He’s having a nice Christmas holiday, enjoying the fam, enjoying life as only he can:
I think this says it all about our current circumstances:
Update —
He’s really worried:
Happy Hollandaise.
"what digby sez..."
Digby's Hullabaloo Posts
Once again, thanks so much for your generosity. It makes the holidays so much brighter. I truly appreciate it.
I don’t know about you but I’m just trying to wrap my mind around the fact that we have three more years of this lunacy and I need to cling to my sanity in order to get through it. The question that keeps running through my mind is, “is it getting better or worse?” We see things like the MAGA crack-up and that seems to be a good thing. But then Trump goes into warmonger mode in Venezuela and Nigeria and seems to be upping the ante on absurd expansionism and you wonder if it isn’t hurtling way out of control.
They are very bad at executing most things. Just look at DOGE. But the chaos may be even more dangerous. The lower courts are holding up and there’s a tiny bit of hope from the Supreme Court on that last shadow docket ruling about the National Guard in Illinois, but who knows with them? For all we know, they’re planning to actually overturn the 14th Amendment and say, “waddaya gonna do about it?” It all feels so uncertain.
Still, there’s hope. People are awake and engaged and the Republicans are off-balance and starting to fight amongst themselves. People don’t want what they’re selling. So this year we may just turn the corner.
Thanks again for sticking with us here at Hullabaloo. It’s been a wild ride all these years — and it isn’t over yet. We can do this.
cheers,
digby
Spread it around
Every year about now I can’t wait for the year to be over in the vain hope that the next will be better. Disappointment awaits. Another run at the football, anyone?
Donald Trump won reelection in 2024. He returned to the White House in 2025, writes Michelle Goldberg, “surrounded by obsequious tech barons, seemingly in command of not just the country but also the zeitgeist.” The DOGE rape of Washington followed, led by Elon Musk of chainsaw and ketamine fame. Trump undermined NATO and Ukraine. His masked secret police kidnapped and disappeared undocumented immigrants willy nilly, some in defiance of court orders. The State Department revoked the legal status of others and DHS deported them too. Trump dispatched troops to Los Angeles. His goons tear-gassed and pepper-sprayed residents in Chicago. Trump illegally slaughtered alleged drug smugglers in small boats in an attempt to justify war with Venezuela. And then on Christmas Eve, Howie Klein, our longtime friend, Down With Tyranny! colleague, and music industry legend, passed away.
So, what now? Goldberg believes there is still room for hope. You, YOU are the hope (gift link):
While Trump “has been able to do extraordinary damage that will have generational effects, he has not successfully consolidated power,” said Leah Greenberg, a founder of the resistance group Indivisible. “That has been staved off, and it has been staved off not, frankly, due to the efforts of pretty much anyone in elite institutions or political leadership but due to the efforts of regular people declining to go along with fascism.”
In retrospect, it’s possible to see several pivot points. One of the first was a Wisconsin Supreme Court race in April. Elon Musk, then still running rampant at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, declared the contest critical and poured more than $20 million into the race. Voters turned out in droves, and the Musk-backed conservative candidate lost by more than 10 points. Humiliated, Musk began to withdraw from electoral politics, at one point breaking with Trump. The tight bond between the world’s richest man and the most powerful one was eroded.
In June, Trump’s military parade, meant as a display of dominance, was a flop, and simultaneous No Kings protests all over the country were huge and energetic. A few months later, Charlie Kirk was assassinated, a tragedy that the administration sought to exploit to silence its opponents. When the late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel made a distasteful comment on ABC that seemed to blame the right for Kirk’s killing, Disney, the network’s parent company, gave in to pressure to take Kimmel off the air. It was a perilous moment for free speech; suddenly America was becoming the kind of country in which regime critics are forced off television. But then came a wave of cancellations of Disney+ and the Disney-owned Hulu channel, as well as a celebrity boycott, and Disney gave Kimmel his show back.
Trump’s approval ratings are in freefall. His courtiers struggle through grimaces to praise the emperor’s cognitive splendor. Citizens like you on grand juries are, repeatedly, calling bullshit on administration attempts to indict Trump critics:
But it’s become, over the past year, easier to imagine the moment when his mystique finally evaporates, when few want to defend him anymore or admit that they ever did. “I think it’s going to be a rocky period, but I no longer think that Trump is going to pull an Orban and fundamentally consolidate authoritarian control of this country the way that it looked like he was going to do in March or April,” said [Ian] Bassin, referring to Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary. If Bassin is right, it will be because a critical mass of Americans refused to be either cowed or complicit.
