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House Releases Ethics Report On Creepy Matt Gaetz - The Tuesday AM Quickie 12/24/24

By Jacob Silverman —

Happy holidays to our dear readers. Thanks for tuning in this year. -Jacob

ON THE SHOW TODAY

12/24: It's Day 2 of the Majority Report's Best Of 2024! Today you'll hear Sam and Emma speak with Rashid Khalidi, professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, to discuss his 2020 book The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017,

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Today you'll read about the release of the House Ethics Committee report detailing Matt Gaetz's payments for drugs and sex, including with a 17-year-old girl; Luigi Mangione's appearance in a New York City courtroom; Trump's desire to seize Greenland; and Biden's commutations of death row prisoners.

THE BIG NEWS

House Releases Ethics Report On Creepy Matt Gaetz

The House Ethics Committee finally released its long awaited – and briefly suppressed – report into the skeezy dealings of former Rep. Matt Gaetz, who resigned his position to be Trump's Attorney General and then withdrew from that honor. The 37-page report pretty much confirms what had been previously reported: Matt Gaetz liked to party and regularly paid women for drugs and sex. One of the people he paid for sex was a 17-year-old girl. He also abused his Congressional position to reap improper benefits for himself and his female friends.

The report summarizes its conclusions as follows:

Gaetz tried to sue to block the release of the report but failed. He went into damage control on X, claiming that yeah he partied a bit too much, but the women who testified about his activities are untrustworthy. And besides, the DOJ never charged him. These prevarications and excuses will probably go down well in MAGA country, but the full report, which you can read here, paints a picture of a deviant, amoral politician who pursues his illicit appetites with little regard for the law or other consequences.

Luigi Mangione Appears in NYC Court, Pleads Not Guilty

Luigi Mangione, the accused killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, appeared in in a Manhattan courtroom yesterday and pleaded not guilty to murder and 10 other charges. No trial date has been set yet, but Mangione is expected to be tried by the Manhattan DA before facing separate federal charges. As of now, he remains in federal custody, but it seems like state and federal authorities are working out a potential transfer.

Karen Friedman Angifilo, Mangione's defense attorney, blasted Mayor Eric Adams for orchestrating – and participating in – "the biggest staged perp walk I have seen in my career." (You may have seen the massive show of force in which Mangione was marched into Manhattan in what looked like an outtake from "Con Air.") Referring to Adams' own indictment for bribery and corruption, Friedman Angifilo said, "The New York City mayor should know more than anyone the presumption of innocence."

QUICKEST QUICKIES

  • Biden Commutes Sentences for Most Federal Prisoners On Death Row President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 prisoners currently on death row in federal prisons. The three who remain on death row are murderers Dylann Roof, Dzhokar Tsarnaev, and Robert Bowers. via AP News and NYT.
  • Arizona Data Centers Are Devouring Resources Meant For The Public The enormous boom in data-center construction for artificial intelligence applications has consumed huge amounts of electricity, water, land, and other public resources. For the Navajo Nation in Arizona, the data center frenzy has made it hard for locals to even secure basic electricity. via WaPo.
  • Starbucks Worker Strike Continues To Grow An ongoing strike by Starbucks workers has now expanded to more than 300 locations around the country. While Starbucks has more than 10,000 stores, this is the largest labor action the coffee giant has ever faced. via WaPo.
  • Trump Wants To Seize Greenland For The US After Trump announced that Ken Howery – a venture capitalist, PayPal mafia member, and first-term Trump ambassador to Sweden – would be his pick for ambassador to Denmark, the President-elect reiterated his desire to take Greenland and put it under US control. Trump has recently made similar comments about seizing Canada and the Panama Canal. American expansionism is back! via AP News.

SOME NUMBER

$12 billion

That's how much capital Elon Musk has raised from investors this year for xAI, his artificial-intelligence startup, whose newly built, mammoth data center in Memphis is already the subject of controversy. The latest investments came from a Saudi government-controlled corporation and a number of large venture capital firms, some of which also receive money from Saudi Arabia. You may notice a pattern here.

DON'T MISS MR CLIPS‌

Democrats Are A Rudderless Ship

David Dayen disucsses the listless Democrats and why he published an article by a writer named Joe Biden.

How Israel Weaponizes Archaeology In The West Bank

Friend of the show Jasper Nathaniel returns to talk about his reporting on battles over the archaeological record in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

PARTING WORDS

"I felt like, like, like a Nazi ... it looked exactly like we were actually the Nazis and they were the Jews."

-- An Israeli soldier recounting the war crimes carried out by his unit in Gaza. [archive link]

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