<On Saturday afternoon, MSNBNC contributor and former GOP spokesperson Kurt Bardella dropped the hammer on failed Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake over an inflammatory speech she gave at Mar-a-Lago this week.

As Bardella told host Alex Witt, Lake's speech was nothing less than "unhinged."

In her speech, the former Arizona television personality told a small crowd at the Florida resort, "We just had such a huge movement going into election day, so to watch these people – these evil b*stards," before pausing and adding, "Can I say that here, is that alright? To watch them steal this in broad daylight, and if they think they are going to get away with it, they messed with the wrong b*tch, okay?”

According to Bardella, the Republican leadership needs to forcefully disassociate themselves from the aspiring Republican politician at they very least.

"How far do you think that she can take this?" the MSNBC host pressed.

"It sounds to me like Kari Lake is kind of hoping that what happened on January 6th in Washington D.C. happens in her home state of Arizona. It sounds like someone who was unhinged, detached from reality and looking to use outward lies and conspiracy theories to incite and mobilize her lunatic followers to take action."

"And that could have very real-world repercussions," he cautioned. "We live in a time now where we know, rhetoric isn't just saying something and these people don't act on it. We have seen time and again that the most ardent supporters of these conspiracy theory-driven-type people: they take their words as marching orders and they act on them. The results can oftentimes result in violence or death, mayhem."

"It just sounds like she is hoping and egging something like that to happen in Arizona," he continued. " And it is incredibly irresponsible and frankly, every Republican needs to be speaking out and denouncing this."

"If you say nothing, if you aren't willing to step up and say something, then you are culpable when bad things happen," he lectured. "We saw that in the run-up to January sixth and we are seeing this now with Kari Lake. And again, against the backdrop of the leader of the Republican Party, Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago, she is out there saying these things. Where is the Republican Party? Why are they not denouncing her and speaking out against this?">

Not here!!!!!!

<On Monday, POLITICO reported that some House Republicans are enraged with Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) for his key role in trying to broker a spending agreement with Democrats.

"Shelby is coming under heavy fire from conservatives for cutting one last deal with Democrats on a massive year-end spending bill, an effort supported by both Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and President Joe Biden," reported Caitlyn Emma, Burgess Everett, and Jordain Carney. "Yet the Alabamian’s fellow Republicans are calling him a fiscal sellout for trying to fund the government for much of next year before a chaotic GOP House takes over in January."

"House Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) calls Shelby’s proposal a 'betrayal' and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) describes the lead appropriator’s work as a 'new monument to himself,'" said the report. "Meanwhile, Senate Republicans huddled about reforming what they see as a broken budget process next year after Shelby and Senate Appropriations Chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) wrote much of the year-end bill behind closed doors."

Shelby, for his part, acknowledges the bill could help Democrats politically in the short run — but argues it's necessary and that "his work will help save the House GOP majority from itself next year, staving off months of bitter infighting over federal spending bills."

“If we’re successful, we’ll have probably done them a favor,” said Shelby to POLITICO. “There probably won’t be much thanks for it.” Asked about Roy's attack, he said "I don't want a monument. Monuments are for pigeons and dogs."

"Even Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), who’s set to chair the House Appropriations Committee next year, backed out of negotiating with Shelby, Leahy and current panel chair Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) on the year-end deal," said the report. "'I was surprised that they didn’t enter into negotiations, because they are the Republicans in the House,' Shelby said. 'They should have been at the table, but they chose not to come. That’s up to them.'">

No sweat when Kyrsten Sinema or Joe Manchin throw a spanner in the works while crossing the aisle to give aid and comfort to their side, but one of their own doing likewise in a measure to better the lot of all citizens? Heresy! Hang the sumbitch!

<Republicans expressed outrage after the January 6 committee announced criminal referrals against former President Donald Trump on Monday.

The select congressional committee spent months investigating the Capitol riot, which saw a mob of Trump supporters violently attempt to force Congress to block President Joe Biden's 2020 Electoral College victory. Committee members have sought to prove Trump's involvement in inciting the violence and failing to prevent its escalation.

On Monday, the committee convened for its final meeting.

