Right wingers are correctly starting to freak the fuck out over abortion access referenda appearing on the ballot in several states next November and are mounting counteroffensives in both courts and on the streets to stop the tide of reproductive rights being restored, Politico reports.

“Just because the abortion lobby wants to come in like carpetbaggers to get out the vote for Democrats, you don’t have to help them. Just because someone shoves a clipboard in your face, you don’t have to sign,” said Students for Life Chief Policy Strategist Kristi Hamrick of her group’s “decline to sign” anti-canvassing efforts in Arizona, Florida, Nevada and Missouri. It’s not clear why the fuck a national pro-choice group’s canvassing is “carpetbagging” while a national forced-birth group’s effort to thwart it is somehow not. Others are encouraging supporters to waste the time of pro-choice canvassers however they can. “If you encounter petitioners, charitably take up their time talking about the dangerous petition, to prevent other people from engaging and signing,” wrote Nebraska Catholic Conference Executive Director Tom Venzor in a memo to fans.

In the courts it’s the usual song and dance, with Republican attorneys general fighting tooth and nail on the wording of proposed ballot measures, though what happened this year in Ohio proved that track pretty ineffective, which is why Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody is using the language in her lawsuit to get the Sunshine State’s expected 2024 measure off the ballot completely.

Americans United for Life lawyer Steve Aden said the quiet part out loud, telling Politico that “all options should be on the table. Because we believe that abortion is truly about the right to life of human individuals in the womb, we don’t believe those rights should be subjected to majority vote.”

“Army National Military Cemeteries (ANMC) is complying with a Congressionally mandated requirement to remove the Confederate Memorial by Jan 1, 2024. ANMC has complied with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) prior to removal. ANMC completed these processes and is now in the process of removing the Confederate Memorial from ANC. Safety fencing has been installed around the Confederate Memorial and we anticipate complete removal no later than Dec 22, 2023,” said Arlington National Cemetery in a statement on Saturday, pushing forward despite a bitchy letter far right House Members sent to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin demanding he stop it due to a stipulation they put in the new NDAA.

“We write to you today to demand that the Department of Defense immediately suspend all removal activities related to the Reconciliation Monument located in Arlington National Cemetery until Congress completes the Fiscal Year 2024 appropriations process. As its removal does not align with the original intent of Congress, outlined in Section 370 of the William M (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, the House of Representatives took action to prevent the removal of the Reconciliation Monument in the Fiscal Year 2024 Department of Defense Appropriations Act. The Department of Defense must comply with this request or risk denigrating the delicate balance of the principles of separation of powers between Congress and the Executive, outlined in the Constitution,” wrote Georgia MAGA Congressman Andrew Clyde – the “January 6th was a peaceful tourist visit to the Capitol” asshole – in the letter sent to Austin last week.

On a weekend in which fat former President Trump variously told his cult members in New Hampshire and Nevada that illegal immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” falsely claimed that Joe Biden directed the state-level prosecution of the six Nevada GOP members who fraudulently submitted fake elector certificates to aid in his 2020 election coup attempt, praised Russian dictator Vladimir Putin (again), called current labor statistics “fake numbers,” and a whole bunch of other toxic shit, the Fox and Friends Sunday morning crew were more than a little annoyed that Trump’s hateful garbage was overshadowing the MSM’s coverage of two dudes having sex in the Senate Judiciary Committee chamber. There is an argument to be made here that this assclown, whatever his name is, was also or even slightly more frustrated with Trump for saying the Hitler-like shit and diverting the mainstream media’s attention in the first place.

National Weather Service bulletin: “A deep storm over the Mid-Atlantic Coast will move northward into Eastern Canada by Monday evening. The system will produce heavy rain over parts of the northern Mid-Atlantic Coast northward to New England. Therefore, the WPC has issued a Slight Risk of excessive rainfall over parts of the northern Mid-Atlantic Coast northward to New England through Tuesday morning. The associated heavy rain will create mainly localized areas of flash flooding, with urban areas, roads, and small streams the most vulnerable. In addition, the storm will produce showers and thunderstorms over the northern Mid-Atlantic Coast/southern New England Coast. The threat of heavy rain ends on Tuesday as the system moves farther into Canada.”

“Moreover, in the wake of the deep storm, upper-level energy over the Great Lakes/Ohio Valley moves eastward to the Northeast Coast by Tuesday evening. The energy and cold air will aid in creating lake-effect snow downwind of the Great Lakes and upslope snow over parts of the Northern/Central Appalachians on Monday into Wednesday. On Monday, the heaviest snow will be over parts of the Central Appalachians and southeast from Lake Michigan in Michigan and Indiana.”

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić looks set to maintain his grip on power as the opposition fell flat in Sunday’s elections marred by irregularities and probably even actual bussing of Bosnian Serbs into Belgrade to vote for Vučić’s ruling Serbian Progressive Party, Politico EU reports.

