A Georgia middle school teacher was charged with making terroristic threats and cruelty to children in the third degree after saying he would behead a student who said an Israeli flag he hung in his classroom is offensive, NBC News reports.

Fifty-one-year-old Benjamin Reese, a seventh grade teacher at Warner Robins Middle School in Houston County, was charged after he made the threat in front of 18 students who heard him say he would “cut her head off” to the student as he followed the student into the hall, shouting.  Other teachers said Reese was yelling loud enough to be heard in other classrooms.  One educator told officials he heard Reese tell the girl that she was antisemitic and he was going to slit her throat in the classroom before dragging outside where he would behead her.

Of the five early GOP campaign states, Donald Trump only tops the average lead of Party frontrunners from previous elections in two of them, a sign that Trump’s hold on the GOP primary might not be as certain as some polls show, but not a signal his likelihood of winning the states is less.  It’s an interesting study from the Washington Post (gift link), showing Trump beating the trend since 1980 in Nevada and Iowa, where he’s spent many nights at rallies while trailing the historical leaders average in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Michigan, where he’s ten points behind the curve.

Is this disastrous for Trump?  No, it just shows he’s trailing an average now, but could make up the ground in the weeks before voters go to polls and the field winnows down.  And his levels of support now are enough to traditionally win these states’ Party primaries.  What the data show, though, is Trump solidifying his base early, making it difficult for challengers Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis have harder roads to the nomination unless they can unseat some of Trump’s early, most faithful supporters.

Sporting a new The Rachel-esque hairstyle straight out of 1994, Fox hostess and Bierfrau at Berchtesgaden Laura Ingraham knows what’s really important to American voters this election season:  a hockey mascot twerking during a White House appearance… in April.  Conservatives are not serious people.

More than a dozen ancient Cambodian artifacts and relics looted during the Cambodian civil war in the 1960s-’70s and purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art via a questionable art trader will be returned to the Cambodian government, the WNBC NBC-4 New York reports.

Obtained through art dealer Douglas Latchford, who was later charged for his involvement in an art smuggling scheme but died before trial, the sixteen pieces were returned in two lots–one of 13 and a later one of three–as the Met combed through records and discovered more stolen items in its collection.

The return is in no small part due to an increase in media attention to the plight of stolen cultural antiquities from Cambodia and other countries highlighted by a wide variety of journalists, from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, to the Washington Post, to the Discovery Channel’s Josh Gates, who highlighted archeological finds in the region during recent seasons of his shows.

After being awarded $149 million in damages, including $75 million in punitive damages, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss addressed the media when they exited the courtroom, promising that this lawsuit was just the beginning of regaining their reputations after Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani defamed them and hoping that the turmoil they endured will not be tolerated by other targets of MAGA stochastic terrorism.

Despite the fact that he refused to mount a defense in the trial and stipulated to all the facts made by Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss leading to a summary judgment in their favor, new pauper Rudy Giuliani claims he’s going to appeal not just the amount awarded, but the overall verdict of the lawsuit.

A federal jury in DC on Friday awarded nearly $149 million in defamation damages to mother-daughter former Georgia election worker duo Ruby Freeman and Shae Moss in their lawsuit against alcoholic shitbrain Rudy Giuliani over his false accusations the two of being part of a vast conspiracy to rig the 2020 election against fat former President Trump, CBS’s Scott MacFarlane reports.

The judgment is incredible for Moss and Freeman, who were seeking around $45 million in total damages from Giuliani for the pair. The breakdown:  Freeman won $16,171,000 for compensatory damages, while Moss was awarded $16,998,000.  Each will receive $20 million for intentional infliction of emotional distress, and the jury awarded $75 million in punitive damages.

According to the Associated Press, Giuliani sat emotionless as the judgment was announced, likely because he knows he’s broke and he can’t get any more bankrupt, financially or morally.  But the good news:  punitive damages cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.

The 26-year-old mother of the then-six-year-old boy who shot his teacher at a Newport News, Virginia elementary school was sentenced to two years in prison, four times the six-month sentence prosecutors and the defense team had agreed to in the plea deal, ABC News reports.

In the plea agreement, Deja Taylor admitted she owned the gun and stored it in such a way that her son could access it, saying she kept the loaded gun in her purse on top of a dresser in her bedroom.  She pleaded guilty to one count of felony neglect of a child, and she will serve her state sentence after she’s done serving her federal sentence for the “Hunter Biden Combo”:  a 21-month sentence on separate federal convictions related to owning the gun while using drugs and lying about her marijuana use during a background check for the purchase of the weapon.

