“President Trump’s lawyer Jenna Ellis has informed associates she has coronavirus, multiple sources tell Axios, stirring West Wing fears after she attended a senior staff Christmas party on Friday. There are concerns about the potential for another White House superspreader event, though it was unclear whether Ellis posed a risk when she attended” – Axios.

A man participating in a Sunday rally supporting lame duck president Donald Trump’s claims of a fraudulent election at the state capitol in Des Moines, Iowa fired a shot at a vehicle traveling through an adjacent parking lot, hitting a 15-year-old girl in the leg, the Des Moines Register reports.

Twenty-five year old Michael McKinney of Saint Charles, Iowa has been charged with attempted murder for the shooting.  In an interview with police, McKinney reportedly admitted to shooting at the vehicle.

McKinney apparently fired into a crowd of counter-protesters who had assembled in a parking lot at the Lucas State Office Building in the Statehouse complex.  The girl was a passenger in the car, and it was unclear if she or the driver of the car she was in was part of the counter-protest.  Her injuries are non-life-threatening.

New York Times: “In late November, one day after Christopher Krebs, the former head of the government’s cybersecurity agency, went on ’60 Minutes’ to dispute President Trump’s claims of fraud in the election, one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers threatened him on television. ‘He should be drawn and quartered,’ the lawyer, Joseph DiGenova, said of Mr. Krebs on the conservative TV outlet Newsmax. ‘Taken out at dawn and shot.’ On Tuesday, Mr. Krebs, who was fired by Mr. Trump last month, filed a lawsuit against Mr. DiGenova accusing him and the Trump campaign of defamation and the infliction of emotional distress.”

“The lawsuit, which seeks monetary damages and the removal of the threatening video from the Newsmax archives, also made a far more extraordinary claim: that Mr. Trump, members of his legal team and Newsmax have been engaging in ‘a calculated and pernicious conspiracy’ to defame and injure not just Mr. Krebs but other members of the Republican Party who have stood up against the president’s baseless claims of fraud.”

Margaret Keenan, 90-year-old grandmother of four, became the first person to receive the Pfizer coronavirus vaccination in the largest inoculation program in Britain’s history, the BBC reports.

And in typical British fashion, 81-year-old William Shakespeare from Warwickshire was the second in line.  (Obviously not the playwright, but a namesake.)

“It’s the best early birthday present I could wish for, because it means I can finally look forward to spending time with my family and friends,” said Keenan, according to the Washington Post.

The two were the first of an estimated 400,000 people to get the vaccines.  The UK secured 800,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine; each recipient must get two doses for full effect.  The US is expected to begin vaccinations in late December.

The fat orange bastard already deleted and corrected it, but screenshots are forever.

“The precise height of Mount Everest had been contested ever since a group of British surveyors in India declared the height of Peak XV, as it was initially called, to be 8,778 metres in 1847. The new height was announced as per the joint measurement efforts by Nepal and China, the two countries the 8848.86-metre mountain straddles. The new height converts to 29,031 feet. The official height was announced simultaneously in Kathmandu and Beijing amid a programme attended by Nepal’s Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.”

“‘This is a historic day,’ Foreign Minister Gyawali said, making the much-awaited declaration on Tuesday. ‘The new height of Mt Everest is 8,848.86 metres.’ Chinese Foreign Minister Wang too announced the mountain’s height to be 8,848.86 metres immediately afterwards. Nepal had been working on the measurement of Everest since 2011. According to Nepal’s Department of Survey, the measurement is within centimeters of accuracy. A range of methods including traditional ones and those based on the latest technology were used to come up with the figure” – Kathmandu Post.

New York Times: “Jair Bolsonaro, has still not recognized Joe Biden as the winner of America’s presidential election. In his silence, he stands alongside other world leaders such as President Vladimir Putin of Russia, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico, Prime Minister Janez Jansa of Slovenia and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un. ‘I’m holding back a little more,’ Mr. Bolsonaro said recently, adding that there was ‘a lot of fraud’ in the election. It’s an understandable response, as he seems to have a problem accepting facts. Just think about it: This is a guy who still claims hydroxychloroquine is the cure for Covid-19. He maintains that the pandemic is overblown.”

