Washington Post: “President Trump’s border wall has reached an inflection point. For much of his administration, the construction of hundreds of miles of steel-and-concrete barriers has symbolized futility and waste – a massive, publicly funded undertaking whose payoff in deterring illegal border-crossing was unproven at best, ineffective at worst. Now, as crews dynamite, bulldoze and raze their way through pristine canyons, riverbeds, mountains, deserts and grasslands to gain access to construction sites, Mr. Trump’s wall has become a symbol of wanton environmental destruction.”

“President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to halt the wall’s construction immediately upon taking office. That hasn’t stopped or slowed what amounts to a full-court press to complete as much of the wall as possible before Mr. Trump leaves office Jan. 20. However, for every new mile of wall construction, far more damage and degradation is done to the landscape by a dozen or so contractors carving their way through wilderness and wildlife areas with access roads, retaining walls and other eyesores. The folly of the project is glaring. Even as more miles of wall are completed, the number of unauthorized migrants apprehended after crossing the border has spiked in recent months to the highest level in years. What’s more, precious little strategic thought has informed decisions about where to add to, enhance or build new barriers. Although illegal crossing is rife in South Texas, particularly around the town of McAllen, little construction has taken place there because local ranchers and other landowners have fought wall construction affecting their property. Far more building is taking place in Arizona and New Mexico, where the federal government controls much more land along the frontier with Mexico. In other words, construction is underway not where it might be needed but where resistance has been slight.”

The “Justice” Department and the FBI have done nothing about the 2020 Presidential Election Voter Fraud, the biggest SCAM in our nation’s history, despite overwhelming evidence. They should be ashamed. History will remember. Never give up. See everyone in D.C. on January 6th.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 26, 2020

If a Democrat Presidential Candidate had an Election Rigged & Stolen, with proof of such acts at a level never seen before, the Democrat Senators would consider it an act of war, and fight to the death. Mitch & the Republicans do NOTHING, just want to let it pass. NO FIGHT!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 26, 2020

Politico: “Facebook endured a deluge of political scrutiny in Donald Trump’s Washington. It’s poised to face even worse in the Joe Biden era. From lawmakers on Capitol Hill to antitrust enforcers at the Federal Trade Commission, Washington is training its sights on the world’s largest social network like never before. Biden’s antitrust enforcers will take ownership of a lawsuit the FTC filed this month threatening to dismantle the sprawling company. And his staff will negotiate legislative proposals with congressional leaders who have hammered Facebook for mishandling its users’ personal data and spreading hate speech and dangerous falsehoods.”

“It’s a historic moment of legislative and regulatory upheaval with profound consequences for Facebook and its Silicon Valley brethren. The Trump era opened the floodgates for Facebook detractors, who accused the world’s largest social network of silencing conservatives on one side, and abetting disinformation about the U.S. election on the other. Now, under Biden, the company’s critics see a prime opportunity to finally tame Facebook – for the sake of election integrity, privacy and fair play in the digital era. Democrats widely accuse Facebook leaders of permitting misinformation to appease Trump and his Republican allies. Biden’s campaign representatives have also lambasted Facebook for choosing not to remove Trump’s misleading claims from their pages and for broadly halting political advertising in the days immediately before and after the Nov. 3 election.”

Hope your Kwanzaa is celebrated with joy and proud heritage.

CNN: “Russian President Vladimir Putin began 2020 with a surprise, sweeping his entire government aside on January 15 after unveiling a raft of constitutional reforms. Observers were quick to read the fine print: The constitutional overhaul would reset the clock on presidential term limits, potentially extending Putin’s hold on power until 2036. A referendum was set for April, and Putin seemed to be coasting toward a presidency-for-life.”

“What followed instead was an annus horribilis for Russia, and perhaps Putin’s most challenging year to date. As Covid-19 started to spread around the globe, Russia briefly appeared to be on the front foot. The country sealed its border with China, and Putin boasted that the virus was ‘under control,’ thanks to what he described as robust early measures to halt the spread of the disease. But that approach was little more than bluster and spin. Not long after the government announced a nationwide lockdown that began on March 28, it became clear the country was in the grip of a major public health crisis. In April, Moscow recorded a death rate about 20% higher than the 10-year average, while authorities in the capital indirectly acknowledged that they were undercounting Covid-19 deaths. The government was forced to postpone the referendum.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will require coronavirus testing for passengers flying to the United States from the United Kingdom in an effort to curb the spread of a new version of the coronavirus, CNN reports.

Any person planning to fly to the US must have a negative coronavirus test within three days of their scheduled flight.

“Today, President Trump is taking another step to protect the health of the American people by requiring air passengers arriving from the United Kingdom (U.K.) to test negative, via PCR or Antigen test, no more than 72 hours before departure from the U.K. to the United States,” the CDC said in a statement.

