Typically, I wouldn’t waste time on a stupid Trumpublican conspiracy theory that’s floating around, but the latest #Suitcasegate trending on Twitter is so ridiculous because it simply defies physics.  But then, science isn’t a strong suit for Trumpublican.

Here’s the conspiracy theory in a nutshell:  between 11 p.m. and 12:45 a.m. on Election Night, two Atlanta Democrat [sic] operatives brought two (or in some stories, four) suitcases filled with 185,420 ballots, all for Biden, to the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, where they were counted and where they threw the election to President-elect Joe Biden.

Law and Crime: “The Georgia Kraken, when arguing on Friday that the Eleventh Circuit has jurisdiction to hear its appeal, said Dominion Voting Systems rigged the election against Joe Biden. The assertion can be found in the first paragraph of Sidney Powell and Lin Wood’s background presentation of their case. ‘[T]here were all imaginable varieties of voting fraud,’ appellants said, ‘including machine-controlled algorithms deliberately run by Dominion Voting Systems that generally took more than 2.5% of the votes from Mr. Biden and flipped them to Mr. Trump for a more than 5% fraudulent increase for Mr. Biden.‘ To be clear, this line says that Dominion took votes from Biden and gave them to Trump – to increase Biden’s vote.”

The Chinese government has planted a flag on the surface of the Moon, becoming the second nation, after the United States, to have its flag “flying” on the lunar surface, the BBC reports.

China becomes second nation to plant flag on the Moon https://t.co/zqtT3OFHkY

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) December 4, 2020

The biggest difference, of course, is that the American flags were planted by US astronauts, while the Chinese flag was inserted into the ground by the Chang’e-5 space probe, which landed on the moon to collect soil samples.

The United States trade deficit increase by 1.7% in October to $63.1 billion, according to Department of Commerce data reported by the Associated Press.

The US trade deficit with China increased by 9% to $26.5 billion and the trade deficit with Mexico rose by 10% to $11.8 billion, despite repeated claims by lame duck president Donald Trump that his policies would eliminate trade deficits.  The trade deficit does not include the billions in subsidies the Trump Administration issued to help industries impacted by Trump’s trade war.

The year-to-date trade deficit is $536.7 billion, up 9.5% from the same period last year.

CNN: “President-elect Joe Biden’s margin over President Donald Trump in the nationwide popular vote is now more than 7 million votes and may continue to grow as several states continue counting votes. Biden’s lead over Trump is the second largest since 2000, and is about two and a half times larger than Hillary Clinton’s popular vote lead over Trump in 2016.”

“As of Friday morning, Biden had won about 81.2 million votes, the most votes a candidate has won in US history, and Trump had won about 74.2 million. Trump’s vote count makes him the second-highest vote earner in American history. Despite Biden’s decisive victory and the Trump administration starting the formal presidential transition process, the President has refused to concede the race and continues to make baseless claims about widespread voter fraud. Biden won 306 electoral votes, while Trump has 232. Two hundred and seventy electoral votes are needed to become president. Americans voted by mail in record numbers this year to protect themselves from the coronavirus pandemic, and experts had warned that as a result, there would be a lengthy vote count that would likely not resolve until days or weeks after Election Day. A number of states have certified their election results, including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia and Michigan.”

With just 245,000 new jobs created in November according to monthly job creation report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday, Donald Trump is all-but-assured that he will leave office with a net job loss during his term.

Since Trump took office, the United States has lost more than 2.8 million jobs.  He will be the first president since Herbert Hoover to leave office with fewer people working than when he entered.

The previous low for post-war presidents was George W. Bush, who had a net job creation of just 1,264,000 after eight years in office.

https://twitter.com/Oreo/status/1334150328577445888

Reuters: “Hungary and Poland dug in their heels on Friday in a dispute with the European Union over efforts to link the disbursement of more than a trillion euros of funds with rule-of-law provisions, dashing tentative hopes that a compromise could soon be agreed. Hungary and Poland have for weeks blocked the release of funds worth a total 1.85 trillion euros ($2.25 trillion) from the EU’s seven-year budget and a post-COVID development fund, cash sorely needed by member states trying to emerge from their coronavirus-induced recession.”

