With Lurid Gaetz Report Trump's Bad Run Stays Bad, Fighting The Unacceptable 4, Hope For Syria, Happy Holidays All!

"prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress"

Good morning all. Got a few things for you today:

With Gaetz Report Trump’s Bad Run Stays Bad - CBS News got a copy of the House ethics report to be released today and it is as bad, perhaps worse, than we thought:

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican who briefly stood to become President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to be attorney general, was found by congressional ethics investigators to have paid numerous women — including a 17-year-old girl — for sex, and to have purchased and used illegal drugs, including from his Capitol Hill office, according to a final draft of a comprehensive investigative report obtained by CBS News.

Those were among the findings of the long-running investigation by the House Ethics Committee into Gaetz, which concluded the former Florida congressman violated multiple state laws related to sexual misconduct while in office.

"The Committee determined there is substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress," the 37-page report concludes.

This is the man Donald Trump - impulsively, recklessly, shockingly - picked to be Attorney General of the United States of America. It’s another bad day in what has been a very bad week for Donald Trump - rising concerns in the markets about his inflationary economic agenda, close allies readying retaliatory tariffs and destructive trade wars, staggering political incompetence and a weakening of his own already deeply unstable Congressional leadership, getting blown around by Elon, a judge fails to erase his 34 felony convictions, his daughter-in-law withdraws from consideration for Florida Senate (for she was told no)……

We should use Trump’s bad run to escalate the pressure on what I’m calling his unacceptable 4 - Gabbard, Hegseth, Kennedy, Patel. Call or your email your Senators and Representative today and tell them you are outraged that Trump could put forward such dangerous people and that you expect them to work against his other early, outrageous nominees. I don’t know how many of these nominees we can knock out but we have to keep working it everyone. As we’ve discussed here in the past few days in opposition we need to take the wins when they come, celebrate them, and build on them and work to keep winning and make sure he keeps losing. Trump had an extraordinary defeat last week, one that blunted his post-election momentum and weakened him here in the Capital. Today’s report was another embarrassing loss for Trump and even though Trump won he remains the ugliest political thing we’ve all ever seen. Let’s work to keep those losses coming in the days ahead for losses and perceived weakness and incompetence are how strongmen lose their grip - and that he has stumbled this badly, even before coming President, has been a jaw-dropping, and welcome, development as we head into the Holidays.

Encouraging News From Syria - On Bluesky I follow a few accounts that show videos and report from Syria and countries like Georgia and now, remarkably Serbia, that are fighting for freedom, decency and throwing off the yoke of the Russian-Iranian axis and other illiberal forces. I’m going to bring their work in here more often, starting with this remarkable video from Syria. Enjoy the music, joy, youth, hope:

The NY Times published an incredible story over the weekend about Iran’s collapsing energy infrastructure (unlocked link), Iran’s Energy Crisis Hits ‘Dire’ Point As Industries Are Forced To Shut Down. An excerpt:

Although Iran has one of the biggest supplies of natural gas and crude oil in the world, it finds itself in a full blown energy emergency, coming just as it also suffers major geopolitical setbacks…….

Government offices in Iran are closed or operating at reduced hours. Schools and colleges have moved to online only. Highways and shopping malls have descended into darkness, and industrial plants have been denied power, bringing manufacturing to a near halt.

Although Iran has one of the biggest supplies of natural gas and crude oil in the world, it is in a full-blown energy crisis that can be attributed to years of sanctions, mismanagement, aging infrastructure, wasteful consumption — and targeted attacks by Israel.

“We are facing very dire imbalances in gas, electricity, energy, water, money and environment,” said President Masoud Pezeshkian in a live televised address to the nation this month. “All of them are at a level that could turn into a crisis.”

While Iran has been struggling with issues with its infrastructure for years, the president warned that the problem had reached a critical point.

For most of last week, the country was virtually shut down to save energy. As ordinary Iranians fumed and industrial leaders warned that the accompanying losses amounted to tens of billions of dollars, Mr. Pezeshkian could offer no solution other than to say he was sorry.

“We must apologize to the people that we are in a situation where they have to bear the brunt,” Mr. Pezeshkian said. “God willing, next year we will try for this not to happen.”

While things feel a bit perilous here in the US at the moment, we cannot lose sight of the progress we’re making against the world’s worst regimes. The loss of Assad has been a world altering event, weakening Iran and Russia, creating an opening for pro-democracy forces throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

In the past few days Russia has started moving some of its military assets from Syria to Libya, a move that is being bravely challenged by Libya’s Prime Minister. From The Guardian:

Russia’s move to reinforce its military base in eastern Libya after the toppling of the Assad regime in Syria is facing resistance from the country’s UN-backed government.

