Witness the fundraising letter from Ron DeSantis, who is nationalizing his campaign for re-election for Florida’s governor.  Creating “Faucism” as a near-homonym for Fascism.  Or his statements about the US economy:

Joe Biden has spent the better part of his entire presidency fighting to put the American worker out of a job instead of fighting the pandemic like he promised. He thinks the cure to his nosediving economy is to push Americans to the unemployment line and stifle economic participation with mask and vaccine mandates.

Gainesville, Florida man Andre Abrams, 57, was arrested on three counts of felony aggravated assault after blasting a flamethrower toward a car with three teenagers inside in a November 30th dispute over parking, CBS Miami reports. No one was hurt in the incident. Cops identified the weapon as a XM42 Lite Flamethrower, sold by X Products LLC of Vancouver, Washington for $900 at their website. Flamethrowers are legal to own in every state except for Maryland and California.

There are no federal laws against the sale of flamethrowers because they’re not considered “firearms”. And yes, you guessed correctly. Abrams is a registered Republican.

Wondering how @politico thinks it’s responsible or ethical journalism to publish attorney-client privileged documents.

They admit they are the first to publish in their entirety the two Ellis memos, which both have the banner “ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGED.”

Trump hatred persists.

— Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) December 10, 2021

The two memos outlining how Pence could overturn the election, dated December 31, 2020 and January 5, 2021, really do say “ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGED” at the top. Politico clearly hates that privilege, because they’re little bitches jealous of what Trump and Jenna shared.

The House Capitol riot committee has subpoenaed six former Trump White House aides, Bryan Lewis, Ed Martin, Kimberly Fletcher, Brian Jack, Bobby Peede, and Max Miller, the last of which is currently running for an Ohio House seat, the Washington Post reports.

“Many of the first reported cases of Omicron variant infection appear to be mild, although as with all variants, a lag exists between infection and more severe outcomes, and symptoms would be expected to be milder in vaccinated persons and those with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection than in unvaccinated persons. Characteristics of the cases described in this report might also not be generalizable because case findings might be associated with individual characteristics (e.g., persons with recent international travel might be more likely to be younger and vaccinated).”

“Even if most infections are mild, a highly transmissible variant could result in enough cases to overwhelm health systems. The clinical severity of infection with the Omicron variant will become better understood as additional cases are identified and investigated. Scientists in South Africa and elsewhere have established systems that allow study of the laboratory, clinical, and epidemiologic characteristics; CDC is collaborating with health officials around the world to learn more about the characteristics of patients with Omicron variant infections” – CDC report.

Kanye West’s publicist Trevian Kutti flew to Georgia on January 4th, 2021, and knocked on the door of Ruby Freeman, trying to get Freeman to publicly confess to the false accusations of voter fraud that Trump and the Gateway Pundit were using to make Freeman’s life a living hell at the time, Reuters reports. Freeman, who along with her daughter and fellow election worker Shaye Moss recently filed a defamation suit against The Gateway Pundit over a number of articles in which both were falsely accused of rigging the vote count against Trump, was told by Kutti (who gave her name but did not identify herself as working for Kanye West, telling Freeman she was a “crisis manager”) she would be thrown in jail if she did not confess within the next 48 hours. Freeman refused, but the incident had not been publicly reported until Friday.

Think it should go without saying how fucked up this is that Trump got Kanye West – who by then was already a failed 2020 spoiler candidate – to send his lieutenant to be a Black female “ambassador” to this woman who had already been harassed for weeks by then.

In a recent Fox 5 Atlanta/Insider Advantage survey of Georgia Republican voters, pollsters asked respondents who they support in the gubernatorial primary and incumbent Governor Brian Kemp leads challenger Former Senator David Perdue, 41% to 22%. Then the pollster informed the respondents that Trump had endorsed Perdue and asked again. The new result: Tied at 34%.

On Friday the Daily Beast reports from the ground, quoting from a number of Georgia Republican officials downright terrified of a bad primary that leaves the winner hobbled against Stacy Abrams’s fundraising and get out the vote juggernaut. One particularly pants-wetting fanboy says “I guess we’ll give Donald Trump what he wants, Stacey Abrams instead of Brian Kemp”, referring to the Donald openly wishing Abrams had won in 2018 instead of Kemp at a September 2021 rally.

Breaking News: U.S. inflation hit the highest rate in a generation last month. Consumer prices rose nearly 7%, driven by supply chain woes, demand and housing costs. https://t.co/blqcPdkQIS

— The New York Times (@nytimes) December 10, 2021

They’re wrong to imply it happened in November though. That dollar slice pizza place on the corner of Livingston and Bond definitely sloppily slapped that “$1.50” sticker on their sign in Mid-October.

“We are aware of several ongoing, independent clinical trials where LISTERINE® is being assessed in patients with COVID-19. However, the current available data is not sufficient to support a conclusion that the use of LISTERINE® mouthwash is helpful against the COVID-19 virus. Our understanding of the course of COVID-19 disease transmission continues to evolve. Overall, more research is needed to understand whether use of mouthwashes can impact viral transmission, exposure, viral entry, viral load and ultimately affect meaningful clinical outcomes or have a public health impact” said Johnson and Johnson in a statement to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel about Ron Johnson’s moronic assertion that a “standard gargle” of mouthwash kills COVID-19.