As the President and First Lady were leaving his campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware Sunday night, a civilian vehicle hit an SUV from his motorcade being used to block an intersection, Reuters reports.  Video of the incident shows Biden leaving the office as a bang is heard, and then the camera moves to show Secret Service agents with their guns drawn on the driver of a silver car, who raises his hands.  No serious injuries were reported, and the driver was being question, but officials believe the incident was not an attempt on the President’s life.

After a month of relative silence, observers believe North Korea test-fired its new long-range missile on Monday morning [local time] from a site near the Pyongyang capital region, NBC News reports.  US, South Korean and Japanese military monitored the projectile, which landed in the Sea of Japan with no injuries reported so far.  North Korea may have tried to hide the test at the end of a volley of shorter-range missiles that was done hours before.

“The armed forces of (North Korea) will thoroughly neutralize the U.S. and its vassal forces’ attempt to ignite a nuclear war.  Any attempt by the hostile forces to use armed force against (North Korea) will face a preemptive and deadly counteraction,” the government of Donald Trump’s lover, Kim Jong-un, said in a statement.

Like a preacher drunk on the power of her claimed “divine ordination,” cryptid Republican Georgia Congresscritter Marjorie Taylor Greene bellows at the latest Talking Turning Point USA cult reinforcement meeting that she’s collected an insurmountable amount of evidence to impeach President Joe Biden–none of which has apparently not been received by the various committees Republican coopted to conduct political theatre–that it’s impossible for South Caroline Republican Senator Lindsey Graham to claim it doesn’t exist.

A trio of Colorado robbers fixed on robbing a Commerce City check cashing business found the car they had likely stolen to serve as their getaway vehicle gone when they tried to make their escape, apparently stolen by a separate theft, NBC News reports.  Per the Commerce City Police’s Facebook page:  “In an unexpected and ironic twist… as the trio was robbing the business…a fourth criminal stole their getaway vehicle… which may have already been stolen. We don’t know. If we get a solid description of it, we will release that here.”

He may not like drag queens but he acts like a drama queen:  during a campaign appearance, Republican Florida Governor and man whose thing seems to be tanking a campaign Ron DeSantis does not tolerate being interrupted by a mere voter, chiding her, “Excuse me!  I’m not finished!  I’m doing my thing!”

The Florida Republican Party’s Executive Committee on Sunday voted to censure sexual libertine and not-really-credibly-accused rapist Chairman Christian Ziegler, strip him of all powers, and reduce his salary to $1, Meidas Touch reports on a step toward perdition for the right wing scumbag.

Again, and we cannot stress enough how fucking hilarious this is that Ziegler almost certainly did not rape his and his wife’s girlfriend and that really any day now it’s likely his name will be publicly cleared by investigators. Yet still the party’s moving against him for making them look as hypocritical and shitty as they actually are. Meidas Touch’s report says it’s still going to take weeks to remove Ziegler, who supposedly maintains the Orange God Emperor’s support – or at least his neutrality.

It’s quite easy to imagine Ziegler going on the offense if and when the local DA says they’re not going to be charging him, launching a legal case against the accuser and the party themselves for punishing him, dragging this fight out and embarrassing the party further during what an election year the censure motion describes as “the most important of our lifetime and demands the full and undivided attention of our party to defeat the Democrats and Joe Biden.”

Disgraced former President Trump on Sunday demanded his 2024 GOP primary opponents surrender to him unconditionally, writing “Where is the Nikki ‘SURGE,’ and the DeSanctimonious ‘BOUNCE.’ (I am beating Ron in Florida, 83% to 12%) I went up 7 Points, they both went down. Christie is dogmeat, Hutchinson is holding solid at 1%. Everyone should drop out, unify, and go after the WORST & MOST CORRUPT PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, CROOKED JOE BIDEN!” on Truth Social with a pic of a Fox News national GOP primary poll.

The post came amid a weekend-long flurry of more batshittery posted on Trump’s lame personal social network, like “OUR ADVERSARIES ARE USING THE CROOKED JOE BIDEN INDICTMENTS OF HIS POLITICAL OPPONENT (ME!) AGAINST US BY STRONGLY PROCLAIMING THAT THE UNITED STATES IS A CORRUPT & FAILING DEMOCRACY!” and “ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS POISONING THE BLOOD OF OUR NATION. THEY’RE COMING FROM PRISONS, FROM MENTAL INSTITUTIONS – FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD. WITHOUT BORDERS & FAIR ELECTIONS, YOU DON’T HAVE A COUNTRY.”

“Look, it is what it is, but isn’t it unfair that I can be running such a great and successful campaign for President, leading in every poll against a corrupt and incompetent President, working so hard in a historic fight to save our Nation, and I have to go through the additional burden of, at the same time, fighting my political opponent’s many DOJ, AG, and DA inspired non-meritorious lawsuits against me. Joe Biden, and the thugs that surround him, should never be allowed to get away with this evil act of ELECTION INTERFERENCE. Even today’s Wall Street Journal Editorial stated that, ‘As we warned Mr Smith (Deranged Jack)and AG Merrick Garland, indicting Mr Trump would thrust them into the middle of an election campaign. This (the lawsuits) would have unintentional and perhaps damaging consequences. The wiser decision would have been…to let the voters decide.’ THIS IS ALREADY ON ITS WAY TO BEING ANOTHER RIGGED ELECTION!” the fat bastard warned on Saturday.