The prime minister of the Tripoli-based government, Abdul Hamid Dabaiba, said he rejected any attempt to turn Libya into a centre for major-power conflicts, stressing that the country would not be a platform for settling international scores.

“We have concerns about moving international conflicts to Libya, and that it will become a battlefield between countries,” Dabaiba said.

Libya has endured years of conflict since the 2011 Nato-backed uprising ended dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s 40-year reign. The country remains divided between the UN-recognised government in Tripoli and a rival administration in the east, backed by military leader Khalifa Haftar.

Reports in recent days have indicated Russian forces were transferring military equipment from Syria’s Tartus naval base and Hmeimim airbase to eastern Libya, where the rival administration has received Russian support for years.

Dabaiba said his government would not allow the transfer of Russian weapons to Libya, warning that it would only complicate Libya’s internal crisis further. He added that “no one with an ounce of patriotism wants a foreign power to impose its hegemony and authority on the country and the people”.

Dabaiba said he had been in touch with the Russian ambassador to Libya to demand an explanation.

Russia’s bases in western Syria have been crucial to its ability to project power in the Mediterranean and north Africa. Moscow has been negotiating with Syria’s new leaders to retain them, but no agreement on the leases has been made.

Jalel Harchaoui, associate fellow at the defence thinktank RUSI, described Dabaiba’s remarks as a “watershed moment”, adding: “Just him saying those words is deeply problematic to Russia because part of the Russian doctrine in the Middle East is never to be perceived as being completely 100% on one side against the other.

“So Russia was supposed to be this magical actor that was basically eliciting the active approval of both sides of the Libyan crisis. And all of that is gone.”

Hopium Holiday Schedule, Videos And Other Things To Consider Over The Break - I’ll be taking time off over the Holidays and will only be posting if something important comes up. I plan on firing back up on January 2nd or 3rd, when the new Congress comes to town into town to get sworn in and the MAGA clown show resumes. One thing I hope to be doing in January is grabbing a few interviews with the 7 House Members we helped elect this year. Those 7 seats we helped flip from red to blue have made it far harder, far far harder for Trump to enact his extreme agenda next year. Our House wins and strength have made the entire MAGA enterprise unstable, something that was clear for all to see last week.

We have produced a lot of new videos and political analysis over the past few weeks. If you want to catch up on some of it over the break, I send along some of the highlights, starting with the video interviews and transcripts of the four our most important state chairs:

• On The Future Of The DNC and The Democratic Party - With Ken Martin, Minnesota Democratic Party Chair and A Leading Candidate For DNC Chair

• On Winning In Wisconsin and the Future of the DNC and Democratic Party - With Ben Wikler, Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair and A Leading Candidate for DNC Chair

• On Winning The Blue Dot And The Urgent Need To Invest in Democratic Party, Partisan Infrastructure - With Jane Kleeb, Nebraska Democratic Party Chair

• On North Carolina’s Impressive Downballot Wins - With Anderson Clayton, North Carolina Democratic Party Chair

Other recent videos in our What Happened, What Comes Next series for your Holiday viewing and listening pleasure:

• On Winning Arizona And Getting Latinos Back - With Senator-Elect Ruben Gallego

• On Winning Virginia In 2025 - With Rep. Abigail Spanberger, The Democratic Nominee for Governor of Virginia | Learn more about Abigail | Volunteer | Donate To Her Campaign

• On Trump’s Big Gains With Young People, Particularly Young Men - With John Della Volpe Of Harvard’s Institute Of Politics

• On The Power of Networks - With Joe Trippi, Legendary Democratic Strategist and Campaign Manager, Founder Sez Us and Resolute Square

• On Reinventing Government and The Perils of DOGE - With Dr. Elaine Kamarck Of Harvard and The Brookings Institution

You may also find these two segments from our fall Closing Strong collaboration with COURIER Newsroom and Tara McGowan helpful:

• On The Need For Pro-Democracy Media - With COURIER’s Tara McGowan and Crooked Media’s Dan Pfeiffer

• Beyond MAGA Creators - Russia’s influence on the Republican Party runs deep with Stewart Stevens and Jiore Craig

And here are my most important recent post-election analyses, both in words and video, if you haven’t gotten to them yet (and oldie but goodie too):

• More Notes On Trump’s Unprecedented Ugliness And Becoming The Ferocious Opposition - includes early thinking about how the Hopium community evolves next year

• For Dems It’s A Time For Re-imagination, Re-invention and Innovation (video too)

• Learning How To Tell Our Story More Effectively

• More Notes On What Happened And What Comes Next (video too)

• “Getting Louder” - A conversation about building pro-democracy media with Ben Meiselas (MeidasTouch), Tara McGowan (COURIER Newsroom), Joe Trippi (Resolute Square) and David Rothkopf (DSR Network)

Happy Holidays all. Rest up, enjoy and see you on the other side - Simon