In a Facebook post, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson on Friday said outgoing president Donald Trump personally approved him to receive an experimental monoclonal antibody treatment that is not available to the general public.

Carson says that while his symptoms were initially mild, he condition quickly spiraled and he “became desperately ill” after first attempting to treat himself with oleander, a quack treatment promoted by Mike Lindell, the founder of MyPillow who invested in a company producing oleander pills.

“President Trump was following my condition and cleared me for the monoclonal antibody therapy that he had previously received, which I am convinced saved my life,” Carson posted.

While Trump received the experimental treatment when he was hospitalized  at Walter Reed Military Medical Center, monoclonal antibody therapy is not available to the public, despite outgoing vice president Mike Pence saying that every American would have the same treatment available to White House personnel.

A day after Fox News host Tucker Carlson cast doubt on the viability of outgoing president Donald Trump’s voting fraud claims, the ever-petulant Trump showed his unhappiness with his one-time lapdog by tweeting three clips from rival OANN during Carlson’s program time.

Just three weeks ago, Trump was praising Carlson’s coverage of “Biden corruption,” but that’s all changed since Carlson’s questioned the logic of a member of Trump’s “Elite Special Forces Team,” Sidney Powell, on his show Thursday.

Carlson immediately faced backlash from Trump cultists who lashed out at Carlson, claiming on social media that he was displaying enough fealty to Trump.

Apparently that extends to Trump, who not-so-subtly posted three clips from OANN, Trump new favorite propaganda network, during Carlson’s airtime on his Twitter account.  The clips feature OANN hosts supporting Trump’s claims that the November 3rd election was fraught with fraud.  All three clips were flagged by Twitter for containing misinformation.  (Clips after the fold.)

For the second consecutive day, the United States set a record for the number of new daily coronavirus cases, with more than 192,000 registered by COVID Tracking Project and more than 200,000 cited by Worldometers.

Worldometers registered more than 2,000 coronavirus fatalities in one day for the first time since May 7th.  COVID Tracking Project recorded 1,862 deaths, with another 82,178 hospitalized, another new high.

Texas, California and Illinois each recorded more than 13,000 new cases, with Michigan also eclipsing 10,000.  Texas, Illinois and Pennsylvania logged more than 100 fatalities.

One of outgoing president Donald Trump’s staunchest supporters attempted to ingratiate herself to the temporary titular head of her Party by claiming she “misspoke” when she referred to President-elect Joe Biden as “President-elect.”

During an interview on ABC News Friday, Tennessee Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn stated “I have not spoken with the president-elect.  We did have the vice president come to the floor, the vice president-elect come to the floor this week to cast a vote. I was presiding at the time. Didn’t get to speak with her.”

Her campaign staff quickly jumped to the task of defending Trump’s fragile ego.  “She simply misspoke — it’s nothing more,” said Abigail Sigler, a campaign spokesperson for Blackburn.

A number of civil rights groups in Michigan have joined together to sue Donald Trump and his losing campaign for violations of the Voting Rights Act for his repeated attempts to disenfranchise voters in the state.

According to documents filed in the US District Court in the District of Columbia, the plaintiffs, being represented by the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and the NAACP, claim Trump and his campaign “have engaged in a variety of tactics designed to overturn the result of that election.”

The plaintiffs cite Trump’s public efforts to pressure and influence public officials, using the imprimatur of his office as President, to negate the votes of citizens to undermine the integrity of the election.

According to Kyle Rittenhouse’s lawyer L. Lin Wood, actor Ricky Schroeder and MyPillow founder Mike Lindell were two of the primary donors to the fund that raised $2 million to bail Rittenhouse out of jail.

KYLE RITTENHOUSE IS OUT OF JAIL.

God bless ALL who donated to help #FightBack raise required $2M cash bail.

Special thanks to Actor Ricky Schroder @rickyshroder1 & Mike Lindell @realMikeLindell for putting us over the top.

Kyle is SAFE.

Thanks to ALL who helped this boy.

