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Above: Driftglass has discovered woodworking! He made this cat-proof Christmas tree for our living room. Driftglass and I are so grateful to be a part of the C&L family. 2024 will log ONE HUNDRED episodes of our Professional Left Podcast. Year in review: We'll record Episode 100 for the year next week!

Buckle up, friendsit is going to be a bumpy one. 2025 is not going to start off the way we had hoped, but I want to share some of my thoughts (and a personal reflection) as we enter this tumultuous year. Many of you got to know me in The Bad Placestarting about 10 years agowhen my son was 8.

“Five months after a jury convicted Sen. Bob Menendez of corruption-related charges that ended his political career, federal prosecutors have admitted to a series of errors that could upend the verdicts,” Politico reports. “The missteps have handed Menendez’s attorneys just the kind of opening they’d been looking for, and they have already requested a new trial.

Playbook: “He has the money, the platform, a Republican trifecta in Washington and a radically altered information ecosystem compared to would-be government shrinkers in generations past. Trump and his allies are serious about targeting the federal government, which many MAGA figures see as full of disloyalty, for radical changes.” “But inertia is powerful.

After the presents, breakfast, hugs, and thank yous, it's time for football! NFL Christmas Day looks like this: at 1 p.m. ET, the Kansas City Chiefs (14-1) play the Pittsburgh Steelers (10-5). Then the Baltimore Ravens (10-5) play the Houston Texans (9-6) at 4:30 p.m. Eastern. Which team are you rooting on to the Super Bowl? read more

WASHINGTON — The fate of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet is still unclear after Republican senators spent much of December carefully dodging questions about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ’s views on vaccines, accusations of sexual misconduct against Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard’s 2017 meeting with then-President Bashar Assad of Syria. While some GOP senators have indicated they are all-in for Trump’s picks, others have withheld support, for now, especially on some of his more controversial nominees.