On Christmas morning, as the kids opened gifts (or whatever they do in Serbia on Christmas morning), thousands of people took to the streets of Belgrade to call for the annulment of the parliamentary elections held last week in which President Aleksandar Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) won 47% of the vote, NBC News reports.

While Vučić claims the elections were fair, international observers said he improperly influenced the election, which was also marred by extreme media bias in a country where the government owns three major television networks.  Vote buying was also reported. Protesters assembled around Belgrade’s town hall, with some breaking windows and entering the building, before police dispersed the crowd with pepper spray.

A new survey from Echelon Insights finds President Joe Biden leading disgraced former President Trump 52 to 44 among likely voters in “battleground states” that they decline to list.

What sticks out here is that Echelon in recent months has found Trump ahead 47 to Biden 46, Trump 38 to Biden 36, Trump 46 to Biden 43, and all sorts of other numbers that the MAGA kids fondled themselves to like something really homoerotic and… Anyway the poll actually dropped last week and we only came across it now because the mainstream media ignored it as they are wont to do.

The usual clip guys are off this morning – as they should be – and Fox News is too fucking lazy to tweet clips from idiot Maria Bartiromo’s Sunday show, so we don’t have any video to put in here. But if you check out this bootleg feed of former Trump Admin Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe’s interview where the two just yak back and forth about how Joe Biden is intentionally allowing Chinese troll farms to interfere in the 2024 election to help him win against Trump.

In lieu of a clip we’ve got this handy visual guide with Ratcliffe’s stupid face and an old headline about Trump firing Ratcliffe’s predecessor Joe Maguire in February 2020 for telling Adam Schiff that Maguire’s agency had assessed the obvious: that Putin was trying to get Trump reelected.

“Our greatest geopolitical foe has and will continue to want Joe Biden to be president for the next four years because he has been very good to China,” and blah blah blah said Ratcliffe, just taking the same shit from four years ago and changing the proper nouns because they don’t have any better ideas than recycling “collusion” to go with the border and Hunter Biden’s crime spree.

“I wasn’t campaigning, the Election was over. I was doing my duty as President to expose and further investigate a Rigged and Stolen Election. It was my obligation to do so, and the proof found is voluminous and irrefutable. Therefore, among other reasons, of course I am entitled to IMMUNITY. ADDITIONALLY, I DID NOTHING WRONG. Stop the Witch Hunt NOW!” writes fat former President Trump on Truth Social on Sunday morning, leaning into his “official act” argument.

Right off the bat there’s a pretty big problem here: He was still raising money for his campaign after the election was over. Like tens of millions from November 2020 to January 2021. That wasn’t an official act, it was a political one. He literally was still campaigning. The whole value proposition to his call for his fans to put in their hard-earned money was to “win” the election in the courts by funding his legal challenges in the weeks after election day. NOW he’s walking that back?

While we picked up disgraced former President Trump’s batshit stupid “double jeopardy” argument being pasted into their Saturday brief on their case before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, there’s another deranged piece of MAGA rhetoric that made it into the brief worth mentioning here:

“During the 234 years from 1789 to 2023, no current or former President had ever been criminally prosecuted for official acts. That unbroken tradition died this year, and the historical fallout is tremendous. The indictment of President Trump threatens to launch cycles of recrimination and politically motivated prosecution that will plague our Nation for many decades to come and stands likely to shatter the very bedrock of our Republic – the confidence of American citizens in an independent judicial system,” the lawyers write in the intro to the brief, emphasis added.

So really they’re putting into a federal appellate case the same fascistic shit that Trump keeps saying in his rants on Truth Social and to his fanboys at rallies and so on.

The Powerball drawing set for Monday night could deliver a Christmas miracle for someone else, not you, who could win up to $638 million, and changing their life while yours remains the same because you won’t win. “This could be a very Merry Christmas for [another] Powerball player!” said Drew Svitko, Powerball Product Group Chair and Pennsylvania Lottery Executive Director in a press release warning you not to get your hopes up because someone else will win.

“It’s not often that we have a Powerball drawing coincide with the Christmas holiday and with a jackpot of this magnitude. While a jackpot of this size can spice up the Christmas spirit, we kindly remind our Powerball players to play responsibly [or just not play at all because you won’t win] and that it only takes one ticket [that someone else will buy] to win big,” Svitko added.

As part of Donald Trump’s submission to the DC Court of Appeals in his ongoing attempt to get his DC federal case tossed out, his lawyers go back to two widely-dismissed arguments:  that he is immune from prosecution and that he was already acquitted by the Senate so he cannot get tried again.  No way, no how.