“Warsaw and Budapest, both under investigation by the EU over their push to curb judicial and media freedoms, object to the bloc’s attempt to make the funds conditional on respect for the rule of law and democratic norms. EU diplomats had discussed attaching an explanatory declaration to the funding package to make the linkage more acceptable to Budapest and Warsaw, a move initially welcomed by Poland. But on Friday both countries rejected that initiative. ‘For us, this solution – attaching some statement like a reminder on a sticky note attached on a piece of paper – won’t work,’ Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told public radio. ‘Hungary insists that these two things should be separated.’ Orban said there was no rush to get an agreement on the EU budget this year, adding: ‘Leave the legal status quo unchanged and everything will go smoothly and quickly.’ Polish spokesman Piotr Muller said Warsaw’s stance on the issue was unchanged.”

“For a man obsessed with winning, President Donald Trump is losing a lot. He’s managed to lose not just once to Democrat Joe Biden at the ballot box but over and over again in courts across the country in a futile attempt to stay in power. The Republican president and his allies continue to mount new cases, recycling the same baseless claims, even after Trump’s own attorney general declared the Justice Department had uncovered no widespread fraud. In an Associated Press tally of roughly 50 cases brought by Trump’s campaign and his allies, more than 30 have been rejected or dropped. About a dozen are awaiting action. Trump has notched just one small victory, a case challenging a decision to move the deadline to provide missing proof of identification for certain absentee ballots and mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania.”

“Another legal blow came Thursday, the day after Trump posted a 46-minute speech to Facebook filled with conspiracies, misstatements and vows to keep up his fight to subvert the election. Judges in battleground states have repeatedly swatted down legal challenges brought by the president and his allies. Trump’s legal team has vowed to take one Pennsylvania case to the U.S. Supreme Court even though it was rejected in a scathing ruling by a federal judge as well as an appeals court. Failing to gain any traction in court, Trump and his allies are now turning to events with Republican lawmakers and rallies in states like Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan where they can use unfounded claims of fraud to incite the president’s loyal base” – AP.

Newsweek: “Republican congressman Dan Crenshaw called the pro-Trump lawyer L. Lin Wood a ‘grifter’ and a ‘Democrat’ after the attorney told Georgia voters not to turn out for the Senate runoff elections at the start of next year. Posting on social media on Thursday night, Crenshaw accused Wood of wanting ‘donations for his legal fees’ and for Republicans to self-destruct as the party seeks to hold onto its Georgia Senate seats and overall majority in the upper chamber.”

“The GOP lawmaker hit out at Wood after the lawyer told a ‘stop the steal’ rally in Georgia that Republican Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue had not earned their votes, before urging them to boycott the crucial Senate races slated for January 5. Reacting to a clip of Wood speaking at the rally, Rep. Crenshaw said: ‘Lin Wood is a Democrat that wants Republicans to self-destruct. Just because he wears a MAGA hat does not mean he shares a single value with you. He just wants your donations for his legal fees. He’s a grifter.'”

Whistleblowers reveal that the USPS is responsible for tampering with hundreds of thousands of ballots. @OANN This long time Democrat stronghold got rid of massive numbers, especially in swing states, during and before delivery of the ballots. Well documented evidence!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2020

“Isn’t it convenient Disqus goes down simultaneously with the biggest smoking gun revealed in the theft of the 2020 election thus far?”

– The current top comment on The Gateway Pundit article “What’s Going On with the Server Reportedly Obtained in Germany Related to the 2020 Election?” posted Thursday night.

Washington Post: “Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) appeared to tacitly acknowledge President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in a video recording obtained by The Washington Post on Thursday, speaking just days before President Trump plans to travel to Georgia to campaign for Perdue and fellow senator Kelly Loeffler. Neither Loeffler (R-Ga.) nor Perdue has acknowledged Biden’s victory in public, and both have supported the president’s unfounded claims that fraud tainted the election.”

“But in a video meeting recorded Wednesday with members of the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), Perdue spoke pragmatically about the role a GOP-controlled Senate could play as a check on the Biden administration. He did not discuss Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. ‘We know what this change of command at the top will mean with our foreign relations,’ Perdue said in the video, adding: ‘If we can keep the majority in the Senate, we can at least be a buffer on some of the things that the Biden camp has been talking about in terms of their foreign policy.'”

You “Made America Great Already” simply by firing and evicting Trump from our White House.

