New York Magazine: “In July, President Trump tweeted that he would veto any defense spending bill that renamed military bases that honor Confederate leaders, like Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Lee in Virginia. Legislation matching that description, the annual National Defense Authorization Act, currently has bipartisan support in the House and the Senate, but Trump has said privately that he hasn’t changed his mind about blocking it, according to NBC News. As recently as the September debates, reporters were still asking the president if he was willing to condemn white supremacist and militia violence in cities like Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Portland, Oregon, which he seemed hellbent on exacerbating amid nationwide protests. His apparent commitment to thwarting a perfunctory spending bill because it might diminish the veneration of prominent white supremacists is more evidence that this was an absurd question. Even as a lame duck, Trump’s stance remains clear.”

The “losers & suckers” statement on dead military heroes has been proven to be a total fabrication and lie. IT WAS NEVER MADE! The “anonymous” fabricator, who is a major sleaze, went forward with the lie despite 25 strong witnesses to the contrary. Welcome to the roaring 20’s!

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

Washington Post: “A car crashed into the gate of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government office in Berlin on Wednesday, causing minor damage and prompting an investigation into why the driver steered the vehicle toward the security cordon. The 54-year old man was taken into police custody and questioned. He was behind a similar incident in 2014, said Interior Ministry spokesman Steve Alter. That year, a car crashed into the same gate that was hit Wednesday.”

“Police did not report any injuries on Wednesday and said the vehicle was driven into the gate ‘at very low speed.’ Authorities did not immediately comment on the driver’s potential motive. The vehicle carried two slogans, one condemning ‘children – and old people – murderers’ and another reading, ‘Stop the globalization politics,’ written on the car in large white letters.”

“In a national news release, the campaign for President Donald Trump announced there would be legislative hearings in Michigan and other states across the country next week to examine the results of the 2020 election. The problem: Michigan lawmakers say there are no election hearings next week. Representatives for state House and Senate leadership confirmed Wednesday there will not be any hearings on the election next week. ‘We were trying to get (Giuliani) to appear in person to testify. We couldn’t logistically make it work. I’ve asked him to submit his written testimony, and we’ll review it,’ said Rep. Matt Hall, an Emmett Township Republican and chairman of the House Oversight Committee” reports the Detroit Free Press.

If this looks familiar that’s because the exact same thing happened in Arizona.

ProPublica: “Even as Trump and his allies officially refuse to concede the Nov. 3 election, the White House and federal agencies are hurrying to finish dozens of regulatory changes before Joe Biden is inaugurated on Jan. 20. One proposal has raced through the process with little notice but unusual speed — and deadly consequences. This rule could reintroduce firing squads and electrocutions for federal executions, giving the government more options for administering capital punishment as drugs used in lethal injections become unavailable.”

“The Justice Department surfaced the proposal in August and accepted public comments for only 30 days, instead of the usual 60. The rule cleared White House review on Nov. 6, meaning it could be finalized any day. The Justice Department didn’t respond to a request for comment. Once finalized, this rule might never be put into practice. The Trump administration executed a federal prisoner in Indiana on Nov. 19 and plans five more executions before Jan. 20, all with lethal injections. After that, Biden has signaled he won’t allow any federal executions and will push to eliminate capital punishment for federal crimes.”

It’s been more than three weeks since Election Day.

And they’re still counting votes in California and New York.

Think about that.

— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) November 25, 2020

“Trump’s trip to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania with Rudy Giuliani has just been canceled, two sources tell me and [CNN reporter] Kristin Holmes. Comes after Giuliani was exposed to a second person [Boris Epshteyn] in the last week who tested positive for coronavirus” reports CNN White House Correspondent Jeremy Diamond.

First time weekly unemployment claims jumped 4% from the previous week, to 778,000, marking three consecutive weeks of increased claims since July, according to the Department of Labor report.

More than 20 million Americans continue to receive unemployment benefits, although 12 million are slated to lose the relief at the end of the year as coronavirus aid packages expire and no new federal assistance appears to be in the pipeline because of Republican stubbornness.

The lack of a supplemental relief bill could further weaken an American economy already showing signs of stress.  While US consumer spending rose 0.5% in October, household incomes dropped 0.7%, according to Bloomberg. 

