• The White House physicians who kept secret Donald Trump’s positive coronavirus test on September 26th need to answer questions about how they learned Trump violated quarantine and infected scores of people for days, and who they told about Trump’s health.  The minions in the Trump White House not only endangered hundreds of people over days, but nearly cost the life of the (granted, very much disliked) President of the United States.
• I like the fact that a number of Trump’s cronies are pleading the Fifth.  It shows that, even in retrospect, they themselves can see their actions were criminal.  
• The children of anti-vaxxers must start refusing to eat their vegetables at dinner, claiming “body sovereignty” and the illegality of parents forcing children to put something in their bodies the kids don’t want.  That is, if they actually get served vegetables during dinner, and not just something ordered by yelling into a clown’s mouth.
• If Kevin McCarthy wants to calm the disarray in the House GOP caucus, he should just post dicta on Twitter, because that’s the only thing his freshman class of representatives thinks matters.

“Breaking news we have here tonight exclusively,” Rachel Maddow reports, “that the incriminating letter that was drafted from the US Justice Department to Georgia state officials essentially inducing them to flip the election results in that state, rather than just being the product of Jeffrey Clark, a single Justice Department official–who’s announced he’s going to plead the Fifth in that investigation, who has already been held in contempt in that investigation–rather than just being his work, as has been described in public reporting, the investigation has discovered White House metadata on that document which shows that it appears to be the product of the Trump White House.  If that work product is, in fact, a crime raises new questions as to where this investigation is going.”

If this is the case–that the Trump White House composed the January 5th letter to Georgia state officials and simply has Clark put his name on it–the question then becomes, “How long was the Trump White House planning to illegally overturn the election?” and what other crimes did they crime–besides lying to virtually everybody about the source of that letter.

“It didn’t sound like him.  It didn’t sound like a cold to me.  I’m not a doctor.  I’m not gonna play one on TV,” says Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots Cosplayer Sean Hannity as he plays doctor on TV.

Updating on top of the update: Per CNN citing a law enforcement source, James and Jennifer Crumbley have turned off their phones and withdrawn $4,000 from an ATM. Whether they used their vehicle’s CD player to listen to “Life in the Fast Lane” from “The Eagles Greatest Hits, Volume 2” during their escape is unknown but probable, circumstances considered.

Madeline. 8lbs 2oz. Mrs Kelly is doing just fine but is keeping a "low profile" for the time being. Ever notice how every hospital in the world has the same style BABY BLANKET? pic.twitter.com/cuLlfYDqIP

— Greg Kelly-Ripped in 2022. (@gregkellyusa) December 4, 2021

Extrapolating by number of excess deaths, Russia’s COVID-19 pandemic death toll may have already surpassed that of the United States, the Moscow Times reports, based on their analysis of numbers from the Rosstat official statistics agency. As of October 31st, over 810,000 more Russians have died in the months since the pandemic began than were recorded in their corresponding months in 2019 – for example, October 2021 saw 247,000 deaths from all causes, about 90,000 more than the 157,000 who died in October 2019 prior to the pandemic. October 2021 was the fourth consecutive month of over 200,000 fatalities, and the fifth since January 2008.

The CDC by contrast estimates that 890,000 excess fatalities occurred in the United States through the end of November 2021. This means that, with a month lag in reporting, and with a population roughly a third the size of the United States, if November was anything like October in Russia (and it was probably even worse) the Russian Federation has very likely already seen more deaths from COVID-19 than the United States. No wonder the fanboys love it so much.

“Former Trump DOJ official Jeffrey Clark, after agreeing to testify to Jan. 6 committee on Saturday, conveniently now announces he has a medical condition that means he can’t appear tomorrow after all“ reports the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell, also adding a statement from the committee, “Through his attorney, Mr Clark has informed the select committee of a medical condition that precludes his participation in tomorrow’s meeting. He has provided ample evidence of his claim.”

