Isn’t it strange that QAnon fans don’t have any problem with Santa Claus? It can’t be that he isn’t real, because the existence of an 800 year old sky wizard who flies around the world on a magic reindeer sleigh in one night delivering presents to Christian children isn’t all that far-fetched when you compare it to the belief that President Trump and a guy who definitely died in a plane crash 21 years ago are going to arrest 40,000 pedophiles in one night – or that these pedophiles are in league with sentient Reptilian ultra-terrestrials who live deep under the surface of the earth.

Think about it: Santa sneaks into people’s homes and delivers consumer products – many of which are branded with intellectual property created by Hollywood. Those toys were built be enslaved people who work in a freezing cold workshop in his remote Arctic fortress for untold hours per day. He’s tracked by NORAD every Christmas Eve and as such has contact with military intelligence. Most importantly, he watches children all the time, even when they’re sleeping. He knows when they’re awake. He knows if they’ve been bad or good, so #SaveTheChildren for goodness’s sake.

Also “Santa” is an anagram of “Satan”. If that doesn’t sound like a member of the Clinton-Soros-Deep State Pizzagate cabal then I don’t know who does. Step up your game QAnon.

Red State: “We’re often told no one is for abortion but this is often proved to be nonsensical since pro-abortion advocates reach down into the darkest depths of their minds and pull out some seriously sick and bizarre behavior in order to defend it. It’s not exactly uncommon behavior. Case in point, a video game was recently released that featured a mod of the 90’s DOOM game where you were tasked with beating demons on Mars as a space marine. A pro-abortion group in Argentina made a mod where you have to kill pro-life women, Catholic priests, and police officers, before shooting a giant fetus with a shotgun until it dies. They’ve called the game ‘DOOM Fetito’ which translates to ‘Little Fetus DOOM.’ A message at the end encourages the player to use misoprostol to ‘defeat’ unborn children in the real world.”

Axios: “President-elect Biden on Thursday said that a suspected Russian cyberattack on multiple government agencies and U.S. companies ‘is a matter of great concern’ and promised to impose ‘substantial costs’ to those responsible for the attack. Biden’s statement came just hours after the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency alerted that evidence suggested that additional malware was used in what it described as ‘a grave risk to the federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial governments as well as critical infrastructure entities and other private sector organizations.'”

President-elect Joe Biden will nominate New Mexico Dem Rep. Deb Haaland to be the Secretary of the Interior, the first recognized Native American who will hold a Cabinet post, the Washington Post reports.

A member of the Pueblo of Laguna, a federally-recognized tribe of the Pueblo Nation, Haaland will be responsible for management of federal lands, including tribal lands, and the resources they contain. Haaland chaired the tribe’s Development Corporation, which managed the commercial and economic growth of tribal lands, including gaming, real estate development and mineral rights.  Although she graduated from the University of New Mexico law school, she never actively practiced law.  She was elected to Congress in 2018 and served as Vice Chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources and as Chair of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands.

At his request, attorney Bill Burck has been excused from his representation of alt-right pioneer and Trump advisor Steve Bannon by the judge in the case, and Bannon has hired Rudy Giuliani’s personal attorney Robert Costello to take his place.

This case against Bannon revolves around him allegedly defrauding donor to a “We Build the Wall” crowdfunding effort to collect money from supporters of lame duck president Donald Trump to pay for construction of southern border fence.

Burck requested to withdraw from the case in November after Bannon made threats against the lives of Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray on his podcast.

Costello represented Giuliani in the federal investigation into Giuliani’s involvement in Trump’s Ukraine scandal.  His previous clients included Leona Helmsley and George Steinbrenner.

New York Magazine: “The chief obstacle to ending the ridiculous Republican refusal to accept President Trump’s November defeat is Alabama congressman Mo Brooks, who is threatening to challenge the electoral vote when Congress rubber-stamps it on January 6. So far, Brooks has been unable to find a senator to join him in that futile gesture, which under the Electoral Count Act of 1877 is all that’s necessary to force a two-hour debate and a vote in each house on a motion to overturn the results. So any senator choosing to take the fateful step in Brooks’s direction is risking the wrath of Mitch and of other Republican colleagues who don’t want to be forced to go on record favoring or opposing Trump’s delusions of a ‘landslide win.’ Who would be that dumb? Maybe another Alabama Republican, as al.com suggested?”

“‘I think that he [Tommy Tuberville] and Ted Cruz are the two best candidates to do this,’ said Stan McDonald, Tuberville’s campaign chairman, during an interview on WVNN-radio in Huntsville on Tuesday. ‘I don’t know yet if or when he will do this. He’s very seriously considering it.’ There’s video available of Tuberville hinting he might take this step in an appearance in Georgia, saying ‘You see what’s coming; you’ve been reading about it in the House. We’re going to have to do it in the Senate.’ And Tubs is getting some encouragement from hard-core conservatives back home; one publication said he could become a ‘national hero to Trump supporters”’if he steps out to back Brooks. It sure would brand him for a good while, since it would be his very first act as a U.S. Senator (he and other new members of Congress will be sworn in on January 3, just three days before the vote Brooks wants to trigger).”

