In a stunning proclamation, Fox Business host Lou Dobbs declared that Republicans should simply not accept the results of the election, denying the US Constitution and undermining the fabric of the American republic.

https://youtu.be/QeRlt2mHq3A

In an interview with California Republican Congressman Devin Nunes, Dobbs claimed that outgoing President Donald Trump should just declare his election loss to President-elect Joe Biden invalid.

With new daily cases increasing as much as 70% over the past week, the governors of Oregon and New Mexico are implementing significant lockdowns in their states to stop the spread of the coronavirus, the Associated Press reports.

The two states, both with Democratic governors, are instituting restrictions on businesses and social gatherings.  New Mexico is issuing a two-week stay-at-home order for non-essential workers.

Oregon is closing businesses to the public and mandating that work-from-home schedules be honored as much as possible.  Gyms, museums, pools, movie theaters and zoos will be closed, and social gatherings will be limited to six people. 

According to the COVID Tracking Project, more than 170,000 new confirmed cases of coronavirus were recorded in the United States, the fourth consecutive day setting a new record.  The national also saw 1,400 fatalities.

Texas recorded 213 fatalities, nearly double the next state on the list, Michigan, which recorded 123 deaths.  Texas recorded the second highest number of new cases with more than 12,000; Illinois confirmed more than 15,000 cases.

While outgoing president Donald Trump said Americans wouldn’t hear about the coronavirus after the November 3rd election, the number of people hospitalized with the virus has jumped 23% in seven days, stressing hospital capacity in heavily hit states.  Trump held a press briefing today at the White House to claim success in fighting the virus, despite the nation approaching 11 million people infected.

The Daily Beast’s Asawin Suebsaeng writes of the staff answering the Trump campaign’s voter fraud tip line: “For every three or four hours of threats and pranking endured, staff estimated that they’d get roughly one caller with an earnest, maybe-promising tip. This was done against the backdrop of a re-election campaign that virtually all of them knew was over and defeated. The search for ‘FRAUD,’ they knew, would not actually stop Biden’s presidency from commencing. After hours stuck on tip-line duty, staff would often leave looking visibly upset, worn out, and feeling undervalued. One staffer told The Daily Beast they had to go to the bathroom at least twice over the last few days just to cry because of the sheer volume of abusive phone calls.”

“‘It’s misery. It’s one of the worst ways to end a campaign that you could think of,’ this person said. Some staff had started getting aggressive with the prank callers, giving fake names and arguing or yelling back into the landline. Though these Trump campaign hands exhaled a heavy sigh of relief on Friday as news trickled out that the telephone tip-line would cease operations, the emotional damage had already been done and the insult already layered thickly on top of injury.”

“President Trump has put his personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, in charge of his campaign lawsuits related to the outcome of the election, as well as all public communications related to them, four people familiar with the move said on Friday. Trump turned to Giuliani earlier on Friday in reaction to the latest setback he faced in court, this one relating to votes in Maricopa County, Ariz.”

“A half-dozen other Trump advisers have described Giuliani’s efforts as counterproductive and said that he was giving the president unwarranted optimism about what could happen. Those advisers have said that they are concerned Giuliani is damaging not only Trump’s remaining legal options, but his legacy and his future opportunities in politics as he considers another campaign in 2024. In an Oval Office meeting with aides on Thursday, Trump put Giuliani on speakerphone so the others could hear him. He angrily accused the aides of not telling the president the truth, according to people briefed on the meeting. Justin Clark, the deputy campaign manager, pushed back aggressively on Giuliani, said the people briefed on what took place” – New York Times.

CNN: “It is an internet battle cry: Stop the Steal has swept across inboxes, Facebook pages and Twitter like an out-of-control virus, spreading misinformation and violent rhetoric — and spilling into real life, like the protest planned for DC this weekend. But while Stop the Steal may sound like a new 2020 political slogan to many, it did not emerge organically over widespread concerns about voting fraud in President Donald Trump’s race against Joe Biden. It has been in the works for years.”