On December 1, 2023, the district court issued its Memorandum Opinion and Order. First, the district court wrongfully held that a former President has no immunity from prosecution for official acts performed while in office.  The court did not address whether any of the conduct alleged in the indictment falls within the scope of the President’s official duties. The district court also incorrectly held that “neither traditional double jeopardy principles nor the Impeachment Judgment Clause” prevent the prosecution of a President who has been impeached and acquitted by the Senate.

An Israel-linked merchant tanker sailing about 200 miles off the coast of India was struck by a drone fired from Iran likely by Houthi rebels, a Pentagon spokesman said, the latest attack on merchant vessels with ties to the Israel-Hamas war, the BBC reports.

The Pentagon described the ship as a Liberia-flagged, Japanese-owned, and Netherlands-operated chemical tanker” but maritime security firm Ambrey reported the tanker, which was delivering crude oil from Saudi Arabia to India, was linked to Israel in an unspecified way.

None of the 30 members of the crew were injured and they were able to quickly control damage.  US national security officials said the attack from Iran is “consistent with Iran’s long-term material support and encouragement of the Houthis’ destabilising actions in the region.”

An OG Defamer, renegade rancher Ammon Bundy has fled his beloved home state after an Idaho hospital that won a $50 million suit against him took possession of his ranch and seized his family assets, the Daily Beast reports.  Bundy said on a livestreamed podcast that St. Luke’s Meridian Medical Center not only took possession of his ranch, but it also “cleaned out” bank accounts belonging to his wife and 19- or 20-year-old son (Bundy couldn’t quite pin down his son’s age).

Bundy took offense to those in the so-called Freedom Movement for fleeing Idaho, feeling that he’s a spineless coward.  That’s not so, he claims.  “The Freedom Movement want to condemn me for leaving Idaho but the problem is I could not find people who would stand and stop what was happening to my family and the same goes with, you know, the sheriff,” Bundy said before condemning bankers, court officers and others who complied with court orders against him.

“As soon as some wicked judge, under the hands of some wicked attorneys, as soon as they say ‘hey give us that person’s property and that person’s money’ they just give it to them,” Bundy said. “This is the situation we’re in: no one will fight for anybody else, that’s why I had to leave Idaho.”

Days after former journalist Yekaterina Duntsova announced her candidacy, a Russian election commission ruled her ineligibility to run for President, challenging Vladimir Putin, saying that there were “numerous violations” in her candidacy filing, Reuters reports.  A critic of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the 40-year-old Duntsova denounced the move and said she would challenge it in the Russian Supreme Court, which consists of 115 judges appointed by Russia’s President and led by an 80-year-old Yeltsin appointee.

On Thursday right wing propaganda site Breitbart “reported” that an April 2, 2022 New York Times article on President Joe Biden’s privately-held frustrations with Attorney General Merrick Garland over being too slow to act against fat former President Trump had “resurfaced,” simply because some right wing douchebag named David Sacks (lol) tweeted a screenshot of this relevant section from the story: “Mr Biden confided to his inner circle that he believed former President Donald J Trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted, according to two people familiar with his comments. And while the president has never communicated his frustrations directly to Mr Garland, he has said privately that he wanted Mr Garland to act less like a ponderous judge and more like a prosecutor who is willing to take decisive action over the events of Jan 6.”

Who the hell knows if Breitbart had picked up that story when the Times published it. National Zero sure did. Our guess is probably not and their editors were like “WTF?!? HOW DID WE MISS THIS?”

They pretty much had to grab that dipshit’s tweet to frame the story as having “resurfaced” while their champion is being persecuted by a DC establishment whose power he gravely threatens.

“I said this was going to happen earlier this week. The case was pre-decided before it was even brought. Sad day for Wisconsin when the state supreme court just said last year that the existing lines are constitutional. Fortunately, the US Supreme Court will have the last word,” tweeted Republican Wisconsin Assembly Speaker on Friday after the state Supreme Court dropped the hammer on his extremely gerrymandered chamber and threatening his grip on power.

Problem for Vos is that the US Supreme Court is almost certain to reject any challenge to the Wisconsin state Supreme Court’s ruling, as UT Law Professor Steve Vladeck writes “The US Supreme Court has neither statutory nor constitutional jurisdiction to review how a state supreme court applies its state constitution to its state legislative districts… (Even at its most robust, the ‘Independent State Legislature’ theory would only authorize #SCOTUS review of how a state supreme court applied its state constitution to *federal* congressional or presidential elections.)”