Despite claims from the Trump Administration that it’s ordered tens of millions of doses of the new Pfizer coronavirus vaccine, Pfizer itself says that it has fulfilled all orders it has received from the federal government–for a total of just 2.9 million doses.

Millions of doses of the vaccine sit in warehouses awaiting orders and shipping destinations.

“This week, we successfully shipped all 2.9 million doses that we were asked to ship by the U.S. Government to the locations specified by them,” Pfizer said in a statement.  “We have millions more doses sitting in our warehouse but, as of now, we have not received any shipment instructions for additional doses.”

In 1776 the Revolution agains British tyranny was plotted in taverns, restaurants, and churches

Does it make sense why these arbitrary closures are targeting bars, local restaurants, and churches now?

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) December 17, 2020

Mother Jones: “In October, Elliott Broidy, once a top fundraiser for Donald Trump and the Republican Party, pleaded guilty to charges that he conspired to illegally lobby the Trump administration for a fugitive financier and the president of Malaysia. The plea continued the descent of a controversial businessman and political operative who stepped down from a top Republican National Committee job in 2018 after the news broke that he had agreed to pay $1.6 million in hush money to a Playboy model whom he had impregnated during an extramarital affair.”

“Now there’s a new wrinkle to the Broidy case. He faces up to five years in prison in part because of what in retrospect seems to have been a dumb mistake. Broidy voluntarily gave the FBI emails from his and his wife’s accounts while seeking the bureau’s assistance in pursuing hackers who he claimed had stolen this material and leaked damaging details about his business dealings to the press. According to a just-unsealed ruling issued in June 2018 by Beryl Howell, the chief US District Judge in Washington, DC, nearly 1,400 pages of emails that Broidy provided to the FBI were subsequently used by the bureau in the investigation that led to Broidy’s guilty plea. Following a secretive legal process, Howell ruled that Broidy had surrendered the material to the FBI and after doing that – when the bureau wanted to exploit the documents for an investigation of Broidy himself – could no longer claim the information was covered by attorney-client privilege or spousal privilege. A Broidy spokesman did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.”

“President-elect Biden plans to nominate Michael Regan, North Carolina’s top environmental regulator, to head the Environmental Protection Agency” Reuters reports.

According to a study published in the medical journal Pediatrics, Black children are six times more likely to be shot by police than white children, and Hispanic children are three times more likely to be shot, reports CNN.

“The results are not surprising, but that doesn’t take away from the tragedy of these results,” lead researcher Dr. Monika K. Goyal told CNN. “When we see that this extends to children, it makes this issue even more tragic.”

From 2003 to 2018, the study found, 140 adolescents were killed by police.  In 131 of those cases, the child was shot, and 93% of the victims were male.  The data, however, are incomplete because of irregular reporting standards across states.  The study also did not look into the number of children who were shot but did not die. 

People: “An American teenager and her boyfriend from the Cayman Islands have been sentenced to four months in prison for flouting the Caribbean nation’s strict Covid-19 quarantine requirement. Skylar Mack, 18, a student from Loganville, Georgia, and Vanjae Ramgeet, 24, a professional jet ski racer from the Cayman Islands, received the sentence on Tuesday morning, after the country’s Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Patrick Moran, decided to appeal their original sentence of a $2,600 fine and 40 hours of community service each. According to the office of the DPP, Mack arrived in the Cayman Islands on November 27, and was required to undergo a minimum 14-day quarantine-in-residence, per Caymanian Covid suppression guidelines. On November 29, Mack instead left her residence and removed her geo-fencing bracelet, which tracks her location, in order to watch Ramgeet compete in a jet ski event.”

Earlier this week: Scottish idiot jailed for using jet-ski to evade UK lockdown by traveling 25 miles across freezing open sea to visit Manx girlfriend

The Chief Judge for the Southern District of Georgia has rejected a lawsuit filed by the Republican Party seeking to limit the early voting period in the state’s Senatorial runoff elections, Adam Klasfeld of Law and Crime News tweeted.

Judge James Randal Hall, a George W. Bush appointee, rejected the motion, calling the GOP’s claims a fraud “highly speculative” at this point, prior to the election.

I will Veto the Defense Bill, which will make China very unhappy. They love it. Must have Section 230 termination, protect our National Monuments and allow for removal of military from far away, and very unappreciative, lands. Thank you! https://t.co/9rI08S5ofO

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 17, 2020

Here’s probably why, from the Daily Beast: “Trump has objected to a provision that would change the names of military bases named after Confederate officials and to a non-defense add-on that would preserve a piece of the 1996 Telecommunications Act shielding tech companies from liability for content posted by their users. None of that explains why he’d risk a humiliating veto override to shoot down a bipartisan bill. One thing that would explain his bizarre position here is another add-on: one that could expose financial arrangements that Trump would prefer to keep hidden.”

