Associated Press:  “The NHL has postponed two more games for coronavirus-related reasons, making it five so far this season. Upcoming New York Islanders games Sunday at the Rangers and Tuesday at the Philadelphia Flyers were postponed after additional members of the team went into the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol on Saturday.

“General manager Lou Lamoriello said forward Casey Cizikas became the latest player to test positive. The Islanders would have had as many as eight players unavailable. The league said the possibility of additional spread contributed to the Islanders’ games through at least Tuesday being called off for now. Cizikas joined captain Anders Lee, fellow forwards Ross Johnston and Kieffer Bellows and defensemen Zdeno Chara, Adam Pelech and Andy Greene in protocol, and winger Josh Bailey only recently resumed skating after being quarantined.

“Lamoriello said as recently as Wednesday that none of the players who were positive for the virus had tested negative to clear the way to return. It would take three consecutive days of negative tests to reopen team training facilities and resume play. The entire Islanders team is vaccinated against COVID-19. While Lamoriello said Saturday he had not asked the league office for postponements, the absences and a long-term injury to defenseman Ryan Pulock were making things very difficult for New York. The short-handed Islanders fell 1-0 to the Pittsburgh Penguins at home Friday night, their eighth consecutive loss.”

Al Jazeera English: “The United States is set to resume talks with the Taliban [in the first week in December] in Qatar, discussing the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and steps to ensure that the country does not become a “launchpad” for “terrorism”, US State Department Spokesman Ned Price has said. The US delegation will be led by the US special representative for Afghanistan, Tom West, for the planned two days of discussions, Price said on Tuesday.’They’ll discuss… our vital national interest when it comes to Afghanistan. That includes counterterrorism, that includes safe passage for US citizens and for Afghans to whom we have a special commitment, and that includes humanitarian assistance and the economic situation of the country,’ Price told reporters.”

Gov. Abbott guarantees lights will stay on in Texas this winterhttps://t.co/9LhZKERga1

— Fox News (@FoxNews) November 27, 2021

“Hungary’s Gyorgy Gattyan, who made his fortune with the adult streaming site LiveJasmin, is sizing up a challenge to Prime Minister Viktor Orban in next year’s parliamentary elections. In a string of Facebook campaign videos published this week, Gattyan says he wants to use his IT expertise to ‘hire’ candidates for each of Hungary’s 106 constituencies ahead of elections due around April. They would join him in what he offers as a digital transformation of health care, education and government” – Bloomberg.

New York Times: “As a White House adviser in the Trump administration, Jared Kushner took a special interest in the petroleum-rich monarchies of the Persian Gulf. He formed a personal friendship with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. He helped forge ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and backed Emirati rulers in a feud with Qatar. Since the electoral defeat of his father-in-law, former President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Kushner has stayed active in the region through a nonprofit organization he established. Now, in a move that has raised eyebrows among diplomats, investors and ethics watchdogs, Mr. Kushner is trying to raise money from the Persian Gulf states for a new investment firm he has founded. So far, he is having only mixed success.”

“Qatar, whose leaders saw Mr. Kushner as an opponent in the administration, declined to invest in his firm, a person familiar with those conversations said. So did the main Emirati sovereign wealth funds; Emirati rulers saw Mr. Kushner as an ally but questioned his track record in business, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions. But the Saudis are more interested, according to four people briefed on their continuing negotiations. The kingdom’s $450 billion Public Investment Fund is negotiating with Mr. Kushner over what could prove to be a sizable investment in his new firm, two of those people said. In a brief phone call, Mr. Kushner declined to discuss his new firm, Affinity Partners, and it is not clear which other investors he has spoken to so far inside or outside the United States. According to a person familiar with the firm’s plans, Mr. Kushner hopes to raise an amount in the low billions of dollars by early next year.”

The UK Health Security Agency reports this season’s hottest new viral fad “Omicrom” has been detected in two separate individuals who had recently traveled from South Africa – a country “trending” lately for its absolutely wild viral scene. Read more at UKHSA.

New York Magazine: “From one perspective, the immediate future looks rosy for the Republican Party. Thanks to some crucial underperformances by House Democrats in 2020, even a very mild version of the usual anti–White House–party midterm wave (with another thumb on the scales from its redistricting advantage) will flip the House and end the Democratic governing trifecta. No more $2 trillion reconciliation bills – nor even the routine legislation Democrats could enact if they talked Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema into supporting filibuster reform – will be in order. And even if they fall short in the Senate next year, the 2024 Senate landscape looks very good for the GOP.”