In addition to voting unanimously to approve the final report, which is set to be released later this week, the committee also issued four criminal referrals against the former president. The charges included obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the U.S., conspiracy to make a false statement and to "incite," "assist" or "aid or comfort" an insurrection.

Several Republicans lashed out at the committee following the meeting.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, accused the committee of issuing the referrals based upon political motivations.

"The J6 communist committee wants to stop President Trump because even after stealing the election they can't beat him, so now they want to haul him into court," Greene tweeted.

Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City who has served on Trump's legal team, made a similar accusation, tweeting: "It's clear that the purpose of the committee is to destroy a man willing to stand up to the permanent Washington political class and their corrupt cabal—the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump."

Conservative journalist Kyle Becker tweeted: "People who love America don't do what the J6 committee did to a former president who is 'guilty' only of asserting his constitutional right to challenge elections and to encourage people to peacefully protest. The Democrats are the most un-American party in this nation's history."

Representative Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican, wrote in a statement that the House Republicans, who retook a slim majority during the midterms, will "hold House Democrats accountable for their illegitimate abuse of power."

"House Democrats and Vicious Never Trumpers, who were run out of Congress by the American people, continue to desperately and unconstitutionally target President Trump and Republicans," Stefanik said.

Conservative pundit Tomi Lahren tweeted: "The whole Jan 6th never-ending saga serves 2 purposes only: 1) an ATTEMPT to make irrelevant republicans relevant again (not gonna happen @RepKinzinger @Liz_Cheney) 2) stigmatize ANY legit discussion on voter fraud."

Meanwhile, Trump responded to the referrals on Truth Social, attacking Representative Liz Cheney, the Wyoming congresswoman who was one of two Republicans to sit on the committee and who also lost renomination during the GOP primary.

"...But Liz Chaney lost by a record 40 points!" he wrote, misspelling Cheney's name.

Later, in another Truth Social post on Monday evening, Trump downplayed the criminal referrals as a "partisan attempt to sideline" him.

"These folks don't get it that when they come after me, people who love freedom rally around me. It strengthens me. What doesn't kill me makes me stronger. Americans know that I pushed for 20,000 troops to prevent violence on Jan 6, and that I went on television and told everyone to go home," he wrote.

He added: "The people understand that the Democratic Bureau of Investigation, the DBI, are out to keep me from running for president because they know I'll win and that this whole business of prosecuting me is just like impeachment was—a partisan attempt to sideline me and the Republican Party.">

<The U.S. Senate passed a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package on Thursday with support from a solid group of Republicans, ignoring calls from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and some other GOP House members to oppose the legislation.

After passing the Senate in a 68-29 vote, the package now heads to the Democratic-controlled House for final passage to prevent a potential government shutdown before the end of the year. From there, it would go to President Joe Biden's desk.

But the legislation has become a point of contention between Republican members of Congress as some vehemently oppose it and others support it. Notably, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has faced backlash from fellow Republicans like McCarthy and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene over his openness to negotiate with Democrats on the bill.

Last week, he told reporters that he would back a "truly bipartisan full-year bill without poison pills" if it was ready for Senate passage by the end of the following week.

"Otherwise, we'll be passing a short-term continuing resolution into the new year," McConnell added.

That short-term continuing resolution (CR), which would freeze federal funding levels until next year, is exactly what some Republicans are vying for. Greene slammed McConnell last week and called on him to back the short term CR now so that Republicans will be able to use their new narrow majority in the House next year for better leverage in negotiations.

"Every Republican in the country should be demanding Mitch McConnell actually do his job as Republican leader in the Senate and stop helping [President Joe] Biden and the Democrats continue to destroy our country. Pass a CR into '23 and NO OMNIBUS!!!" Greene tweeted on December 14.

McCarthy also said last week that he hopes Senate Republicans won't vote in favor of the omnibus bill since they could have a stronger hand in the new year.

Some Republicans have even threatened retribution against their GOP Senate colleagues for supporting the omnibus bill. A group of 13 current and incoming House members sent a letter to GOP senators this week warning that they would do everything in their power to "thwart even the smallest legislative and policy efforts" of senators who vote in favor.

