Whoever had the Today Show’s Matt Lauer as the next media heavyweight to fall in the sexual harassment pandemic, contact management to claim your prize. The ax fell just this morning, so no details have emerged yet — that’s all people really care about, isn’t it, the dirty details? — which should keep reporters on the creeper beat busy all day.
The New York Times took all kinds of shit for running that profile of the nice Nazi couple next door — people thought that “normalizing” the newlyweds would somehow spread their white separatist philosophy. Not quite. According to Matt Pearce of the Los Angeles Times, it did get them fired from their jobs. The same public the critics were sure would be snookered instead tracked down the couple’s employers and applied pressure to have them fired. They’re now raising money on — you can’t make this stuff up — Goy Fund Me, an alt-right site started after Nazis were kicked off Go Fund Me.
The state released a plan to close three Christina District schools in Wilmington, consolidating the current five schools into two K-8 schools at Bayard and Bancroft. The News Journal flushed out the story yesterday, but details are still sketchy. Kevin Ohlandt gives his perspective over at Exceptional Delaware.
City and state officials will announce today a that a major sports complex, backed by the Philadelphia 76ers, will be constructed on the Wilmington waterfront.
Our police, as I keep reminding everyone, are not under civilian control. In Baltimore, an officer set to testify against others in a police corruption case was shot to death with his own gun, but the BPD won’t let the FBI investigate the case, despite the police coming up with nothing for two weeks. Also, in what shouldn’t surprise us, Al Jazeera America reports that documents show the feds are “monitoring” Black Lives Matter. That’s why the movement should be called Put a Leash on Police. And a muzzle, while we’re at it.
A reminder that Trump has been a lying sleazeball for a long time: In 1998, after more than a decade of legal stalling, Trump finally
settled a lawsuit about his use of illegal immigrant labor in razing a building to make way for Trump Tower. The New York Times finally dug up the details, and Trump, who claims he never settles lawsuits, coughed up $1 million in fines.
On the Russia front, Josh Marshall connects some dots to deduce that Mike Flynn seems to have dug himself a deeper hole than we realized.
The White House released some Christmas videos featuring Melania Trump that lots of people are viewing as another coded cry for help, as the zombified First Lady strolls through scenery so bleak is looks like is was designed by Tim Burton.
A day that begins with Matt Lauer’s firing is bound to have more news later. Add it below.