— Lin Wood (@LLinWood) November 20, 2020

The Hollywood Reporter: “Marvel Studio’s plans for the sequel to Black Panther are starting to come into focus. The sequel was sidelined after the sudden and unexpected death of star Chadwick Boseman and a planned March 2021 production start was waylaid as filmmaker Ryan Coogler and Marvel tried to navigate grief and the need to move forward. It was the nadir of a year that saw no Marvel movies released for the first time since 2009. However, even as the continuing novel coronavirus upends theatrical distribution and plays havoc with its Phase 4 rollout, Marvel is about to enter 2021 the busiest it has ever been as it juggles not only multiple movies but a major push into TV. Multiple sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that Marvel is now readying Black Panther 2 for a shoot that will start in Atlanta in July and last for upwards of six months.”

“Mexican actor Tenoch Huerta, who was one of the stars of Netflix’s Narcos: Mexico, is in talks to play one of the antagonists, sources tell THR. Letitia Wright, Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke and Angela Bassett are expected to return for the new feature, with some saying Wright’s character may take on a more prominent role.”

CBS 4 Denver reports that the line to get into one of Colorado’s first two In-N-Out burger locations (one in Aurora and another in Colorado Springs both opened their doors for the first time on Friday) wraps all the way around the perimeter of the Aurora Town Center, which I guess is big but I have no idea since I’ve never been there.

“Right now we estimate the line to be 1.5-2 miles long and the wait is now 14 hours.” tweeted the Aurora Police Department Friday evening, to which local TV journalist Kyle Clark replied “It’s only 7 hours and 43 minutes from Aurora, Colorado to the In-N-Out in Orem, Utah.”

AP: “A contestant on ‘Wipeout’ has died after completing the game show’s obstacle course, authorities and sources close to the production said Friday. The man in his 30s was declared dead at a hospital shortly before 7 p.m. Wednesday, Los Angeles County coroner’s spokeswoman Sarah Ardalani said. The cause of death has not been released, and the man’s name was being withheld until relatives could be notified.”

“The reality competition show, in which contestants navigate an extreme obstacle course featuring giant balls and pitfalls that often result in spectacular crashes, ran on ABC from 2008 until 2014 and is being rebooted by TBS and production company Endemol Shine North America. Two people close to the production said the man had completed the course on the show’s set in Santa Clarita, California, when he needed medical attention. He was helped by on-site medical staff until paramedics arrived and took him to the hospital. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.”

https://twitter.com/RichardGrenell/status/1329943934907269120

“When President Trump refused to concede the election to Joe Biden in the immediate aftermath of Nov. 3, we argued that he had the right to mount legal challenges if he believed there had been irregularities, mistakes, fraud, or all three. Democratic objections and outrage were as hypocritical as they were inevitable, coming as they did from a corps that refused to accept the 2016 election result not for days, weeks, or even months, but for four years. But although fair-minded people know there are legitimate procedures for litigation, and that these should be allowed to play out, there is also wisdom in the phrase, ‘put up or shut up.’ If you are going to mount legal challenges and allege on national television that there has been massive and systematic election fraud, you had better provide evidence in addition to assertion.”

“Trump’s legal team has not done that. When more than 150 million voters participate in an election in 50 states that, in our federal system, decide their own rules for balloting and vote counting, there are bound to be irregularities and mistakes, even if there isn’t fraud. And, contrary to what Democrats repeatedly say, there have been plenty of well-documented cases of fraud in elections over the years. Doubtless, there was some of it this year, too. But not remotely enough to change the result. The vast spread of American democracy, which makes error and malfeasance inevitable, also makes it plain that neither robbed Trump of victory. No fraud or error produced tens of thousands of additional votes for Biden in battleground states” – Washington Examiner.

BREAKING:

Judge Mahoney: "I will be dismissing the complaint with prejudice. I have heard what I needed to hear today."

— Arizona's Law (@arizonaslaw) November 20, 2020

Following an unprecedented meeting with outgoing president Donald Trump, two Michigan Republican legislative leaders released a statement declaring that they requested additional coronavirus relief funds and reasserted the independence of the election process.

“We used our time in the White House to deliver a letter to President Trump making clear our support for additional federal funds to help Michigan in the fight against COVID-19. We have since sent the same correspondence to congressional leaders,” Michigan Senator Mike Shirkey posted on his website. “Michigan’s certification process should be a deliberate process free from threats and intimidation,” the statement says. “Allegations of fraudulent behavior should be taken seriously, thoroughly investigated, and if proven, prosecuted to the full extent of the law. And the candidates who win the most votes win elections and Michigan’s electoral votes. These are simple truths that should provide confidence in our elections.”