Just ten minutes after the 98-page draft opinion of the Dobbs case written by Justice Samuel Alito overturning a patient’s right to access reproductive healthcare was circulated to the nine Supreme Court justices for their review, Trump-appointed Neil Gorsuch sent his colleagues on the bench an email that he had signed off on the decision, the New York Times reports (gift link).

Typically, justices take days or weeks to review a draft opinion and offer notes, ask questions and suggest changes.  Gorsuch did none of that on any paragraph or page of the document; he approved it after seemingly reading more than 10 pages per minute, a rate rivaling the best Evelyn Wood graduate.

The cavalier attitude with which Gorsuch handled the precedent-breaking case demonstrates how determined the conservative bloc of the Court was to overturn Roe and for the first time in US history, rescind a right the Court had previously affirmed.

“Centrist” scam operation No Labels’ plan to help get Trump elected again by splitting the independent vote may be in serious jeopardy as incompetence and indecision under Nancy Jacobson and her douchebag former Bill Clinton pollster husband Mark Penn’s leadership have caused the effort to put together some bullshit 2024 presidential ticket to repeatedly miss key internal deadlines and forced a “rethinking” of their strategy, according to The Dispatch.

For starters, Chief Strategist Ryan Clancy told them back in early September that they were finalizing the nominee selection process and have it public by the next month. “We really wanted to prioritize this selection aspect of this,” Clancy said. It’s now December 15th and – surprise! – they don’t have shit. Clancy had also told them they would start vetting possible candidates late summer/early fall. That timeframe came and went only for Clancy to admit to donors that he may’ve gotten ahead of himself in September. Any guesses on where he’s at on that in mid-December?

“I think the organization has had some stumbles,” a source said “They haven’t been quite ready for prime time. It’s moving too fast – too quickly – and they weren’t prepared. Rather than waiting till they have all their ducks lined up, they go out and say things like: ‘We’re going to have this process.’ And, there’s lots of disagreement about the process. Well, maybe we shouldn’t do that. They really should just be focused on gaining access to the ballot and figuring out the messaging.”

A binder full of highly classified info on Russian election interference tactics – one considered so sensitive that lawmakers could only view it at CIA headquarters – was last seen at the Trump White House and went missing during the final days of Donald’s maladministration, CNN reports.

You already know where this is going: Trump and his minions were trying to declassify it at the last minute as to “exonerate” him for colluding with Russia and Mark Meadows had his hands on it.

“I write today to express my serious concerns about, and request an ethics investigation of, DC US District Judge Beryl Howell for her highly inappropriate political speech she gave last month, at which she suggested reelecting President Trump will lead to fascism in America. As outlined in detail below, Judge Howell’s partisan speech is obviously highly inappropriate election interference by a federal judge that undermines the public’s trust in our courts. Moreover, the public display of the cozy personal relationships between Judge Howell and her partisan friends who appear before her undermines public trust in judicial independence, in violation of Canon 2B.1.”

“Judge Howell, after becoming the chief judge of the DC District Court in 2016 before stepping down on March 17, 2023, supervised the DC grand jury and other legal proceedings against President Donald J Trump, his top aides, and his supporters on January 6th. This included Judge Howell’s supervision of the discredited Mueller probe that substantially interfered with the Trump presidency, along with then-Chief Judge Howell’s supervision of Biden Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations that resulted in two unprecedented and highly controversial indictments of a former President of the United States and the leading presidential candidate for 2024,” writes malevolent razorback Elise Stefanik in a complaint to DC Circuit Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan.

She doesn’t mention Rudy, but the timing that this is coming on the day when the jury in his trial, which is overseen by Howell, could end up dinging him for $43 million or more for defaming two innocent Black women simply for working in the 2020 election is less than ideal.

Disgraced former President Trump and his minions are planning a “day one” surge of domestic military deployments to close the southern border and to help build immigrant detention camps as part of his exciting plans for a full blown 21st century fascist police state, Rolling Stone reports

“I have heard anywhere between 100,000 to 300,000 from President Trump, Stephen Miller, and others on what may be required to get the job done right. There are differences of opinion on how many you would actually need, and everyone has their own ideas,” a source told Rolling Stone.

The subheadline of a Thursday press release from the DC United States Attorney’s office titled “85-Year Old DC Man Charged With Killing His 81-Year-Old Wife” also includes a secondary headline reading “Defendant Did Not Want to Eat the Pancakes She Made and Stabbed Her in the Back.”