“Its origin traces to Roger Stone, a veteran Republican operative and self-described ‘dirty trickster’ whose 40-month prison sentence for seven felonies was cut short by Trump’s commutation in July. Stone’s political action committee launched a ‘Stop the Steal’ website in 2016 to fundraise ahead of that election, asking for $10,000 donations by saying, ‘If this election is close, THEY WILL STEAL IT.’ He first trotted out the slogan during the 2016 primaries – claiming a ‘Bush-Cruz-Kasich-Romney-Ryan-McConnell faction’ was attempting to steal the Republican nomination from Donald Trump – before re-upping Stop the Steal for the general election. ‘Donald Trump thinks Hillary Clinton and the Democrats are going to steal the next election,’ his website said that October. Stop the Steal briefly resurfaced around the midterms in 2018 – with the GOP employing the hashtag during a recount in a neck-and-neck Florida senate race – but it wasn’t until 2020 that it really caught fire.”

Republican Mississippi Congressman Steven Palazzo of the 4th Congressional District is under investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics for reported misuse of campaign funds, Roll Call reports.

Entering his sixth term, Palazzo allegedly received $60,000 from his campaign to rent a farm he owns in Perkinston, Mississippi in 2018 into 2019.  The farm is located more than 30 miles from Palazzo’s campaign office in Gulfport.

He also reportedly paid an accounting firm he founded, which is now run by his ex-wife, tens of thousands of dollars in fees.  Since 2011, Palazzo’s campaign reportedly paid the firm $127,000.

“These courts really need to consider what they are doing when they make rash decisions like this… ŵe the ‍?eople”

– Comment from a particularly eccentric MAGA troll on The Hill article “Pennsylvania court rejects five Trump campaign, GOP legal challenges to ballots” posted Friday evening.

https://twitter.com/GMDinCLT/status/1327365722855464961

Tropical Storm Iota, the 30th named storm of this season, has formed in the Atlantic, and forecasters say the storm will likely follow the same course of Hurricane Eta, that ultimately hit Florida, the Associated Press reports.

The 2020 hurricane season has broken the record of the most named storms in a season, shattering the 2005 season which had 28 named storms.  When the names the World Meteorological Organization chooses for the season are used, they use letters of the Greek alphabet for names.

Like Hurricane Eta, Iota will likely make landfall first in Central America, hitting Nicaragua and Honduras with as much as 30 inches of rain.  It is predicted to then turn north to hit the Gulf states.

Outgoing Vice President Mike Pence said that he would “move Heaven and Earth to make sure” members of the American public “would have access to the health care we have had” during a Rose Garden update on Operation Warp Speed.

With his boss, outgoing President Donald Trump standing and swaying beside him, Pence lavished glory on Trump for his claimed leadership during the pandemic.

Pence’s promise is curious, given that when Trump was diagnosed with coronavirus, he was helicoptered to Walter Reed Military Medical Center, where he stayed in a luxury suite and was attended to by no fewer than 14 different physicians from Walter Reed and Johns Hopkins Hospital.  The cost of Trump’s three-day stay at Walter Reed is estimated to have cost $100,000.

Outgoing President Donald Trump repeated a variety of talking points, including a variety of misstatements, falsehoods and outright lies, regarding his administration’s response to the coronavirus in a Rose Garden statement.

Trump started to state that “the next administration,” in a tacit admission that he would not be in office next term, but quickly realized his admission and added the caveat, “whoever that may be” and “we’ll see what comes next,” stating that his administration would never order a lockdown.

It was very clear that Trump is attempted to secure credit for future responses to the coronavirus by the incoming Biden administration.  In fact, the Trump administration did not enact any domestic policy to stop the spread of the virus.

NY Post: “Department of Homeland Security acting Secretary Chad Wolf is defying President Trump’s order to terminate election cybersecurity official Christopher Krebs, multiple sources tell The Post. The White House on Wednesday evening instructed Wolf to fire Krebs after Krebs openly dismissed claims of voter fraud in the Nov. 3 election. ‘He gave us a bunch of reasons why he didn’t want to do it and he said no,’ a senior White House official told The Post about Wolf’s refusal.”