“He asserts that his government has simply eradicated corruption and that Brazil never had a military dictatorship. He says that the Amazon is not burning at all. But there’s more to the refusal than Mr. Bolsonaro’s now commonplace bizarreness. As one of President Trump’s fiercest allies on the global stage, Mr. Bolsonaro is clearly not ready to mourn the departure of his fellow leader. He’s in denial. Perhaps for good reason. For Mr. Bolsonaro, who took up the nickname ‘Trump of the tropics,’ his fate and that of his American counterpart are entwined. And as opposition forces seem to be gathering strength, he may be worried that with Mr. Trump’s defeat comes his own.”

“The State of Texas filed a lawsuit directly with the U.S. Supreme Court shortly before midnight on Monday challenging the election procedures in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on the grounds that they violate the Constitution. Texas argues that these states violated the Electors Clause of the Constitution because they made changes to voting rules and procedures through the courts or through executive actions, but not through the state legislatures. Additionally, Texas argues that there were differences in voting rules and procedures in different counties within the states, violating the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. Finally, Texas argues that there were ‘voting irregularities’ in these states as a result of the above” – Breitbart.

Politico: “President Donald Trump’s effort to snatch a second term through a series of state and federal court challenges has been flaming out for weeks. Now, the calendar has all but extinguished it. Dec. 8 is the so-called ‘safe harbor”’date for the presidential election, a milestone established in federal law for states to conclude any disputes over the results. Trump’s failure to gain traction in litigation, with his lawyers and allies failing to block crucial states from declaring Joe Biden the winner, means the safe harbor deadline stands as another potentially insurmountable reason for the courts to decline to intervene.”

“Trump’s legal team publicly says the safe harbor deadline is meaningless and they’ll simply disregard it. Set by a 140-year-old statute, the date isn’t enshrined in the Constitution, they say. But the campaign’s legal filings tell another story, as Trump’s lawyers pressed courts for urgent action ahead of the deadline midnight on Tuesday and warned of irreparable consequences if they don’t.”

Seventy-nine years ago today, the deaths of 2,335 members of the US military was called “a day that will live in infamy” by then-President Franklin Roosevelt because of the crippling attack on Pearl Harbor.

In 2020, the seven day running average of coronavirus fatalities in the US sits at 2,296, an all-time high and just shy of the number of soldiers and sailors killed in 1941.  But in this age of the coronavirus, it’s just another day in American as we roll through this pandemic.

On Monday, the US had at least 181,000 new confirmed cases, with at least 1,350 fatalities.  The country also had more than 102,000 patients hospitalized with coronavirus, a new high.

Chuck Yeager, the first pilot to break the speed of sound, died Monday at the age of 97, NBC News reports.

Yeager started his long military career as an enlisted man who later became an aircraft mechanic during World War II.  He was then enrolled in flight school with the US Army Air Force, ultimately reaching combat flying a P-51 on the Western Front in Europe.

During his eight mission, Yeager was shot down, but escaped to Spain thanks to members of the French resistance.  Ultimately, Yeager became and “ace in a day,” recording five kills in one day, and finished the war with an official 11.5 confirmed kills.

After the war, he became a test pilot for the Air Force, and on October 14, 1947, he pilot a Bell X-1 past the sound barrier, becoming the first human to travel faster than Mach 1.

Yeager married his first wife, Glennis Faye Dickhouse, in February 1945, and they remained married until her death in 1990.  They had four children together.  In 2003, he married actress Victoria Scott D’Angelo.

“An incredible life well lived, America’s greatest Pilot, & a legacy of strength, adventure, & patriotism will be remembered forever,” Victoria Scott D’Angelo tweeted.

Well John, I wonder what you’re thinking right now. Two years ago you were the hottest and most hard-hitting right wing “journalist” out there. You brought a patina of “respectability” to the MAGAverse with your mind-meltingly complex reporting on the manifold plots in the Deep State against your Orange God-Titan in the White House with “blockbuster” pieces such as “Nellie Ohr’s ‘Hi Honey’ emails to DOJ about Russia collusion should alarm us all” and “Bill Clinton sought State’s permission to meet with Russian nuclear official during Obama uranium decision”.

None of those classics ended up with the eventual impact as this one however: “Joe Biden’s 2020 Ukrainian nightmare: A closed probe is revived”. With the benefit of hindsight and the assurance of Trump’s loss, we can all say that’s where you fucked up.

ABC News: “As states prepare to lock-in their Electoral College delegates by Tuesday night’s ‘safe harbor’ deadline, Justice Samuel Alito is feeding speculation that the U.S. Supreme Court could upend the 2020 election results in an eleventh-hour intervention. But experts say don’t count on it.”

