The Florida State Seminoles got fucking destroyed by the Georgia Bulldogs to the tune of 63 to 3 in the Capital One Orange Bowl on Saturday, ESPN reports on an utter embarrassment of a game.

As you’re probably aware, we’re not a sportsball news site. In fact not too long ago we were very emphatic about our disinterest in NCAA football. We do however very much enjoy it when Republicans look like complete assholes and that’s exactly what happened in this game after heels-wearing Governor Ron DeSantis, white collar Skeletor-like Senator Rick Scott, creepy jittery Attorney General Ashley Moody, and fat former President Trump all freaked out when the Seminoles were left out of the final four NCAA football playoff despite having gone 13-0 during the regular season.

“My Office is launching an investigation to examine if the Committee was involved in any anticompetitive conduct. As it stands, the Committee’s decision reeks of partiality, so we are demanding answers – not only for FSU, but for all schools, teams and fans of college football,” said Moody in a statement earlier this month. DeSantis threatened to sue them – after the Orange God Emperor posted “Really bad lobbying effort… Lets blame DeSanctimonious!!!” on Truth Social. “I appreciate your response on Friday, December 15, to my letter dated Monday, December 4, regarding the unprecedented exclusion of the 13-0, Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Champion Florida State University (FSU) Seminoles from the College Football Playoff (CFP). Unfortunately, your response failed to answer all 10 of the questions I posed in my initial letter,” Scott wrote to NCAA playoffs committee director Bill Hancock on the 18th, still fuming over the “snub.”

Hancock should just print out a copy of that ESPN box score and send it to Scott. That’s his answer.

A three-judge panel from a California federal appeals court lifted an injunction on a California law set to take effect in January that would ban carrying guns in most public places, Reuters reports, reversing a lower court GW Bush-appointed judge who called the law unconstitutional, Reuters reports.

Signed into law in September by Dreamboat California Governor Gavin Newsom, the law would bar carrying a weapon in 26 categories of “sensitive places” like hospitals, playgrounds, stadiums, zoos and places of worship regardless of any carry permit.  It would also bar carrying weapons, including concealed weapons, in privately owned public areas like stores unless the proprietor posts a sign explicitly allowing it.

The law was passed as a response to the Supreme Court overturning the New York’s gun control law that severely restricted where people could carry guns in public.  A number of states, including New York and California, revamped existing laws and regulations to meet the new legal specifications that allow limiting gun possession in specific areas, a regulation acknowledged by conservative Justice Antonin Scalia in his Heller opinion (Sec. III Para 1). 

“As the New Year fast approaches, I would like to wish an early New Year’s salutation to Crooked Joe Biden and his group of Radical Left Misfits & Thugs on their never ending attempt to DESTROY OUR NATION through Lawfare, Invasion, and Rigging Elections. They are now scrambling to sign up as many of those millions of people they are illegally allowing into sour Country, in order that they will be ready to VOTE IN THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2024,” writes disgraced former President Trump on Truth Social, now for the second time in less than 24 hours making this shit up that the border “invasion” is part of some sort of Soros-Biden election-rigging op.

Again, this just isn’t a thing. The largest case of voter fraud by non-citizens was in 2020 when 19 foreign nationals residing in North Carolina were charged with casting ballots illegally in the 2016 election, according to an ICE press release. Nowhere in the statement does it say that any of them were illegal immigrants and the very, very wide array of nationalities among the 19 – China, Israel, Yemen, Canada, Mexico, Nigeria, Bermuda – strongly suggests that this was not a coordinated plot but just a bunch of fucking idiots who didn’t know that only American citizens can vote. ICE has only one other release, “Illegal alien arrested, charged with voter fraud,” dating to 2011 in their archive.

Disney reported that virtually all its available tickets for the holiday season from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Day to its Florida parks have been sold out, a clear sign that Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s efforts failed to make the entertainment giant the target of his culture warriors, TheStreet reports.

While some tickets may open up because of cancelations, all park reservations are booked for the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom.  A look back from DeSantis’s attack shows the culture war had little impact on The Mouse:  operating income at the company’s parks increased 30% from 2022 even though attendance dropped a little after Disney’s 50th anniversary celebration in 2022.