I’m energized each week by streetcorner and overpass protests. What good are they? They give hope to anxious neighbors who really need it. Commuters give that energy right back. We’re earning their trust week by week. I’ll be urging them to vote early next October.
And when the ACA subsidies end next week, I’ll be lit up on the overpass asking 4,700 pairs of eyes per hour how much their premiums rose. They won’t need reminding who’s to blame.
Happy Hollandaise!
A glimpse at Donald Trump’s priorities
Minutes south of here:
Hundreds of residents signed up for FEMA buyouts after Helene. Not one has been approved.
FAIRVIEW, North Carolina — A dusting of December snow had turned the mountains around her white, but Elizabeth Clark barely had time to notice.
It had been 438 days since Hurricane Helene’s floodwaters wrecked her home’s foundation, inundated the first floor, destroyed the septic system and swallowed theirbelongings. Her mortgage company agreed to pause her payments for a year, but now seemed to be losing patience over the $270,000 she still owed on a house no longer safe to live in.
“I’ve never missed a payment in my whole life,” said Clark, a neonatal nurse at a nearby hospital. “Here now, at 42 years old, I’m having to consider foreclosing.”
In November 2024, Clark was among the first storm victims in her county to apply for a voluntary program funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency that would enable the government to buy out her property.
She and her husband have heard nothing in over a year.
More than 800 storm victims around Helene-battered western North Carolina have applied under FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. State officials vetted applications and began sending them up the chain to FEMA as far back as February. As of Dec. 15, they had sent nearly 600 buyout requests to Washington, with more likely to follow.
So far, they say, not a single approval has come through.
North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein has called the paralysis “absolutely unacceptable,” and has pushed for answers. Earlier this month, he wrote to FEMA’s acting administrator, detailing the startling number of applications that “remain without a final decision.”
“Further delay of these approvals,” he wrote, “keeps communities and families in limbo, in some cases paying expenses on homes they cannot live in while they await word from FEMA.”
FEMA did not comment on questions about the program.
Was anyone left after DOGE to answer the phones?
FEMA claims “80% of acquisitions [are] approved in under two years and 93% in three years or less,” with an average time of 16 months.
But Don Campbell, chief of staff to North Carolina’s emergency manager, told a Helene recovery task force it is his understanding that many of the applications are sitting on Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s desk.
When she’s not in cotume chasing down taco vendors and car wash employees, or jetting around with Corey Lewandowski, she’s getting hair extensions and Botox.
When he’s not focused on toppling the government in Venezuela, Trump Secretary of State Marco Rubio has his people making sure not to admit tourists who dislike his boss:
Trump officials move to screen visa applicants’ posts for ‘anti-American’ speech
The Trump administration is widening efforts to screen visa applicants for online speech considered dangerous and “anti-American” as the government moves to restrict legal migration and remove people from places the president has called “garbage.”
The State Department earlier this month expanded new regulations requiring foreign students and people on academic and cultural exchange programs to disclose five years of their social media histories and make all of their posts public. All applicants for H-1B employment visas and their dependents will now also be subject to the more rigorous online review.
[…]
Trump administration officials said they are acting to protect public safety against terrorist sympathizers and those who wish harm upon Americans. In a statement, Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin disputed the suggestion that the administration is stifling free speech.
“DHS takes its role in addressing threats to the public and our communities seriously, and the idea that enforcing federal law in that regard constitutes some kind of prior restraint on speech is laughable,” she said.
A federal judge disagreed. In September, U.S. District Judge William G. Young of Massachusetts ruled that the Trump administration had misused its sweeping powers in a manner “that continues unconstitutionally to chill freedom of speech to this day.”
Don’t think they’ll stop with non-citizens. You’re next.
Happy Hollandaise!
He’s fine. Everything is fine.
Sure, sure…
Jesus, he’s a parody of a parody:
SNL this past weekend: https://t.co/EuGfft3CZv pic.twitter.com/YFsmiVW6BU
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) December 25, 2025
Aaaaaaand cut!
He can’t help himself.
<Gasp!> Donald Trump lied
Whatever documents reveal of Trump’s role in Jeffery Epstein’s underage sex ring, Democrats have an opportunity to demand charges against any Epstein co-conspirators where evidence merits. And without regard to reputation, political connections, or net worth.