The Detroit Free Press spoke via Facebook chat with Oxford, Michigan parent Stacey Scheidt who on Friday shared with them a November 16th email exchange with principal Steve Wolf. Wolf told Scheidt there was nothing to be concerned about over rumored threats to the school circulating on social media, specifically a countdown clock shooter Ethan Crumbley allegedly posted on TikTok.

“I know it’s been investigated but my kid doesn’t feel safe at school,” Scheidt wrote to Wolf last month, adding “He didn’t even want to go back to school today”, to which Wolf responded “I know I’m being redundant here, but there is absolutely no threat at the HS. Large assumptions were made from a few social media posts, then the assumptions evolved into exaggerated rumors.” Scheidt told the Free Press that an Oxford counselor called then her “to again reassure me that school was totally safe and that they had had numerous conversations like this with parents and students alike and there was no threat to the school” and man is this guy fucked.

Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, czar of the state House GOP’s 2020 election “review” has petitioned a court to toss mayors Eric Genrich of Green Bay and Satya Rhodes-Conway of Madison in jail for failing to appear for testimony in his little investigation, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports. Attorneys for the two mayors say the grown man who wears dental braces never specified when or where the interviews should take place, and mayor Genrich’s attorney wrote a letter to a county judge asking him to sanction Gableman for his dumbassery.

“Based on our initial review, the Petition is not only lacking in legal merit and built upon a gross distortion of the relevant facts, but it departs so greatly from legal standards that Mayor Genrich intends to serve the Special Counsel with a motion for sanctions,” Green Bay city attorney Jeffrey Mandell wrote to Waukesha County Circuit Judge Ralph Ramirez on Wednesday.

Gableman’s Chief Wiggum-like handling of the “investigation” doesn’t quite draw the same headlines as the now-infamous Cyber Ninjas clusterfuck in Arizona did, but all the gross incompetence and downright malevolent intent is very much there – and in many ways worse. A fake cybersecurity company based in Florida with zero experience conducting election audits – real or fake – getting hired to do just that in Arizona was never going to end well. A Wisconsin judge formerly of the state’s highest court investigating the election in Wisconsin sounds much more reasonable on paper and didn’t have to be a complete shitshow. But here we are nonetheless.

Oakland County (Michigan) Sheriff Michael Bouchard told CNN that the parents of school shooter Ethan Crumbley have not responded to the charges filed against them and are essentially missing, with the couple’s lawyer saying they are not responding to her calls or texts.  The parents were charged with involuntary manslaughter for allowing their son to obtain the weapon used in the shooting. The Detroit News reports the Crumbleys stopped responding to their attorney, who had assured the county sheriff she would produce them for arrest at around 2pm EST on Friday.

See what we did there? A white Christmas? That’s just barely more satirical than the promo itself for a very real and very far-right Caucasian nationalist Christmas spectacular scheduled for December 19th. These guys are so clever with their total lack of subtlety and deeply non-ironic appreciation for America and Christmas back before everyone not white and Christian ruined it.

For those unfamiliar, Blake Masters is an ultra-nationalist Peter Thiel pawn gunning hard for a Trump endorsement, while Mark Finchem is a “Stop the Steal” asshole turned Trump-backed candidate for Arizona Secretary of State. Louie Gohmert and Madison Cawthorn need no introduction here.

Ponysaurus, a Durham, North Carolina brewery, had introduced “Don’t Be Mean to People: A Golden Rule Saison,” a beer whose proceeds will benefit a fund to help the LGBTQ community after the state’s lieutenant governor referred to its members as “filth,” People magazine reports.

“There’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth,” Republican North Carolina Governor Mark Robinson, 53, said in his October speech. “And yes, I called it filth. And if you don’t like it that I called it filth, come see me and I’ll explain it to you.”

Can kicked until February 18th, per NBC’s Sahil Kapur.

MAGA lawyer John Eastman, Claremont Institute fellow and author of the Electoral College count coup memo presented to Mike Pence in the days before January 6th has pleaded his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination in a letter to the Capitol riot committee after skipping out on testifying, Politico reports. Citing some pretty cunty excuses like “the lack of true minority representation combined with your decision to take testimony in secret proceedings creates an extreme risk of gross unfairness to the subjects of your investigation” in the letter from his attorney, Eastman weasels away from the consequences for attempting to destroy democracy – for now.