"Kill this terrible bill or there is no point in pretending we are a united party, and we must prepare for a new political reality," the letter concluded.>

<A federal judge in Florida on Wednesday denied former President Donald Trump's request to block the New York attorney general's office from placing the Trump business empire under court supervision.

U.S. District Court Donald Middlebrooks ruled that the attorney general's office "raises four reasons – all of which are likely correct – why Plaintiff has no substantial likelihood of success on the merits."

The judge warned against continuing the case against New York Attorney General Letitia James and turned down Trump's attempt to get emergency relief to stop James from seeking materials from his private trust.

"This litigation has all the telltale signs of being both vexatious and frivolous," Middlebrooks wrote in a footnote to his eight-page order.

Court rejects Trump's bid to dodge judge he called "unbelievably unfair" in NY fraud case After a three-year investigation, James filed a lawsuit against the Trump Organization in September, alleging years of financial fraud in real estate, tax and insurance transactions.

"Time and time again, the courts have ruled that Donald Trump cannot evade the law for personal gain," James said after the judge approved her request for an independent monitor. "Today's decision will ensure that Donald Trump and his companies cannot continue the extensive fraud that we uncovered and will require the appointment of an independent monitor to oversee compliance at the Trump Organization. No number of lawsuits, delay tactics, or threats will stop our pursuit of justice."

Businesses engaged in repeated illegal behavior can face a variety of sanctions under New York law, which would make it nearly impossible for Trump's firms to do business in the state, Politico reported.

A Manhattan judge agreed to James' request for a court-appointed monitor to oversee the Trump businesses, but Trump is appealing that ruling.

Middlebrooks said an injunction would interfere with the monitor doing her work and also get in the way of James' evidence-gathering efforts in the fraud case, which heads to trial in October 2023.

The judge highlighted the need for oversight, noting that Trump's company was just convicted in a related criminal tax case.

"The Trump Organization has already been found guilty by a New-York jury of several counts of tax fraud," the judge wrote. "To now impede a civil enforcement action by the New York Attorney General would be unprecedented and contrary to the interests of the people of New York."

Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing, sued James in Florida to try to block her access to the trust records. He argued that James is trying to gain access to his revocable trust and making details of his estate planning public.

But Middlebrooks said that concern was "quintessentially speculative" since the state indicated in email exchanges with Trump's attorneys that it would receive documents with redactions of estate-planning portions.

He added that the Florida suit lacked merit for a variety of reasons, including that James isn't located in Florida.

James is gathering evidence to prove her claim that Trump, his three oldest children and his company were involved in a decade-long fraud scheme manipulating the value of his assets to deceive banks and insurers.

The judge in her case appointed a monitor to oversee parts of Trump's business during the litigation to prevent "further fraud or illegality.">

No, <fredthebore>: twist and turn as you might, you cannot control content here.

<Isiah Thomas claims the NBA changed the rules for Bulls legend Michael Jordan and claimed they did it from a marketing standpoint to make more money from Jordan

One of the greatest rivalries in NBA history was the Detroit Pistons vs. the Chicago Bulls in the late 1980s and 90s. At the heart of the rivalry were the leaders of each team NBA legends and Hall of Famers Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas. For the first few years of Jordan's career, the Pistons dominated the Bulls. The Pistons in this era were known as "The Bad Boys" due to their scrappy and fierce play style. Their play's "dirty" nature led to many players and teams disliking the Pistons. They wouldn't get the same treatment as teams like the Boston Celtics or Los Angeles Lakers, but they dominated the league anyways.

From 1988-1990, the Pistons beat the Bulls in the playoffs for three straight years. Despite some awe-inspiring efforts by Jordan, including multiple 45+ point performances, the Bulls couldn't edge past the Pistons. Over these three playoff series, Thomas was only able to average up to 20.7 PPG. The dominance came as a team effort from the Pistons, particularly on defense. To prepare for playing the Bulls, The Bad Boys created what is known as the "Jordan rules".

