BBC: “A Virginia kilt company is ‘disgusted’ that their yellow kilts were worn by the far-right Proud Boys. Members of the group were seen sporting the bright garments at a pro-Trump rally this weekend in Washington DC. The Proud Boys are an all-male group of self-proclaimed ‘Western chauvinists’ with a history of street violence. Verillas – the LGBT-owned brand – says the ‘nightmare scenario’ has forced them to pull the kilts from the shelves. Extremist groups in the US often adopt or appropriate items of clothing as quasi-uniforms that indicate their allegiance and make them recognisable to others. Over the weekend, videos on social media showcased a row of Proud Boys in bright yellow Verillas kilts mooning the crowd gathered around them, with ‘Fuck Antifa’ written on their bare bottoms.”

“Antifa is a group of mostly far-left activists who have repeatedly clashed with the Proud Boys. Verillas owner Allister Greenbrier – a gay entrepreneur of Scottish descent – expressed shock and dismay that his brand was associated with the group. ‘I was appalled, angry and frustrated because they are the opposite of everything our brand stands for,’ he told the BBC, noting that the men had initially claimed to be a metal band looking for kilts. ‘I was quite angry. I had to calm down a bit, but we decided we really didn’t want their money.’ In a message on Twitter, Verillas announced a donation of $1,000 (£745) – a sum exceeding the Proud Boys’ purchase – to the anti-racism organisation National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).”

Ten states, led by Texas, have sued Google over alleged antitrust violations regarding its operation of its advertising arm, claiming that the search engine giant has used its imposing market share to block competition, Reuters reports.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s lawsuit, joined by nine other states, echoes a lawsuit filed by the federal government in October.  The states joining Texas are Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, North Dakota and Utah.

“Google repeatedly used its monopolistic power to control pricing (and) engage in market collusions to rig auctions in a tremendous violation of justice,” Paxton said in a video unironically posted on Facebook, a social media site against which Paxton has filed another antitrust lawsuit.

In an off-the-rails rant, Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson personally attacked Democrat Gary Peters during a Homeland Security Committee meeting during which Ken Starr was testifying about fraud in the 2020 election.

https://youtu.be/k-E43s1d-Lk

“I just have to point out that the purveyors of Russian disinformation,” Johnson ranted, gesturing over toward Peters, “Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the DNC, the Steele dossier.  The Ranking Member Peters accusing Senator Grassley and I of disseminating Russian disinformation–that’s where the disinformation is coming.  That’s the false information, the lies, the false allegations.  I can’t sit by here and listen to this and say this, this is not disinformation at this hearing today.”

Chris Krebs was totally excoriated and proven wrong at the Senate Hearing on the Fraudulent 2020 Election. Massive FRAUD took place with machines, people voting from out of state, illegals, dead people, no signatures—and so much more!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 16, 2020

A Kenyan man with links to a Somali terrorist group was charged by federal prosecutors with planning a 9/11-style attack after he took flight training in the Philippines and researched ways to hijack an airliner, the New York Times reports.

Prosecutors claim Cholo Abdi Abdullah is an alleged operative of Shabab, the Somali terrorist group which aligns itself with al Qaeda.  Abdullah was arrested in the Philippines by Filipino authorities last year and transported to the US to face charges.  He is expected to be arraigned in federal court Wednesday.

Abdullah reportedly started pilot training in the Philippines in 2016, and had been directed by a leader of Shabab to probe US airports for security vulnerabilities in a plan to steal or hijack a private plane and fly it into a building. 

PolitiFact announced its Lie of the Year Wednesday, giving the downplaying and denialism about the coronavirus the dubious distinction.

The fact-checking website specifically noted the efforts of lame duck president Donald Trump as the primary example of this, from his denialism that the coronavirus was a problem to demeaning medical and scientific efforts, including discarding and diminishing the advice of people on his own staff like Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Thumbing his nose at public health guidelines to control the spread of the coronavirus, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo invited 900 people to a Tuesday gala indoor Christmas Party at the State Department, but fewer than 70 people actually showed up, the Washington Post reports.

