John Whitmire, a state senator representing the city, defeated former Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee by 30 percentage points in a Saturday special runoff election to become the next mayor of Houston, a fate that was likely sealed when Jackson Lee’s campaign ran a television ad telling voters that the end of early voting was December 7th when in fact, it had been two days before, CBS News reports.

While the ad was quickly pulled, airing it caused confusion and accusations at early voting centers by voters who learned the incorrect deadline.  As with most special elections, turnout was light:  about 21% of eligible voters cast a ballot.  And Jackson Lee, a 30-year veteran of Congress, walked into the race with name recognition and endorsements from Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi, but could not overcome Whitmire’s local ground game, which mobilized supporters to vote during the eligible period.

“Many people that are, y’know, major criminals, very few have had an honor of being indicted four times.  I’ll tell you one thing:  I’m the only one who ever got indicted whose poll numbers went up,” Donald Trump said in one of his rare New York appearances not in proximity to a courtroom, failing to note that being a four-time indicted criminal still isn’t a good thing.

Believing he still has political influence, exiting Congressman and third-briefest serving Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy endorsed Donald Trump for the GOP nomination, per USA Today, because he secretly wants to ensure the destruction of the Party that so unceremoniously ousted him from the Speakership under nihilistic rules he agreed to so he could claim the seat in the first place.

Saying of Trump:  “The President bears responsibility for [the January 6th]  attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action by President Trump, accept his share of responsibility, quell the brewing unrest and ensure President elect Biden is able to successfully begin his term.”  Oh, wait, no… that was Kevin McCarthy on January 13th, 2021, just a week after a Republican-led group of domestic terrorists attacked the Capitol.

In an interview that will air tomorrow on CBS News, McCarthy responded “Yes” when asked if he supports Donald Trump for the nomination.  “I will support President Trump,” he said, before adding he would accept a position in a new Trump Cabinet, “[i]n the right position. Look, if I’m the best person for the job, yes.”

At least six people are dead after high winds and possibly tornadoes swept through Nashville and Middle Tennessee Saturday night, USA Today reports.  Three by Nashville’s emergency management officials and another three people were confirmed killed by the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, which reported more than two dozen at local hospitals with injuries.  The entire area continues to be under a tornado watch until at least 9 p.m. local time.

Some readers may notice that the most recent edition of the irregular MAGA Land roundup was published on a Saturday and covered more than one topic. So is this one. But upfront we want to say this is not the beginning of a recurring scheduled recap so much as real-life circumstance fucked us out of doing a round-up on Kevin McCarthy’s unceremonious exit in a timely fashion and, since some other shit happened that pissed them off, we might as well mix in some of those reactions too.

“Taking his bat and ball and going home. Rinos are feeling the heat” – Top comment on the OAN article “Former Speaker McCarthy Leaving Congress Before End Of Term.” The “taking his ball and going home” line showed up a lot, like the fanboys were having some trouble properly articulating how they really felt about a situation they helped create finally coming full circle for them.

“Why is it that politicians will never make personal sacrifices for the sake of the country? Santos should not have been expelled and McCarthy could at least finish his term to keep the democrats from doing even more harm to us American citizens. Why can’t you republicans do the right thing for us so the democrats don’t destroy our lives?” – Top comment on the Thursday Breitbart story “Marjorie Taylor Greene on State of GOP Majority: ‘Hopefully No One Dies,’” covering Sporkfoot’s butthurt reaction to her dog running away. Love the shocked heartbreak and confusion, like self-interest and nihilism aren’t exactly what this asshole commenter regularly votes for.

“Reducing the majority even smaller. It’s his way of getting even. That’s how you know getting rid of him was the right decision…that vindictive” – Top comment on the Right Scoop’s McCarthy article.

“2024 House Majority is two less: McCarthy and Santos. Tip of the hat to Gaetz for causing McCarthy to leave (whatever you may think about his politics, he was a reliable REPUBLICAN vote) and a second tip of the hat to all Republicans who didn’t stand up for Santos. He may well have been a POS, but he was no worse than the mutts on the Democrat side of the aisle – and ask yourself this: if Santos were a Democrat and acted as he did, do you think the House Democrats would have abandoned one of their own?” – Top comment on Townhall’s McCarthy article.

“I said when they expelled Santos the rinos were getting ready to hand the house over to dems. And here we are!” – Top comment on the Gateway Pundit’s McCarthy article. “The Washington Generals will always make sure the Harlem Globetrotters win,” says the top reply. Not bad, lol.

The median price per gallon of gasoline is down to $2.99, meaning that half of the stations in the US are selling the dead dinosaur juice for under $3, GasBuddy.com analyst Patrick De Haan reports.

Along with other macroeconomic trends like inflation cooling overall, the drop corresponds with a large spike in US oil production, which is now the highest in American history at 13.2 million barrels per day as of November 24th. Probably why you hear less of “The US was energy independent under Trump’s Administration” and “Your gas tank misses President Trump” and other such bullshit from the MAGA propaganda-industrial complex these days, save for when the Orange Slob went all “Drill, baby, drill” when outlining his plans for a “Day One” dictatorship this week.

