Tell Sen. Fetterman: Stop praising Donald Trump!

Trump fires off signature Christmas Day screed, slamming "Radical Left Lunatics" yet again
Like it or most definitely not, one thing we know we can count on every year is a thoroughly unhinged, thumb-smashed, Christmas Day rant from the 78-year-old MAGA cult leader. Donald did not miss the opportunity to share his many thoughts this holiday season, going on an hour-long posting spree at one point. In one particularly agitated post, Trump mocked multiple foreign leaders, doubled down on his hare-brained plans to "buy" Greenland and seize the Panama Canal, and attacked his favorite bogeymen, "Sleepy" Joe Biden and the "Radical Left Lunatics" (is that like a band or something?) for apparently trying to destroy America. Again.

Take Action: Block RFK Jr. from leading Health and Human Services!

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Jamie Raskin takes on Elon Musk
The Democratic congressman sat down with Brian Tyler Cohen to discuss the weird, political rise of "President Musk" and Trump's incoming Cabinet full of billionaire oligarchs, which, Raskin noted, looks quite similar to Vladimir Putin's cabinet in Moscow. Strange days, indeed.

Take Action: Support The Michael J. Fox Foundation’s Mission to Cure Parkinson’s Disease!

UNFPA leads the charge to protect women's dignity around the world
United Nations Population Fund: When the worst comes to pass and women are plunged into conflict, access to simple things like tampons can be suddenly cut off at a moment's notice. That's why UNFPA is working overtime to deliver life-saving "dignity kits" to women in conflict zones like Ukraine, Sudan, and Gaza, so that even in the darkest of times, women and girls are able to manage their periods with dignity. Make a donation to UNFPA and help deliver out-of-reach and forgotten-about supplies like menstrual pads, clean underwear, and soap to the women who need it the most!

Matt Gaetz sends fundraising message after bombshell House Ethics report: "I need your help"
Perhaps the disgraced ex-congressman would need a little less help from his supporters if he hadn't, ya know, paid a dozen women more than $90,000 for sex when he was in office? Just a thought.

Take Action: Tell the Senate: Don't let Trump bypass Cabinet confirmation hearings!

Trump vows to pursue executions after Biden commutes most of federal death row
The MAGA cult leader promised to "vigorously pursue" capital punishment after President Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 prisoners on federal death row — partly to stop Trump, who has openly professed his affinity for the death penalty and called for its expanded use — from pushing forward their executions. Biden's commutations mean the 37 inmates will serve life sentences without parole. The president defended his decision, calling it consistent with the moratorium imposed on federal executions in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder. Federal cases actually make up a small fraction of capital punishment sentences; while just 40 were on the books prior to Biden's commutations, more than 2,000 people are still currently on death row, having been sentenced to death by states.

Take Action: Tell President Biden to use his pardon power for justice before he leaves office!

Alabama profits off prisoners who work at McDonald’s but deems them too dangerous for parole
Robin McDowell and Margie Mason, The Associated Press No state has a longer, more profit-driven history of contracting prisoners out to private companies than Alabama. With a sprawling labor system that dates back more than 150 years — including the brutal convict leasing era that replaced slavery — it has constructed a template for the commercialization of mass incarceration. Best Western, Bama Budweiser, and Burger King are among the more than 500 businesses to lease incarcerated workers from one of the most violent, overcrowded, and unruly prison systems in the US in the past five years alone, The Associated Press found as part of a two-year investigation into prison labor. The cheap, reliable labor force has generated more than $250 million for the state since 2000 through money garnished from prisoners’ paychecks. Most jobs are inside facilities, where the state’s inmates — who are disproportionately Black — can be sentenced to hard labor and forced to work for free doing everything from mopping floors to laundry. But more than 10,000 inmates have logged a combined 17 million work hours outside Alabama’s prison walls since 2018.

Warning issued after bird flu found in raw pet food on West Coast
West Coast public health authorities have issued a warning to pet owners after a house cat in Oregon died from bird flu. The Oregon Department of Agriculture confirmed Tuesday that the cat, which they said was “strictly indoor,” contracted the virus after eating Northwest Naturals raw turkey. The pet food company has since issued a voluntary recall of the product. The warning comes just one day after officials in Los Angeles reported several cat deaths attributed to recalled raw milk and the area's first confirmed human case of H5N1. Health officials have yet to see any evidence of person-to-person transmission thus far.

Sister District fights to take back our state houses
Sister District: If we’re going to take back power from Trump and the GOP, we’re going to need to build progressive power at EVERY level — local, state, and national. Sister District is on the front lines building the grassroots networks and infrastructure to win back our country from the GOP. Sister District’s efforts helped Democrats break the GOP supermajority in the North Carolina House and Wisconsin Senate while keeping control of the Pennsylvania House and Minnesota Senate — and their next targets are critical 2025 races in Virginia. Will you chip in to Sister District and help take back our statehouses from the GOP?

Russia seeks to play down speculation over deadly Azerbaijan Airlines crash
Both Russia and Kazakhstan have sought to temper speculation about the cause of yesterday's deadly Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash, following reports from a Ukrainian national security official who claimed that the crash, which killed 38 people on Christmas Day, was caused by Russian air defense fire. The Embraer 190 aircraft, which was flying from the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, to the Russian city of Grozny in Chechnya, came down in a field near Aktau in Kazakhstan after veering hundreds of miles off its planned route. Twenty-nine people survived. Yuri Podolyaka, a popular Russian pro-war blogger, said holes seen in the wreckage of the plane were similar to the damage caused by an “anti-aircraft missile system." Ashimbayev Maulen, the chair of Kazakhstan’s Senate, also stressed on Thursday that the cause remained unknown. He described the allegations of air defense fire as unfounded and “unethical.”

Leaders in "uncommitted" and "abandon Harris" movements reflect on Trump's victory and early moves
Vice President Kamala Harris had just 107 days as a presidential candidate to change the minds of hundreds of thousands of “uncommitted” Democratic primary voters nationwide, many of whom voted in protest of President Joe Biden and his administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. But leaders from the Uncommitted National Movement and the Abandon Harris campaign say they felt the vice president didn't do enough to distance herself from Biden or outline how she’d handle the war differently. Trump ultimately ended up carrying Dearborn, Michigan, a majority-Arab American city, by more than 6 percentage points — a massive swing from Biden’s nearly 40-point win there in 2020. Farah Khan, a co-chair of the Abandon Harris campaign in Michigan, believes many Muslim and Arab American voters picked Trump in protest — not because they liked him but because they wanted to defeat Harris and punish Democrats. Khan, who called some of Trump's Cabinet picks "troubling" and "worrisome," noted, "Even in politics, humanity should be the first and the foremost thing to to be respected, to be valued, right? And [the] Democratic Party clearly, clearly, for an entire year showed us they do not care about human life."