The Atlantic: “What is happening in the GOP is that figures such as Hawley, along with many of his Senate and House colleagues, and important Republican players, including the former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, are all trying to position themselves as the heirs of Trump. None of them possesses the same sociopathic qualities as Trump, and their efforts will be less impulsive and presumably less clownish, more calculated and probably less conspiracy-minded. It may be that not all of them support Hawley’s stunt; perhaps some are even embarrassed by it. But these figures are seismographers; they are determined to act in ways that win the approval of the Republican Party’s base. And this goes to the heart of the danger.”

“The single most worrisome political fact in America right now is that a significant portion of the Republican Party lives in a fantasy world, a place where facts and truth don’t hold sway, where ‘owning the libs’ is an end in itself, and where seceding from reality is a symbol of tribal loyalty, rather than a sign of mental illness. This is leading the party, and America itself, to places we’ve never been before, including the spectacle of a defeated president and his supporters engaging in a sustained effort to steal an election. The tactics of Hawley and his many partisan confreres, if they aren’t checked and challenged, will put at risk what the scholar Stephen L. Carter calls ‘the entire project of Enlightenment democracy.’ This doesn’t seem to bother Hawley and many in his party. But what he should know – and, one hopes, does know, somewhere in the recesses of his heart – is that he has moved very far away from conservatism.”

Media Matters: “Less than three years after it started on an anonymous far-right message board, the QAnon conspiracy theory was being praised by the president of the United States. On August 19, a reporter asked President Donald Trump if he had anything to say to followers of QAnon. Speaking in the White House briefing room, Trump said, ‘I don’t know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate,’ adding that it was ‘gaining in popularity’ and consisted of ‘people that love our country.'”

“2020 was a significant year for many reasons: a pandemic, the election of a new president, a reckoning over systemic racism. But it was also a breakout year for QAnon, a categorically false and extreme conspiracy theory that has been tied to multiple acts of violence and that worried the FBI enough that in 2019 the bureau specifically mentioned it internally as a potential domestic terrorism threat. What started in far-right spaces online gained widespread prominence and attention, in part thanks to a long lack of a response from – and even algorithmic promotion by – various social media platforms. As a result, QAnon has become a significant player in American politics and discourse, harmed our ability to contain a deadly pandemic, and left destroyed lives and families in its wake. And that outcome should provide a harsh lesson about allowing misinformation to spread unchecked across social media platforms.”

“The day after the election, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, a rising star of conservative populism, declared: ‘Republicans in Washington are going to have a very hard time processing this. But the future is clear: We must be a working-class party, not a Wall Street party.’ Hawley is right that the Republican Party should become a pro-worker party. But it should recognize that continuing to embrace Donald Trump’s populist policies and bromides will work against that goal. Instead, Republican pro-worker policies should advance traditional conservative commitments to free markets and opportunity.”

“Many in the GOP, including potential 2024 presidential aspirants like Hawley and Florida Senator Marco Rubio, have apparently concluded that the key to taking back the White House is to stick to the Trumpian formula. According to this view, the president would have won re-election if it hadn’t been for the coronavirus pandemic, thanks to the strong pre-virus economy. After all, Trump won millions more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. The GOP gained seats in the House of Representatives, will likely keep control of the Senate, maintained its grip on state legislatures, and increased its support among Black voters and important Hispanic groups. Pointing to Trump’s performance among Hispanic voters in Florida and Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, Rubio concluded that the future of the GOP is ‘a party built on a multi-ethnic, multi-racial coalition of working Americans.’ Liberals point out that a lot of the populist pro-worker rhetoric on the right is just that: rhetoric. They are largely correct. The problem with Rubio’s and Hawley’s interpretation of the election results is simple: Trump did scant for workers during his four years as president” – Bloomberg.