“That’s the macro perspective. From the micro perspective, particularly when it comes to the statewide Senate and gubernatorial elections of 2022, things will be trickier for the Elephant Party. The difficulty of winning races that cannot be won simply by riding a wave will be complicated significantly by the Trump factor. To the extent he interferes in both GOP primaries and general-election campaigns, he creates the triple specter of intraparty divisions, swing-voter focus on Trump rather than Biden, and Democratic voter enthusiasm over another chance to smite the the 45th president. It’s not a problem that Republicans can dismiss. Trump has already endorsed five Senate candidates, seven gubernatorial candidates, and eight down-ballot statewide candidates in contested state primaries. And it’s very early in the midterm cycle.”

Screenshot of Q fan site GreatAwakening.win post from late Friday.

“Countries around the world are racing to introduce travel bans and restrictions on southern African countries in an effort to contain a new variant of Covid-19, called Omicron. The moves come after the variant was officially named by health officials. Early evidence suggests Omicron has an increased re-infection risk, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.”

“Meanwhile, hundreds of passengers arriving in Amsterdam from South Africa were tested for the new variant. Some 61 people on two KLM flights tested positive for Covid-19 and have been quarantined at a hotel near the airport while they have further tests, Dutch officials said. Passengers travelling from Cape Town to Manchester via Amsterdam told the BBC that they were held on the tarmac at Schiphol airport for four hours, before eventually disembarking” – BBC.

“If President Trump was still in office, by the way, we’d already have modified vaccines to deal with the new variants, which is a great point,” apprentice of the dark arts Stephen Miller claims.  “President Trump brought us, brought us vaccines in record time, which he made voluntary, not mandatory, and he’d have updates, too.”

• The Second Amendment is 27 words long.  Ammosexuals want us to ignore 13 of them.
• Defendants are found not guilty for myriad reasons:  they actually didn’t do it, the prosecutor didn’t effectively make the case, witnesses aren’t compelling, etc.  But do not confuse a “not guilty” verdict with innocence.  Make no mistake:  Kyle Rittenhouse is culpable for his victims, and he will pay for it in civil cases.  The verdict in his case means the laws have to be changed so that a 17-year-old wannabe cop who kills two people because he inserted himself into a riot and then got so scared he shot three people is held legally responsible for the damage he did.  
• The prosecutor in the Arbury case did the job that prosecutors should do:  competently lay out a case, explain the law clearly, present the evidence to convict and secure a guilty verdict.  And she did it without making headlines to boost her name or career.  A true public servant.  
• Someone should create a show like Drunk History, but instead of interviewing drunk comedians about historic events, they should call it MAGA History and ask Republicans to explain significant events in history.  We would soon learn that Ronald Reagan personally destroyed the Berlin Wall with a jackhammer, Mike Flynn singularly defeated the Nazis, and Donald Trump is solely responsible for the recovery from the Bush Recession and the elimination of bin Laden. 
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume XLVI”

Raleigh News and Observer: “Three people were shot at Durham’s Southpoint mall Friday, during one of the busiest shopping days of the year. One of those injured was a 10-year-old who was hit by a bullet ricochet, Durham Police Chief Patrice Andrews said. The child was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

“She did not have information on the others shot but said three more people were injured in the shooting aftermath. Durham police officers who were working off-duty inside The Streets at Southpoint on Fayetteville Road requested assistance after hearing gunshots around 3:23 p.m., Andrews said.

“Many of those people quickly fled, but police do have one person in custody, as well as several witnesses, she said. At least one weapon was recovered, and Andrews said there are ‘several people we want to be able to locate and speak with.’ Police expect to share descriptions of those involved in the shooting once that information is available, she added.”

Markets were generally down on November 26th due to fears of a new Covid variant. There was other market news however that was largely ignored by most US media outlets, and it has huge implications for how President Joe Biden can fight inflation in the US economy. The Indian government recently issued a legislative bulletin announcing their intent to strictly regulate crypto-currency usage in India. This comes after the Country of China has already announced that all crypto-currency transactions are illegal in China. The combination of an outright ban, and strict regulation in the world’s two largest countries -as measured by population- is a huge setback for the crypto-currency industry, and values fell sharply on November 26th, including an 8.69% drop in value for bitcoin, and a 10.43% decline for Ethereum.