It wasn't a secret that the Bulls were almost a one-man team, with Jordan as the show's star. So, the Pistons created a rule to contain him by keeping him on the ground. And when he would go up, get the most out of a foul. It isn't an overstatement to say that the Pistons team abused Jordan in the playoffs. It wasn't until 1991 that the Bulls were able to blow past the Pistons in the playoffs en route to their first championship.

Isiah Thomas was recently featured on "The Pivot" podcast and discussed his rivalry with Jordan, including the NBA rule change.

"Y'all want him to win; y'all changed all the rules so he can win. Wait a minute now; these are the facts. I go down the lane; I get my a** beat. You see pictures of Michael Cooper scratching Larry Bird's jersey off, right? You see Kevin McHale slamming Kurt Rambis to the floor. You see, Dr. J, you know, buying on Bird, right? Everybody's getting hit. Oh, but he (Jordan) can't get hit? So we gon' change all the rules so that he can dunk."

It appears that Thomas thinks the NBA saw Jordan as the "golden boy" that wasn't allowed to get hurt. In today's game, players like LeBron James get a lot of calls because of his name and prominence. Or, you have Joel Embiid, who has mastered the art of drawing fouls. Back then, however, fouls were called much less frequently and were much more physical. A flagrant foul in the NBA today was a common foul in that period. Thomas claimed that the dunk was what the NBA was trying to market then, and they changed the rules to allow Jordan's very marketable dunk.

"So the Bad Boys, okay, we won't let you dunk. You know, just go on and take your two free throws. "Oh, we can't sell that." So now, did it makes us mad? Did it make me, did it make me mad? No, it made me want to beat you more. And even though all that had happened, right? Dude, if I don't mess up my wrist, this is how I feel; they don't win."

Thomas let loose his belief that not only did the NBA change the rules for marketing purposes, but the Pistons would also have beaten the Bulls had he not been injured. Even after all these years, the rivalry between Jordan and Thomas remains. After this recent interview, it won't end anytime soon.>

<No country has a perfect COVID vaccination rate, even this far into the pandemic, but America’s record is particularly dismal. About a third of Americans—more than a hundred million people—have yet to get their initial shots. You can find anti-vaxxers in every corner of the country. But by far the single group of adults most likely to be unvaccinated is Republicans: 37 percent of Republicans are still unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated, compared with 9 percent of Democrats. Fourteen of the 15 states with the lowest vaccination rates voted for Donald Trump in 2020. (The other is Georgia.)

We know that unvaccinated Americans are more likely to be Republican, that Republicans in positions of power led the movement against COVID vaccination, and that hundreds of thousands of unvaccinated Americans have died preventable deaths from the disease. The Republican Party is unquestionably complicit in the premature deaths of many of its own supporters, a phenomenon that may be without precedent in the history of both American democracy and virology.

Obviously, nothing about being a Republican makes someone inherently anti-vaccine. Many Republicans—in fact, most of them—have gotten their first two shots. But the wildly disproportionate presence of Republicans among the unvaccinated reveals an ugly and counterintuitive aspect of the GOP campaign against vaccination: At every turn, top figures in the party have directly endangered their own constituents. Trump disparaged vaccines while president, even after orchestrating Operation Warp Speed. Other politicians, such as Texas Governor Greg Abbott, made all COVID-vaccine mandates illegal in their state. More recently, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis called for a grand jury to investigate the safety of COVID vaccines. The right-wing media have leaned even harder into vaccine skepticism. On his prime-time Fox News show, Tucker Carlson has regularly questioned the safety of vaccines, inviting guests who have called for the shots to be “withdrawn from the market.”

Breaking down the cost of vaccine hesitancy would be simple if we could draw a causal relationship between Republican leaders’ anti-vaccine messaging and the adoption of those ideas by Americans, and then from those ideas to deaths due to non-vaccination. Unfortunately, we don’t have the data to do so. Individual vaccine skepticism cannot be traced back to a single source, and even if it could, we don’t know exactly who is unvaccinated and what their political affiliations are.

What we do have is a patchwork of estimations and correlations that, taken together, paint a blurry but nevertheless grim picture of how Republican leaders spread the vaccine hesitancy that has killed so many people. We know that as of April 2022, about 318,000 people had died from COVID because they were unvaccinated, according to research from Brown University. And the close association between Republican vaccine hesitancy and higher death rates has been documented. One study estimated that by the fall of 2021, vaccine uptake accounted for 10 percent of the total difference between Republican and Democratic deaths. But that estimate has changed—and even likely grown—over time.

