Tell Sen. Schumer: Confirm judges before the GOP takes over!

Incoming Trump administration plans to deport some migrants to countries other than their own
The MAGA cult leader is reportedly preparing a list of countries — which apparently includes Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas, Panama, and Grenada — to which he will attempt to deport hundreds of thousands of migrants when their home countries inevitably refuse to accept them, according to three sources familiar with the plans that make very little sense and have almost zero chance of actually working. We're no experts on mass deportation operations, but permanently displacing hundreds of thousands of people against their will to places where they have no family or connection to the culture seems just a wee bit problematic. And that's to say nothing of other sovereign governments' willingness to actually cooperate. Remember how Mexico was going to pay for Trump's big, beautiful wall? Yeah. Samesies.

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VIDEO OF THE DAY: Trump Cabinet pick crashes and burns amid breaking update
Pete Hegseth, who has been dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct and is also now promising he'll go sober if he pretty please gets to run the Pentagon, sat down for a softball interview with MAGA sycophant Megyn Kelly and fully embraced the victimhood that burns so brightly in today's GOP. Hegseth laughably claimed the allegations made against him were anonymous (they're definitely not) and said that opposition to his nomination to lead the Department of Defense was coming from mythical DC swamp creatures fearful of the change he would usher in has head of the world's most powerful military. Definitely has nothing to do with the serial philandering, the sexual assault, the very public record of piss-poor leadership, or the epic boozing. Got it.

Take Action: Demand big corporations stop advertising on Elon's Twitter!

Michael J. Fox leads the charge against Parkinson's disease
Michael J. Fox Foundation: With nearly 90,000 new diagnoses in the United States each year, Parkinson’s disease is the fastest growing and second-most-common neurodegenerative disease in America. Tackling this silent menace is going to require a united effort from the public and from our representatives in Congress, so Michael J. Fox is mobilizing a national movement to help policymakers understand what matters to people with Parkinson’s and share our stories to expand our understanding of this vicious disease.Will you add your nameto stand with Michael J. Fox and the one million Americans living with Parkinson’s disease and be ready when it’s time to reach out to your elected officials?

Kash Patel threatens to sue ex-Pence aide for saying on MSNBC he's unfit to lead the FBI
Former Mike Pence aide Olivia Troye said Kash Patel's lawyers threatened legal action if she did not retract her very reasonable comments made on air that the radical, right-wing, QAnon conspiracy theorist is clearly unfit to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Patel had a range of options available to him, of course. He could have simply ignored Troye's comments or acknowledged that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but instead opted to launch an aggressive campaign to silence his critic and threaten her with legal action. Seems like *just* the kind of level-headed character we need running the 35,000-strong FBI.

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Bullets used to kill UnitedHealthcare CEO had words written on them, law enforcement official says
Shell casings found at the scene where the UnitedHealthcare CEO was shot dead by a masked gunman in front of a busy New York hotel had the words “deny,” “defend,” and “depose” written on them, a senior New York City law enforcement confirmed. These words echo the title of a book,Deny, Defend, Deflect: Why Insurance Companies Don't Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It by Jay M. Feinman. Brian Thompson, 50, was killed in a “premeditated, preplanned targeted attack” outside the New York Hilton Midtown on Sixth Avenue in the heart of Manhattan, police said. He was on his way to speak at UnitedHealth Group's investor conference when the gunman who had been lying in wait for several minutes approached from behind and fired at least once into his back and at least once in the right calf. Police say they don't yet know the motive of the gunman, who they say is still at large.

Take Action: End Elon Musk's lucrative defense contracts!

Israel’s war in Gaza amounts to genocide, Amnesty International report finds
A report from Amnesty International alleges that Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip constitutes the crime of genocide under international law, the first such determination by a major human rights organization in the brutal, 14-month-old conflict. The 296-page report examining events in Gaza between October 2023 to July 2024, published on Thursday, found that Israel had “brazenly, continuously and with total impunity … unleashed hell” on the strip’s 2.3 million population, noting that the “atrocity crimes” against Israelis by Hamas on October 7, 2023, which triggered the war, "do not justify genocide."

