AP: “As coronavirus cases surge again nationwide the Supreme Court late Wednesday barred New York from enforcing certain limits on attendance at churches and synagogues in areas designated as hard hit by the virus. The justices split 5-4 with new Justice Amy Coney Barrett in the majority. It was the conservative’s first publicly discernible vote as a justice. The court’s three liberal justices and Chief Justice John Roberts dissented.”

“The move was a shift for the court. Earlier this year, when Barrett’s liberal predecessor, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, was still on the court, the justices divided 5-4 to leave in place pandemic-related capacity restrictions affecting churches in California and Nevada. The court’s action Wednesday could push New York to reevaluate its restrictions on houses of worship in areas designated virus hot spots. But the impact of the court’s action is also muted because the Catholic and Orthodox Jewish groups that sued to challenge the restrictions are no longer subject to them.”

On a more serious note, fuck this year. Any filmmaker who says “I know! Let’s do a remake of The Big Chill, but instead of making it about assholes whining about the aftermath of the 60s, we’ll have it about 2020 instead” they ought to be fucking shot. And if Billy Joel makes “We Didn’t Start The Fire… Again!” about 2020 then I’ll hate him just as much as I already do because hating him any more is impossible. Fuck Billy Joel. Fuck The Big Chill. Fuck 2020. And especially fuck people who say things like “LOL! That’s sooooo 2020!” as if it’s still clever to remark on that at this point.

The day before Thanksgiving will not be a joyous one in more than 2,000 households across the United States as they mourn loved ones who perished today due to the coronavirus.

According to the COVID Tracking Project, nearl 2,300 people died from complications of the coronavirus, and nearly 90,000 are hospitalized.  This is the second consecutive day the nation has experienced more than 2,000 fatalities.

As compiled by Worldometers, more than 180,000 people were diagnosed with COVID today and the US overtook Brazil at ninth on the world rankings of deaths per capita.  (If you include only nations with 100,000 or more in population, the US ranks seventh.)

Texas, California, Illinois and Ohio all recorded more than 10,000 new cases, and those four states plus Pennsylvania logged more than 100 fatalities.

Washington Post: “It’s possible that Trump will be too focused on golf or on trying to save his troubled company to involve himself all that much in politics. He’ll also have to worry about staying out of jail. But if instead Trump wants to retain his grip on the Republican Party, he can. He has already been dropping hints that he might run again in 2024, and while that’s highly unlikely, what matters most to him is that as long as he keeps the possibility alive, Republicans (and the media) will have to keep paying attention to him.”

“It’s not as though Republican congressional leaders are so charismatic that they could elbow Trump aside for control of the party’s psyche. Nor are the potential 2024 candidates all that compelling; no one will be riveted by the spectacle of a Tom Cotton speech. So as long as Trump wants, he can continue as the de facto leader of the party. And that’s excellent news for Democrats. We should never forget that as captivating as Trump is, he has always been extremely unpopular… It might not be easy, but Trump has already proven himself to be an extraordinary motivator of Democratic turnout. And if a 2024 Trump candidacy still seems possible, casting the midterms as at least in part about the specter of a Trump restoration might be quite persuasive”

“A Pennsylvania judge on Wednesday threw out an appeal from President Donald Trump’s campaign challenging a small tranche of ballots—because it made no claims of fraud. Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer dismissed the campaign’s attempt to toss a number of postal votes for technical reasons because the president’s team had made ‘absolutely no allegations of any fraud, impropriety, misconduct, or undue influence, that anyone voted who was not eligible to vote, or that the secrecy of the ballots cast was jeopardized.’ While Trump himself has made wild and unsubstantiated claims of mass malfeasance in multiple states, his legal team’s arguments in court have mostly focused on obscure technical matters or oft-recanted innuendo about allegedly suspicious activities at vote-counting sites. The major exception to this pattern was RudyGiuliani’s failed attempt to stop the Keystone State from certifying Joe Biden’s victory” – Daily Beast.