DeSantis and conservatives also lose when examining their victory cries over the summer as they claimed their boycott led to reduced attendance during the July 4th holiday:  comparisons to other similar properties like Universal Studios showed attendance at those properties suffered the same ebbs and flows that Disney attractions did, meaning any reduction in attendance happened across the state, not just with Disney.  And that was impacted by two key factors:  100-degree plus weather for most of July in Florida as well as consumers boycotting the state to protest DeSantis’s culture wars.

Take any report coming from the Kremlin with a grain mountain of salt, but Russian officials report a major Ukrainian bombardment of the border town of Belgorod, located about 20 miles inside Russia, resulted in the death of 14 including two children on Saturday, CNN reports. The attack came after a Russian aerial attack that led to 39 Ukrainian deaths on Thursday.

Russian defense ministry officials called the shelling “indiscriminate,” said forty civilian buildings were damaged or destroyed in the city of around 380,000 people, and pledged that “the crime will not go unpunished.”  Belgorod is a staging area for Russian troops and is the site of large fuel deposits for the Russian military.

Speaking at a town hall event in New Hampshire Thursday evening, Civil War history rewriter and Republican candidate for president Nikki Haley said she would issue a pardon for Donald Trump if she becomes president, Axios reports.  Responding to a nine-year-old’s question, Haley indicated that she would pardon Trump if he’s found guilty, not because he is innocent of the charges a jury of his peers convicted him on, but because she wants to take the Gerald Ford approach to “healing” our nation after it was split apart by Trumpism.

“If he is found guilty, a leader needs to think about what’s in the best interest of the country.  What’s in the best interest of the country is not to have an 80-year-old man sitting in jail that continues to divide our country,” Haley said, adding, “What’s in the best interest of the country would be to pardon him so that we can move on as a country and no longer talk about him.”  Fellow GOP candidates Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy have also indicted that they would pardon Trump for his federal crimes.

Haley didn’t explain how issuing a pardon and releasing from responsibility a man who attempted to undermine the Constitution and national security of the United States is “in the best interest of the country,” nor did she expound on how issuing a pardon would heal the nation given that Richard Nixon’s malfeasance is still regularly discussed even after he was pardoned.

Cops in the southwest Siberian city of Tobolsk have more or less already wrapped up their investigation into the falling death of the town’s deputy to parliament, finding “no sign of criminal death on the body” of Vladimir Egorov after he plunged from a third-story window of his home onto the front lawn on Wednesday, the New York Post reports citing posts on Telegram.

“One of the most likely reasons is heart problems,” said a local news outlet, failing to follow through on how cardiac issues would prompt a politician to jump out of a window.

Though it seems contradictory in the age of political upheaval we live in, US beer sales dropped to their lowest level since 1999 this year, falling below the 200 million barrel mark, NBC News reports, but the major brewers are still reaping profits thanks to price increases that outpaced inflation.  The homophobe boycott of Bud Light notwithstanding, the worldwide beer market continues to expand, but the US market it getting segmented by premixed spirit drinks and alcoholic offers from energy drink brands and other non-beer manufacturers.

Analysts also noticed that while people may still drink beer, consumers are opting for less consumption of more expensive craft and small-batch beers from both the major breweries and local shops, rather than higher consumption of popular beer brands.  Another impacting factor:  people giving up alcohol altogether, either opting for sobriety or choosing newly-legalized marijuana in states across the country.

“Moderate” Republican New York Congressman Mike Lawler, a swing district d-bag nobody likes, is also apparently a Michael Jackson stan and molestation denier, according to an entertainment reporter who wrote a Jackson biography published after the creepy pop star’s death in 2009, so much so that the then 18 year-old Lawler got himself tossed out of the courtroom for cursing under his breath while an alleged molestation victim’s mom testified, the Daily Beast reports.

“A friend of mine named Michael Lawler – an ardent Jackson admirer who had followed the proceedings so closely he knew the evidence better than even I did – had flown in from New York to attend the trial,” wrote J Randy Taraborrelli in Michael Jackson: The Magic, The Madness, The Whole Story. Per Taraborrelli’s account, Lawler was “so disgusted” by Janet Arvizo’s testimony “that he couldn’t help but mutter something derogatory under his breath. Overheard by the officials, he promptly got tossed right out of the courtroom,” with a sheriff’s deputy later warning Taraborrelli that “the next time you help someone get into here, you’d better tell him to keep his trap shut.”