There were no further mention of the pancakes in the press release, which says: “Steven Schwartz, 85, of Washington, DC, was arrested earlier today on the charge of second-degree murder while armed in the stabbing death of his 81-year-old wife, Sharron Schwartz, on December 10, 2023, at their DC home, US Attorney Matthew M Graves announced. Defendant Schwartz was arraigned today in DC Superior Court, via video appearance, where he entered a plea of not guilty.”

“The Honorable Magistrate Judge Sherry Trafford found probable cause that the defendant committed the murder and held him without bond pending his preliminary hearing on January 2, 2024, at 9:30 am, before Judge Demeo in Courtroom 303. In announcing the arrest, US Attorney Graves commended the work of those investigating the case from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and Assistant United States Attorney Nebiyu Feleke for his efforts in prosecuting this case. An arrest on a complaint is merely a formal charge that a defendant has committed a violation of criminal laws and every defendant is presumed innocent until, and unless, proven guilty.”

Elon Musk is donating $100 million to open a private elementary school and secondary school outside Austin, Texas with the goal of completing the educational pyramid by founding a college sometime in the future, CNN reports.  “The School is being designed to meet the educational needs of those with proven academic and scientific potential, who will thrive in a rigorous, project based curriculum,” an application to the IRS reviewed by Bloomberg states.

The primary and secondary schools will focus on “STEM subjects and other topics,” with the encapsulated educational system believed to be designed to promote Musk’s pseudo-libertarian viewpoints, which always sound more legitimate when you’re sitting on a pile of cash from your family’s African emerald mine.

Backers of Republican former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley are spending big in New Hampshire and Iowa, hoping to jumpstart momentum to push her over other challengers for second place in the GOP nomination race and in a strong position to force a confrontation with Donald Trump, Reuters reports.

A pro-Haley Super PAC called SFA Fund Inc. has already spent $21 million, more than twice that of Trump’s MAGA Inc. Super PAC.  (“MAGA Inc.” is really the official name of a Trump-supporting Super PAC as if it’s not clear that it’s just a money-making machine.)  The SFA Fund is made up of business titans like former WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, who is considered a Democratic mega-donor.

After voting to support opening talks with Ukraine to join the European Union, Hungary blocked the passage of a €50 billion aid package to the besieged country, the BBC reports.  “Summary of the nightshift: veto for the extra money to Ukraine,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban posted on social media as the meetings in Brussels shut down.  The EU will meet in early January to take up the issue again.

As part of their plea agreements, convicted co-conspirators Sidney Powell and Ken Chesebro scrawled hand-written, single-sentence letters of apology to the hundreds of thousands of Fulton County voters whose votes they tried to steal, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

“I apologize for my actions in connection with the events in Coffee County,” the letter from the Kraken read in its entirety.  “I apologize to the citizens of the State of Georgia and of Fulton County for my involvement in Count 15 of the indictment,” Chesebro wrote, reportedly while sitting at the defense table in October as the judge reviewed the plea deal.

A third defendant, bail bondsman Scott Hall, was more loquacious and organized, typing a brief but penitent apology for his actions saying, “Although I certainly did not mean to violate any laws, I now realize I did and have accepted responsibility for my actions.”  Sanctioned lawyer and Giuliani perfumer Jenna Ellis tearfully read her leader to the court in October.

Passed by unanimous consent, a Senate bill aims to compensate US military officers whose promotions were delayed because of a hold by Floribama Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville will receive the back pay differential that was withheld due to the Senate’s malfunction, Politico reports.

The bipartisan bill was co-sponsored by South Dakota Republican Mike Rounds and West Virginia Whatever-the-hell-Joe-Manchin-is Joe Manchin–and one of the first Senators to endorse the legislation was the aforementioned Tommy Tuberville.  “Finally, we’re able to right the wrong of Sen. Tuberville’s illogical, hurtful and dangerous holds and the massive impacts the holds had on military families,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer commented.

“This is exactly what they accused President Trump of,” Laura Ingraham, full of faux outrage and false claims, squawks.  “You’re leaning on your attorney general. Yo-yo-yo-you’ve been doing this.  You’ve been putting pressure on the independent, ah, y’know, um, Justice Department.  Your-your-you’re putting your finger on the scales of justice.  But this is obviously what’s going on here.  Obviously!  I mean it doesn’t even, I mean, it’s not even a question that’s happening here.”

“It’s exactly what they accused Barr of, though, though Barr did a better job of basically defying President Trump than Garland has done defying President Biden,” Fox contributor Sol Wisenberg notes while avoiding the fact that what Barr did do for Trump was cover up crimes and fail to prosecute despite ten charges outlined by the Mueller report.  Though yes, we concede Barr did refuse to participate in a coup Trump wanted.