“I have tested positive for COVID-19. I am experiencing mild symptoms, and am following all appropriate protocols, including quarantining and contact tracing” – Trump 2020 “Strategic Advisor” and former Sinclair TV dipshit Boris Epshteyn via Twitter.

Maggie Haberman points out that Epshteyn was at the Kraken press conference last week.

Politico: “More than any policy enacted or court vacancy filled, Trump’s legacy will be his unprecedented assault on the legitimacy of the ballot box. And it will not be considered in isolation. Future iterations of the GOP will make casual insinuations of voter fraud central to the party’s brand. The next generation of Republicans will have learned how to sow doubts about election integrity in one breath and in the next breath bemoan the nation’s lack of faith in our elections, creating a self-perpetuating justification to cast suspicion on a process that by raw numbers does not appear conducive to keeping them in power.”

“Look no further than John James. It took three full weeks after Election Day—despite his race being called for Gary Peters on November 4, despite the certified county totals proving he had lost by 92,000 votes—for the Republican Senate nominee to concede defeat. In the interim, he released a series of videos calling for independent investigations into Detroit’s voting irregularities, insisting that such efforts are needed to ‘restore trust’ in the system. ‘This is not some whacked-out fringe,” James said in one taping. ‘When half the votes in our state believe we just had the most secure election in U.S. history, and the other half believe they were cheated, we have a problem.’ James is right. We do have a problem. Our elections continue to be underfunded. Our election bureaus are chronically understaffed. Our election workers are badly undertrained. Our elections are prone to a significant amount of human error—and any municipal or county clerk will tell you that concerns over not catching those errors keep them up at night. But errors are not fraud. And when James says he’s troubled that half of Michigan’s voters feel they were cheated, he would do well to remember that he was the one telling them they got cheated in the first place.“

“The past few weeks have been difficult for the voters of the Peach State. As the nation and the world watched, Georgia took center stage in a battle that will define our country in a very practical sense for the next four years. But also, in a larger sense, how this country will move forward into the future. Like Americans in every other state, Georgians went to the ballot box on and in the weeks leading up to Nov. 3; to cast their vote for president, for senator, or maybe just the local town council” writes Brad Raffensperger in an op-ed published in USA Today.

“A record 1.3 million voters cast ballots absentee by mail here. Another 2.7 million cast ballots in-person during Georgia’s gold-standard three weeks of early voting. Around 1 million waited on lines averaging a miniscule 3 minutes on Election Day. By all accounts, Georgia had a wildly successful and smooth election. We finally defeated voting lines and put behind us Fulton County’s now notorious reputation for disastrous elections. This should be something for Georgians to celebrate, whether their favored presidential candidate won or lost. For those wondering, mine lost — my family voted for him, donated to him and are now being thrown under the bus by him.”

“The Israel Defense Forces have in recent weeks been instructed to prepare for the possibility that the U.S. will conduct a military strike against Iran before President Trump leaves office, senior Israeli officials tell me. The Israeli government instructed the IDF to undertake the preparations not because of any intelligence or assessment that Trump will order such a strike, but because senior Israeli officials anticipate ‘a very sensitive period’ ahead of Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20. The IDF’s preparedness measures relate to possible Iranian retaliation against Israel directly or through Iranian proxies in Syria, Gaza and Lebanon, the Israeli officials said” – Axios.

The Independent: “Fox News has settled a lawsuit filed by the parents of Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffer whose unsolved murder in July 2016 became the basis of right-wing conspiracy theories floated by the network. Joel Rich and his wife Mary Rich had filed the suit over a May 2017 story that claimed their 27-year-old son may have been murdered in retribution for sharing internal DNC documents with Wikileaks in the heat of the 2016 presidential election campaign, even as police said his murder was believed to be the result of a botched robbery.”

“Fox News eventually retracted the story, which had connected Rich to the DNC leaks without evidence. The theory allowed President Donald Trump’s allies to divert attention from the fact that Russia was responsible for the DNC hacking and handed the emails to Wikileaks, as the Senate Intelligence Committee later concluded. The settlement, announced on Tuesday, ended a two-and-a-half year lawsuit in which his family sued Fox News for emotional distress.”