Lawler still remains a Jackson superfan nearly five years after the documentary Leaving Neverland premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. So horrific and disturbing were the details of Jackson’s predation of young boys that Sundance’s organizers hired mental health counselors to wait in the theater’s lobby to help audience members. “It’s true that Congressman Lawler – who is known to have performed the Moonwalk once or twice – is a fan of Michael Jackson’s music and even attended one of his last concerts at Madison Square Garden in 2001,” a spokesman told the Beast.

Google settled a $5 billion lawsuit alleging its Chrome browser’s “incognito” mode–which users believe hides personal data from perusal, actually allowed the company to track users browsing habits and provided the company with data it used to target ads and other promotions, ABC News reports.

Reached Thursday, the company agrees to compensate users who put in a claim.  The amount is as yet unknown, but the original plaintiffs sought between $100 and $5,000 per Chrome user since 2006 for Google planting cookies and using data collected while users were in incognito mode.  Terms of the final agreement are not yet public.

Disgraced former President Trump has been telling his minions he’s worried that the US Supreme Court is worried about being perceived as “political” and will sidestep any means of overturning the decisions removing him from the ballot in Colorado and Maine, the New York Times reports.

Per the Times, Team Orange are expected to file their challenge Tuesday, three years exactly after the fat fuck called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger demanding he “find 11,780 votes.”

In somewhat related news, Trump early Saturday posted on Truth Social just about the stupidest conspiracy theory possible, and that’s saying something. “It’s becoming more and more obvious to me why the ‘Crazed’ Democrats are allowing millions and millions of totally unvetted migrants into our once great Country. IT’S SO THEY CAN VOTE, VOTE, VOTE. They are signing them up at a rapid pace, without even knowing who the hell they are. It all makes sense now. Republicans better wake up and do something, before it is too late. Are you listening Mitch McConnell?” Trump wrote. In what fucking universe is your average Guatemalan migrant farm worker going to be risking prosecution and deportation by registering themselves to vote and then showing up and casting a ballot?

• “I know nothing about Hitler.  I have no idea what Hitler said other than [what] I’ve seen on the news. And that’s a very, entirely different thing than what I’m saying,” Donald Trump states to excuse his repeated Hitler references.  Maybe it’s just me, but I actually want people to know what Hitler said and wrote.  The difference, though, lies between information and admiration.
• Ramaswamy’s campaign is toast.  How to tell:  A failing business always cuts advertising budget first.  
• Nikki Haley’s slavery gaffe was horrific, but her refusal to categorically decline the VP slot on the Trump ticket will be the thing that will kill her candidacy.  Her Never Trumper supporters will not support someone who equivocates on that issue.
• The House departed Washington for the year having passed just 27 bills, making the GOP-led session the least productive in decades.  They passed barely more bills than they had Speaker votes this year.
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CLIII”

An unidentified object flew through Polish airspace on Friday as Russian undertook a major aerial attack on Ukraine, bombarding areas in the west, south and north of the country with more than 150 missiles and drones, CNN reports.  Polish military officials stated that they tracked the projectile from Russian airspace through Poland into Ukraine.   This is the second known time a Russian-made missile has crashed in Ukraine:  in November 2022, a Ukrainian Russian-made air defense munition killed two Polish residents after it going wayward.

In a new filing arguing against providing information on a potential advice-of-counsel defense where he would claim innocence in the Mar-a-Lago federal classified documents case by saying he got shitty advice from his lawyers, Donald Trump’s legal team claims Special Counsel Jack Smith

“The Special Counsel’s Office has repeatedly demanded deadlines in this case that are detached from reality and practice, and this Motion is no different,” Trump’s lawyers whine.  “The 60 days requested in the Motion would give the Office more time to ‘investigate’ an advice-of-counsel defense than the Office proposed to give President Trump to review approximately 1.3 million pages of discovery and file Rule 12(b) motions. The Court rejected the Office’s earlier unjust proposal, and the same result is appropriate here.”

