There is no amount of taxes and government policies that will stop tornadoes.

The climate just changes.

It’s been changing since the beginning of time.

— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) December 11, 2021

Lest you forget, the House has another investigation ongoing into the dealings of the Trump administration.  And Trump officials continue to obstruct those probes: Trump advisor Peter Navarro has refused to turn over documents subpoenaed by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, Reuters reports.

Claiming he’s following Donald Trump’s assertion of executive privilege, Navarro has told the Subcommittee that he will not turn over the documents subpoenaed because Trump told him not to.  “It is a direct order that I should not comply with the subpoena,” Navarro said in a letter to the committee, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.

Navarro served on Trump’s pandemic response team, and the House is investigating the steps taken by the Trump administration to address the pandemic which killed at least 420,000 in the US while Trump was in office.  Trump has been highly criticized for his failure to direct an effect, cognizant response to the pandemic.

Democratic Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear grimly acknowledged the devastation of the tornadoes that hit across his state overnight as he surveyed the wreckage of a candle factory that had 110 people working in it when a tornado hit, reports the Washington Post.

“It’ll be a miracle if anyone else is found alive in it,” he said after first responders rescued 40 people and at least a dozen people remain missing.  Kentucky officials have said between 70 to 100 are thought to be dead as a result of the tornadoes that spread destruction across ten counties in the state.

President Joe Biden has committed federal resources to help officials in the states impacted.  “I want to emphasize that I told all the [state] governments: The federal government will do everything, everything it can possibly do to help,” Biden said.  “This is one of those times when we aren’t Democrats or Republican — it sounds like hyperbole but it’s real — we’re all Americans.  We stand together as United States of America. And so I say to all the victims, you’re in our prayers, and all those first responders, emergency personnel and everyone helping their fellow Americans that this is the right thing to do at the right time and we’re going to get through this.”

According to a recently disclosed report by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, the Customs and Border Patrol used government databases and assets to investigate and track as many as 20 journalists, including a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for the Associated Press, the Associated Press reports.

CBP Agent Jeffrey Rambo told federal investigators that he conducted such research in 2017 and that such checks were routine at the agency.  “When a name comes across your desk you run it through every system you have access too, that’s just status quo, that’s what everyone does,” Rambo was quoted by Yahoo News as saying.

In a 500-page redacted report obtained by the Associated Press, the DHS inspector general acknowledged that the agency’s investigations into journalists was more extensive than originally thought.  The depth of the investigations has raised alarm bells with journalists.

Defund service academy sports.

Cadets should focus on war fighting, not games & pageantry. https://t.co/3O8kMMWOsc

— Joe Kent for WA-3 (@joekent16jan19) December 11, 2021

Glenn Beck, who has been chosen by the former guy and historical revisionist Bill O’Reilly to rile up the audience of stupid white people at their Orlando, Florida “History Tour” is already bitching about the accommodations. Apparently he thought he was going to get to stay at the four seasons?

Thanks @BillOReilly for the warm welcoming “dressing Room”. Sure no make up artist or even water, but if I need a shower or tape up a knee, ‘I am all set’. @DonaldJTrumpJr pic.twitter.com/iCM8PItQjS

— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) December 11, 2021

Vladimir Putin’s recent threats to invade Ukraine could prove a costly mistake for the Kremlin leader. Military analysts have long-noted Russia’s inferiority in terms of conventional military forces. In an interview with Deutsche-Welle, Russian military analyst Aleksandr Golts mentioned that the US has an “overwhelming” advantage over Russia in terms of both their Navy and Air Force. The Ukrainian military has 255,000 soldiers, with over 900,000 reservists available. Russia has a total of over 3 million soldiers, but those soldiers are distributed across a massive country, and their roles include guarding the Kremlin from an increasingly restless populace, including many Russians who are angry over the Kremlin’s treatment of protest leader Aleksandr Navalny. TRT World also reports that the Ukrainian military “has acquired all sorts of new military technologies, weapons and of course Turkish drones but also javelin anti-tank missiles from the US. The Ukrainian army has simply gained experience on the ground, showing great valour and effectiveness on the battlefields,”

The Worldbank has announced that: “The Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) donors today decided to transfer out $280 million in ARTF funds by the end of December 2021 to UNICEF and the World Food Programme (WFP). This decision is the first step to repurpose funds in the ARTF portfolio to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan at this critical time.” The announcement comes as the Taliban government is struggling to feed the population of a country that is no longer being propped up by a massive and on-going US occupation. Famine in Afghanistan is the result of a massive drought, and damage done to crops and key communications, transportation and agricultural infrastructure by Taliban fighters. The BBC reports that 3 million Afghan children are on the verge of starvation after the failure of the nation’s wheat crop.