Get Chief Justice John Roberts under oath NOW.

First question after handing him exhibit below:

“Explain this.” pic.twitter.com/DxA0lMjEAb

— Lin Wood (@LLinWood) December 26, 2020

Inundated by coronavirus patients, hospitals in Los Angeles (California) County are running low on vital supplies, including oxygen for patients, according to the Los Angeles Times.  One person is dying every 10 minutes from the coronavirus in the county.

Patients being treated for COVID-19 are given supplemental oxygen, sometimes as high as ten times the normal amount needed, in order for them to absorb enough oxygen to survive, putting a premium on oxygen supplies at medical centers and care facilities.

With beds in intensive care units filled throughout the region, hospitals are also running low on the tubing and other supplies needed to treat patients.  Bedspace is at a premium, with some hospitals requiring patients to remain in an ambulance up eight hours when they arrive at an emergency room. 

The obituary of a 95-year-old woman who died from coronavirus in a New York nursing home blasted the response to the pandemic by the United States government, decrying the abandonment of the elderly.

The actions and inactions of the United States government regarding the Covid-19 virus has caused Grace McDonough and thousands of other nursing home residents to lose their lives to the Covid -19 virus,” says the obituary for Grace D. McDonough, who died December 21st.  “These same residents had successfully fought and won great battles against other diseases and conditions and yet were placed in harm’s way during the pandemic.”

McDonough had spend the better part of three decades living in the senior care facility after spending her adult life as a postal clerk and a waitress.

The mysterious monoliths continue to pop up around the world, but the latest one has a particularly Christmas-y flavor to it.

In San Francisco’s Corona Heights Park, a gingerbread monolith has been found.  The baked obelisk is made of sheets of gingerbread with frosting as mortar and faux gumdrop rivets.

Merry Christmas from San Francisco where a gingerbread monolith appeared overnight at Corona Heights Park. pic.twitter.com/XtQCHrNtuI

— Karl Mondon (@karlmondon) December 25, 2020

Three other non-edible monoliths have been in discovered:  in Utah, in Romania and in Southern California.

After throwing coronavirus relief, the federal budget and defense spending under the bus in the days before the holiday, lame duck president Donald Trump spend Christmas on the golf course with one of his most ardent Congressional supporters, the Associated Press reports.

While his schedule said “his schedule includes many meetings and calls,” Trump was on the links with Senator Lindsey Graham.  There were no announcements of him calling members of Congress to urge support from Republicans on his $2,000 stimulus payment.

“Made many calls and had meetings at Trump International in Palm Beach, Florida. Why would politicians not want to give people $2000, rather than only $600?” Trump tweeted Friday afternoon after golfing. “It wasn’t their fault, it was China. Give our people the money!”

“Two law enforcement officials tell The Associated Press that authorities have found human remains in the vicinity of the explosion that rocked downtown Nashville early Christmas morning. It is unclear how the remains are related to the Friday explosion or whether they might belong to the person believed to be responsible or a victim.”

“The officials could not discuss an ongoing investigation publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. Authorities have said they believe the blast was intentional. The city’s police chief said officers responded to a report of a shots fired before discovering the RV that was blaring a recorded warning that a bomb would detonate in 15 minutes. Police evacuated nearby buildings and called in the bomb squad. The RV exploded shortly afterward” – AP.

Washington Post: “As she asked the U.S. Supreme Court this month to overturn President Trump’s election loss, the attorney Sidney Powell cited testimony from a secret witness presented as a former intelligence contractor with insights on a foreign conspiracy to subvert democracy. Powell told courts that the witness is an expert who could show that overseas corporations helped shift votes to President-elect Joe Biden. The witness’s identity must be concealed from the public, Powell has said, to protect her ‘reputation, professional career and personal safety.'”

“The Washington Post identified the witness by determining that portions of her affidavit match, sometimes verbatim, a blog post that the pro-Trump podcaster Terpsichore Maras-Lindeman published in November 2019. In an interview, Maras-Lindeman confirmed that she wrote the affidavit and said she viewed it as her contribution to a fight against the theft of the election. ‘This is everybody’s duty,’ she said. ‘It’s just not fair.’ In a recent civil fraud case, attorneys for the state of North Dakota said that Maras-Lindeman falsely claimed to be a medical doctor and to have both a PhD and an MBA. They said she used multiple aliases and social security numbers and created exaggerated online résumés as part of what they called ‘a persistent effort . . . to deceive others.'”

“Well, SOMEthing had damned well better happen, and soon! This waiting is getting really annoying”

– The current top comment on The Gateway Pundit article “Rudy Giuliani: ‘Starting After Christmas This Is Really Going to Blow Up’” posted Friday.