So yeah, it’s over and, better yet, if for some reason Vos changes his mind again about not impeaching state Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz – whose election in April flipped the court’s majority and made this ruling possible – the window to force an April 2024 election on Protasiewicz’s replacement closed on December 1st and if she were removed or resigned after being impeached then Dem Governor Tony Evers could appoint a replacement who wouldn’t face voters until 2031 due to some vagaries in state Supreme Court election law. Sucks for Vos.

• On Christmas Eve, we celebrate the misdated birth of a displaced impoverished liberal Palestinian Jew who was wrongly executed by a dictatorship at the behest of corrupt religious leaders–and whose most ardent modern-day followers believe would endorse a thrice-married adulterer who stole money from charities and continues to slander and lie to amass personal political power–by cheering on a dead Turkish Catholic bishop who commands a workforce of enslaved elves to make gifts for children he creepily spies on all year and then morphs into a psychic magical globetrotter with superpowered reindeer.  
• The “Trump was never convicted of insurrection, lib!” arguments are easily dismissed by pointing out that no one–not even Jefferson Davis–was tried for insurrection or treason after the Civil War, but no one would argue people like Davis or Col. Robert E. Lee was not covered by XIV.3.
• Let’s erect a statue honoring the conquests of Mexican General Santa Anna in San Antonio outside the Alamo and see how Texans like it.
• We knew Trump talked to Republican Michigan county elections officials; that was divulged in the January 6th commission.  The tape is new, and it begs the question:  how many state-level GOP officials in Michigan did Trump and Romney-McDaniel try to coerce before having to reach out to county-level officials to fuck up the election?
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CLII”

President Biden intends to issue additional blanket pardons to people convicted of possession of small amounts of marijuana on federal land and in Washington, DC, and he will grant clemency to eleven people convicted of non-violent drug crimes who have already served decades in prison, Forbes reports.

The move widens the move Biden made in 2022 to pardon people convicted of federal charges for simple possession and expands it to clear the record of people who attempted to buy marijuana on federal land and other minor non-violent possession charges.  Such convictions impacted these individuals’ ability to get a job, their ability to get credit or loans, and their eligibility for scholarships and loans.

“Let’s be clear:  the real win is for the court to rule that a President is Constitutionally immune for being persecuted [sic] for the official conduct of his office,” former Trump Administration Krampus Stephen Miller shouts as though he’s trying to convince himself that what he’s saying is true.  “A far-left prosecutor cannot say that the elected leader of the country can go to jail for using his judgment and discretion in carrying out his official duty.”

First, the President of the United States has no Constitutional role in appointing or counting Electoral College electors.  None.  Zero.  There is no role for the President of the United States in the Electoral College.  Second–and Miller needs to understand this–election interference is not an official duty of the President.

As much as we would like to leave this Truth Social push notification alone to speak for itself, some context is necessary to at least expand upon the stupidty – and Islamophobic fuckery – afoot here.

Donald Trump has reportedly been discussing the possibility of Republican former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley to be the VP nominee with him leading the ticket, a rumor that likely is not being accepted well either in the Haley camp or by MAGA supporters, CBS News reports.

Haley has been a vocal critic of Trump after initially saying she would support him if he chose to run for president a fourth time.  She’s also been gaining in the polls, consolidating support both among voters and with donors, who are looking for a viable alternative to Trump in the GOP.

“The Supreme Court has unanimously rejected Deranged Jack Smith’s desperate attempt to short circuit our Great Constitution. Crooked Joe Biden and his henchmen waited three years to bring this sham case, and now they have tried and failed to rush this Witch Hunt through the courts. Of course I am entitled to Presidential Immunity. I was President, it was my right and duty to investigate, and speak on, the rigged and stolen 2020 Presidential Election. Looking forward to the very important arguments on Presidential Immunity in front of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals,” writes fat former President Trump on Truth Social, still not explaining why he cares if Jack Smith was trying to “rush” the case if the court was going to rule in Trump’s favor.

As expected, the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday ruled 4-3 in favor of voters who sued to break Republicans’ iron grip on power in the Cheesehead State, ordering new district maps drawn.

This bill was introduced in the People’s House on December 22nd at 0900 eastern.https://t.co/V3ONQIPomW

— Rep. Clay Higgins (@RepClayHiggins) December 22, 2023

Moron deleted the original because he’d written “This bill was introduced in the People’s House on December 23rd at 0900 eastern,” emphasis added because he’s dumb as shit.