Many mentions of Donald Trump in the latest Epstein files release are from news items and unverified tips. Nonetheless, explains Sarah Fitzpatrick in The Atlantic, “one conclusion from the files is that Trump’s relationship with Epstein, a former friend, was of interest to federal law enforcement for years.” That, despite Trump’s claims that “I was never on Epstein’s Plane, or at his ‘stupid’ Island.” Investigative files just released dispute that claim.
Trump lied? What a shocker.
Fitzpatrick continues, “Representatives I spoke with told me their takeaway from reading the files is that top officials in the Trump administration have not been honest about what was in them, and that they intend to press Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel for more information.”
Bondi and Patel lied? It’s an epidemic.
Team Trump is circling the wagons. But what allies Trump retains as his pool drains is not as interesting or as significant as this:
Representatives and staff on the House Oversight Committee told me they were drafting subpoenas in response to the documents released yesterday, seeking more information related to law enforcement’s identification of 10 alleged “co-conspirators” shortly after Epstein’s arrest in July 2019. The case that prosecutors were building related to those unnamed co-conspirators appears to have been substantial. One document released yesterday is a November 2020 overview presented to the deputy attorney general from an acting U.S. attorney titled “Anticipated Charges and Investigative Steps.” But what, if any, next steps were taken remains a mystery: The rest of the page is redacted.
The revelations point to an opportunity for Democrats if only they choose to accept it.
Yes, Oversight Committee members are drafting a contempt resolution against Bondi (and possible impeachment) for failure to comply with the DOJ’s legal mandate to release all Epstein documents by Dec. 19. But many will see Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s call for DOJ accountability as partisan, simply more evidence of a broken political culture. Unless.
The New York Times this morning considers the challenge Democrats face in somehow rebranding themselves as disruptors and not simply defenders of the status quo. Polling shows “a majority of voters described Democrats as focused on ‘preserving the way government works,’ while only 20 percent said the same of Republicans.” Several of Democrats’ 2026 candidates are pitching themselves as reformers:
In some ways, the anti-establishment energy within the Democratic Party is reminiscent of the Tea Party movement, in which conservative activists channeled outrage over bank bailouts and right-wing animosity toward President Barack Obama into a wave of 2010 midterm victories.
“The Tea Party was against the status quo and for replacing it with nihilism,” argues Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist. “These candidates are against the status quo and for replacing it with something better.”
The T-party clearly saw Obama’s election as a threat to their preferred status quo. But the outrage and bitterness over the 2008 economic crash was real too. The government’s bi-partisan rush to put oxygen masks on the financial industry in first class while commoners riding in coach turned blue laid bare the two-tiered nature both of our economy and of our system of justice. Millions lost their homes and life savings during The Great Recession while Wall Street bankers received golden parachutes. Americans of all political leanings noticed the unequal treatment.
Epstein in 2007 won a non-prosecution deal (cut by Alex Acosta, then US attorney in Florida) that left him serving only 13 months (with work release) in state prison:
A draft 60-count indictment was set aside and Epstein avoided all federal charges. According to the Herald, prosecutors had identified three dozen victims. The victims of his criminal acts were not notified of the deal until after it was inked.
Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, received an unprecedented transfer from a federal prison in Florida to a “club fed” facility in Texas soon after her equally unprecedented interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, former personal attorney to Trump.
Again and again, Americans see plainly that U.S. justice provides valet service to the rich and powerful and harsh justice to commoners. They/we are pissed. Many celebrated the DOGE efforts to burn it all down.
The Times again:
The challenge Democrats face is how to simultaneously defend government institutions that Mr. Trump is trying to gut while also offering a forward-looking message that resonates with voters who believe politics and democracy are broken.
Democrats can prove themselves committed to fixing what’s broken starting now. They can demand justice — equal justice — for any of Epstein’s pals implicated by the evidence percolating out of Trump’s DOJ, and by impeaching any Trump lackeys who refuse that mission. If Democrats fail, they will prove themselves irredeemable and not part of the solution. Americans are watching.
Merry Christmas.
Happy Hollandaise!
Come ride along
This charming song and arresting video by local artist Lord Stryrofoam (Robert Henderson) is a holiday tradition in our household. Notice the sun traverse at 1:35. The song and video are so evocative that I could watch it on a loop all day. It beats a yule log.