Other radical fundamentalist religious groups have also been staging violent attacks on Afghan cities. Al Jazeera reports that on Friday, December 10th, “at least two people have been killed and four others injured in two separate bomb explosions in the Afghan capital Kabul… when a bomb exploded on Friday on a minibus in the Dasht-e-Barchi district of Kabul…Dasht-e-Barchi is largely populated by the mostly Shia Hazara community, which for years has been the target of violence by the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, ISKP (ISIS-K), an affiliate of the ISIL (ISIS) armed group. In November, a similar bomb attack on a minibus in Dasht-e-Barchi killed two people and wounded five others. That attack was claimed by the ISKP.”

Republicans have jumped all in on the recent Jussie Smollett conviction as part of an obvious propaganda effort to try to imply that “because the Smollett story was fake that means all reports of hate crimes are fake”. Many NationalZero readers are already aware of Russian trolls who respond to every story about a hate crime or murder committed by a Trump supporter with a reply akin to “Just like Jussie, Right?” The Republican response to the verdict is clearly an attempt to use the story as a false equivalency to excuse acts of domestic terrorism committed by Trump supporters.

The Republican Party is in pure survival mode, lashing out at everything like a cornered animal, and showing obvious signs of desperation as the party heads towards electoral disaster in 2022 and 2024. January 6th planner Ali Alexander sat for a lengthy deposition with the January 6th Committee this week, and has reportedly pledged to cooperate with Congress. Liz Cheney recently announced that there will be “several weeks” of public hearings regarding the January 6th riot, and the GOP is riven by in-fighting as “Reagan Republicans” like Mitch McConnell try to avert a debt default, while a parade of kidnappers, wife-beaters and domestic terrorists are bouncing in and out of races competing for an endorsement from former guy Donald Trump.

Pic of the devastation following a Friday night tornado in Mayfield, Kentucky by Airways Magazine’s Ben Bearup. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear now estimates as many as 70 are dead in the state, calling it “the most devastating tornado event in our state’s history.” Among the dead was a commuter student at Western Kentucky University who had been set to graduate on Saturday.

“The Congressional Progressive Caucus on Tuesday endorsed a bill by Representative Mark Takano that would create a 32-hour workweek, with overtime paid after 32 hours of work. Takano touted the move as a win for work-life balance and a needed corrective after decades of longer work hours with stagnant pay in the U.S,” reports CBS News.

First it was “Medicare for all”, then it was “Defund the police” and now it’s the “four day workweek”. The Progressive Caucus, which seems to have a special talent for assisting the GOP by presenting poorly formed talking points that come across as completely disconnected from reality to a majority of Americans are pushing the absolute wrong talking point at a time when inflation throughout the economy is a major concern, and there are growing concerns over a shortage of workers to fill retail and service sector jobs.

In an epic display of the divide between red and blue America, House Republican Mo Brooks (AL-5) has posted an image of himself speaking at the January 6th “Stop the steal” rally (the appearance where Brooks has admitted he was wearing body armor underneath his clothes) to his Senate election website. 

Former Trump Administration Undersecretary of State for Management Brian Bulatao, now Chief Administrative Officer at Activision-Blizzard, publisher of the multibillion dollar Call of Duty, Diablo, and World of Warcraft video game properties – among others – wrote a letter to employees seeking to unionize in the amidst ongoing controversies over sexual harassment, pay disparities, needless layoffs at QA divisions, and more, Kotaku reports, publishing the contents of the letter.

Doom and gloom projections of out of control inflation dooming the Biden economy appear to be widely overblown. A variety of economic data point to high inflation in October and November of 2021 being the result of a rapid increase in consumer spending as Americans emerged from Covid shutdowns and began spending at a record pace.