Daily Beast: “As his days in office come to a close, President Donald Trump has hinted to those close to him that he’s worried his influence within Republican circles may be waning. Fearful of party stalwarts growing comfortable crossing him, the president has pushed to keep up the pressure and plot possible revenge scenarios against potential turncoats, according to three people who spoke to him as he unwound at Mar-a-Lago and elsewhere over the holiday weekend. ‘Why aren’t they just listening [to me]?’ one of the sources recalled Trump asking during a diatribe against prominent GOPers who the president felt weren’t fighting for him on his current battle lines: from nullifying the 2020 election outcome, to torpedoing liability law for Big Tech, to sending out $2,000 checks for COVID-19 relief.”

“The comments came during Trump’s Christmas getaway in Florida this past weekend and for those who heard them they were some of the clearest indications to date that the president has reached an inflection point. Outwardly insistent that he was robbed of a re-election victory, he has privately groused that too many in his party are acknowledging the reality of his actual loss and showing signs of tiptoeing away from him. At other points during the long Christmas weekend, the president continued bemoaning the perceived lack of fealty from various elected Republicans, the sources recounted. He rattled off names such as Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (for being, in Trump’s estimation, a ‘wise guy’), and even his own VP, Mike Pence. ‘He is keeping a running [mental] list of Republicans who he believes have wronged him since the election,” a source close to Trump said. ‘The president certainly wants it out there that he’s capable of holding a grudge, and that he has campaigned against [some] Republicans before and could do it again.'”

Apparently something happened with Matt Gaetz where he asked a girl named Ginger a question, and she responded “yes.”  And for some odd reason, Fox News host Judge Jeanine Pirro was there to, ah, “celebrate”?

Thank you for sharing the moment with us Judge! https://t.co/w9Mejm46mZ

— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) December 31, 2020

It may be the first time Matty asked a girl out for a data (without having to ask her rates first).  Or maybe they’re carpooling next week.  Perhaps she had a dance slot available in the Champagne Room.

Whatever it is, I hope Matty tells Ginger about his one-time intern-cum-adopted son from his relationship with some former girlfriend.  It would be tough for Nestor to have to go back into hiding for another 14 years.

The United States recorded more than 3,900 fatalities from the coronavirus on Wednesday, shattering the previous high and setting the stage for a devastating first quarter of suffering due to the coronavirus, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

The previous high of daily fatalities 3,448, was recorded just two weeks ago on December 16th.  Today’s registered fatalities may not have all died today because of the lag due to the holiday season, but the one-day listing of deaths is still shocking.

The next few weeks are not looking better, with the nation hitting a new peak in the number of patients hospitalized with coronavirus, with more than 125,000 people in hospital beds.  Health systems are being stressed, with no ICU beds being available in Southern California.

So here’s a little behind-the-scenes insight into the operations of NatZero:  we don’t do photo rights.  We don’t have staff photographers or videographers.  That’s why we use so many things from other sources.  So you’re gonna see a lot of Twitter posts in this story.

So here, on the edge of the end of 2020, let’s look back at some of the images of 2020.

Pelosi tearing up Trump’s State of the Union.
In an act of defiance and disgust, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi rips to shreds, literally, her copy of the State of the Union immediately after Trump completes it on February 4th.  Trumplicans claimed it was a federal crime; in retrospect, it foretold the disaster the year would become.

https://twitter.com/shrstraker/status/1329898156411281408

KDKA: “Face it, getting pulled over is never fun. You’re tense, and you hope the ticket is not expensive. But for some people in Latrobe, seeing red lights in the rearview mirror has been anything but bad. Thanks to an amazingly generous benefactor, Latrobe’s police department has been passing out Shop ‘n Save gift cards to residents they know are in need of a break. ‘We bought $2,500 worth of gift cards,’ Latrobe Police Chief John Sleasman said. Getting the gift cards to the people? ‘I had some officers conduct some traffic stops for minor offenses,’ said Sleasman. But not one of these cards gets purchased if not for Dr. Anita Bigo, a lady who really loves Latrobe. ‘People should not go hungry. They should not go hungry,’ said Dr. Bigo.”