In a White House meeting the day before the attack, Eastman briefed Pence and Donald Trump on his much-ridiculed legal theory that the Vice President can unilaterally reject the certified electors from any state, a move Eastman claimed would allow Pence to reject Electoral College electors from swing states, which would give those states’ Republican legislature to assign Trump-friendly electors – to “Howls, of course, from the Democrats”, as Eastman wrote.

A Michigan prosecutor has filed charges against the parents of Oxford, Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley, the AP’s Jonathan Lemire reports. The verified MAGA assholes bought their 15 year old son the weapon he used to shoot and kill 4 other students on Tuesday.

Senator Marco Rubio took a meeting Tuesday with José Antonio Kast, the far-right Chilean presidential candidate with ties to the fascist 1980s-era Pinochet regime, The Intercept reports. Kast’s father, a Wehrmacht lieutenant who joined his pals Josef Mengele, Adolf Eichmann, and others in taking up residence in the Third Reich’s South American early retirement community, raised his Chilean sons to be upstanding Conservatives in public service, with Miguel Kast becoming labor minister and central bank president under the Pinochet regime, Christian allegedly leading peasant worker massacres, and Jose a reactionary propagandist who worked hard to keep the regime in place. “If Pinochet were alive, he would have voted for me,” Kast likes to boast.

Rubio has a history of cuddling the Latin American far right, meeting with insane asshole Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, accusing “international marxists” of inciting protests against the Colombian government’s brutal response to unrest last spring, and suspending aid funding for a Guatemalan anti-corruption commission while it was investigating conservative President Jimmy Morales, just to name a few. Marco’s really living La Vida MAGA these days.

Ben Raymond, co-founder of the British Neo-Nazi group National Action has been found guilty of continuing to operate the organization after it was banned, the BBC reports. Raymond was sentenced to eight years in prison plus two years supervised release after he was convicted in the Bristol Crown Court of violating the Terrorism Act of 2000, as well as possessing a manifesto by Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik and a manual on how to build homemade explosives. Judge Christopher Parker QC told Raymond he was especially dangerous for his work as propaganda chief for the MAGA-like organization, and “grooming” young people to join Raymond’s “white jihad”.

“You intended that the material should be used in order to recruit new members, and specifically new young members,” Parker said. “In effect these young people were at risk of being groomed by your material to commit acts of extreme racial violence [with] which National Action no doubt had sympathy.” Raymond is the 17th NA member to be convicted of defying the ban on the group.

Sidney “Kraken” Powell likely falsified information when she incorporated “Defending The Republic” in the state of Texas last year, the Guardian reports, citing sources close to the federal grand jury investigation. Specifically, the Kraken listed fellow MAGA lawyer Lin Wood and Brannon Castleberry, a California business consultant as fellow members of a board when neither had consented to it.

The grand jury is looking at crimes related to the misrepresentation was intended to defraud donors and if the Kraken spent donor funds on her own personal expenses, rather than the proper way of running a scam non-profit by and billing it for services rendered and paying oneself an exorbitant salary. Federal investigators also have determined that of all the millions raised and all the lawsuits the Kraken filed attempting to overturn the 2020, only one was actually financed by Defending The Republic. It’s been a bad week for the slimy cephalopod and her pals.

Prominent popcorn conspiracy theorist Nimrata “Nikki” Haley has been permitted to return to the court of the Holy Orange One, Politico reports. It had been many months since Nimrata was barred from the Emperor’s palace for blasphemous public pronouncements that dared question his wisdom, but he graced her with his presence for an unknown price paid in certain favors.

Montgomery County, Maryland fire department spokesman Pete Piringer says no people were injured when a home in Dickerson, MD was burned to the ground after the homeowner’s attempt to smoke out a “snake infestation” in his basement went horribly awry last Tuesday. “It is believed heat source (coals) too close to combustibles… status of snakes undetermined” Piringer tweeted.