In an absolute shocker of a news story, a Dem Senate aide was stupid enough to film himself having sex with another dude in the Judiciary Committee room, MAGA dipshit Chuck Callesto reports.

The story is shocking because you would think it’d be a Republican staffer. They’re the party hostile to LGBTQ+ Americans, so it’s a more natural fit. Especially the filming part. On the other hand it’s not like this guy posted the video on Craigslist like QAnon-pilled activist Scott Presler did to get fired from the Virginia GOP back in 2016. This video was posted in a private chat group for gay male staffers, so it’s not like the guy DEFINITELY wanted it to become public like Presler did.

Anyway, Maryland Senator Ben Cardin fired 24 year-old Aidan Maese-Czeropski on Saturday and the Daily Mail reports he could face criminal charges for trespassing and obscenity. The other guy in the video hasn’t yet been identified, so the possibility he’s a Republican staffer remains.

[Dateline: Moscow, December 17, 2023] Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed US President Joe Biden’s statement that the Kremlin will not stop with its invasion of Ukraine, saying Russia has no intention of attacking a NATO nation.  “Russia has no reason, no interest — no geopolitical interest, neither economic, political nor military — to fight with NATO countries,” Putin said according to Politico.

[The Financial Times, November 14, 2021]:  “The US briefed allies last week about intelligence indicating that Moscow was preparing for a possible invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s president has dismissed the fears as ‘alarmist’ and accused NATO of inflaming tensions in the region with its own unplanned exercises.”

A new CBS News/YouGov survey of likely New Hampshire primary voters finds disgraced former President Trump leading Nimrata “Nikki” Haley by 44 to 29 percent, a sign of significant momentum for the former South Carolina governor with two months to go until the Granite State’s contest.

Hidden heel aficionado and one-time Next Great Hope for the Republican Party Ron DeSantis continues to watch as his Super PAC crumbles, changing leadership faster than the Trump Administration changed golf cleats.  As CNN reports, after losing its CEO and then firing interim CEO, the chief strategist for the Never Back Down Super PAC backing DeSantis quit.

With the Washington Post publishing a scathing article on the disfunction in DeSantis’s fundraising operation, the move comes after fill-in interim PAC CEO Scott Wagner made the baseless claim that the massive turnover was due to releasing people because they were leaking to the media, a statement he withdrew after reportedly being threatened with legal action by the people who left the campaign and PAC who are sick of Republicans’ baseless defamations.

In addition to the rotating menu of CEOs for the PAC, both communications director Erin Perrine and director of operations Matt Palmisano left Never Back Down in recent weeks for undisclosed reasons as DeSantis has taken blow after blow in embarrassing debate performances against other GOP candidates.  He also took a major self-inflicted wound by debating Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom who despite having to fend off arguments from both DeSantis and Trump advisor Sean Hannity on a Fox broadcast, dismantled the diminutive debater easily.

A four-month-old baby whose bassinet was blown out of the family’s mobile home when a tornado blew through Tennessee last Saturday was found alive and unhurt in the bassinet that was lodged atop a fallen tree, CNN reports.

Sydney Moore and her boyfriend Aramis Youngblood lived close to where the tornado is thought to have touched down.  The winds knocked down the mobile home’s walls and started lifting the bassinet off the ground.  While Moore shielded their one-year-old son, Youngblood tried to grab the rising bassinet, but the winds flung both him and the baby into the air.

Youngblood, injured with a separated shoulder, found the bassinet, with baby Lord in it, atop a fallen tree about 30 feet from the house, which was leveled.  “It was like a scene in a movie,” Moore said. “I remember seeing Aramis walking up in the pouring down rain, clothes ripped, with Lord in his arms.”

Another conservative charlatan suffering the consequences of his vile words, Alex Jones reportedly made an offer to resolve the debt owed to families connected to the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre who received a $965 million judgment against him for defaming them, proposing roughly 10% paid over ten years, CNN reports.

In exchange for releasing all liability, Jones proposed paying ten annual installments of at least $5.5 million each, depending on Jones’s annual income, with the families additionally getting 70% of the revenue from the sale of some of Jones’s personal property not exempted under bankruptcy law.  Jones declared personal bankruptcy in December 2022, two months after the defamation decision.  His company filed for bankruptcy in July.

A lawyer for the families said they would consider the offer, and it might be the only opportunity to get any money out of Jones, who also has a $50 million judgment against him for another Sandy Hook family who sued him separately.

The USS Carney, a guided missile destroyer patrolling the Red Sea, shot down more than a dozen Iranian-made drones fired by Houthi rebels operating in Yemen on Saturday, CBS News reports, the latest wave in attacks the group says it’s carrying out in support of Hamas in Gaza, CBS News reports.

Two major shipping companies, Mediterranean Shipping Company and Maersk, announced that they were stopping their ships from sailing into the Red Sea either through the Gulf of Aden or via the Suez Canal.  A ship from MSC had been the target of a Houthi attack on Friday, suffering minor fire damage.