Pompeo was so embarrassed by the sparse attendance, he canceled his scheduled address at the event and instead sent a subordinate to give a speech.  The event was for the families of diplomats stationed overseas in dangerous areas, where families are not allowed to travel with the government representatives.

Seventy people had RSVP’d for the event, but fewer actually attended the event, where boxed lunches were served and a masked Santa mingled among the crowd. 

Members of both parties are lining up to push through a second coronavirus relief bill through the Senate before the Senate session ends, with proposals including extended unemployment relief and a $600 stimulus check for each American, the Washington Post reports.

While the Democratic-led House passed a second round of relief back in May, the Republican-majority Senate has refused to consider any coronavirus aid to Americans.  Since the election, a bipartisan group of Senators has proposed a compromise bill, which Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has refused to support.

The new proposal splits out financial aid to states and municipalities which are strained because of lost tax revenue.  That will be part of a separate bill, but that money will be used to fund $600 stimulus checks while still keeping the overall cost of the aid package under $1 trillion, an arbitrary line set by far-right Republicans.

Daily Beast: “When Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) and her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, bought a 15,000-square-foot Atlanta mansion known as ‘Descante’ for $10.5 million in 2009, it was the most expensive private home purchase in the city’s history. The value of the estate, as appraised by Fulton County government officials for the purpose of calculating annual property tax dues, remained the same, $10.5 million, for the next seven years. Then, in 2016, the appraised value suddenly plunged to $4.15 million – a whopping 60 percent decline. The result was a dramatic cut to the couple’s property tax bill.”

“Originally, they were paying $200,000 annually to the city and county governments. In 2016, after their home’s value dropped, they paid $90,000. Since then, the appraised value of the home has risen to roughly $5 million, but they are still paying about $80,000 less a year than they did when they first bought. In 2018, the home was valued at $5.5 million, and the couple paid $115,000 in property taxes for that year. In 2020, the home was valued at $5 million, with a tax bill of $112,000. The devaluation of the Loeffler-Sprecher estate, and lower tax bill, came after the couple invested significantly in improvements to the property. In 2015, they spent nearly $90,000 to renovate the kitchen, $150,000 to construct a new greenhouse, and $125,000 on various outdoor improvements, records filed with the city show. And it’s especially striking given that Atlanta was undergoing a real-estate boom at that time. Home prices in the metro area surged by 81 percent from 2012 to 2020, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.”

CNN: “Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is quarantining after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for coronavirus, but he himself “has been tested and is negative,” the State Department announced Wednesday. ‘Secretary Pompeo has been identified as having come into contact with someone who tested positive for COVID,’ a State Department spokesperson said. ‘For reasons of privacy we can’t identify that individual. The Secretary has been tested and is negative. In accordance with CDC guidelines, he will be in quarantine. He is being closely monitored by the Department’s medical team.’ Pompeo’s Wednesday schedule listed him as having no public appointments. President Trump is scheduled to hold a Cabinet meeting Wednesday morning.”

CNN: “President Donald Trump has not conceded the presidential election, but it appears a fundraising appeal from his campaign may have finally done so. ‘Should President Trump run in 2024?’ a fundraising email from the campaign sent to supporters Tuesday evening asked. Like most campaign fundraising emails from both parties, Tuesday evening’s note – one of seven sent just on Tuesday – appealed to its recipients with bombastic, urgent language. ‘Let’s make something clear: the Radical Left STOLE this Election from President Trump,’ the email said. The email continued, ‘He’s always been able to count on the American People for advice, which is why he asked us to reach out with ONE very important question,’ linking to a poll.”

“Once participants complete the ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ poll, they are encouraged to contribute to what it described as the ‘Senate Runoff Election.’ The legal fine print on the donation page, which says Trump is raising money for the US Senate runoff elections in Georgia, shows that 75% of the funds donated up to $5,000 will go to Save America, a new Trump fundraising leadership PAC launched after the election. Save America could become an avenue for Trump to continue funding political operations as he weighs a presidential bid in 2024.”