Seemingly unprompted, washed-up actor and Kyle Rittenhouse fan shitbag Ricky Schroder posted this on his Parler account, supposedly written by his girlfriend:

“My name is Jessica and I am Ricky’s girlfriend. Around 18 months ago, due to my addiction to alcohol, Ricky was arrested twice for domestic violence. I am here to set the record straight. In my darkest moments, I made mistakes that had the potential to ruin Ricky’s reputation. Although he had every reason to leave me, Ricky chose to stay and fight for my quality of life. Instead of abandoning me, he doubled down and provided a safe place for me to heal. He did this without ever trying to clear his own name or trying to defend himself. My health was his priority. He picked me up from rock bottom, protected me & stayed silent. This is why I must speak for him and clear his name. When I felt so undeserving of grace, he extended more of it. I cannot sit silently while ignorant people paint him as a bad man. He’s a good man, and with his gentle, patient nature helped me to sobriety. I am thankful. You can have no better friend. Jessica”

“As the ravages of the novel coronavirus forced millions of people out of work, shuttered businesses and shrank the value of retirement accounts, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged to a three-year low. But for Sen. David Perdue, a Georgia Republican, the crisis last March signaled something else: a stock buying opportunity. And for the second time in less than two months, Perdue’s timing was impeccable. He avoided a sharp loss and reaped a stunning gain by selling and then buying the same stock: Cardlytics, an Atlanta-based financial technology company on whose board of directors he once served” the AP reports.

“On Jan. 23, as word spread through Congress that the coronavirus posed a major economic and public health threat, Perdue sold off $1 million to $5 million in Cardlytics stock at $86 a share before it plunged, according to congressional disclosures. Weeks later, in March, after the company’s stock plunged further following an unexpected leadership shakeup and lower-than-forecast earnings, Perdue bought the stock back for $30 a share, investing between $200,000 and $500,000. Those shares have now quadrupled in value, closing at $121 a share on Tuesday. The Cardlytics transactions were just a slice of a large number of investment decisions made in the early days of the pandemic by Perdue and other senators. They stirred public outrage after it became clear that some members of Congress had been briefed on the economic and health threat the virus posed. The transactions were mentioned briefly in a story published by the Intercept in May. Now that Perdue is locked in a pitched battle for reelection in a Jan. 5 runoff, his trades during a public health and economic crisis have become an issue in what already has become a negative, expensive campaign that will determine which party controls the Senate.”

Axios: “President Trump is due to join his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Wednesday at a Republican-led state Senate Majority Policy Committee hearing to discuss alleged election irregularities. This would be his first trip outside of the DMV since Election Day and comes shortly after GSA ascertained the results, formally signing off on a transition to President-elect Biden. His attendance at the hearing was not on Trump’s public schedule as of early Wednesday, and officials said his trip is subject to change. State Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Chambersburg) requested the meeting be convened to discuss reports he’d been told about ‘irregularities with the mail-in voting system and concerns whether their vote was counted.'”

According to the COVID Tracking Project, the United States recorded more than 2,000 fatalities due to the coronavirus on Tuesday, marking the first time since May that aggregator topped that amount.

The nation also registered more than 165,000 new cases, with a record high 88,000 people hospitalized with coronavirus.

Worldometers shows Texas registering nearly 20,000 new cases and 200 fatalities on Tuesday, with California topping 16,000.  Seven states in total had more than 100 deaths each.

In further preparation for the next administration, the White House will schedule with President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team to provide the President’s Daily Briefing to Biden, CNN reports.

There was no word from the White House on when lame duck president Donald Trump will start receiving them.

Outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that President-elect Joe Biden’s nominees for his foreign policy and national security positions live in a “fantasy world,” according to a Politico summary of an interview on Fox News.

Interviewed by Bret Baier, Pompeo said, “I know some of these folks, they took a very different view, they lived in a bit of a fantasy world. They led from behind, they appeased. I hope they will choose a different course.”

Pompeo, who oversaw foreign policy as the Trump administration botched the response to the coronavirus, pulled out of numerous international agreements, and withdrew from the Open Skies treaty, claims the new administration members “led from behind.”

Axios: “President Trump has told confidants he plans to pardon his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to the FBI about his Russian contacts, two sources with direct knowledge of the discussions. Flynn’s pardon would be the culmination of a four-year political and legal saga that began with the FBI’s investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government in the 2016 election.”

Note that Flynn’s lawyer is Sidney Powell, who was just kicked off Trump’s Elite Special Force Team.