Partisanship affected outcomes in the pandemic even before we had vaccines. A recent study found that from October 2020 to February 2021, the death rate in Republican-leaning counties was up to three times higher than that of Democratic-leaning counties, likely because of differences in masking and social distancing. Even when vaccines came around, these differences continued, Mauricio Santillana, an epidemiology expert at Northeastern University and a co-author of the study, told me. Follow-up research published in Lancet Regional Health Americas in October looked at deaths from April 2021 to March 2022 and found a 26 percent higher death rate in areas where voters leaned Republican. “There are subsequent and very serious [partisan] patterns with the Delta and Omicron waves, some of which can be explained by vaccination,” Bill Hanage, a co-author of the paper and an epidemiologist at Harvard, told me in an email.

But to understand why Republicans have died at higher rates, you can’t look at vaccine status alone. Congressional districts controlled by a trifecta of Republican leaders—state governor, Senate, and House—had an 11 percent higher death rate, according to the Lancet study. A likely explanation, the authors write, could be that in the post-vaccine era, those leaders chose policies and conveyed public-health messages that made their constituents more likely to die. Although we still can’t say these decisions led to higher death rates, the association alone is jarring....>

<....One of the most compelling studies comes from researchers at Yale, who published their findings as a working paper in November. They link political party and excess-death rate—the percent increase in deaths above pre-COVID levels—among those registered as either Democrats or Republicans, providing a more granular view. They chose to analyze data from Florida and Ohio from before and after vaccines were available. Looking at the period before the vaccine, researchers found a 1.6 percentage-point difference in excess death rate among Republicans and Democrats, with a higher rate among Republicans. But after vaccines became available, that gap widened dramatically to 10.4 percentage points, again with a higher Republican excess death rate. “When we compare individuals who are of the same age, who live in the same county in the same month of the pandemic, there are differences correlated with your political-party affiliation that emerge after vaccines are available,” Jacob Wallace, an assistant professor of public health at Yale who co-authored the paper, told me. “That’s a statement we can confidently make based on the study and we couldn’t before.”

Even with this new research, it is difficult to determine just how many people died as a result of their political views. In the “excess death” study, researchers dealt only with rates of excess death, not actual death-toll numbers. Overall, excess deaths represent a small share of deaths. “On the scale of national registration for both parties,” Wallace said, “we’re talking about relatively small numbers and differences in deaths” when you look at excess death rates alone.

The absolute number of Republican deaths is less important than the fact that they happened needlessly. Vaccines could have saved lives. And yet, the party that describes itself as pro-life campaigned against them. Democrats are not without fault, though. The Biden administration’s COVID blunders are no doubt to blame for some of the nation’s deaths. But on the whole, Democratic leaders have mostly not promoted ideas or enforced policies around COVID that actively chip away at life expectancy. It is a tragedy that the Republican push against basic lifesaving science has cut lives short and continues to do so. The partisan divide in COVID deaths, Hanage said, is just “another example of how the partisan politics of the U.S. has poisoned the well of public health.”....>

<....What’s most concerning about all of this is that partisan disparities in death rates were also apparent before COVID. People living in Republican jurisdictions have been at a health disadvantage for more than 20 years. From 2001 to 2019, the death rate in Democratic counties decreased by 22 percent, according to a recent study; in Republican counties, it declined by only 11 percent. In the same time period, the political gap in death rates increased sixfold.

Health outcomes have been diverging at the state level since the ’90s, Steven Woolf, an epidemiologist at Virginia Commonwealth University, told me. Woolf’s work suggests that over the decades, state policy decisions on health issues such as Medicaid, gun legislation, tobacco taxes, and, indeed, vaccines have likely had a stronger impact on state health trajectories than other factors. COVID’s high Republican death rates are not an isolated phenomenon but a continuation of this trend. As Republican-led states pushed back on lockdowns, the impact on population death rates was observed within weeks, Woolf said.

