But fear not, my friends—the vetting Trump never really got is about to commence at the hands of the House Democratic majority, writes David Corn at Mother Jones.

Trump is about to receive the political equivalent of a top-to-bottom medical examination. It will be uncomfortable, if not painful. He won’t be able to tweet his way out of this. His lieutenants could well be enmired, responding to or challenging information requests on multiple fronts, some of which may end up before the courts. (Some might have to lawyer up.) With a White House already fueled by chaos—how many wheels can come off this bus?—the big question is: How far will the Democrats go?

Corn recalls covering Bill Clinton's White House in the '90s when it was under siege following the so-called "Republican revolution" that put Republicans in charge of the House. Although some Clinton staffers were depressed by the influx of subpoenas—one GOP chair alone issued 1,000 subpoenas—Corn writes:

The Clinton White House was packed with competent lawyers and political professionals who were highly experienced in governing, politics, communications, and crisis management. By and large, they managed to tend to their day jobs and handle all the investigations hurled at them by the Newt Gingrich-led House Republicans. But it wasn’t easy.

Now just imagine Trump's hollowed-out White House trying to field an onslaught related to his taxes, his family business, his ties to foreign governments, his hush-money payoffs to women, his horrific policies (such as family separation), his obstruction of the Russia probe, etc. A virtual tidal wave of investigations will flood the West Wing come 2019, and Trump likely has zero idea what a pressure cooker that place will become.

As the government shutdown drags into its fifth day, nearly all employees in the office overseeing federal food stamps have been cut.

As of Wednesday morning, the remaining staff dwindled down to a mere 5 percent.

The drastic change was flagged by CNN, which pointed a U.S. Department of Agriculture summary breaking down each of its resources under threat, and the days left until they disappeared. The Food Nutrition and Consumer Services office deals not only with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), but also the Child Nutrition Program and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC).

While SNAP benefits will remain available in January and Child Nutrition programs will continue into February, the future of WIC is uncertain as the shutdown lingers on. The USDA suggested that states turn to local resources if needed.

As an imprisoned Donald Trump becomes ever more likely, people on the other side of the criminal justice system debated what it would take to get him there — and why he would deserve it.
“He went out and got himself a real mob lawyer in [Rudy] Giuliani,” an imprisoned Chicago man who goes by “Po’ Boy” told VICE.

“If he don’t go to jail for all the crimes, and I mean all the crimes he’s committed, then no one should ever say we have equal justice in this country,” Po’Boy said. “Let’s keep it real: Trump’s worse than any dope dealer or white-collar criminal in here. He makes Bernie Madoff look like a saint.

Po’ Boy, who is doing time for a parole violation and asked the website to not use his real name for fear of retribution, said that he’s sickened by the double standard between the conservative treatment of “a real criminal” like Trump and former President Barack Obama.

More than 100 women were elected to Congress alone. We can’t tell every story, but here are a few highlights from the year:

1. SHARICE DAVIDS AND 2. DEBRA HAALAND
There has never been a Native American congresswoman, and as of the 2018 midterms, there are two. Davids, who represents a district in Kansas, is also a trained lawyer, a former mixed-martial arts fighter, and is gay (Kansas, you’ve come a long way). She’s young, too, and will hopefully have a long political life ahead of her.

3. GRETCHEN WHITMER
Gretchen Whitmer won the governorship in Michigan, and one of her major campaign platforms was to tackle the water crisis in Flint. She succeeds a male Republican, Rick Snyder, whose legacy is trying to spin the Flint issue with publicity stunts rather than solve it. Her predecessor made excuses, but I think this female leader will make progress.

4. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the youngest woman elected to Congress and it shows when she runs social media circles around GOP heavy-hitters. She represents a working-class district in New York City, and she comes from a working-class background herself, having tended bar for years. She’s living proof that a law degree is not the only useful background for a politician. She is unapologetically progressive, referring to herself as a Democratic-Socialist, she’s smart, and she has ambitious plans to battle climate change and income inequality at the same time, with a Green New Deal. Without waiting to officially take office she has already used her platform as a Congresswoman-Elect to point out hypocrisies in the House and government, like an amazing health care plan for largely wealthy politicians when the same body has resisted granting that kind of health care to all citizens and voters.

5. KYRSTEN SINEMA
Sinema is Arizona’s first openly bisexual senator. She won Republican Jeff Flake’s seat, and the female GOP candidate she defeated – Martha McSally – will serve alongside her. McSally was appointed to the late John McCain’s vacated seat for the remainder of his term, though only after Sinema beat her. The formerly GOP-controlled state has suddenly gotten a lot more purple.

6. LAUREN UNDERWOOD
Lauren Underwood, only a couple of years older than Ocasio-Cortez and a fellow woman of color, also provides an atypical background. Instead of a lawyer, she is a nurse. Her background in a caring profession should make for an interesting and different perspective compared to her many law-trained colleagues. Like many of the other women on this list, Underwood is a Democrat newcomer who unseated a Republican incumbent.

A young black woman defeating an older, wealthy, and politically advantaged white man. If there is a story to this year politically, surely that encapsulates it.

The math for Donald Trump’s ouster is fairly straightforward. If twenty Republican Senators selfishly decide that the best move for themselves and their conservative billionaire donors is to throw Donald Trump overboard, that’ll be enough votes for ouster, and he’ll be gone. The question is how much worse things have to get before the GOP Senate decides not to go down with Trump’s ship. We may be closer than you think.
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Trump’s nihilistic anti-government base might be rooting for him to burn it all down, but the traditional conservatives – the ones who care about their money – have had just about enough of this crap.

Keep in mind that Republican Senators are generally puppets of a fairly small number of conservative billionaire political donors. If those donors say it’s time for Donald Trump to be removed, it’ll happen. If the GOP informs Trump that he’s facing certain ouster at the end of his Senate impeachment trial, he’ll have no choice left but to negotiate a resignation plea deal in exchange for reduced prison time.

Britain has commissioned an independent review into the persecution of Christians to find practical steps to support followers of a religion that it said has been subject to a dramatic rise in violence worldwide.

Some 215 million Christians worldwide faced persecution for their faith last year, it said, with Christian women and children particularly vulnerable and often subject to sexual violence as a result of their beliefs.

Last year, on average, 250 Christians were killed very month because of their faith, it said.

“So often the persecution of Christians is a telling early warning sign of the persecution of every minority,” Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Today I have asked the Bishop of Truro to look at how the British government can better respond to the plight of persecuted Christians around the world.

“We can and must do more.”

An 8-year-old Guatemalan boy died in U.S. immigration custody today, Christmas day. The second child to die in detention this month. The funeral of Jakelin Caal, who died on Dec. 8, is also due to be held today.