In the documents case, Trump is expected to claim he was just following his lawyers’ advice regarding the return of classified and other government documents, and that the advice was faulty.  To counter the claim, Smith’s office would have to gain access to the faulty advice Trump claims he followed.  But in various public accounts, Trump’s lawyers were urging him to comply with the federal government’s orders to return the document.

Two rocket boosters from a Chinese launch that successfully put two satellites into orbit crashed in the Sichuan province, exploding on impact and narrowly missing a residence according to video of the event, Space.com reports.  A different video of one of the crashes shows the Long March 3B booster stage tumbling out of the sky before bursting into flames when it impacts a hillside.  This isn’t the first time a Chinese rocket crashed after launch from the inland launch center:  in 2019, a booster stage crashed into a house.

A federal judge blocked enforcement of portions of an Iowa law that bans books from school libraries and discussion about LGBTQ topics in the classroom, ruling that the language of the law was overly broad, CBS News reports.  Although the law won’t go into effect until January 1st, many challenges to books in school libraries have already been made under the law resulting in titles removed from shelves.

Judge Stephen Locher, a Biden appointee, ruled that the Iowa law was “incredibly broad” and noted that the law has already led to the removal of historical accounts, classic literature, and award-winning contemporary books.  Locher noted that schools had already removed “books designed to help students avoid being victimized by sexual assault.”  Locher also called the provision of the law banning teachers from discussing gender and sexuality issues with students “wildly overbroad.”

Rachel Campos-Duffy, a traditional-family-values conservative who for some reason still uses her maiden name, is proud that she didn’t fall for the “Covid psyops” or the “BLM thing” as though the pandemic and civil rights marches didn’t happen, continuing to prove that conservatives have no room for personal growth.

With ProPublica’s report that benefactors came out of the woodwork to befriend Justice Clarence Thomas after he complained to a then-Republican Florida Congressman Cliff Stearns in 2000 about his personal financial straits, legal and tax experts noted that the value of the gifts could be considered unreported taxable income to keep him in his role, not simply unreported extravagant gifts.

“He views Thomas as a Supreme Court justice as having a limited salary.  So he provides benefits for him,” George Priest, a Yale Law School professor and a traveling buddy of Thomas and benefactor Harlan Crow, said in the ProPublica story. And that’s where the problem for Thomas lies.  “If there are in fact people saying more or less, ‘We’re offering these goodies to the justice so that he will stay in his role’. . . it sounds like it would be taxable income for him,” said Brian Galle, a law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center who focuses on taxation, told Jacobin.

The big problem with bringing a corruption or tax fraud case against Thomas is proving he knew the intent of the largess and he intentionally misrepresented them as gifts.  “With Thomas, it’s not hard to connect the dots from some of his financial obligations to the conversation with Congressman Stearns to the billionaire buddy program that he was soon enlisted in,” said Gabe Roth, executive director of the judicial reform nonprofit Fix the Court. “[But] a lot of this also comes down to [the idea that] laws are only as strong as the government’s desire to prosecute, and I can’t imagine a situation where Justice Thomas would be prosecuted.”  Basically:  a justice on the Supreme Court can play dumb about the intent of all the gifts he’s received, and because of his feigned ignorance, we cannot enforce the law.  It’s the story of Clarence Thomas’s career.

She’s so done. Someone who doesn’t think Hunter Biden’s dick pics were going to swing the 2020 election or that the January 6th insurrection was an actual insurrection is too much for Fox viewers.

The first Trump lawyer domino to fall, Michael Cohen accidentally gave his lawyers fake cases created by artificial intelligence to cite in his effort to end his probation that ended up included in court filings, a letter from the firm to Federal Judge Jesse Furman details.  In an effort to assist his lawyers, Cohen reportedly scoured the internet for relevant case law and thought he found a number of cases on point.

“The invalid citations at issue—and many others that Mr. Cohen found but were not used in the motion—were produced by Google Bard, which Mr. Cohen misunderstood to be a supercharged search engine, not a generative AI service like Chat-GPT,” Cohen’s lawyers wrote more than two weeks after Furman issued an order for Cohen’s attorneys to support the bogus cases in the earlier submission.

Cohen was the first of Trump’s lawyers convicted of a crime, having played the middleman and bag man for Donald Trump to pay off Stormy Daniels, a porn performer with whom Trump has a short sexual relationship.