Republican Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes on Friday announced he wouldn’t be running for a fourth term in 2024 and would dedicate his last year in office to supporting a criminal investigation of his “friend” Tim Ballard, the anti-sex-trafficking activist and real-life inspiration for 2023 QAnon fan-favorite film Sound of Freedom, starring adrenochrome freak Jim Caviezel, who turned out to be basically a sex trafficker himself, allegedly coercing Mormon housewives into sex acts when they volunteered for his organization “Operation Underground Railroad” (OUR) to pose as his wife when going “undercover” on trips to third-world countries to meet with slavers and “liberate” victims.

The AP reports that attorney Suzette Rasmussen, representing five of the women who came forward to accuse Ballard says her clients have accepted Reyes’s apology and respect that he was “the first and only person” so far to accept responsibility for promoting Ballard’s scumbaggery.

Reyes, who announced he would recuse personally from any criminal probe as he himself is under investigation by the state legislature for his involvement in possible misuse of state resources to help promote OUR and Sound of Freedom (a film in which he’s credited as a producer), is named in a civil complaint filed against Ballard late last month alleging that Reyes tried to intimidate an employee of another anti-sex-trafficking organization. Plaintiff Susan Whitehead claims that Ballard, portrayed by Q-pilled freak Jim Caviezel in the Trump-promoted film, had in a series of since-deleted blog posts taken credit for rescuing child victims – ones that Whitehead’s organization had in fact rescued – after the devastating 2015 earthquake in Nepal and that Reyes (the AP and Fox 13 Salt Lake City differ on whether he’s actually a co-defendant in the lawsuit) had tried to call and then texted Whitehead’s supervisor but did not answer when the supervisor tried to call back.

• Of course Taylor Swift beat Donald Trump for Time’s Person of the Year.  She’s interesting.  She’s creative.  Unlike Trump, she helps the economy grow.  Her cult isn’t set on illegally installing a cult leader.  And she will have a huge influence in the polls next November.  Trump is sooooo 2016.
• In canon, this is random thought #2,563.
• Norman Lear was not just an entertainment icon and genius, he was a civil rights and social issue warrior.  Among the topics he dealt with:  abortion on Maude; rape and antisemitism on All in the Family; divorce, women’s rights and single parenthood on One Day at a Time; and racism on Sanford and Son, The Jeffersons and virtually every series he created.   (And this is in no way an exhaustive list, plus there were crossover topics.)  Literally behind the scenes, he advanced civil rights causes more effectively than most who stood in front of microphones giving speeches.
• Last summer, GOP leaders told us he had irrefutable proof that the Biden family took a $10 million bribe from Ukraine.  Now we’re down to three car payments from father to son.  Republicans are thoroughly unserious people.
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CL”

She doesn’t smile like she learned how to do it by reading the /help subreddit.  She puts together statements that make sense.  She doesn’t reactively cram culture war terms into random sentences.  And she’s got a better stump speech than her husband, leader of the Lollipop Guild and Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.  It’s too bad for Casey that her husband will never advance out of Tallahassee.

A George W. Bush-appointed federal judge has banned the government from separating families at the border for at least the next eight years as part of a settlement reached between families that were separated under the Trump administration and the Biden Administration, NBC News reports.  The Biden Administration had already halted the draconian policy which was designed by Trump henchman Stephen Miller and his anti-immigration compatriots to punish families who crossed the US southern border illegally.

Due to the policy in place in 2017 through 2018, adults were sent to detention facilities while their children were sent to shelters; many times, parents were sent back to their home countries while their children remained in the United States.  The Trump cabal made insufficient efforts to track the locations of the children, making reunification of families difficult and in some cases, impossible:  even though the policy was ended in June 2018, 68 migrant children separated from their parents remain unaccounted for despite the efforts of federal agencies and volunteer organizations.

Two men who attacked a Black riverboat co-captain helping a boat dock in August in an attack that went viral after guests and crew on the boat jumped in the water and swam to the man’s aid have pleaded guilty to misdemeanors in a plea deal, WAKA CBS-8 in Montgomery reports.  Zachery Shipman and Allen Todd pleaded to a lesser charge of harassment and were given a 60-day suspended sentence and one year of probation.  Two others from the group, Mary Todd and Richard Roberts, pleaded to the same charge earlier.

The co-captain, Dameion Pickett, had faced a charge of third-degree assault charge filed by Shipman, but the court ruled him not guilty.  The brawl started after Pickett told Shipman and his party to move a pontoon boat they had docked at a city dock assigned to the riverboat.  Shipman and his friends attacked Pickett, leading to people to jump off the Harriott II riverboat to come to Pickett’s aid.

“In the not-so-distant future, the European Union unveiled groundbreaking regulations to govern the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence. Fueled by a commitment to ethical AI practices, the regulations aimed to balance innovation with the protection of human rights and privacy. AI developers faced stringent guidelines, ensuring transparency, accountability, and fairness in their creations.