“Last Friday, Donald Trump reportedly held an Oval Office meeting that included his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, ousted campaign lawyer Sidney Powell and her client, former national security adviser Michael Flynn (who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in connection with special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe but was later pardoned by Trump). Flynn had recently appeared on the far-right outlet Newsmax suggesting that Trump could order ‘military capabilities’ to ‘rerun an election’ in swing states, and that ‘martial law has been instituted 64 times.’ Meanwhile, Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward urged Trump to ‘Cross the Rubicon’ and impose martial law to claim an election that the Electoral College, not to mention several dozen court rulings, has now certified he lost.”

“Public reaction to Flynn’s “coup” proposal – which he’d shared previously through a press release on Twitter from the right-wing group ‘We The People’ have been furious and damning. They include calls for Trump’s impeachment, claims of treason and charges of criminal sedition. With less than a month until President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in, impeachment seems unlikely even if it might be richly deserved. Treason entails levying war or giving aid to ‘Enemies’ of the United States, so it doesn’t apply here. Sedition, which involves overt conduct aimed at subverting the government, might seem like a better legal fit. Historically, sedition laws have been used to target critics of the government, and some of those prosecutions have run afoul of First Amendment protections. But the First Amendment does not uniformly protect speech if it incites violence. Was Flynn inciting violence by proposing the military be used to seize voting machines? During the now-infamous Oval Office meeting, chief of staff Mark Meadows and White House counsel Pat Cipollone protested vehemently, but were there two or more people in agreement to overthrow the government? Was Flynn’s social media campaign a violation of the rule against circulating any printed matter advocating the overthrow of the government?” – Politico.

Wall Street Journal: “A holiday rainstorm with powerful winds has left tens of thousands of residents without power throughout the Northeast. The storm, with gusts reported as high as 70-plus miles an hour in some areas, according to the National Weather Service, started on Christmas Eve and continued through Christmas Day. But a flood watch that had been in effect throughout portions of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut was canceled as of Friday morning, the service said.”

“Eversource Energy, which services residents in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, said about 33,000 of its customers didn’t have power as of Friday morning. An estimated 26,000 of those were in Connecticut. Eversource spokesman Reid Lamberty said the company prepared for the storm well in advance and was now working to restore power in a timely fashion. Mr. Lamberty said the company had employees return from holiday vacation and brought in extra crews everywhere from Canada to Pennsylvania to assist with the restoration effort. Still, Mr. Lamberty acknowledged the frustration its customers are likely feeling losing power during a holiday. Unfortunately, he and other power company officials said there was little they could do when it comes to controlling the weather. ‘It’s so 2020, isn’t it?’ Mr. Lamberty said.”

Reminder: If you have HBO Max you can watch ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ today, starting at 12pm EST. No extra charge, like what Disney+ did with ‘Mulan’, charging $30.00 for a film it couldn’t show in theaters. It’s great that this is on Christmas day too, because it fits the theme of a long-haired, super-powered Israeli coming to save humanity from evil.

The Tennesseean: “Nashville authorities believe an explosion that occurred in downtown Nashville early Christmas morning was an ‘intentional act’ and sparked by a vehicle. Police responded to reports of a suspicious vehicle parked outside an AT&T building just before 6 a.m. Upon arrival, police said an officer ‘had reason’ to alert the department’s hazardous devices unit, which was en route, when a ‘significant explosion’ happened. Three people were hospitalized with injuries, police said Police and firefighters responded to an area near Second Avenue and Commerce Street about 6:45 a.m. Friday. The fire department confirmed a bomb squad was on the scene with an active investigation by Metro police and federal agencies.”

“Bethlehem on Thursday ushered in Christmas Eve with a stream of joyous marching bands and the triumphant arrival of the top Catholic clergyman in the Holy Land, but few people were there to greet them as the coronavirus pandemic and a strict lockdown dampened celebrations in the traditional birthplace of Jesus. Similar subdued scenes were repeated across the world as the festive family gatherings and packed prayers that typically mark the holiday were scaled back or canceled altogether” reports the Associated Press.

“In Australia, worshippers had to book tickets online to attend socially distanced church services. The Philippines prohibited mass gatherings and barred extended families from holding traditional Christmas Eve dinners. Traditional door-to-door children’s carols were canceled in Greece. On Christmas Eve in Italy, church bells rang earlier than usual. The Italian government’s 10 p.m. curfew prompted pastors to move up services, with ‘Midnight’ Mass starting Thursday evening in some churches as early as a couple hours after dark. Pope Francis, who has said people ‘must obey’ civil authorities’ measures to fight the spread of COVID-19, fell in line. This year, the Christmas vigil Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica was moved up from 9:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.”