Sean Skipworth became the new mayor of Dickinson, Texas after a ping pong ball with his name on it was drawn out of a hat Thursday, settling an election in which both candidates came out with the same number of votes, the Associated Press reports.

With no uproar about fraudulently cast ballots or voting machines switching votes, the two candidates, Skipworth and Jennifer Lawrence watched as an election official pulled out the ping pong ball named Skipworth mayor.

Lawrence was a graceful loser, saying that she had faith in the process.  “I’ve had dozens and dozens of people praying about this,” she said. “I told Sean I would support him, and I will, and I think unity is the way to go to get stuff done.”

Wisconsin Examiner: “If Wisconsin had picked its Electoral College delegates using a congressional district method, President Donald Trump would have received the majority of Wisconsin’s 10 votes in 2020. Six, to be precise. And that is what a new bill authored by Rep. Gary Tauchen (R-Bonduel) would do. It would make Wisconsin a state where the winner of the popular vote does not get all – or even necessarily the most – Electoral College votes. Tauchen’s bill (LRB 0513/1) would distribute the presidential electors by assigning one vote for each of Wisconsin’s eight congressional districts, then giving the remaining two electors to the statewide winner of the popular vote. That would exacerbate partisanship and give added incentive to gerrymander the map of Wisconsin’s congressional districts to favor one party over the other, says UW-Madison Prof. Barry Burden, founder and director of the Elections Research Center.”

Twitter has banned the accounts for hundreds of QAnon proponents including former national security advisor Michael Flynn and ersatz Elite Special Force Team lawyer Sidney Powell in a purge of conspiracy theorists from the platform, NBC News reports.

“The accounts have been suspended in line with our policy on Coordinated Harmful Activity. We’ve been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm, and given the renewed potential for violence surrounding this type of behavior in the coming days, we will permanently suspend accounts that are solely dedicated to sharing QAnon content,” a Twitter spokesperson told NBC News.

Jon Ossoff, the young Georgian who ran the very first special election of the Trump years, a House runoff election to replace Tom Price who quit to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services, only to lose to a Karen literally named Karen, be viciously mocked for it when he lost, has now won the very last Congressional special election of the Trump era. And a six year term in the Senate instead of a two-year House seat. Now former Senator David “Chickenshit” Perdue said something about prayers in his concession statement. Fuck him.

Oh and the Karen lost to a Black woman in 2018. Didn’t even serve a full two year term. And then she lost again when she tried to make a comeback in November 2020. Tom Price resigned from HHS in September 2017 after he scammed taxpayer funds for private jet travel.

Daily Mail reports presidential whatever-the-hell her title is supposed to be Hope Hicks is leaving the Trump White House for the second time.

Washington Examiner: “Soul searching and lecturing following the election and Wednesday’s Capitol protests and riots have done nothing to tamp down GOP outrage. According to a new survey, a record high 71% of President Trump’s supporters believe the country is headed toward civil war. What’s more, 40% of President-elect Joe Biden’s supporters agree. Trump has done little to cool feelings, today tweeting that he plans to stay in the fight after leaving office.”

“DOJ has clarified, for the second time on two days, that no, no evidence that Antifa was posing as Trump supporters during the attack on the Capitol Wednesday” – Salvador Hernandez, BuzzFeed.

“Richard Barnett, who was seen sitting at a desk in Speaker Pelosi’s office, has been arrested in Arkansas and charged with entering and remaining on restricting grounds, violent entry, and theft of public property” reports NBC News correspondent Geoff Bennett.

New York Times: “As the Trump presidency comes to a close after a sound defeat, and after four years of having led a movement that many agree has undermined our Constitution and the nation itself, it is difficult not to see the parallels between his lost cause and the failed cause of the Confederacy in 1865. As individuals carried the flag of the Confederacy, the flag of rebellion against the United States, into the Capitol, it was a moment not lost on historians – and a moment of dire concern for most Americans.”

“Mr. Trump’s feeble message to his stalwarts about going home and keeping the peace was similar in tone to Gen. Robert E. Lee’s admonitions in the aftermath of defeat. ‘I think it wiser,’ he wrote, ‘not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife.’ Lee was referring to the creation of monuments, but he was essentially telling those who admired him to ‘go home’ and keep the peace. Yet by the time he made those comments in 1869, the myth of the Lost Cause and its justifications for Confederate defeat were in full flower. And it was Lee – not President Jefferson Davis, whom many white Southerners blamed for their loss – that helped to personify the narrative of a just cause. Mr. Trump’s lost cause mirrors that of Lee’s. His dedicated followers do not see him as having failed them, but as a man who was failed by others. Mr. Trump best represents their values – even those of white supremacy – and the cause he represents is their cause, too. Just as Lee helped lead and sustain the Confederacy over four years, Mr. Trump has also been a sort of general – in a campaign of disinformation.”