If the issue is indeed systemic, that doesn’t bode well for the future. Other factors could explain the higher death rate in Republican-leaning places—more poverty, less education, worse socioeconomic conditions—, though Woolf said isn’t convinced that those factors aren’t related to bad state health policy too. In any case, the long-term decline of health in red states indicates that there is an ongoing problem at a high level in Republican-led places, and that something has gone awry. “If you happen to live in certain states, your chances for living a long life are going to be much higher than if you’re an American living in a different state,” Woolf said.

Unfortunately, this trend shows no signs of breaking. The anti-science messaging that fuels such a divide is popular with Republican leaders because it plays so well with their constituents. Far-right crowds cheer for missed vaccine targets and jokes about executing scientific leaders. In an environment where partisanship trumps all—including trying to save people’s lives—such messaging is both politically effective and morally abhorrent. The data, however imperfect, demand a reckoning with the consequences of such a strategy not only during the pandemic but over the past few decades, and in the years to come. But to acknowledge how many Republicans didn’t have to die would mean giving credence to scientific and medical expertise. So long as America remains locked in a poisonous partisan battle in which science is wrongly dismissed as being associated with the left, the death toll will only rise.>

<Now that the transcripts of the depositions given to the January 6th Committee have been published for the public record, associates of former President Donald Trump who were not referred to for criminal charges are not breathing a sigh of relief--just the opposite, they now have actions confirmed by sworn testimony that is now evidence passed over to the Department of Justice for further investigation.

What was portrayed and downplayed by many Republicans as forgetfulness, false conspiracy and eagerness to indict, has been contradicted by the release of the report that served more as an incubator for evidence than a platform to charge all involved.

With so many witnesses pleading the Fifth Amendment--protecting their right not to self-incriminate during a government interview, the Department of Justice now can play 'Hangman' with the discovered evidence -- filling in the blanks by sending out subpoenas to those who did not want to offer up known information to the January 6th Committee, or had sudden memory lapses.

Here are five Trump associates that should be fearful that their actions--or inactions, detailed by the January 6th Committee Report -- will put them under an even closer microscope of scrutiny by the Department of Justice:

Ivanka Trump & Jared Kushner - As with any Trump business transaction or social occurrence, you always have to first look close at the family tree. One of the earliest leaks from the report days before it was published was that it singles out a high level of uncooperative behavior from Ivanka Trump, from drawing blanks on logistical questions, to not remembering where she was during crucial time periods of Jan. 6 to convenient memory lapses. This could make her testimony suspect.

As for Kushner, one of the main questions to be answered from Jan. 6 is regarding what communication silos was Kushner using during the insurrection. Was he playing a role of reinforcement to the Trump family political contacts or was he leading a whole different lane of communications with his and the family's corporate and business allies?

Julie Fancelli - There's more than a passing theme of word irony when the heiress of the Publix supermarket chain is implicated via a public report in her role with the Jan. 6 scheme by funding bus transportation for hundreds of Trump supporters to the planned insurrection. During her deposition, Fancelli repeatedly attempted to invoke four different amendments in lieu of responding, whether those amendments were being used in the correct context or not. Ironically enough her deposition in which she is clearly grabbing for straws may lead to a mess that's a lot bigger than a cleanup on aisle nine...

Kayleigh McEnany - By turning over text messages from and around Jan. 6 to the committee earlier this year, McEnany may have saved herself from the highest level of initial scrutiny from a possible DOJ investigation, but as the transcripts come out there are lingering questions about McEnany's role in the communications gap during the insurrection. Text messages between Trump administration surrogate Katrina Pierson and Mark Meadows have surfaced in the public report, where Meadows places full responsibility of the insurrection to Trump's rhetoric and messaging. If that is the case, what was the responsibility of McEnany, then press secretary, in making sure the communication to stop the insurrection got to the general public?

Even if she had to go rogue, McEnany only had two weeks remaining in her position, so preserving job security wasn't a feasible response or excuse.