Wyoming Tribune-Eagle: “Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon has tested positive for COVID-19, his office announced in a news release Wednesday afternoon. Gordon received his positive result earlier in the day Wednesday, and he currently has only minor symptoms and plans to continue working remotely, according to the release. Gordon’s test result came a day after the governor’s office at the Wyoming State Capitol was closed for deep cleaning due to another office employee testing positive for COVID-19. The announcement of the positive test means Gordon will have to quarantine, though it will not be his first time to do so in recent weeks.”

“The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday appealed a federal judge’s decision that kept President Donald Trump as the defendant in a defamation lawsuit filed by the writer E. Jean Carroll, who claims he raped her two decades ago. The judge, Lewis Kaplan, last month barred the Justice Department from having the U.S. government replace the presumptive lame-duck president as a defendant in the lawsuit. Kaplan’s ruling effectively saved Carroll’s lawsuit from dismissal. Attorney General William Barr has said that if the government was swapped in as a defendant, as he wanted it to be, then the case would be tossed out because the government had not waived sovereign immunity, as the protection from the government being sued is known as.”

“The Justice Department has argued that Trump was acting as a government employee when he said Carroll was lying and motivated by money with her allegation that he attacked her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in 1995 or 1996. Carroll’s lawyer Robbie Kaplan, who is not related to the judge, said, ‘We are not at all surprised that the current Department of Justice, which filed its motion to intervene in E Jean Carroll’s case at the request of the White House, is appealing Judge Kaplan’s decision… From the very start of this case, Donald Trump’s number one goal has been to avoid discovery and cause delay'” – CNBC.

Producers at Fox News have been instructed to monitor which of their guests appear on the network’s new rival, NewsMax, and advising them to stop appearing on the network, a veiled threat that doing so may jeopardize their appearances on Fox, CNN’s Brian Stelter reports.

NewsMax and One America News Network, two low-rent competitors to the glitzy Fox News, have become the favorites of lame duck president Donald Trump and his horde of MAGA adherents because the two upstarts have fully embraced Trump’s false claims of election fraud.

Fox News, on the other hand, angered Trump by calling Arizona for now President-elect Joe Biden on Election Night and also naming Biden the winner of the election.

Nevada Independent: “A judge swiftly denied Republican congressional candidate Dan Rodimer’s request for a new election in the district he lost by about 13,000 votes, saying the court didn’t have jurisdiction over the case under Nevada law. Judge Trevor Atkin dismissed Rodimer’s case during a 30-minute hearing in Clark County District Court on Wednesday. Atkin sided with attorneys for Clark County and the Nevada State Democratic Party, which argued the issue should be raised in a different format – an election contest proceeding.”

“‘When we decide things, our North Star is the law,’ Atkin said. ‘Despite the concerns as raised in the 87 paragraphs of the petition for writ of mandamus, this court simply has no jurisdiction.’ The case is the fifth brought by Republicans to either be denied by a judge or set for a voluntary withdrawal, mostly on the basis that they should be filed as election contests. A sixth case, brought by President Donald Trump’s campaign and seeking to award Trump Nevada’s six electoral votes on the basis of alleged irregularities, is set for a hearing Dec. 3 in Carson City.”

Unless Pennsylvania certifies the remainder of down ballot races, our REPUBLICAN CONTROLLED Legislature will effectively cease to exist after November 30th, so how exactly would that work?

— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) November 25, 2020

The New York Times reports that Joseph Maldonado-Passage, the former Oklahoma zoo owner who is better known as Joe Exotic’s “representatives have been running a carefully orchestrated campaign to try to persuade Mr. Trump to pardon Mr. Maldonado-Passage, who is one year into a 22-year sentence for trying to hire a hit man to kill an animal-rights activist. They have focused on getting Mr. Trump’s attention through appeals to Donald Trump Jr. and Mr. Kushner, appearances on Fox News and a visit to the Trump International Hotel in Washington where, one organizer said, they ran up a tab of about $10,000 to try to get Mr. Trump’s attention.”

The Army Corps of Engineers has issued an environmental impact statement that for all intents and purposes shuts down the plan for a controversial gold and copper mine in Alaska, the Washington Post reports.

The Pebble Mine would not have met requirements laid out in the Clean Water Act, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Alaska Commander Col. Damon Delarosa said in a statement, and the project was not in the public interest.

