An Awful Way to Start a New Year

Karoli, Aliza, and I had every intention of starting the New Year off right by recording a new podcast this week.

That was before the Southern California hurricane-force wind event began on Tuesday. I had already cancelled my engagements, because we’ve had a couple of close calls. We knew a fire was going to break out. What we did not know was where it would happen. Or that there would be multiple large fires, all at once.

When local TV station KTLA first reported the brush fire in Pacific Palisades, it had burned less than a hundred acres. Today, it will be remembered as one of LA’s worst disasters ever. The Eaton fire in the San Gabriel Valley is giving it a run for its money. Neither of those fires are near my home, but with gusts predicted to hit up to 100 mph at 10 PM that night, I knew we were not out of the woods. And sure enough, at 10:10, the Hurst fire broke out a few miles from here - just as the wind was crashing all kinds of weird stuff into the side of my house.

An hour later, we were alerted to prepare to evacuate.

Happily, as I write this, an evacuation order for my neighborhood hasn’t arrived. The firefighters so far have kept that fire from spreading down our hills, and as of this morning, the Hurst fire is 10% contained. KTLA reports that they have not heard of any structures damaged from it. But that was not clear on Tuesday night: I did not sleep much while glued to the TV coverage, ready to leave once we got the word.

I began Wednesday morning exhausted. And that was even before I read the latest nonsense to come out of the mouth of the president-elect. I told Karoli and Aliza I wasn’t up to recording this week.

What You Missed This Week

I think of MOMocrats MOMochat as political group therapy: Talking about the issues with my friends helps me find the clarity - and strength - to stay involved. I love this country. I love our democracy. Both are worth fighting for.

I spend the days between podcasts taking notes that become an outline of what we might talk about on taping days. Here’s a sample of what we would have discussed during yesterday’s show:

Greetings from all us “household objects:” META morphs into X 2.0

Republicans now firmly in charge of the legislative branch and the Democrats are behaving as if the nation is not on fire WHERE IS OUR SHADOW CABINET? AND WHERE DO OUR CANDIDATES FOR DNC LEADERSHIP STAND ON THIS IDEA?

Trump held a bonkers news conference on Tuesday and the press behaved exactly as badly as they always have - feeding the crazy by with leading questions that solicited ever more lunatic answers. TRYING TO IGNORE WHAT HE SAYS SO WE ARE NOT DISTRACTED BY WHAT THEY ARE GOING TO DO

Domestic terrorists on New Year’s Day - Will Bunch’s op-ed that we have entered a period where ordinary people believe violence is a valid political expression (historically not incongruous in the United States).

Riveting reporting from ProPublica on the mole who infiltrated the militias.

Mike Johnson re-elected as Speaker with little drama (which does not mean this House will go smoothly for him)

Trump is still on track to be sentenced on Friday, but Aileen Cannon steps in again to try and prevent Merrick Garland from releasing Jack Smith’s final report. The part dealing with January 6 will be released on Friday.

Appeals court strikes down net neutrality (thanks, to corrupt SCOTUS ruling last year).

North Carolina Supreme Court halts certification of election of a member of that Court that was won by a Democrat - but the Republican would not concede and has been trying to get 60,000 votes thrown out. The Board of Elections refused to do that - the Court now wants to review it.

Michael Podhorzer’s Weekend Reading newsletter analyzing election statistics and the cynicism/disengagement of Biden voters who did not actually believe that Trump would actually do the things he’s threatening… so let’s talk about the part the MEDIA played in this, by not explaining Biden’s successes and the part that Congress and the Court played in his failures, focusing on his age and making inflation the only economic story. 

Sherilynn Ifill essay: Facing Trump 2.0

Canada in danger of going our way as Trudeau resigns his post as Liberal leader. Musk steps up attacks on other countries’ sovereignty (UK, France, Germany). King of Denmark changes coat of arms to emphasize the importance of the Faroe Islands and Greenland.

Food for thought: Getting Smart on Wedge Issues.

One Last Thing…

One of the most destabilizing features of this era we find ourselves living in is the collapse of many of the news media we have always relied upon for honest and factual reporting - just when we need it the most.

We just updated our catalog of alternate news resources. In the beginning, we just wanted to create our own personal lists of people and places we could turn to for trusted news and information - and realized there are a LOT of good publications out there, even if individual journalists, commentators, and news organizations don’t have the reach (or funding) that the right-wing echo chamber enjoys.

It turns out that a lot of other folks were looking for the same thing, so we consolidated our lists into a Google doc we could share.

We hope to even up the playing field a little, by amplifying these important voices. We published our list last month and have been updating it regularly.

Download the latest version of the list here.