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I’m going to be honest here:  I don’t know what to make of this.  It’s truly bizarre.  Not in a funny “ha ha” kinda bizarre way, but in a “Why is there a sacraficial altar suddenly in my backyard?” way.  In the crazy interview with his advisor Sean Hannity, Donald Trump appears to claim the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago for “the Hillary Clinton emails” or the “spying on Trump” or “Russia Russia Russia.” (This snippet of the rant starts around 1:20, but keeping the whole clip here to maintain context.). Just a bit:

We can all agree that there was much schadenfreude on this site today.  From watching New York Attorney General Leticia James recite scam after scam after scam while announcing a quarter billion dollar (minimum!) civil suit against Donald Trump to the stay issued by the 11th Circuit upholding national security concerns to E. Jean Carroll announcing she’s filing a civil suit against Trump for a 1990s rape (alleged), today was a very, very bad day from the legal perspective for Donald Trump.  Arrows were flying at him from every direction.

Save some of the schadenfreude for poor Aileen Cannon, the staff attorney at a federal prosecutor’s office turned federal judge with a lifetime appointment.  Don’t get me wrong:  I don’t want you to feel sorry for her.  I truly want you to savor the fact that the decision means that every future session she has on the bench will be hell for her.

The decision issued by the 11th Circuit didn’t just overrule her widely-mocked opinion, it eviscerated her legal reasoning.  Not one of the points Cannon outlined in her decision to deny the stay was recognized as a rational legal point by the three judges–including two appointed by Donald Trump–who heard the Justice Department’s appeal.

“If you’re the President of the United States, you can declassify by saying I- it’s declassified, even by thinking about it, because you’re sending it to Merg-a-Lago [sic] or to where ever yerthey’re [sic] sending it.  And there doesn’t have to be a process–there can be a process but there doesn’t have to be,” really bad filer Donald Trump incorrectly tells one of his administration’s advisors, Sean Hannity, on his Fox show.

First–and you already know this–a President cannot just think something’s declassified and voila! it’s declassified.  In fact, Trump’s own legal team cited Executive Order 13526, put in place by the Obama Administration, as the process to declassify material.  And yes, there must be a process otherwise scads of additional classified material–including the identities of vulnerable human assets–could incidentally be disclosed.

We’re going to assume Sean Hannity had a massive head injury.  (Not like a catastrophic injury.  An injury to his massive Mr. Potato-like head.).  He obviously doesn’t remember all those times he cheered on the “Lock ‘er Up” chants from Trump rallies in 2016 on.  Now, Hannity threatens an ominous outcome if authorities don’t let Donald Trump skate on various crimes he committed.  Hannity–a Trump advisor who apparently thing everyone of any importance watches his show still watches his show–called on leaders to obey him:

Evil harridan Ginni Thomas has agreed to meet with the House January 6th Select Committee in the next few weeks, CNBC reports. The Committee have been asking for a meeting with the psychotic wife of far right extremist Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for months as numerous instances of her contacts with former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and GOP legislators in Wisconsin and Arizona in the aftermath of the 2020 election have surfaced in the last year.

“Following the execution of a search warrant at the residence of Plaintiff-Appellee, former President Donald J. Trump, Plaintiff moved for the appointment of a special master to review the documents that Defendant-Appellant United States of America seized. The district court granted that motion in substantial part. Now, the United States moves for a partial stay of the district court’s order as it relates to the roughly one-hundred documents bearing classification markings. We decide only the narrow question presented: whether the United States has established that it is entitled to a stay of the district court’s order, to the extent that it (1) requires the government to submit for the special master’s review the documents with classification markings and (2) enjoins the United States from using that subset of documents in a criminal investigation. We conclude that it has,” says the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling granting federal prosecutors the ability to do their job after federal Judge Aileen Cannon had slowed them down in favor of her client, fat former President Trump.

Asking lame duck Congressman Louie Gohmert (Huh?-Tx.) to clarify something he wants struck from the record can be fraught with peril, as Committee chair Jerry Nadler found out.

“When he said, that Mr. Bishop stole his time…” Goehmert starts with the speed of ice cold molasses.  “The use of the word ‘stole’ impugned his integrity and says he committee…”

“M-M-M-Mr. Gohmert,” Nadler interjects, “that is a figure of speech with respect to time that is hardly taken-downable.”

“Oh!  Oh, so there’s nothing wrong with saying something was stolen,” Gohmert says with some speed, obviously believing he found a gotcha moment.  “Alright, so y’all take everything back about saying the President…”

“Mr. Gohmert,” the Congressman who made the “stolen” comment says, cutting off an inane point from the Asparagus Disparager, “the difference is, I didn’t start an insurrection.”