“‘If anything, Chad is carrying Krebs’ water,’ the source added. Krebs, a former Microsoft executive, has since 2017 led DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and recently launched a ‘Rumor Control’ website to debunk claims of voter fraud. A CISA panel declared Thursday that the ‘November 3rd election was the most secure in American history,’ rejecting Trump’s claims of widespread fraud. A different administration official said ‘the president wants to fire him’ and ‘Chad Wolf is refusing.’ Both officials told The Post that there was no ambiguity about whether the termination order came from the president, who says fraud resulted in narrow unofficial losses to President-elect Joe Biden in crucial swing states.””

306. Landslide. Blowout. Historic. https://t.co/ObYZDo8cBq

— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) November 28, 2016

“A potential hostage situation is reportedly taking place at the building in which game developer Ubisoft’s Montreal office is housed. A group of suspects are reportedly holding tens of people hostage at Ubisoft Montreal, according to local (French-language) media outlet LCN. The situation reportedly began around 1:30pm Eastern Time. Montreal police confirmed that there is an ‘ongoing police operation’ at the intersection where Ubisoft Montreal sits, adding, ‘We ask people to avoid the area. The SVPM is currently validating information and more details will follow'” – Ars Technica.

At 4 p.m. Friday, outgoing president Donald Trump will deliver an update on Operation Warp Speed, his outgoing administration’s effort to address the coronavirus pandemic, which is infecting and hospitalizing record numbers of Americans in the last week.

This will be Trump’s first public statement in more than a week, since a rambling, conspiracy-laden address to the media two days after Election Day.

At 2:20 p.m. ET, NBC News has declared the winners of the final two states outstanding in the presidential races, naming President-elect Joe Biden the “apparent winner” of Georgia and outgoing president Donald Trump taking North Carolina.

The “apparent winner” label is contingent on the fact that Georgia will undertake a hand recount of votes, though Biden has a 14,000 vote lead there and no recount has ever overturned that number of votes.  No Democrat presidential candidate has won Georgia since 1992.

CNN called the races minutes later.

With these results, the Electoral College stands at 306 votes for Biden and 232 votes for Trump, or as Donald Trump circa 2016 called it, “a landslide.”  Biden currently holds a 5.3 million vote lead in the national popular vote, a feat Trump did not accomplish in 2016.

New York City announced that, starting in February, the city would start a pilot program in two high-need communities in which health professionals would be the primary responders to emergency calls dealing with mental health issues, Bloomberg reports.

The program reflects a commitment by Mayor Bill de Blasio to de-escalate situations where people in crisis are confronted with armed law enforcement officers who have little training in dealing with people experiencing a mental health crisis.

“For the first time in our city’s history, health responders will be the default responders for a person in crisis, making sure those struggling with mental illness receive the help they need,” de Blasio said in the statement announcing the program.

Trump advisor Peter Navarro claimed to Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo that the administration is preparing for a second Trump term in office, while calling the election victory of President-elect Joe Biden an “immaculate deception.”

https://youtu.be/q9J-yb35c5I

Daily Beast: “At the end of October, a 73-year-old man was beaten so badly by a group of teenagers in the Dutch city of Arnhem that he later died of his injuries. Dutch police say it’s the latest and most serious example of ‘pedophile hunting,’ which is sweeping the country. According to local police, the man, who was a retired teacher, was in an online chatroom where he agreed to meet a 15-year-old boy for sex. The man knew the boy was a minor, authorities say, but there was no evidence that he’d had past sexual contact with underage boys. The man traveled to an agreed meeting point on Oct. 28, where he was ambushed by the group of teenagers. He died in hospital a few hours later.”

“Seven teenagers have been arrested. According to BBC News, the attorney of the 15-year-old who the man intended to meet said that his client had hatched the plan of hunting pedophiles ‘out of boredom in this corona time.’ The teenagers’ legal representatives have argued that they only planned to confront the man, and didn’t plan to attack him. They claim the situation got out of hand after the man fell awkwardly. But Arnhem is far from an isolated incident. Reports say there have been 250 incidents involving so-called pedophile hunters in the Netherlands, and Dutch police, following the death, are begging for it to stop.”