Henderson is a local musician. I’d never met him until I spotted him at the No Kings rally in October. I introduced myself and thanked him for the video we both love. He couldn’t puzzle out how I knew who he was behind the white mask. Then he recalled he was wearing the same costume as in the video. (His brother wrote the lyrics, he said.) I didn’t get to ask where he shot the snow scenes. We don’t see so much in town these climate-changey days.
Merry Christmas.
Happy Hollandaise!
Thanks so much for hanging out with us here at Hullabaloo this past year. it’s been a tough one but we came through it. (One down ,three to go!) It’s a privilege to be able to do this and to share what we know and what we do with so many people all over the world. We’re truly blessed and I try to never forget that.
I thought I would share a piece I got in my email this morning from Niall Harbison, the man who rescues dogs in Thailand that I’ve featured on my Friday Night Soother. His feed is the first thing I look at in the morning and it keeps me from despair. The stories can be hard sometimes but they are always offered with a sense of hope and optimism. And it usually pays off.
Anyway, here’s what he shared for Christmas eve and I thought it was an excellent message for dog lovers and lovers of humanity as well:
I got a stark reminder of just how hard life is for so many people today when I offered to make some personal videos for those who were having a tough year.
Kind people send me the messages nominating their mums, best friends or work colleagues who follow me and the dogs. I always think I have it tough with dog issues and managing my mental health but a quick look through the messages reminds me just how brutally tough this time of year is for many.
Life or death. Addiction. Extreme worry for family and friends. Loneliness. It is a time of year where all out problems are accentuated and magnified.
Life Isn’t What You See On Instagram
Open your phone tomorrow and you’ll see footballers and celebs in mansions with their families dressed in matching pyjamas.
There will be an abundance of presents, new designer gear and big tables of food in your apps from people you know. All that stuff is lovely and it should be celebrated but I know the pressure that content puts on a lot of people.
This is a really hard time of year for so many but it’s worth remembering that nearly everybody out there is putting up their best facade. Life is so much harder than what we share online. This is true during the holidays but also throughout the year.
You might follow me and see a 60 second happy video of a dog with nice music but that is a snapshot of their life. I’ve presented them as well as I can and help them as much as possible but just like humans the struggle is real and it is a daily one.
Tilting The Scales Towards Kindness
It would be easy to look at the world and think everything is bad. The algorithms and news channels feed us sad and divisive content because they know it keeps people enraged and engaged.
In my own world of rescuing dogs I see constant cruelty and neglect towards animals. It would be easy to focus on the dogs I’ve seen shot, stabbed, starved and dumped this year but the only way to change the world is by focusing on kindness.
For every human who keeps a dog on a chain like Maximus there is another out there waiting to take a chance on a forgotten dog. To make him part of their family and show him love and be his hero.
It’s a great time of year to remember to help others. A 15 minute cup of coffee, a little text message or even a simple smile could make someone’s whole holidays. If you can tip a little more try to do so. Say hello to someone in the park. Swallow your pride on an issue. Presents will be quickly forgotten but kind actions could be remembered for a lifetime.
Life Comes With Ups And Downs
I have been at rock bottom myself at Christmas before. I’ve sat alone drinking bottles of vodka with my phone switched off in a dark room on the big day itself. 5 Years ago just before I got sober I tried to drink myself to death. I nearly succeeded.
What Is super important to remember is that you can always make comebacks no matter how bad things seem. Look at Prince and Bowie the huskies who we found last year abandoned by owners in the Thai heat. Bowie was pregnant and Prince had been so hungry his stomach was full of sand and rocks he had eaten. You couldn’t find 2 dogs at a lower ebb.
Fast forward 12 months and here they are looking utterly spectacular and loved in their forever homes in Germany and Wales respectively. I didn’t ask their families to send me photos, that’s just what their lives now look like!
I tell my own, Bowie and Wynter (Prince’s new name) stories to show people that comebacks are always possible in life for both dogs and humans. You might feel a bit rubbish, lonely, sad or down right now but there is always hope. If you only take one thing from this email please make it be that there is always hope.
The festive period is seriously hard for people. I look around today and I see huge groups of people drinking Champagne at lunchtime and sipping cocktails on the beach. Everybody seems to be laughing and having the time of their lives.
The easiest thing to do as an alcoholic would be to go and join then! The voice in the head is always there…”Oh you’ve done so well this year saving dogs Niall, a couple of beers is the least you deserve and nobody will never know”.