I am urging @realDonaldTrump to reconsider his decision to skip the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

I plan to attend and believe it is an important tradition that demonstrates the peaceful transfer of power to our people and to the world. pic.twitter.com/8YgtBwQZgY

— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) January 8, 2021

“A rioter who was photographed hanging from the balcony of the Senate Chamber has begged for forgiveness, saying he got ‘caught up in the moment.’ The man – identified by local media as Josiah Colt, from Boise, Idaho – said his actions had been inappropriate and that he had not intended to leave a ‘stain on our great Country’s Democratic process.’ His apology comes after he bragged about his rampage through the U.S. Capitol. In a video posted on Instagram shortly after his rampage, Colt used a derogatory slur to refer to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and called her ‘a traitor.’ The 34-year-old also claimed he was the first to sit in the Democrat’s chair, however the seat would have been that of Vice President Mike Pence. On Thursday, however, Colt said he had ‘brought shame upon myself’ and is now seeking legal advice” – Newsweek.

Washington Post: Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D), the tattooed, 6-foot-8 progressive who has elevated his national profile with a fiery defense of his state’s election results against Trump’s attacks, is considering a run for the U.S. Senate. Fetterman’s popularity could hamper the slate of other Democrats eyeing the seat left open by Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.), who is not running for reelection in 2022. ‘We think we can win if we go for it,’ Fetterman said, announcing the creation of a Senate campaign exploratory committee. ‘But before we decide to run, we want to know who’s with us.’ The Pennsylvania Senate race will be among the most, if not the most, consequential of the 2022 midterms, with Democrats viewing it as one of their best shots to shore up their fragile control of the chamber under the Biden administration.”

“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told colleagues in a letter Friday that she had spoken to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, about keeping an ‘unstable president’ from accessing nuclear codes. Her letter came shortly after Trump tweeted that he would not attend the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden on Jan. 20, breaking with a long-standing tradition of outgoing presidents attending the swearing-in ceremony of their successors. Democrats are increasingly eyeing a second impeachment of Trump in the wake of Wednesday’s violent takeover of the Capitol by pro-Trump rioters if Vice President Pence and Trump’s Cabinet officials do not remove him from office under the 25th Amendment” – Washington Post.

Dominion Voting Systems, the Denver-based election systems company that has been the target of baseless claims of vote swapping and “weighting” votes to favor one candidate over another, has filed a defamation lawsuit seeking $1.3 billion in damages from Trump-supporting lawyer Sidney Powell, NBC News reports.

Powell has filed a number of lawsuits in courts around the nation claiming that Dominion systems devalued votes for Donald Trump and inflating votes for Democratic President-elect Joe Biden.  Powell and others claims Dominion conspired with Smartmatic Systems, a separate company, to throw elections to Democratic candidates.  This claims were false.

The United States lost 140,000 jobs in December, marking the first time since April that the monthly job report showed a net loss, according to the report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Revisions to jobs reports from the previous two months increased job totals for October and November by 135,000.  The unemployment rate was unchanged at 6.7%.

Those recently unemployed, within the last 1 to 5 weeks, has jumped by 449,000, and those unemployed from 15 to 26 weeks decreased by 303,000 to 1.6 million.

Since Trump took office, the United States has lost a net 2.85 million jobs.  Trump will likely end his term as the first president since Herbert Hoover who has lost jobs during his term.

To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2021

“Republican Senator Ben Sasse said Friday that he would “definitely consider” any impeachment articles brought by the House against President Trump, as lawmakers are considering ways to move the president from office after he encouraged a mob of his supporters who overran the Capitol on Wednesday. ‘The House, if they come together and have a process, I will definitely consider whatever articles they might move,’ Sasse said in an interview with ‘CBS This Morning’ on Friday. ‘I believe the president has disregarded his oath of office. He swore an oath to the American people to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. He acted against that,’ Sasse said. ‘What he did was wicked. That said, the question of what the House does now and how the Senate responds to it over the next 12 days is a critically important question, but the most important question is the prudential one is how we bring the country back together'” – CBS News.

The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2021

National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow told CNBC’s Eamon Javers that he intends to remain in his position through the end of President Donald Trump’s term, even at a time other officials in the administration are resigning in protest to Trump’s response to his supporters breaching the Capitol building. Kudlow said he will be taking some accumulated vacation time between now and the end of his term. See CNBC for video.