UVA Center for Politics: “In a highly unusual situation, both of Georgia’s Senate seats will be on the ballot next month – one seat was already scheduled to be elected, while the other is a special election. As January’s result will decide control of the Senate, both sides are invested in Georgia’s outcome. In the regular election, Democrat Jon Ossoff made some gains in the suburbs since he was last on the ballot, but to beat Sen. David Perdue (R-GA), he’ll likely have to do even better. The battle for the state’s other seat is a bitter contest between appointed incumbent Kelly Loeffler and Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat and a preacher. Though it would add an extra layer of chaos to the outcome, history – and data from November – seems to point away from a split outcome.”

“On Jan. 6, Vice President Mike Pence will oversee final confirmation of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. Then he’ll likely skip town. As vice president, Pence has the awkward but unavoidable duty of presiding over the session of Congress that will formalize Biden’s Electoral College victory – a development that is likely to expose him and other Republicans to the wrath of GOP voters who believe President Donald Trump’s false claim that the election was stolen from him. But Pence could dodge their ire by leaving Washington immediately for the Middle East and Europe. According to three U.S. officials familiar with the planning, the vice president is eyeing a foreign trip that would take him overseas for nearly a week, starting on Jan. 6” Politico reports.

“Though Pence aides declined to confirm details of the trip, which remains tentative, a U.S. government document seen by POLITICO shows the vice president is due to travel to Bahrain, Israel and Poland, with the possibility of more stops being added. On the surface, the trip is part of a push to underscore the Trump administration’s role in brokering a series of diplomatic agreements to normalize relations between Israel and a handful of Arab countries, including Bahrain. It’s a tactic Pence has used to navigate the final days of Trump’s presidency: stay out of the spotlight and insulate himself from his boss’s baseless election-fraud crusade, all while still finding ways to burnish his own credentials and technically toe the party line. ‘I suspect the timing is anything but coincidental,’ one Pence ally said of his tentative travel plans.”

CNN: “The 2022 US Senate race in North Carolina could provide an early test of whether the Republican Party will continue to embrace President Donald Trump after his loss, potentially featuring Lara Trump, the President’s daughter-in-law, against a field of current and former Republican officials unwilling to step aside. Her public interest in the seat has not scared off a number of Senate Republican aspirants, who are driven in part by the alluring prospect of running for an open seat in the first midterm election of a Democratic president, which usually favors the opposing party. But Republican operatives warn that the family will still hold great political power over the party despite its patriarch’s devastating loss, saying Lara Trump could be a formidable candidate in a primary election for the seat that could determine the control of the Senate.”

“A Trump candidacy would be difficult for any Republican to challenge, since many of the party’s supporters are united by the President’s personality rather than ideological principles. North Carolina Rep. Mark Walker announced his Senate campaign earlier this month, pitching himself in the purple state as both ‘a conservative warrior and a bridge builder.’ He has already received the endorsements of GOP Sens. Tim Scott of South Carolina and James Lankford of Oklahoma, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. When asked in a recent interview about Lara Trump’s potential candidacy, the Baptist pastor previewed one potential attack. ‘There’s nothing against the law for somebody moving from New York state to North Carolina to run,’ Walker told CNN. ‘We’re going to stay focused on what we’ve accomplished,’ he added. ‘I have nothing bad to say about the (Trump) family.'”

“Federal judges in Georgia will hear arguments Thursday in Republican-led lawsuits to restrict absentee voting ahead of next month’s Senate runoffs – the first salvos in a GOP effort to change voting rules for future elections following President Donald Trump’s loss in 2020. Republicans have filed three lawsuits in the state ahead of the Jan. 5 runoffs, in which hundreds of thousands of people have already voted by mail or in person for races that will decide control of the Senate in 2021. The suits primarily target the use of drop-boxes to return absentee ballots, as well as aiming to raise the threshold for signature verifiers to accept absentee ballots.”

“The net result of the suits, which are backed by a combination of local, state and national Republican Party organizations, would make successfully voting by mail harder in Georgia, which Republicans say is necessary to protect the security of the elections – and others claim is an attempt to suppress votes for Democratic candidates. The legal efforts are likely just the start of a yearlong push by state Republicans to tighten voting rules in response to the 2020 election, which prompted unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud from Trump, his supporters and other GOP leaders who are convinced that the contest wasn’t fair. Republican lawmakers in Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania, among others, have already announced their intention to seek changes to state election laws next year in response to perceived irregularities, and Trump’s opposition to mail voting in 2020 – coupled with the way those late-counted ballots broke against him in some key states – has destroyed the decades-long bipartisan consensus on expanding the practice” – Politico.