That’s why I’m out doing as many rescues as possible today. It’s why I’m writing a Substack at 10pm on Christmas Eve. It’s why I’ll spend Christmas morning making 200 personalized videos for people to wake up to. I am purposely keeping myself busy and away from areas of temptation.
But I also realize just how lucky I am. I have my purpose and my calling in life. I know precisely just how many people out there are sad right now. Those hiding behind pained smiles. People having a couple of pills to get through a family meet up. The people who know deep down they have addiction issues. The people worried sick about their health or that of a loved one. Those with crippling grief. The list of struggles is endless.
Please just remember you are not alone. Not only have I struggled in the past but right now there are millions of people just like you having a hard time. It is to every one of you that I wish you have some peace if at all possible. It doesn’t always have to be a Merry Christmas or a Happy Holidays. Sometimes you just need to get through it and thats fine too!
From me and the dogs, I send you all huge love from the bottom of my heart for supporting us this year.
Huge love from me too to all of you wonderful people who care enough about the world around you to pay attention, stay engaged and gather wherever you can to find the solidarity we need to keep trying to make this world a better place. If nothing else, we can at least try to keep each other sane, right?
Merry Christmas from my own godpups, Chester and Eevee!!
cheers,
digby
It’s not as pithy as “the cruelty is the point” but it’s right on the money. (gift link)
When the 18th-century writer Samuel Johnson asked why “we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes,” he was identifying no mere contradiction, but liberty as it was imagined by men who owned other human beings as property. Slaveholders such as John Calhoun saw slavery as inseparable from their own freedom, and they worried that the false doctrine of abolitionism would eliminate that freedom away. “Already it has taken possession of the pulpit, of the schools, and, to a considerable extent, of the press; those great instruments by which the mind of the rising generation will be formed,” Calhoun said. (It seems the “woke mind virus” was telling lies about the great and benevolent institution of American slavery as far back as two centuries ago.)
Defending slavery, however, required invasive uses of power, such as banning antislavery literature and returning escaped Black people to bondage. Many white Americans in the 19th century began to understand that the “Slave Power” curtailed their freedoms as well. And this is what many people forget: Systems of domination rarely spread their blessings widely. The Redemption-era revocation of Black freedoms didn’t result in prosperity for white people writ large, but a Gilded Age in which the upper classes gained unfathomable wealth and economic crises left millions destitute. The nation may have held on to white supremacy, but it also got low wages, a threadbare welfare state, and a society dominated by the rich. Everyone else was too divided by race and class to challenge them.
If you think it can’t happen to you, think again. They’re coming for all of us.
Read the whole piece — it’s bracing but important. The old saying, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” has never been more relevant.
Happy Hollandaise!
Zeteo talked to some members of the Trump White House about their damage control efforts on the Epstein files. It’s hilarious:
Trumpworld is wildly unimpressed with the administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, with many in the MAGA and GOP elite flabbergasted at how Donald Trump’s Justice Department keeps pathetically bungling its own cover-up.
“They keep making it look like we have something to hide,” a White House official complains to Zeteo.
On Tuesday, Zeteo contacted numerous Trump advisers, senior administration officials, Republican lawmakers, right-wing media figures, and other close allies of the president asking them to grade how the Justice Department (which acts as an extension of President Trump’s corrupt wishes) has handled the Epstein saga, particularly from July to the present.
All but one of the dozen-plus Trumpland denizens (who were granted anonymity to speak freely) responded with an “F” or “F-minus.” And one respondent was even harsher: “F-minus-minus.”
I’m not sure why they think there’s any good way to handle this. The problem for Trump is that he’s closely associated with this monster and these files are salacious and super intriguing, gross as they are, with all these famous people involved and the enduring questions about why they are working so hard at covering it up. I think the cat is out of the bag now and nothing they can do will quell the scandal.
Having said that they certainly could have taken this seriously and handled it professionally for the sake of the survivors. Instead of taking over the DOJ X feed and communicating like a bunch of snotty schoolboys, they could have done this right and let the chips fall where they may. The fact that they haven’t done even that, argues strongly for the fact that they are covering for Donald Trump.
This plaintive whine from Monday certainly isn’t going to put an end to the speculation:
By the way, just have to share this little tidbit I came across today:
hmmmmm.
Happy Hollandaise!