Spotted on the side of the road, a new tractor trailer featuring the visage of torn foam repackager Mike Lindell with WORDS WRITTEN SO LOUDLY YOU CAN READ THEM THREE COUNTIES OVER.  The only thing missing is a discount code for MyPillow where you can get Egyptian cotton sheets and a set of two bags filled with foam pieces for 40% off, if you just pay shipping and handling.  Plus, Mike will throw in a COPY OF HIS BOOK “WHAT ARE THE ODDS” because he has CARTONS OF THEM ‘CAUSE NOBODY BOUGHT THEM and his wife wants them out of the living room.

The Republican nominated to represent Ohio’s 9th Congressional District reportedly lied about his military service, claiming to have been at a front-line duty station in Afghanistan when he was actually assigned to a support base more than 1,000 away in Qatar, the Associated Press reports.

J.R. Majewski has regaled crowds with tales about the hardship he experienced when, he says, he was deployed to Afghanistan as a member of the US Air Force, saying his Air Force unit “was one of the first on the ground in Afghanistan after 9/11.”  In fact, Majewski’s unit was never stationed in Afghanistan; it worked as a supply operation at an existing US base in Qatar.

Touting himself as an “Afghanistan War Veteran” in his campaign information and on swag, Majewski told stories about being under enemy fire and claims that because of the harsh front-line conditions, he had to go without a shower for 40 days.  In fact, the Qatar airfield where Majewski was assigned had buildings for residences, and those buildings housed operational bathrooms, including showers, that Majewski regularly used.

A total of nine House Republicans voted to pass the Liz Cheney-Zoe Lofgren Electoral Count Act Reform bill on Wednesday, Politico reports. They must really want another January 6th.

“But look, who were the people defrauded here, they claim?” Alan Dershowitz, a man who is on a full-out sprint toward irrelevance, questions.  “The biggest banks in the world.  Why can’t the biggest banks sue him and take care of themselves?  Why does Leticia James have to be out there, ah, protecting and defending the biggest banks in the country who haven’t sued him at all, so this doesn’t pass the, the test of a, uh, legitimate, dah, civil complaint and I think they should be challenging it very vigorously.”

Hey, Dersh, Trump, the Trump kids, the Trump employees, and the Trump companies undertook a scheme to defraud New York out of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues.  And the banks aren’t suing because they don’t want to take over Trump’s decrepit properties because they know he has no money to repay them for his fraud.

A 37-year-old transient suspected of throwing a hatchet at a group of people in a Bloomington, Indiana park kept police at bay for six hours by hiding in the maze of stormwater management sewers under the city, captured only after officers released a canine into the sewer to track him, NBC News reports.

Eli Swartzentruber, a homeless man with mental health issues who was reportedly living out of his car parked in a supermarket parking lot, was able to tolerate the flash-bang grenades and smoke bombs tossed down manholes and sewer grates as police tried to force him out.  The police also deployed robotic cameras in an effort to locate him.

From 11:30 a.m. Tuesday until 5:30 p.m., many neighborhoods in Bloomington, including parts of the campus of Indiana University, were told to shelter in place as police searched for Swartzentruber.  During the search, officers found a hand scythe, a machete and numerous rifle cartridges although they did not report finding a weapon. 

Reversing a Trump-era policy that required applicants to travel to Guyana, the Biden Administration announced that it will restart processing visa applications in Cuba instead of requiring Cubans to go to a US embassy overseas, CBS News reports.

To further its xenophobic policy of barring entry into the United States to anyone who doesn’t come from Europe (or who doesn’t have millions of dollars they’ll contribute to Republican causes), the Trump administration required Cubans seeking to leave the island nation to go to a US embassy in a mainland country, something that poor Cubans could not afford to do.  This included the need to go to Guyana, in South America, for interviews.

President Joe Biden has scrapped all the hurdles put in place for Cubans to help facilitate the Cuban Family Reunification Parole program, started by the GW Bush administration in 2007 and carried on with Obama, that expedites visa applications for people who have family in the United States. 

Russia has released ten foreign men, including two Americans from Alabama, who were fighting for Ukraine against invading Russian forces in a deal brokered by Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi Foreign Ministry announced, Reuters reports.

A Saudi official said the released were five Britons, two Americans, a Croatian, a Moroccan and a Swedish national.  The Swede was captured in the Donbas region and was facing a death sentence by a court set up by the breakaway Donbas People’s Republic (DPR).  The ten were transferred from Russian custody to Saudi officials Wednesday.

Family members of U.S. citizens Alexander Drueke, 39, and Andy Huynh, 27, were told that their relatives were being released, a family representative said.  There was no reference to what the Saudis promised the Russians for the release.

