'high Risk, High Reward'

With Donald Trump less than two weeks away from taking office and promising an agenda of mass deportations, Democrats are poised to hand Republicans major new powers over immigration policy. Why? Still shell-shocked from the November results, they apparently fear their reelection prospects if they don’t. The Laken Riley Act—named for the 22-year-old Georgia woman who was murdered last year by a Venezuelan migrant who was in the country illegally—passed the House with support from 48 Democrats earlier this week.

Convicted felon Donald Trump used his final Phone-A-Friend lifeline to beg 6 Republicans-in-robes on our Supreme Court to save him from a sentencing. Trump's half-handpicked SCOTUS, not including its 2 most venal, vain & villainous sewer-slurpers, Thomas & Alito, were his last chance to stop Judge Merchan's criminal sentencing of his spray-tanned-jabberwocky arse today on his 34-charge smackdown in the paying-off-the-porn-star case. Yes, I used "were" because last night even they rejected Trump's trumped up appeal.

Countless words have been spilled—including in Mother Jones—on the topic of medical care for transgender youth. The attention, in part, comes from a steep jump in the number of teens who self-identify as transgender in surveys—and, even more significantly, by the massive, coordinated, right-wing campaign designed to politically weaponize transgender kids’ very existence. At least 373 bills attacking transgender health care, usually for minors, were introduced in statehouses over the past two years, according to the Trans Legislation Tracker.

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The sun glared red as it sank into the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday, casting an orange hue over the carnage smoldering on the southern Californian coast. It will be a day not soon forgotten in Los Angeles, which by evening was flanked by catastrophic wildfires in nearly all directions. It’s too early to determine the full extent of the destruction caused by the blazes, but in the neighborhoods bordering the Palisades fire it was clear the impact was enormous. Throughout the day, cellphones of residents in nearby communities sounded warnings when mandatory evacuation lines were extended as the wind-fueled fires continued to spread.

One thing for sure: he'll never be called Joe the Great.

Hell has officially frozen over.