Get your BIDEN “BLUE” MAGA HAT now. Biden “Made America Great Already” because he is sending Trump to prison. Hats 🧢 are on Amazon. 🇺🇸🧢🇺🇸#45TransitionToPrison@BidenHarrisHats pic.twitter.com/LUMnKNAbuE

— Biden Harris Hats (@BidenHarrisHats) December 3, 2020

Politico: “President Donald Trump’s mounting spitefulness toward allies within his own party has unnerved Republicans fretting about the prospect of a Trump 2024 bid. In recent weeks, Trump has started attacking any Republican who has not fully embraced the false narrative that he won the 2020 election, leaving party officials, lawmakers and donors wondering about the repercussions they might face for not immediately endorsing a Trump 2024 White House run. Other Republicans are growing concerned about an unfair scenario in which donors may feel pressured to support Trump right out of the gate – not because they believe he’s the best candidate, but to simply avoid drawing the ex-president’s ire.”

“Meanwhile, Trump has yet to make a decision on his own future. As recently as Wednesday, the president was mulling the idea of scheduling a campaign announcement on Jan. 20 to counterprogram Biden’s inauguration, according to two people familiar with the conversations. He has also discussed an announcement ahead of Georgia’s two Senate runoff elections on Jan. 5, believing his base’s excitement would increase turnout in the all-important contests. Some Trump allies claim the president would help other Republicans, too, by declaring his candidacy almost immediately after leaving office, suggesting it would save the party a contentious primary between Trump-hostile characters and those vying to claim his ultra-loyal base. But other confidants have encouraged Trump to keep the public in suspense, and instead spend the next two years strategically undercutting the Biden administration and lending his help to House and Senate GOP candidates.”

The New York Times reportedly has erased some of the redactions in the pile of papers about a bribery scheme released by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia Wednesday.

The scheme was allegedly to be financed by Sanford Diller, a billionaire San Francisco real estate developer, who was seeking a pardon for a Berkeley psychologist, Hugh L. Baras, who had been sentenced to 30 months in jail for tax evasion and improperly obtaining Social Security benefits.

Trump supporter and Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy was involved in the scheme, as was Jared Kushner’s attorney, Abbe Lowell.  Reportedly, the plot happened in late 2017 into 2018 and never succeeded, likely because Diller died in February 2018.

This is kind of scary and unsettling. I’m not used to them actually caring.

Washington, DC Attorney General Karl Racine told Rachel Maddow that the ongoing civil investigation into the Trump Organization overcharging the 2016 Trump Inauguration Committee for rooms at the Trump Hotel is going forward with strong evidence, despite claims by lame duck president Donald Trump’s daughter’s claims.

Ivanka Trump confirmed that she was questioned earlier this week by the DC AG in relation to an investigation into the use of funds donated to the inauguration committee, which was a not-for-profit group.  Ivanka tweeted an image of an email in which she claimed that on December 14th, she specifically said the inaugural committee should be paying market rates.

pic.twitter.com/DERU9YJLcL

— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) December 3, 2020

Republican Representative Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania has filed a lawsuit in the US Supreme Court to invalidate the results of the Pennsylvania election, thereby giving the Republican-controlled legislature the duty to assign Electoral College electors, presumably for outgoing president Donald Trump.

According to the filing, Kelly wants SCOTUS to immediately void the votes of more than seven million Pennsylvanians.

“To the extent that the above-prohibited actions have already taken place, Petitioners seek an injunction to restore the status quo ante, compelling Respondents to nullify any such actions already taken, until further order of this Court,” Kelly filed with the Court.

California Congressman Eric Swalwell thinks Kelly’s motion doesn’t go far enough:

New York Times: “The Trump administration is rolling out sweeping changes to the test immigrants must take to become United States citizens, injecting hints of conservative philosophy and making the test harder for many learners of the English language. The new citizenship test that went into effect on Tuesday is longer than before, with applicants now required to answer 12 out of 20 questions correctly instead of six out of 10. It is also more complex, eliminating simple geography and adding dozens of possible questions, some nuanced and involving complex phrasing, that could trip up applicants who do not consider them carefully.”

“Of the 18 questions removed from the previous test, 11 were questions that had simple, sometimes one-word answers. The new test adds one more hurdle for immigrants who hope to become voting citizens, coming in the waning days of an administration that has imposed substantial new barriers to immigration and limits on the ability of those already in the country to aspire to legal residence and, eventually, naturalization.”