The finding comes after executives of the company that owns the rights were caught saying, on a Zoom call with environmental activists posing as potential investors, that they intended to run the mine for 160 years, not just 20 as they outlined in their application.

In a stunning admission, the National Rifle Association filed a document with the Internal Revenue Service in which it admitted current and previous executives of the group illegally directed funds to enrich themselves, the Washington Post reports.

The filing states that NRA leaders “became aware during 2019 of a significant diversion of its assets,” during which some executives received “excess benefits.”  The term “excess benefits” is a term of art within tax law, a euphemism meaning that they enriched themselves by embezzling funds or misusing organizational money.

Earlier this year, the Attorney General of New York, Letitia James, filed suit to de-charter the NRA, a non-profit legal entity in New York State, and prevent some of its officers from ever holding a position with a non-profit board again.  The action specifically targeted NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre and others.

It is my Great Honor to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has been granted a Full Pardon. Congratulations to @GenFlynn and his wonderful family, I know you will now have a truly fantastic Thanksgiving!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 25, 2020

Washington Post: “As sheriff in Chester County, Pa., Carolyn ‘Bunny’ Welsh was among President Trump’s earliest boosters in the key swing state. In 2016, Welsh attended the Republican National Convention as a delegate, spoke at rallies and even helped her ailing mother cast an absentee ballot for Trump from her deathbed. After Trump’s win, Welsh made multiple trips to the White House, where she often nabbed a spot at Trump’s side as he met with other law enforcement officers.”

“‘They seated me right next to the president. It was wonderful,’ Welsh told the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2017. ‘He was very open and very gracious.’ Now Welsh, a 76-year-old Republican who left office last year after two decades as sheriff, has been charged with theft for an alleged scheme to charge taxpayers for volunteer work benefiting a K-9 unit. Welsh’s boyfriend, Harry McKinney, a former officer in the department, is also charged with using donations to the K-9 unit to pay his personal expenses.”

One of the lawyers of the self-described Elite Special Force Team challenging President-elect Joe Biden’s election win shared a falsified quotation on Twitter Wednesday, and then once she was caught in the lie, claimed that the truth didn’t really matter anyway.

For people asking, this quotation has been attributed to Roosevelt, but there isn’t a specific record of him saying this in a speech. I posted it because the ifea itself is true, whether or not he said it! 🙂

— Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) November 25, 2020

“A Pennsylvania state court issued an injunction Wednesday blocking any potential further certification of election results in the state, pending a hearing to be held Friday. The order from Judge Patricia McCullough comes in the case brought by Pennsylvania voters including Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., in which they allege that a state law allowing for no-excuse absentee voting violated the Pennsylvania constitution, which outlines specific cases where absentee voting is allowed.”

“‘[T]o the extent that there remains any further action to perfect the certification of the results of the 2020 General Election … for the office of President and Vice President of the United States of America, Respondents are preliminarily enjoined from doing so, pending an evidentiary hearing’’ McCullough wrote. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro quickly responded on Twitter, pointing out that this does not have much impact since the results of the presidential election have already been certified and electors chosen” – Fox News.

Wall Street Journal: “Scotland has launched one of the biggest efforts yet to make tampons and sanitary pads free for anyone who needs them as lockdowns around the world have made it harder for women and girls to obtain period products. The new legislation, passed by the Scottish parliament on Tuesday, comes two years after the regional government began providing sanitary products free of charge in schools, colleges and universities, followed by other parts of the U.K. The Scottish government will now work with local authorities to buy and distribute pads and tampons, freeing those in need from any financial obstacle to obtaining them.”

“The bill’s authors aimed to reduce other problems that can limit access to period products, including abusive relationships and homelessness. The cause has won unanimous support. Scotland’s leader, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, said on Twitter she was ‘proud to vote for this groundbreaking legislation.’ The opposition lawmaker who introduced the bill, Monica Lennon, told the legislature in Edinburgh that ‘we have shown that this Parliament can be a progressive force when we collaborate.’ Other Scots also applauded. ‘It’s a big step forward in showing that these issues matter,’ said Christine McCallum, 43, who has two teenage daughters.”