“Alito sparked intrigue Sunday morning when he quietly moved up a key filing deadline – from Wednesday to Tuesday – in an emergency appeal brought by allies of President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania. The change effectively keeps open the possibility of court action before the state’s delegates are set in stone. Still, legal scholars and court watchers said it remains highly unlikely that the justices will intervene, notwithstanding Alito’s move or the court’s new six-member conservative majority. ‘I would not read too much into this,’ wrote leading election legal scholar and University of California-Irvine law professor Richard Hasen on his Election Law Blog. ‘It shows more respect to the petitioners and does not make it look like the Court is simply running out the clock on the petition. I still think the chances the Court grants any relief on this particular petition are virtually zero,’ Hasen wrote. The court has still yet to respond to Pennsylvania Republicans’ separate, long-pending request that it take up a challenge to late-arriving mail ballots, and it has remained silent on Trump’s petition to formally join the matter as a party.”

According to a report from celebrity gossip site Page Six, Donald Trump’s daughter and surrogate wife Ivanka and her husband Jared are in the process of buying a property on Florida’s exclusive Indian Creek Island, presumably so they can move there after they lose their jobs on January 20th.

Indian Creek Island is a thinly-populated, high security private island with just 29 residences and a private police force of 13 officers.  The Trump-Kushners will buy a 1.84 acre property with 200 feet of waterfront from singer Julio Iglesias, which is offered for sale for $31 million.

Other residents on the island, which is a one-hour drive to Daddy Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, include billionaire Carl Icahn, Norman Brayman, former Miami Dolphins coach Don Shula, supermodel Adriana Lima, hedge funder Eddie Lampert and billionaire Jeff Soffer.

“President Trump called the speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives twice during the past week to make an extraordinary request for help reversing his loss in the state, reflecting a broadening pressure campaign by the president and his allies to try to subvert the 2020 election result. The calls, confirmed by House Speaker Bryan Cutler’s office, make Pennsylvania the third state where Trump has directly attempted to overturn a result since he lost the election to President-elect Joe Biden” reports The Washington Post.

“He previously reached out to Republicans in Michigan, and on Saturday he pressured Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) in a call to try to replace that state’s electors. The president’s outreach to Pennsylvania’s Republican House leader came after his campaign and its allies decisively lost numerous legal challenges in the state in both state and federal court. Trump has continued to press his baseless claims of widespread voting irregularities both publicly and privately. ‘The president said, ‘I’m hearing about all these issues in Philadelphia, and these issues with your law,’’ said Cutler spokesman Michael Straub, describing the House speaker’s two conversations with Trump. ‘‘What can we do to fix it?’’ A White House spokesman declined to comment on the calls to Cutler, and a Trump campaign spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. Cutler told the president that the legislature had no power to overturn the state’s chosen slate of electors.”

In a new filing with the Michigan Supreme Court, lawyers from Trump Elite Strike Force Team declared that “this election is not over” and that their case is not moot despite the fact that Michigan certified its election results two weeks ago.

The ESFT, representing lame duck president Donald Trump, rehashed a number of arguments that have been claimed in various state and federal courts since the election, including that poll watchers weren’t given an opportunity to observe vote counting and that ballot drop boxes weren’t secure.  In previous arguments before courts, the ESFT has failed to persuade any court that these arguments are legitimate reasons to prevent certification of the vote.

Claiming that the written opinion of the judge in an earlier case was improper, the ESFT asked for a speedy hearing because “the Electoral College does not meet until December 14.”  In fact, this is erroneous:  the Electoral College never “meets”; instead, electors go to their respective state capitals to cast their ballots as demanded by state law. 

RINOS @BrianKempGA, @GeoffDuncanGA, & Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, will be solely responsible for the potential loss of our two GREAT Senators from Georgia, @sendavidperdue & @KLoeffler. Won’t call a Special Session or check for Signature Verification! People are ANGRY!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 8, 2020

According to Politico, President-elect Joe Biden has reportedly made his selection for whom he wants to lead the Pentagon:  retired four-star General Lloyd Austin, the former commander of US Central Command.

Biden reportedly had narrowed his choices down to Austin, former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, and Michèle Flournoy, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy under President Bill Clinton and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy under President Barack Obama.

Since his retirement from the Army in 2016, Lloyd has served on the board of defense contractor Raytheon and steel manufacturer Nucor.  He also works as an independent director on the board of Tenet Healthcare.