Apparently, cocaine is not a vaccine (allegedly). From ABC News.

Washington Examiner: “Trump attorney Sidney Powell told radio host Glenn Beck Friday that she has heard that ‘our forces’ confiscated the server of an electronic voting system company in Germany with alleged ties to the president’s voter fraud accusations. ‘The servers at Scytl in Germany were confiscated the other day,’ Powell told Beck during a 15-minute conversation related to voter fraud claims made by President Trump. ‘I’m hearing it was our forces that got those servers, so I think the government is now working on an investigation of what really happened.’ Powell added: ‘But we’re getting in evidence also that there were lines into the servers from four foreign countries all extremely adverse to the interests of the United States.'”

“‘But wouldn’t they have counted those here first and then just uploaded them to the cloud on those servers maybe perhaps in Germany?’ Beck asked. ‘Right, there were multiple ways of doing the alterations of the votes,’ Powell said. ‘The person sitting at the data center where the votes are coming in can do it, can watch in real time and change things. They can put an algorithm on the system across the board that does the initial shifting and then in each data collection point, which is best we can tell, for the major alterations for the Democratic-controlled, politically corrupt strongholds in the country. Cities like Detroit and Philadelphia and Atlanta. By the spikes in the data, the statistical experts … can tell you exactly when the anomalies occurred that are statistically impossible.'”

“After a historic recounting of all five million ballots cast in Georgia, Republican state leaders confirmed on Friday that President-elect Joe Biden did, in fact, defeat President Donald Trump in the state, despite baseless claims to the contrary from Trump and his supporters. But the state’s embattled governor and its top elections official diverged sharply in how they relayed the news. In brief remarks on Friday evening from Atlanta, Gov. Brian Kemp said that under state law he must certify Biden as the winner” reports The Daily Beast.

“But the Trump-backed Republican, who has faced immense pressure from the president and his base to generally do something about his election loss, coated that message in criticism for the election process and insisted the Trump campaign can still fight the result. The certification of the result allows the Trump campaign to request a formal recount of votes, conducted by machine, and ‘other legal options’ through that process, said Kemp. While Georgia elections officials have defended the integrity of the system in recent weeks, Kemp zeroed in on the fact that the audit found several thousand previously uncounted votes, a discovery that has outraged Trump supporters even though the new votes hardly moved the statewide margin of the race. Calling it ‘completely unacceptable,’ Kemp said Georgians ‘deserve better.’ The governor also suggested that elections officials do more to match signatures on absentee ballots with signatures on file—a demand repeated by Trump and his allies—even as Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, has insisted the safeguards in place are stronger than ever.”

A big chunk of the “conservative media” is acting like TUCKER CARLSON will decide if and when this election is over. It ain’t up to him either. And by the way, what the hell was up with those bow ties? NOT. OVER. pic.twitter.com/TZ3dbemUoL

— Greg Kelly (@gregkellyusa) November 20, 2020

AP: “Officers were responding Friday to ‘a very active situation’ at a suburban Milwaukee mall, according to a police dispatcher, and local media reported several people could be seen being taken away from the building on stretchers. The dispatcher said she could not immediately provide further details about the reported incident at Mayfair Mall in Wauwatosa, but witnesses told WISN-TV that they heard what they believed were eight to 12 shots.”

“WISN-TV reported they had seen five people taken away from the mall on stretchers, at least two of whom were sitting upright and appeared to be conscious. The Mayfair Mall is operated by Chicago-based Brookfield Properties. Brookfield spokeswoman Lindsay Kahn said she couldn’t provide any details yet. ‘It’s a developing situation and we are not going to make a statement until we know more,’ Kahn said.”

Kyle Rittenhouse, the Illinois 17-year-old who killed two people with an illegally purchased assault rifle during unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, has been released after his lawyers posted $2 million in bail, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports.

Rittenhouse had a friend in Wisconsin illegally buy an assault rifle he could use while walking through the streets of Kenosha during unrest following the police homicide of Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man.

Claiming he and his associates were protecting private property, Rittenhouse shot three people, killing two of them, with the illegally purchased weapon.  Rittenhouse traveled from Antioch, Illinois and received a AR-15 style assault rifle he had arranged for a friend, Dominick David Black, to buy for him.