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The media lost its MIND when Obama tried to make some small changes to the press pool system. Now Trump is quite openly rendering it into a North Korea-esque state-media system and ... has a single journalist or outlet stood up to protest?

Dane County Judge Susan Crawford has defeated former state Attorney General Brad Schimel in Tuesday's pivotal election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, ensuring that liberals will retain the majority they first won two years ago.

HOW IT HAPPENED: James Andrew Malone, the mayor of a town of 5,000, ran on education, abortion rights, and opposing Elon Musk—in a district that had *never* voted Democratic. Until tonight. Our complete write-through of his astonishing special election win in Lancaster County →

This is especially true because it flies in the face of the roughly 39 million fundraising texts and emails I've received since 1/20. Every one tells me they need my money to "fight Trump."

First fucking thing they teach you as a law student in Contracts is that a contract made under duress is not valid, and this here fancy-ass law firm is like, “Sign us up!”

These are the members of the Senate Democratic caucus who just voted to pass the GOP's Trump-backed budget bill, along with the year that they next go before voters—including primary voters.

If it’s illegal, then they weren’t fired. (To be clear: I do not take issue with the QT at all, I’m grateful that she shared this news. But workers affected by these illegal actions should go to court, stat.)

They are just pouring water out of a reservoir for no goddamn reason other than Trump thinks that there's a magic valve that was stopping California from fighting wildfires.

In writing about Trump in the first term I kept coming back to the idea of trying to talk a drunk driver out of the keys. It's maybe not the best metaphor, although it's not wrong. Anyway he is most definitely not just driving but doing 75 in a 35 now. Feels like there are fewer options now.

The throughline that I keep returning to is: -they collectively decided that Musk’s takeover of Twitter went *great*. -so they’ve taking that same approach to the entire federal bureaucracy. -instead of server crashes and error messages, medicaid breaks and a plane full of kids crashes.

RFK Jr even getting a hearing for this job is failed state shit

Gosh I’m stunned.

Brutal exchange between RFK Jr. and Sen. Bennet: Bennet: Did you say Lyme disease is a highly likely militarily engineered bioweapon? Kennedy: I probably did say that.

Why, why, oh holy fuck WHY does the American MAGA right insist on using the least masculine dudes on earth to be their voices for masculinity? For fucks sake, Matt Walsh could get his ass kicked by a middle schooler.

Seems like some mistakes were made along the path that brought us here, I'm saying.

Our guest this week on The Downballot podcast is PA Lt. Gov. Austin Davis (@lgaustindavis.bsky.social), who's also the new chair of the @demlgs.org. We dive deep into the importance of the LG job and Davis' efforts to elect more Democrats like him. Listen here!

The sanewashing and corruption washing and Nazi washing define why legacy media will not survive this era.

What an adorbs and funny way for Trump to say that Stephen Miller is a white supremacist. That he has empowered. Huh. Odd, that.

Burning down the pentagon is a weird goal for the guy who runs the pentagon

Sober is the new Woke

It’s funny Zuck says “I started building social media to give people a voice” when in fact, he started building social media to publicly rate the hotness of undergrads.

There are still some votes to be counted, but right now, NoVA Dems are running slightly ahead of Harris while a Republican in a safe red seat is running well behind Trump in tonight's special elections docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

When speech online is just endless cacophony and only the oligarchs have agency and opinions that matter to affect the political process, the freedom of speech these so called beneficent overlords granted us is shown for what it is, a fool's freedom.

Meta is not "bending the knee." They're seizing an opportunity.

ME: oh, cool, so you’ll stop classifying any LGBTQ content as ‘sexual’ and throttling it. FB: oh not those restrictions. ME: what restrictions, then? FB: oh, you know the ones.

Streaming in 2010: You can watch an entire catalog of amazing movies and TV shows for a reasonable monthly fee Streaming in 2025: our library is Batman movies and 28 seasons of a Tim Allen sitcom, it costs $159/month. We just destroyed the last piece of evidence that Mister Rogers ever existed

NEW: California is growing again. Reason to cheer, or yawn? Talk of a mass “exodus” was always overblown, rooted in partisan animus. Will the population bump be taken as validation of the California Way? Nah. But at least it might quiet the haters for a little bit. www.latimes.com/politics/sto...

Scott Van Pelt has some thoughts on Russell Wilson's post-game comments 👀

"Back the Blue excerpt when instructed by you know who"

Elon Musk bought Twitter not to run it as a business but to use it as a global-scale right wing propaganda machine. He (or his investors) could afford to lose a measly $40 billion dollars for this goal. And it paid off.

She leaves office with all the class with which she held office. I won’t say served, because she mostly served herself. No elected Democrats should meet with her when she becomes a lobbyist. Schedule meetings, and let her wait in their lobbies until she figures it out.

Every legacy media executive should take a few minutes to read the comments to this post. They would learn a lot about why they are losing readers/viewers/consumers.

Jimmy Carter is welcomed into heaven today. “Well done good and faithful servant.” He will be missed

Jimmy Carter was a Christian politician who actually sought to model the teachings of Christ even after leaving politics, rather than using Christianity as a political bludgeon against his opponents or as a tool of supremacy in the godforsaken "culture wars."

found the groomer www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

I don't even know if he really feels that tax cuts have to be "paid for," so much as that he would just like to have your money. There is a pile of it over here, and he would like to have it, and now that he's the government, he can do that.

You know Twitter is broken because at no point this morning, inexplicably, was "customer appreciation week" ever trending.

In this Ohio diner, Coke is a sweet and refreshing treat, and happens to share a name with a carbonated beverage. But they do know this: Matt Gaetz should be re-nominated for attorney general.

Honestly this entire "well we don't know he *intentionally lied* he might just be delusional" is the dumbest and low-key most destructive "debate" within the MSM. He lies. All the time. He's corrected and he keeps lying. Just call it for what it is.

“Discussed the Panama Canal” sounds so normal. He fucking “discussed” TAKING OVER the Panama Canal, you worthless suckups. Delete your account.

I'm constantly floored by claims that the Democrats look down on or disdain Trump voters. Nobody disdains Trump voters more than Trump and his policies repeatedly demonstrate this disdain.

Elon Musk and JD Vance publicly supporting the neo-Nazis of Germany's AfD, just as an AfD supporter/Elon Musk fan kills 5 and injures 100+ in a terrorist attack at a Christmas market in Germany. Vance's pro-AfD statement came *after* the attack. It's bad. Not sure what else to say. Dark times ahead.

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which Musk posted can “save Germany,” is “controversial even among other European far-right parties because many of its leaders are not shy about expressing Nazi sympathies.”

i think it is very cool that the political press was basically uninterested in the fact that vance is openly adjacent to/pals around with far-right and Nazi-sympathetic maniacs

This is the only useful application of AI. I'd freely give the tech bros all my content for more of this.

Don't think too many people figured on this ordeal ending with Republicans doing the Spiderman fingerpoint meme while Hakeem Jeffries took a victory lap.

Today, as we publish our last Morning Digest of 2024, we wanted to express our deepest gratitude to our readers. Launching The Downballot was a momentous step for us, and your support is why we're here today. We hope you'll consider donating to our end-of-year fundraiser. We have a big year ahead!

Back in 1930s, one key to labor success was local govts and governors often refusing to send police in to break pickets. That Mayor Adams using cops to break pickets should mean every local labor leader should be calling for his resignation immediately (aside from his criminal corruption)

Another wrinkle in the whole spending fight: -The original the continuing resolution set aside money to help employers move from paying people with disabilities below minimum wage to paying them a competitive wage. -Elon Musk tanked it -The CR that failed tonight stripped out that language.