“The rest of what you’re saying is just complaint about political rhetoric,” Democratic Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin says on the House floor.  “I happen to like the political rhetoric pointing out that Vladimir Putin is an enemy of democracy, not just in Ukraine but in the United States and all over the world. And maybe we disagree about that.  I know there are some cheerleaders for Vladimir Putin over on that side of the aisle.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin is desperate, and he’s making Russians more desperate.  After Putin announced a mobilization of 300,000 military reservists to fight in his invasion of Ukraine, Russians rushed to buy airline tickets to flee the failing autocracy, Reuters reports.

Tickets for direct flights to Istanbul, Turkey and Yerevan, Armenia–two destinations that don’t require Russians to have a visa–quickly sold out after Putin’s announcement Wednesday.  The cost for ticket to Istanbul shot up more than 300% overnight.  Prices for tickets to other foreign destinations also shot up:  the cheapest single one-way ticket to Dubai hit $5,000 ($300,000).

According to air travel news website AirLive, the Kremlin has barred men between the ages of 18 to 65 from purchasing airline tickets to anywhere without prior authorization from Russia’s Ministry of Defense.  On Russia’s most popular travel booking website, sales of tickets from Moscow to destinations like Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have been stopped.

• Permanently bar Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump from serving on a corporate board for a business organized in New York State.
• Ban the Trumps and the Trump Organization from getting loans for five years from any financial institution operating in New York State (which is, basically, all of them given how financial institutions operate and invest).
• Require repayment of ill-gotten proceeds, estimated to be at least $250 million.
• Appoint independent monitors to oversee operations of the Trump Organization and the Trump Revocable Trust for five years.  (The Trump Revocable Trust was set up by Trump to profit from his family company while he was in the White House.)
• Under the oversight of regulators, the Trump Organization must resubmit GAP-compliant (“generally acceptable practices”) financial statements to any and all people the Trumps and the Trump Organization provided financial information to over the last five years, as well as to anyone currently holding debt incurred by Trump.
• Replace trustees overseeing the Trump Revocable Trust.
• Banning Allan Weisselberg, the long-time Trump Organization CFO, and Jeffrey McConney, the company’s comptroller, from holding a position as a financial officer with any New York State company or organization.
• Canceling certificate of incorporation for any Trump-owned entity in New York State–essentially dissolving the Trump Organization and forcing it to reorganize in another state.
• Permanently ban any Trump company from doing new business in New York State.

The New York Times reports that New York Attorney General Leticia James has filed a $250 million civil lawsuit against Donald Trump, his children and the Trump Organization for manipulation of corporate financial statements to avoid tax payments and improve loan applications.

The 220-page lawsuit, filed in New York State Supreme Court, outlines that Trump’s released financial statements were, per the Times, “a compendium of lies.”  James outlines charges of insurance fraud, and notes that there are bank fraud and financial fraud charges that she has referred to federal officials.

“This White House Press Secretary is terrible, and yet we won’t talk about it in the media or in Washington, DC because she’s Black and lesbian,” self-hating Trump lackey Ric Grenell says on third-tier cable network Newsmax.  “And I wanna be very clear:  this is outrageous.  She is not up to the job.  She is spinning.  She doesn’t know what she’s doing, and I’m tired of people dancing around this identity politics stuff when she isn’t qualified to be the White House Press Secretary.

With a Masters degree in Public Administration from Columbia, Karine Jean-Pierre was previously a regional director for the White House Office of Political Affairs during the Obama Administration and then ran the campaigns in battleground states for the 2012 Obama campaign, which saw him virtually every battleground state.  And Jean-Pierre actually holds press conference and answers questions without reading word-for-word out of a binder. 

Taking advantage of a one-year window opened by New York state legislation, writer E. Jean Carroll will file a civil lawsuit against Donald Trump for sexually assaulting her during the 1990s in a department store dressing room, the New York Times reports.

Under the Adult Survivors Act, signed into law by Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochul in May, gave survivors of sexual assault who were 18 years old or older at the time of the attack a one year window starting November 24th to file a civil lawsuit, regardless of if the statute of limitations has expired.  The law mirrors a similar state law that allows people who were minors at the time of a sexual assault to sue individuals and institutions for the abuse up until the victim’s 55th birthday.

Carroll is currently in the midst of a defamation suit against Trump, who called her a liar with psychological problems after she went public with an accusation that Trump raped her in a dressing room of New York department store Bergdorf Goodman in the 1990s.  Carroll has the clothing she wore during the attack and has filed a motion for Trump to turn over a DNA sample to match to a stain on the dress.