There’s one minor issue with this statement: A MAGA anti-vaxxer is going to look at this and probably immediately think “Well OF COURSE Johnson and Johnson would say that! They make more money on vaccines than they do mouthwash!” which would almost certainly take a while to prove or disprove, if it were provable at all without directly contacting J&J to get an answer. But the “appearance” of a “conflict of interest” would still be there, so it probably would’ve been better if the Journal-Sentinel had reached out to Crest and/or Colgate for a statement on the matter.

Even if that wouldn’t have made a difference, why hand the fanboys free ammo? There’s a reason why both we and the Journal-Sentinel did not explicitly name Johnson and Johnson in the headline, because readers – even pro-vaxxers – would likely first believe they’re weighing in on this in their capacity as a manufacturer of COVID-19 vaccines, not Listerine mouthwash.

A British appellate court has okayed Russian asset and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition to the United States to face charges of espionage pending a final review by the UK Home Secretary’s office, the Associated Press reports. The London panel decided that the US has assured Assange will be treated humanely and get a fair trial for his crimes against American democracy. There is no reason why this court should not accept the assurances as meaning what they say,” said the High Court’s stated. “There is no basis for assuming that the USA has not given the assurances in good faith.” The appellate court’s ruling overturns a lower court’s decision that Assange’s mental health was too “fragile” to handle the American justice system.

“The first person that congratulated [Biden] was Bibi Netanyahu, the man that I did more for than any other person I dealt with… Bibi could have stayed quiet. He has made a terrible mistake. I liked Bibi. I still like Bibi. But I also like loyalty. The first person to congratulate Biden was Bibi. And not only did he congratulate him, he did it on tape, He was very early – like, earlier than most. I haven’t spoken to him since. Fuck him” said Trump to Axios’ Jonathan Swan in a new season of Swan’s “How It Happened” podcast.

Ending a 28-year career at NBC, Brian Williams signs off from the 11th Hour for the final time Thursday night.

The Australian military will phase-out its European-made helicopter fleet and purchase 40 Black Hawk and Seahawk military helicopters, made by Lockheed-Martin, the Associated Press reports.  The new aircraft will replace 47 European-designed Taipan helicopters currently used by Australian armed forces.

The announcement comes three months after a deal between the United States and Australia, as well as the UK, to provide Australia with nuclear submarines, pushing out an earlier understanding that Australia would buy French-made diesel subs.  The reason Australia is getting American helicopters:  they’re designed and built better than the Taipans

“The Taipans weren’t meeting their marks. Simple as that,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said. “And we want to make sure that our defense forces have the best possible equipment to defend this country, and the Black Hawks will provide that.”

“Well, what really stood out to me was that it was one big long anti-American tirade by the President of the United States and various members of his administration,” Republican Missouri Senator and self-proclaimed worrywort for American masculinity Josh Hawley said to a soulless shell of a human.  “I mean, ya listen to ’em, they don’t like American voting laws, they don’t like American history.  They want to rewrite our culture and complete change it.  I mean, this is a guy who doesn’t really like America.”

Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who is currently under subpoena to turn over records relating to the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol, has informed the National Archives that he likely failed to turn over some pertinent presidential records to the Archives when Donald Trump left office, Politico reports.

“[The National Archives and Records Administration] is working with counsel to Mark Meadows to obtain any Presidential records that were not properly copied or forwarded into his official account,” a NARA spokesperson said in a statement to Politico.

The records in question are reportedly phone records, emails and text messages that were on his personal phone and personal accounts.  Meadows has claimed to the J6 committee that some of his personal communications are covered under Trump’s executive privilege claim, leading some members of the committee to question whether Meadows turned those records over to the National Archives, as is required by the Presidential Records Act. 

Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, the top US military commander for the Middle East, told the Associated Press that the US will keep a force of 2,500 troops in Iraq for the “foreseeable future” to promote stabilization in the country and move against ISIS, if needed.

McKenzie said he expects attacks against US and Iraqi forces organized by Iranian-backed militias determined to rid the region of foreign influences.  “They actually want all U.S. forces to leave, and all U.S. forces are not going to leave,” he said, adding that as a result, “that may provoke a response as we get later into the end of the month.”

Saying that Iraqi officials want the US military presence in the country, and the Biden administration has successfully negotiated an agreement with Iraqi leaders that would allow a small force to stay in the country.  “We’ve drawn down from bases we didn’t need, we’ve made it harder to get at us. But the Iraqis still want us to be there. They still want the presence, they still want the engagement,” said McKenzie. “So as long as they want it, and we can mutually agree that’s the case — we’re going to be there.”

Former Trump spokesman Jason Miller’s appearance before the January 6th committee Friday has been postponed, and that he is ‘engaging’ with the committee, an aide tells ABC News.

A tractor-trailer carrying more than 100 Central American migrants crashed in southern Mexico, leaving at least 49 dead and 58 injured, the Washington Post reports.

The accident occured in the Mexican state of Chiapas, which borders Guatemala and which is a crossing point for many Central American migrants into Mexico. “I deeply regret the tragedy caused by the overturning of a trailer in Chiapas carrying Central American migrants. It is very painful. I offer a hug to the families of the victims,” said Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Traffickers are using commercial tractor-trailers more frequently to move migrants because the trailers are less obvious than the buses and trains they’ve used in the past, making Mexico’s interdiction efforts harder.

“I’m pounding the desk beneath the camera!”