Can’t believe how badly @FoxNews is doing in the ratings. They played right into the hands of the Radical Left Democrats, & now are floating in limboland. Hiring fired @donnabraziIe, and far worse, allowing endless negative and unedited commercials. @FoxNews is dead. Really Sad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 16, 2020

The Atlantic: “One might assume that polarization is what happens to people cut off from information. But the truth is closer to the opposite: More information means more polarization. Research shows that access to broadband internet in the U.S. has in many cases increased various measures of polarization, as the web introduces voters to a bigger menu of partisan news from which voters select the sites that match their political tastes. We’ve seen this phenomenon accelerate in 2020. Four years ago, most people would have said there were three major cable news networks: the center-left one (CNN), the liberal alternative (MSNBC), and the conservative juggernaut (Fox News). But in the past few months, the conservative-news monolith has shattered. Since the election, Newsmax TV and the One America News Network have stepped up to backfill President Donald Trump’s election-fraud lies with programming from an alternate reality. And behold, niche partitioning works: Last week, Newsmax rode the election-conspiracy story to its first-ever ratings win over Fox. Because Trump devotees are going to buy tickets to whatever media universe offers the best narrative, networks are competing to tell the Trumpiest tale.”

“With weekly religious attendance at low ebb and live TV in structural decline, national elections are arguably the only activity that Americans do together in shared time. But shared time is not shared reality. Led by the president, Republican lawmakers have petitioned to sabotage the results of the election, based on fantastical conspiracy theories. The GOP fever dream, which is credulously reproduced across Trump-friendly media, is clearly contagious: More than 80 percent of Trump voters believe that Biden’s win is illegitimate, a figure corresponding to about 60 million people. There is nothing unique about reality and fantasy blending together in politics. But the speed and severity with which Trump’s ‘Stop the Steal!’ mind virus has infected the GOP is the sign of a compromised civic immune system. A far-right cohort has been effectively quarantined from reality in one corner of our honeycombed media landscape.”

“Georgia’s on an early path to a huge turnout in the two runoffs to decide control of the U.S. Senate, according to data from the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office crunched by Axios. Voters cast 482,000 ballots in roughly the first day and a half of early voting this week. That’s equivalent to one-third of the total in the last statewide general election runoff, held in 2018, and about one-fourth of the total ballots in the last Senate runoff, held in 2008” – Axios.

Politico: “To his die-hard fans, President Donald Trump is a hero for creating the coronavirus vaccines. But that doesn’t mean they want the vaccine – or think others should take it. They just want Trump to get credit. Across the far-right, and especially in the conspiratorial corners of MAGA world, Trump’s supporters are finding novel ways to both lavish the president with praise for speeding a Covid vaccine, while arguing against taking the vaccine itself.”

“Some explanations focus on limiting vaccinations – only high-risk individuals and health care workers should get it, while the rest should simply resume our pre-pandemic lives. Others are reflexively anti-establishment – a vaccine is needed, but the government shouldn’t dictate what we put in our bodies. Others are fantastical – the vaccine is somehow part of an elitist conspiracy to control the world. And increasingly, the loudest anti-vaccine advocates are high-profile MAGA supporters.”

A sheep, a goat and three lambs are terrorizing a Central Turkish town of Nevşehir, which put a video up on Twitter under the post “We’re being held hostage.”

The animals apparently escaped from a local herder, and they were captured and returned to him.  He said they’ve been “very, very baaaaaaaaaaaaad.”

The United States experienced its fourth deadliest day due to the coronavirus on Tuesday, with more than 2,900 fatalities recorded in the day, and another 190,000 new confirmed cases, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

The CTP also increased the number of people hospitalized with COVID in the United States by 2%, to a record high 122,816.  The number of hospitalizations typically portends an increase in fatalities.

According to Worldometers, nine states exceeded 100 fatalities Tuesday; four of them–California, Pennsylvania, Texas and Michigan–topped 200.  California had a record high of 35,000 new cases, with Texas and New York also confirming more than 10,000 cases.

Poll: 92% of Republican Voters think the election was rigged!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 16, 2020