DEFENSELESS: Authorities in Azerbaijan are telling reporters that their airliner that crashed in Kazakhstan on Christmas day killing 38 people was brought down by Russian air defenses. The fuselage was peppered with holes that look like they were caused by shrapnel.

  The Embraer passenger jet belonging to Azerbaijan Airlines went down near the city of Aktau. The rear half of the plane survived relatively intact and 29 people survived.

 The jet inexplicably had diverted hundreds of miles off its scheduled route from Azerbaijan’s Baku to Grozny, in Russia’s Chechnya, crashing on the opposite shore of the Caspian Sea. Russia initially said the cause of the crash was a bird strike.

CHRISTMAS GIFTS: The House Ethics Committee gave a gift to the nation revealing their report on former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, concluding that while he was in office from at least 2017 to 2020, he “regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him.” The report also says that in 2017 Gaetz had paid a 17-year-old girl for sex. 

  “Representative Gaetz has acted in a manner that reflects discreditably upon the House,” the report says.

 From 2017 to 2019, the report says, Gaetz used or possessed illegal drugs, including cocaine and Ecstasy “on multiple occasions,” and accepted lavish gifts, including transportation to and lodging in the Bahamas in excess of permissible amounts under House rules.

  You would think the report would prevent Gaetz from ever again holding elective or government office, but don’t count in it. Ever the innocent, Gaetz posted on Twitter/X, “Giving funds to someone you are dating — that they didn’t ask for — and that isn’t ‘charged’ for sex is now prostitution?!?” He went on, “There is a reason they did this to me in a Christmas Eve-Eve report and not in a courtroom of any kind where I could present evidence and challenge witnesses.”

  Also under the tree this year was Donald Trump’s claim on his Truth Social website that the US should own the Panama Canal, Canada, and Greenland … “which is needed by the United States for National Security purposes.”  Denmark says it’s not for sale. 

  Trump has also been suggesting that Canada should become the 51st state and referred to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “governor” of the “Great State of Canada.”

  And on the canal, which the US built and handed over to Panama in 1999, Trump said, “If the principles, both moral and legal, of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America, in full, quickly and without question.”

  In his cheery Christmas message Trump said, “We had the Greatest Election in the History of our Country, a bright light is now shining over the U.S.A “and, in 26 days, we will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. MERRY CHRISTMAS!”

POLLUTION TAX: New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a law that requires big fossil fuel polluters to help pay to repair damage caused by extreme weather, which is becoming more common because of greenhouse gas emissions.

  The law requires that the companies responsible for the bulk of carbon emissions buildup between 2000 and 2024 pay about $3 billion each year for 25 years.

ASTROTURFING: The buzz of the entertainment world is the lawsuit actress Blake Lively filed against her co-star and producer from the movie “It Ends With Us.” Lively accuses Justin Baldoni of sexual harassment during the movie shoot and of waging a pre-emptive PR smear campaign against her to cover for his own bad behavior. She claims the smear campaign involved the practice known as “astroturfing,” posting online comments that appear to come from everyday people but really come from a PR company.

  Lively accuses Baldoni of trying to destroy her career. The complaint includes a message exchange between a PR operative and an editor at the New York Post that goes, “”He (Baldoni) wants to feel like she can be buried,” to which the editor replied, “You know we can bury anyone.”

THE OBIT PAGE: Osamu Suzuki, who built his once tiny Japanese automaker into a global company earning $30 billion a year, has died at 94.

  Suzuki focused the company on making small, low-cost vehicles. He served as president from 1978 to 2000 before taking other roles. He was one of the longest-serving leaders of any major automaker.

THE SPIN RACK:  Finland seized an oil tanker they suspect of being involved with cutting a vital power cable between Finland and Estonia. They say they believe the ship registered in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific is part of the Russian “shadow fleet” evading economic sanctions. — Chinese leader Xi Jinping has ordered local authorities to stop the recent surge in mass killings known as “revenge on society crimes.” The country has a problem with mass knife attacks and people driving cars into a crowd. —  South Korean lawmakers impeached their acting president two weeks after impeaching the president for declaring martial law. — Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, has erupted spewing rivers of glowing lava. Geologists say the biggest danger is toxic gas. — Hudson Meek, the child actor known for his performance in the 2017 film “Baby Driver,” died at age 16 after falling from a moving vehicle. The details of the incident have not been explained. — The bald eagle, which has been featured on the national seal since 1782, has finally been named the national bird despite Benjamin Franklin having denounced it as “a Bird of bad moral Character.”

BELOW THE FOLD:  Self-help author and spiritualist Marianne Williamson, who has run for president, is making a bid to chair the Democratic National Committee. She said in her letter to the committee that the Democratic Party needs to understand the “emotional” force of Donald Trump’s appeal and “create the energy to counter it.”

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