Scott Thompson, the vice mayor of Oroville, California appearing on Fox News Friday to promote his town (pop. 19,393) declaring itself a “constitutional republic” three weeks ago, claims that this is the first step in a violent civil war that will sweep the nation.

“I believe that worldwide, but especially in California, that the very fabric of our nation is at a crossroads on how much authority we’ll let the government have,” Thompson told Fox News host (and guy trying really hard to duplicate Tucker Carlson’s Resting Idiot Face) Brian Kilmeade, “and I don’t believe that anyone wins when the government has more authority and I’ve said it before.  Y’know, every time you lose freedom or a nation, y’know, gives up freedom, it usually takes bloodshed to get it back.”

Oroville is already part of a constitutional republic, called the United States of America,

The Daily Beast:  “Former Trump campaign adviser Steve Cortes is out at Newsmax and will host his last primetime broadcast for the right-wing cable channel early next week, if not sooner, five sources familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast.

“Tensions between Cortes and the MAGA cable network had long been simmering, sources suggested, but it was the Trump loyalist’s vehement disagreement—which he wasn’t shy about publicly voicing—with Newsmax’s company-wide vaccine rules that was the final straw. Newsmax did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Earlier this month, Newsmax instituted a rule that all employees must either be vaccinated or submit to weekly COVID testing. The news of such a policy, which was in compliance with the Biden administration’s policy for businesses with more than 100 employees, pushed Cortes to unequivocally declare on Twitter that he wouldn’t have any part of it. ‘I will not comply w/ any organization’s attempt to enforce Biden’s capricious & unscientific Medical Apartheid mandate,’ he blared in one tweet. ‘I will not be forced into the injection, nor will I disclose my vaccination status. No one should be pressured to choose between medical privacy & their job.'”

New York Times: “Stephen Sondheim, one of Broadway history’s songwriting titans, whose music and lyrics raised and reset the artistic standard for the American stage musical, died early Friday at his home in Roxbury, Conn. He was 91. His lawyer and friend, F. Richard Pappas, announced the death, which he described as sudden. The day before, Mr. Sondheim had celebrated Thanksgiving with a dinner with friends in Roxbury, Mr. Pappas said.

“An intellectually rigorous artist who perpetually sought new creative paths, Mr. Sondheim was the theater’s most revered and influential composer-lyricist of the last half of the 20th century, if not its most popular.

“His work melded words and music in a way that enhanced them both. From his earliest successes in the late 1950s, when he wrote the lyrics for ‘West Side Story’ and ‘Gypsy,’ through the 1990s, when he wrote the music and lyrics for two audacious musicals, ‘Assassins,’ giving voice to the men and women who killed or tried to kill American presidents, and ‘Passion,’ an operatic probe into the nature of true love, he was a relentlessly innovative theatrical force.”

WXYZ Detroit reports on the rise of “Buy Nothing Day” a cool holiday for the kind of hipsters who would ironically ride around on a Marlboro miles reward bike from 1992 because irony LOLZ, while CBS reports over 100 million Americans, some of whom are sad enough to be called “Black Friday Super Shoppers” are expected to turn out for the “hottest” holiday DEALS DEALS DEALS on largely useless shit! Meanwhile certain cynical, independent newsmen who were 10 years old by the time such “edgy” Generation X-era tropes about consumer culture were already long stale opted for efficiency and combined derision for both sides into one short update.

“This is an imaginary variant. They’re trying to cover for the vaccines not working. We have been lied to for two years now. Don’t believe it.”

“Brandon’s [Biden’s] rating approaching the teens. Release the variant”

– The current top comment and its top reply on the Breitbart article “U.S. to Restrict Travel from 8 African Countries over Coronavirus Variant Fears“, posted Friday afternoon.

I apologize to anyone in the Muslim community I offended with my comment about Rep. Omar. I have reached out to her office to speak with her directly. There are plenty of policy differences to focus on without this unnecessary distraction.

— Rep. Lauren Boebert (@RepBoebert) November 26, 2021

“Starting Monday, Biden will restrict travel from South Africa and seven other countries after a new variant emerged. Acting on advice from Dr. Fauci, the US will restrict travel from South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi” – Kait Collins, CNN.