My information from reliable source is that Roberts arranged an illegal adoption of two young children from Wales through Jeffrey Epstein.

I think we can all agree that Epstein knows pedophilia.

If only Jeffrey Epstein was still alive . . .

Wouldn’t that be something? https://t.co/DwhgKO3gMp

— Lin Wood (@LLinWood) December 31, 2020

Daily Beast: “Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) needs your help to keep the U.S. Senate in Republican hands. So blared a handful of Facebook ads that Cruz’s campaign committee purchased this month. But none of them were actually raising money for the Republican candidates in Georgia. Instead, every penny donated went directly to… Cruz. The Cruz campaign bought 15 separate ads on Facebook over the past two weeks, each featuring a video of the senator dramatically hyping the need to hold two U.S. Senate seats in Georgia runoff contests.”

“‘Gun-grabbing, tax hikes, open borders, and stacking the Supreme Court. That’s the radical Democrat agenda if they win the Georgia Senate elections,’ Cruz declared. He asked for $5 contributions to his new ‘Keep Georgia Red fund.’ But Facebook users who clicked through to the online donation page – and read the fine print at the bottom – would see that the actual beneficiary was Cruz’s own campaign committee, not Sens. Kelly Loeffler or David Perdue, the two Republicans running for re-election in Georgia. Cruz is just one of a number of elected officials of both parties using the competitive – and extremely expensive – Georgia runoff contests to raise money for themselves. Increasingly, those officials are doing so on Facebook, where a political ad ban instituted in late October was lifted this month, but only for ads in Georgia. That’s led to a rash of Facebook ads invoking the Senate contests in the state on behalf of out-of-state political candidates. On some occasions, the ads don’t even mention the runoff contests, but are targeted at users in Georgia in an effort to exploit Facebook’s state-specific political advertising policy.”

The United Nations declared that lame duck president Donald Trump’s pardons for four Blackwater military contractors who were convicted of felonies for the homicides of 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians were illegal under international law, Reuters reports.

“Pardoning the Blackwater contractors is an affront to justice and to the victims of the Nisour Square massacre and their families,” said Jelena Aparac, chair of the U.N. working group on the use of mercenaries, said in a statement.  “These pardons violate U.S. obligations under international law and more broadly undermine humanitarian law and human rights at a global level.”

Nicholas Slatten was convicted of first-degree murder, while Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard were convicted of voluntary and attempted manslaughter.  The four worked for a paramilitary organization owned by Erik Prince, the brother of Trump’s secretary of education, Betsy DeVos.

CNN: “President Donald Trump is expected to return to Washington earlier than anticipated ahead of a planned disruption by Republicans when Congress meets next week to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s win. Trump is now slated to leave Palm Beach before his annual New Year’s Eve party, even though guests had already gathered at his south Florida club and were told Trump would be in attendance, according to three people familiar with the matter. The President typically relishes appearing on the red carpet in front of the press and his friends, but is skipping the event altogether this year in what will be an unusual move.”

“Over the course of his stay in Florida, Trump has been single-mindedly focused on the election results and the upcoming certification process in Congress, set for January 6. After losing dozens of court cases and having his appeal rejected by the Supreme Court, Trump has viewed the January 6 event as his best opportunity to overturn the election he lost. He has been in an irritated mood during most of the trip and fumed about everything from the election outcome to first lady Melania Trump’s renovations to his private quarters, according to multiple people who spoke with him. At one point, Trump also said he was concerned Iran could retaliate in the coming days for the US drone strike that killed Iran’s top general, Qasem Soleimani, one year ago. A person speculated that could be a contributing factor in his early departure. Trump was at Mar-a-Lago when he ordered the Soleimani strike on January 3, 2020. Before leaving for Palm Beach, he learned of Vice President Mike Pence’s role in the certification proceedings on Capitol Hill, which is mostly ceremonial. As he was flying to Florida for his vacation, Trump retweeted a call from one of his supporters for Pence to refuse to ratify the Electoral College count on January 6.”