Stefan Passatino - To most, Passatino was just another Trump lawyer before the Jan. 6 report was published. Now Passatino is a 'star' of the report and under the spotlight for pushing former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson to respond to her deposition with responses that she couldn't recall specific details, and reminding her that the committee didn't know what she knew and didn't know. Now that Hutchinson's two depositions, one during Passatino's guidance and one after, are available to the general public, Passatino's guidance will be under close scrutiny...whether he remembers it or not.>

< perfidious and his pal zanzibar have harassed me non-stop for years. Chessgames allows it, apparently because he's an editor. perfidious cannot refute my posts like I do his slop, so he just bitches by belittling me personally. Notice that we learn nothing from pervicious on this page; it's just an obvious personal attack, for no other purpose than to harass me. CGs just sits on their ass and lets him cyberbully me day after day like he has so many others over the years....>

While you, of course, never put a foot wrong, as you claim to be attacked for no reason.

<....Yes, I fight back! I'll never give in to a perpetual cyberbully....>

Nor shall I, <stinky finger>.

<....I did make a valid observation, nothing special, but it certainly was on-topic....>

Valid for the uninitiated, at all events.

<....perfidious hates religion....>

<Former President Donald Trump lashed out at President Joe Biden, the January 6 committee, and his other perceived rivals in two Truth Social posts on Christmas Eve.

"The Unselect Committee’s January 6th Report is a Hoax, no different than RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, and all of the other Scams that the Disinformation laden Democrats have been planting for years," Trump wrote. "If I weren’t leading by a lot in the Polls, against both parties, this continuation of falsehoods and lies would end quickly. I won in 2016, did much better in 2020 (RIGGED!), and the Radical Marxists don’t want to run against me or MAGA in 2024. I had almost nothing to do with January 6th. FREE SPEECH!"

Earlier this week, the House select committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol has urged the Justice Department to pursue Trump for inciting an insurrection, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiring to defraud the US government and making false statements.

The panel has begun turning over evidence to independent prosecutor Jack Smith, who is overseeing federal probes into Trump's role in the riot and his handling of government secrets improperly stored at his Florida beach club.

"If the evidence is as we presented it, I'm convinced the Justice Department will charge former President Trump," committee chairman Thompson told CNN ahead of the report's release.

The twice-impeached 76-year-old Trump is also facing criminal and civil investigations into his business practices and efforts to overturn his election defeat in the swing state of Georgia.

In a subsequent Truth Social post, the former president raged against Biden and law enforcement.

"Merry Christmas to EVERYONE, including the Radical Left Marxists that are trying to destroy our Country, the Federal Bureau of Investigation that is illegally coercing & paying Social and LameStream Media to push for a mentally disabled Democrat over the Brilliant, Clairvoyant, and USA LOVING Donald J. Trump, and, of course, The Department of Injustice, which appointed a Special 'Prosecutor' who, together with his wife and family, HATES 'Trump' more than any other person on earth. LOVE TO ALL>

Merry f***ing Christmas! Happy f***ing New Year!

<The Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts showed no mercy to former newscaster Kari Lake over her belief that a key part of proving that the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election was stolen from her fell flat in a courtroom on Thursday.

According to Lake who has been floating conspiracies of election shenanigans long before she lost to new Gov. Katie Hobbs (D), she felt her attorneys and "experts" were in possession of a "bombshell" that would make people sit up and pay attention.

As Roberts notes, that bombshell "wasn’t even a small firecracker. Not even a party popper."

Writing "Kari Lake’s trial is over," the longtime columnist said the assertion that "somebody shrunk the ballots to cause Election Day mayhem" failed to pan out.

"Scott Jarrett, the county’s co-elections director, testified on Thursday that temporary technicians dispatched on Election Day to troubleshoot problems in three vote centers accidently set the printers to shrink-to-fit, causing the vote center tabulators to reject them," Robert wrote before adding, "What he described was a snafu, not a scheme."

She continued, "But Lake’s expert, Clay Parikh, said those 19-inch ballots turned up in ballots he inspected earlier this week from all six vote centers and thus it “could not be by accident," which the columnist mocked as "Ipso facto, a conspiracy-o."

Continuing in that vein, she wrote, "Who knows? Maybe it would have worked in fantasyland. But here in Maricopa County, there are those bipartisan boards that make sure such ballots count. So even if there was a plot (doubtful), it was foiled when those votes were ultimately counted."