“Companies were required to implement explainable AI systems, allowing users to comprehend the decision-making processes behind algorithms. Moreover, a comprehensive data governance framework sought to safeguard sensitive information, preventing AI from perpetuating bias or discrimination. The regulations sparked a new era of responsible AI, fostering collaboration between industry leaders, policymakers, and ethicists.”

Asked to create a “story about the new regulations on AI enacted by the European Union,” this is what ChatGPT wrote, and it’s really not that far off from reality, per the New York Times report on the new regulations for artificial intelligence.

Picasso-faced Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Friday petitioned the state Supreme Court to prevent a woman whose fetus suffers from severe defects from obtaining the abortion a judge on Thursday granted an exception to the state’s draconian “pro-life” laws, with Paxton writing “each hour [the temporary restraining order] remains in place is an hour that Plaintiffs believe themselves free to perform and procure an elective abortion,” the Texas Tribune reports.

Following the loss on Thursday, the impeached and indicted lawman threatened to prosecute any doctor who performs the procedure on the 31 year-old woman Kate Cox, which is fairly incongruous with his need to get the state Supreme Court to intervene to prevent the death of a fetus that is tragically going to suffer and die anyway if carried to term. The whole situation also raises questions about why Republicans don’t want to talk about abortion while still calling attention to it like this.

“An Appeals Court has just largely upheld the Gag Order against me in the ridiculous J6 Case, where the Unselect January 6th Committee deleted and destroyed almost all Documents and Evidence, saying that I can be barred from talking and, in effect, telling the truth. In other words, people can speak violently and viciously against me, or attack me in any form, but I am not allowed to respond, in kind. What is becoming of our First Amendment, what is becoming of our Country? We will appeal this decision!” writes disgraced former President Trump in another stupid Truth Social post.

Pressured by a fragile pro-slavery “amateur historian” incensed a video depicting slavery was shown during a tour at a former plantation, a board member of the Texas Historical Commission pushed to have books relating the harsh realities of slavery from the gift shops of at least two sites where African slaves were exploited, Texas Monthly reports.

History re-writer Michelle Haas – that’s not a made-up title:  she’s written about how slavery was an accepted practice around the world at the time of the nation’s founding (which is a lie), and she started a publishing company to promote her alternate “true” history of Texas–complained to board member David Gravelle.  Haas had repeatedly pestered Gravelle with her personal corrections over months on what she claimed were unflattering depictions of slavery in Texas, which she described as “a socially acceptable and economically worthwhile practice worldwide at the time our thirteen colonies arose.” (“Economically worthwhile” not applicable to the peoples enslaved, of course.)

Haas objected to the gift shop at Varner-Hogg plantation outside Houston selling titles in the gift shop including Alex Haley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Roots: The Saga of an American Family, Ibram X. Kendi’s National Book Award-winning non-fiction study of race in the United States Stamped From the Beginning and the National Book Award–winning novel Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.  She also objected to two dozen other titles, including the autobiography of a slave girl from Texas and a collection of narratives from Texas slaves. … because even an “amateur historian” knows you don’t rely on contemporaneous accounts of daily life from former slaves to, y’know, research the daily lives of slaves. 

A three-judge panel on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday released an opinion largely upholding the gag order imposed on fat former President Trump by Judge Tanya Chutkan in the post-2020 election coup attempt, apparently only allowing a limited exception for Trump to bitch about Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith on Truth Social and at his stupid rallies.

“The Order is affirmed to the extent it prohibits all parties and their counsel from making or directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal proceeding. The Order is also affirmed to the extent it prohibits all parties and their counsel from making or directing others to make public statements about – counsel in the case other than the Special Counsel, members of the court’s staff and counsel’s staffs, or the family members of any counsel or staff member – if those statements are made with the intent to materially interfere with, or to cause others to materially interfere with, counsel’s or staff’s work in this criminal case, or with the knowledge that such interference is highly likely to result. We vacate the Order to the extent it covers speech beyond those specified categories,” they wrote. Not really a “win” for the fat bastard.

Nihilistic edgelord Vivek Ramaswamy, aka “Da Vek,” has been quietly making inquiries into running on the Libertarian Party ticket in 2024, the Des Moines Register reports.

“I am pleased to announce that very popular and highly respected Congressman, Jeff Van Drew, will be heading up my New Jersey effort for President. I have known Jeff for a long time and consider him to be one of the best political minds anywhere. He feels, as do I, that because the Biden Administration has been so bad to the Garden State, that we have a very good chance of winning New Jersey. We will put it on our List for Rallies and all other forms of Events, and make a concerted effort to WIN! I spend a great deal of time in New Jersey, love the State, and its people. With what is going on in our Country now, Open and Broken Borders, Record Setting Crime, High Taxes and Regulations, Disrespect of our Military and Vets, the Worst Inflation in 72 years, and a Terrible Economy, we will win New Jersey, and possibly by a lot. Jeff Van Drew will put his Talents on display for all to see. I thank him very much,” writes disgraced former President Trump on Truth Social.