Watching @FoxNews is almost as bad as watching Fake News @CNN. New alternatives are developing!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 30, 2020

First, they tried to issue a summons the Electoral College–which really isn’t a thing–by serving notice to it at the White House, which isn’t where any of the electors meet.

Then they tried to sue to stop the Vice President and Congress from accepting any electors for the Electoral College in the current–or any future–election.

So they sought to invalidate the Electoral College slate from any state which does not have their state legislatures confirm the slate of electors.  (Fact Check:  no state legislature validates the state’s electors.)

And now, the lawyers from the Thomas More Society–the conservative lair that spawned Jenna Ellis of the Elite Strike Force Team–have failed to provide evidence that they served any notices of summons to any of the parties they’re suing.

So one of the last remaining cases in federal court intending to overturn the Electoral College votes is stalled for want of a process server who can find the Electoral College.

California reported its first confirmed case of the highly contagious strain of the coronavirus that has swept through England, and Colorado logged its second confirmed case of the variant with a third case suspected USA Today reports.

The two confirmed cases of the coronavirus variant in Colorado infected two members of the National Guard who were assigned to assist in the care at a Simla, Colorado nursing home, raising fears that the strain could quickly sweep through vulnerable elderly populations.

The variant, named B.1.1.7, seems to easily infect younger people at a higher rate, estimated to be 70% more contagious than the previously known strains.  While the strain is more contagious, it does not appear to be more deadly.

The US Census Bureau is expected to announce it will miss the year-end deadline for reporting population numbers, thereby jeopardizing an announced Trump plan to manipulate the numbers to remove alleged undocumented residents from state and city counts, the Associated Press reports.

The Trump Administration sought to “cook the books” of the official census count so that areas where undocumented immigrants reside do not get proportional representation in Congress or per capita allotments for federal funding.

However, the Census Bureau will miss its December 31st deadline for submitting the data to the White House because of poor management of the decadal process by the administration.  Under Trump’s management, the Census Bureau hired US Census “door knockers” in September, five months after it had been done in previous censuses.

Axios: “The Trump administration is declassifying as-yet uncorroborated intelligence, recently briefed to President Trump, that indicates China offered to pay non-state actors in Afghanistan to attack American soldiers, two senior administration officials tell Axios. The disclosure of this unconfirmed intelligence comes 21 days before the end of Trump’s presidency, after he has vowed to ratchet up pressure on China, and months after news reports indicated that the Russians had secretly offered bounties for Taliban militants to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan.”

AP: “New Hampshire’s Republican governor said Wednesday that he is canceling his outdoor inauguration ceremony next month because of public safety concerns – namely, armed protesters who have been gathering outside his home in the weeks since he issued a mask order. ‘My first responsibility is ensuring the safety of my family and our citizens’ Gov. Chris Sununu said in a news release. ‘For weeks, armed protesters have increasingly become more aggressive, targeting my family, protesting outside my private residence, and trespassing on my property – an outdoor public ceremony simply brings too much risk.'”

“In consultation with Attorney General Gordon MacDonald, Sununu said, he and Senate President Chuck Morse, acting House Speaker Sherm Packard and the Executive Council will be sworn in during a small ceremony Jan. 7. It will be attended by leaders of both houses of the Legislature and will be virtually attended by all other members. Sununu will deliver his inaugural address at 7 p.m. that day. Protesters started gathering outside Sununu’s home in Newfields on Nov. 22 over his order, which had taken effect two days earlier, requiring masks to be worn in public spaces, indoors or outside, when social distancing isn’t possible because of the coronavirus pandemic. On Monday, local police issued summonses to nine people and arrested one of them under a new anti-picketing ordinance passed by the Newfields selectboard, on which Sununu’s brother sits.”