First, here’s the good news – since the election, CNN is beating Fox News in average viewers.  Now the bad news – Fox and CNN both are losing to Newsmax.  Why?  Fox isn’t “Trumpy” enough for the red hats, but still unwatchable for normal people.  Newsmax and an even worse OAN have taken over the alt-right folks who are abandoning Fox in droves as more of their anchors have acknowledged that Trump has no chance of stealing the election from Biden.  If you’ve never watched Newsmax and OAN, don’t bother.  By way of description, if Fox News is manure, Newsmax and OAN are nuclear waste.  They have created a Superfund site of toxic and deadly conspiracy theories, gross exaggerations, and freeform lying.  And Trumpists lap it up. Since the election CNN has averaged 1.73 million viewers, more than double a year ago. Fox News Channel averaged 1.56 million and MSNBC 1.53 million viewers.  More important, Newsmax, a safe haven for delusional Trumpists to hide from gravity and arithmetic, Newsmax beat Fox for the first time ever.  Newsmax commentators, even today, continue to peddle the lies that Trump is going to prevail over Biden.

Newsmax and OAN (as well as some remaining Fox programming) engage in prodigious lying, creating toxic propaganda that has now made it impossible for normal people to engage their viewers in any kind of productive debate.  In recent days, I’ve attempted discourse with several people, and it’s like arguing with an audio recording that’s running backwards.  These folks have bought in to the Dominion fairytale, the suitcases full of ballots narrative, and even the new “Office of the President-Elect” story ignoring the decades of the use of that term.  Even talking to these folks is exhausting because you simply can’t make any progress.

Even though Trump will soon be hiding at Mar a Lago and fighting criminal and civil charges in New York, the damage he inflicted and made recovery of our democracy even more remote.  I personally don’t see a route to recovery.

You would probably not imagine that things ever get mean in Idaho. Oh, but they do.

The Central District Health Board of Health meeting Tuesday night to discuss and vote on a public health order dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic was adjourned shortly after it started because of the danger posed by protesters at the CDH office and at some board members’ places of residence.

Moments after a tearful Commissioner Diana Lachiondo left the virtual meeting to head to her house — where her son was home alone, and where anti-mask, anti-health-order protesters had reportedly gathered.

There are lines you don’t cross and trying to intimidate a minor is one of them.  And that is the problem with the anti-maskers.  They have no lines.  They believe they have the right to blow their contagious disease in your face, to pee in a public swimming pool, and to scare your kids because they are hacked off at you.

I think these are people who have two emotions – mad and not mad.  Oh, and drunk. But the emotions remain the same.

If they feel personally affronted, they don’t have words to express it, so the scream freedumb! Everything is a personal affront to them. Everything.

They love Jesus, think he was blonde, but couldn’t tell you anything he ever said.

They think Wolf Blitzer is a communist. They heard it somewhere.

I’m sure you’ve got more observations ….

Mike Flynn appeared on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo and it was a mess.

Flynn is very upset that President Barack Obama warned Trump about Mike Flynn at their first White House meeting. Flynn whines, “they mention two people: dear leader Kim Jong Un and Gen. Michael Flynn. I’m public enemy number one.”

No, I think that would make you #2, which is about right.

I guess it’s about then that Flynn recognizes that he’s whining because he flips and lets this out about President Obama.

“And he should have been afraid of me and he still should be afraid,” he added. “Obama talking about me is outrageous. I will not give him any more time on your show.”

Oh Flynn, give me a break. Obama could take you and shove your old skinny butt through a basketball hoop in about 10 seconds.  Hellfire, you old lying piece of crap, I ain’t even scared of you. I’m an old lady and I could take you in 30 seconds and if you give me a walker, I could cut that time in half. You give me a walker and District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan and, Honey, you’d never know what hit you but you’d have to pull a purse and a gavel out of your ear for someone to explain it to you.

Idiot.

Thanks to SGray for the heads up.

There’s a couple of guys who kinda hide out who have scammed tens millions of dollars from people who thought they were giving to political PAC with precious names like American Wounded Veterans PAC, Wounded American Veterans PAC, Security in America PAC, and Law Enforcement for a Safer America PAC.  I guess they forgot Poor Little Homeless Puppies With Guns To Their Heads PAC.

Alan Bohms and his lawyer, Matthew Fisher, have stayed in the shadows with putting together intricate schemes where people send them money that goes into advertising for more money and their pockets. Generally less than 1% of the money goes to politicians. Salon did a great job tracking down all the subsidiary companies these guys have set up to funnel the money.

Years ago, I was filing the financial papers with the Texas Ethics Commission for a Democratic Club in my county. We had raised and spent about $35,000, which was a whole lot in a Republican County.  I worked for hours trying to find $3.48 that I could not account for.  The numbers just didn’t match. I went back through all the receipts and I found $1.37 of it in an expenditure I mis-entered. The next night, deadline, I was still $2.11 short. I worked on it for another couple of hours and then I did what any self-respecting woman would do – I cried like a little girl. That was years ago, and those numbers still occupy a large space in my brain which I could really use for remembering something like my niece’s husband’s name.

For the treasurer of every legitimate political organization and every donor who trusts an organization to do right by their money, these guys should rot in hell.

If you get a chance today to tell somebody that Alan Bohms and lawyer Matthew Fisher are a couple of punks, do so.  Let’s make them famous.

Thanks to Alfredo over at the Dairy Queen for the heads up.

Rep. Louie Gohmert’s tooth just fell out at his press conference. pic.twitter.com/ieeEeBtcXp

— The Recount (@therecount) December 8, 2020

It kinda looks like he didn’t even notice.  Or maybe it fell out yesterday and he just had it Scotch taped up there.

When you lie so much that your teeth run away, that’s a problem.

Trump just walked out of a Medal of Freedom Ceremony today leaving everyone baffled.

https://twitter.com/KevinlyFather/status/1336099660314755072

One possible explanation from a friend of a friend —

He crapped his pants.  Look at the faces of the kids around him.  They all have “I smell poop” look on their face. When he walked out, he clutched his tummy for a second, as if it hurt.  President craps a Lot.

Yeah, he is full of it and kids’ faces never lie.

Thanks to Kary for the heads up.