The December 2021 Monthly Economic Review from the National Retail Foundation included the following highlights: “Consumer spending rose by 1.3 percent in October, the largest monthly increase since March. There was no evidence of a pullback in consumer spending despite price increases that have come with supply chain disruptions and increased demand. Disposable personal income is up 4.1 percent in the past year, while spending has increased 12 percent. The increase in income together with very strong spending lowered the saving rate from 8.2 percent to 7.3 percent, the third monthly decline in a row with the latest figures beginning to return to pre-pandemic levels. Nonetheless, households have a savings cushion of around $2 trillion accumulated since the beginning of the pandemic to support spending and provide an important buffer against higher prices.”

Villages-News.com followed up on Friday with additional details about the two Villages, Florida Republican scumbags recently charged with voter fraud, reporting that both arrests stemmed from the discovery of their having absentee ballots cast in other states. Jay Richard Ketcik, 63, formerly of Manistique, Michigan, mailed in his Florida ballot on October 13th, 2020, also mailing an absentee ballot to his home state on an unspecified date. Ketcik turned himself in this week to face the felony voter fraud charge in Florida. Joan Halstead, 72, formerly of Pennsylvania, mailed in a ballot to vote in New York in the 2020 election (unclear is why she was still registered to vote in New York and not Pennsylvania where she had moved from) and also voted in person in the Villages, Florida on October 20th, 2020. Halstead turned herself in on November 30th, 2021.

Capitol rioter Allen Hostetter, a member of the far-right 3%ers militia, told a federal court on Monday the Yale “Skull and Bones” secret society – along with Mormons and Scientologists – were part of a grand conspiracy which manipulated him and his MAGA buddies into storming Congress on January 6th, Bloomberg reports. Hostetter, a California resident facing a felony conspiracy charge, said in a filing the government “fashioned the lure to be as attractive as possible” which “resulted in defendant literally being walked up the steps of the U.S. Capitol led by said agents or operatives.” Hostetter and five other 3%ers were indicted on the conspiracy charge in June. Members of other far-right extremist groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers also face conspiracy charges for the pre-planning attack and the incitement of unaffiliated persons.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear told reporters “dozens” of workers were feared dead at a candle factory in Mayfield, Kentucky, after a tornado struck the building, part of an outbreak of severe weather across the Midwest and Ohio River Valley, Friday night, the Associated Press reports.

“There were about 110 people in it at the time that the tornado hit it. We believe we’ll lose at least dozens of those individuals. It’s very hard, really tough, and we’re praying for each and every one of those families” said Beshear at a news conference early Saturday. Meanwhile, police in Edwardsville, Illinois evacuated over 100 workers from an Amazon warehouse believed to have been struck by a tornado. Cops said at least one person was airlifted by helicopter from the site, where a wall the length of a football field collapsed. One person is confirmed dead and at least 20 were trapped inside the Monette Manor nursing home in Arkansas when a tornado touched down nearby on Friday night. Three more people were reportedly killed by severe weather in Tennesee.

• When did the standard family Christmas photo go from featuring pets and ugly sweaters to showcasing the family armory and ammo?  That seems very anti-Christ-like from the people who have bumper stickers promoting putting the “Christ” back in Christmas.  Hell, let’s put Christ back in Christianity.
• Republicans are more upset about CRT, which isn’t taught in schools, than active shooter drills, which are.
• The burning Christmas tree in front of the Fox News office was a fittingly appropriate.  A cross would’ve been too “on the nose.”
• I endorse Reese’s Big Cup with Pretzels.  I am not getting compensated for this endorsement, but I am open to gifts of gratitude from Hershey.
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume XLVIII”

The commanding officer of the naval squadron that includes the USS Winston Churchill, a US Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, relieved the executive officer of the ship of his duties, citing the officer’s unwillingness to follow a lawful order:  to get a coronavirus vaccine.

The Associated Press reports that Cmdr. Lucian Kins was informed by Navy Capt. Ken Anderson, commander of Naval Surface Squadron 14, that he was being reassigned off ship and given a shore assignment with the Squadron because Anderson lost confidence in Kins’ ability to perform his duties.  Citing such a cause for a reassignment will essentially end Kins’ career in the Navy.  Lt. Cmdr. Han Yi, the ship’s plans and tactics officer, will take over for Kins until another officer is assigned to the ship.

Determining the threat posed by the coronavirus virus is a readiness issue for the military, the Pentagon mandated all uniformed personnel be fully vaccinated by the end of this year.  That means all personnel had to have their first vaccination dose by late November for the vaccine to take full effect by the start of the new year.  If they have not received their dose, they had to apply for an exemption by the end of November.  Kins did neither.