Biden lays groundwork to expand immigration jails as Trump prepares massive deportation plans
Donald Trump’s plan for the mass deportation of undocumented people and a related expansion of US detention facilities is getting an unexpected head start from President Biden — and private prison companies are already cashing in. The Biden administration has, for the past year, been in the process of extending contracts for private sector immigration jails across the US and exploring options for expanding detention capacity, a Guardian investigation has found. This is despite both the president’s previous statements opposing such private jails and the fact that many facilities have a reputation for inhumane conditions and widespread sexual abuse. So much for "no kids in cages," right?

BTC leads collective of progressive creators with plan to take back the internet from Joe Rogan and the right-wing machine
Chorus: This election has made it painfully clear that Democrats' messages are just not getting through the tsunami of right-wing propaganda and lies flooding through social media, and we have no real answer to a Joe Rogan or a Ben Shapiro...until now! Chorus Collective is a new collaborative founded by creators like Brian Tyler Cohen, Leigh McGowan (Politics Girl), Roland Martin, David Pakman, Elizabeth Booker Houston, and Adam Mockler, who are bringing their audience of 40 million people together to create a new infrastructure to scale their voices and build support for more creators like them. Chorus aims to not only amplify progressive voices but also uplift new creators and build a left-wing social media ecosystem that supports its voices ALL the time, not just in the months leading up to an election. Will you chip in to help Chorus get off the ground and help break the right-wing stranglehold on social media?

Anthem Blue Cross announces they will stop paying for anesthesia if the surgery takes too long
You read that right. One of the nation's largest health insurance companies has declared they're going to put pre-determined limits on how much anesthesia they will cover, without taking the complexity of the surgery into account and leaving patients undergoing major surgery with staggeringly large hospital bills. Doctors immediately condemned the move. "This is just the latest in a long line of appalling behavior by commercial health insurers looking to drive their profits up at the expense of patients and physicians providing essential care," said Dr. Donald E. Arnold. "It's a cynical money grab by Anthem." Anthem Blue Cross made $2.3 billion last year. The greed is beyond comprehension.

Twenty Minnesota ballots went missing in key race that hinges on 14 votes
Twenty ballots went missing in a Minnesota precinct this November, the type of error that would typically result in an internal investigation but not receive much public attention. But the implications are much greater right now, as the race for the district’s state House seat is separated by 14 votes, and that seat will determine whether Republicans win control of the chamber. The missing ballots, which were probably the result of human error, were never counted. Officials tried to track them down, only to learn that they had been sent to the shredder. As it stands, Democratic Rep. Brad Tabke won the race over Republican Aaron Paul in Minnesota’s District 54A, and the chamber is tied 67-67, meaning the parties will need to negotiate how to share power. Paul and Minnesota Republicans want to redo the election and filed a notice to contest in court.

Republican state senator filmed urinating on himself during DUI arrest
77-year-old Republican Sen. Ken Yager of Tennessee was pulled over by a Georgia State trooper around 5pm on Tuesday on suspicion his vehicle was involved in a hit-and-run the same day, and urinated on himself during a field sobriety test. Yager was eventually arrested on charges of DUI, hit-and-run, and failing to stop at a stop sign. “An unfortunate incident happened last night,” Yager said in a disassociating statement released to local media. Yes, yes. A very unfortunate incident indeed happened last night, Ken.

Satanic Temple to offer "religious" program for public elementary students in JD Vance's backyard
The Satanic Temple will begin offering a religious studies program at a public elementary school in Ohio after a parent’s request. Seeking an alternative to the school’s Christian release program, a concerned parent at Edgewood Elementary school in Marysville, Ohio, requested for a different program to be implemented at the school for non-Christian students. With the Satanic Temple’s new program, the Hellion Academy of Independent Learning (HAIL), students at Edgewood can instead partake in “self-directed learning” and “good works in the community” once every month, where they'll also have “inspirational guest speakers” and “tons of fun,” per the organization’s Facebook page. The Satanic Temple identifies as a “non-theistic” church, meaning it doesn't believe in deities like God or Satan, but rather claims it is instead on a mission to promote pluralism among different religious views. “We aren't trying to shut the LifeWise Academy down,” June Everett, an ordained minister at the Temple, said. “But I do think a lot of school districts don't realize when they open the door for one religion, they open it for all of them.”