According to the columnist, it's time for judges to put a stop to her running to the courts with nothing and wasting their time.

With Lake telling reporters afterward, "We proved without a shadow of a doubt that there was malicious intent that caused disruptions so great it changed the results of the election," Roberts said not so fast.

"Something was proved without a shadow of doubt, all right. And it should be followed up with sanctions, as a warning to candidates that they’d better come to court armed with something more than sour grapes if they want to overturn the results of an election. If Lake had proof of a county plot to deny her her due, it certainly wasn’t offered up this week," she wote [sic] before concluding, "Opinion, speculation and outright wishful thinking? Yeah. But actual evidence in a courtroom? No.">

<Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, faced backlash on Friday for heading to Costa Rica for vacation, ultimately skipping Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's address to Congress and not voting in person on the nearly $1.7 trillion omnibus bill.

The GOP lawmaker has been vacationing with her family throughout the past week, Business Insider reported Friday. However, she still managed to assert her presence online by posting a Twitter thread about her support to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and his bid for House speakership. In a different Twitter thread, Greene also blasted Representative Lauren Boebert after the Colorado Republican criticized her over her past belief in "Jewish space lasers."

However, her online presence wasn't enough to those who criticized her on Twitter for leaving at a time when her state is experiencing power outages caused by an extreme winter storm.

"Marjorie Taylor Greene vacations in Costa Rica, while hundreds of thousands of Georgians are out of power. Cruz vacationed in Cancun, while hundreds froze to death. Trump vacationed on his golf courses, while Covid ravaged our nation. When s*** hits the fan, Republicans vacation!" political commentator Lindy Li tweeted.

Greene has also been blasted for criticizing Zelensky and skipping his address to Congress on Wednesday, tweeting before his speech that international foreign aid is like Americans being "raped everyday at the hands of their own elected leaders."

"Despite all of her angry tweets about the Omnibus bill and Zelenskyy, Marjorie Taylor Greene was caught fleeing the country to Costa Rica for vacation earlier this week. She voted by proxy, despite introducing a bill to ban proxy voting earlier this year," tweeted by political action committee, MeidasTouch.

Greene voted against the spending bill by proxy despite heavily criticizing it, saying in a Monday letter posted by PatriotTakes on Twitter: "I am unable to physically attend proceedings due to the ongoing public health emergency [COVID], and I hereby grant the authority to cast my vote by proxy to the Honorable Barry Moore (Alabama), who has agreed to serve as my proxy."

"Marjorie Taylor Greene is vacationing in Costa Rica right now instead of voting on important bills. She's en [sic] embarrassment to the US," said Twitter user Harry Sisson.

Erica Marsh, a former field organizer to President Joe Biden, also tweeted: "earlier this year, Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced a bill to ban proxy voting for members of Congress. Today, she [voted] by proxy while vacationing in Costa Rica."

Greene's spokesperson Nick Dyer told Newsweek on Saturday that the congresswoman and her family always take a trip together during Christmas time and that this year was "extra important."

"This week, MTG not only did her job as Congresswoman, but she also did her most important job: being a Mom. She's spending much-needed and much-deserved quality time with her children and their father," Dyer said. "All she's done is follow Nancy Pelosi's rules and she's happy she could proudly vote NO to the $1.7 trillion Omnimonster."

Meanwhile, Representative Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat, urged Representative Chip Roy, a Texas Republican, to call Greene a "liar" after Roy told Fox News on Friday that many lawmakers will not be present to vote for the omnibus bill. Roy added that they will vote by proxy as they cite COVID concerns when they are actually on Christmas vacation.

"Half of this body is not even going to be here. And they're lying, they're lying on forms saying that they're voting by proxy for COVID, and it's a lie," Roy said.

"Why don't you call @RepMTG a liar to her face," Swalwell said, addressing Roy in a tweet.

Proxy voting is a COVID-related procedure that was originally introduced to allow lawmakers to skip sessions in Washington, D.C., to curb the spread of the virus. However, it has been used for reasons not-related to the pandemic. A little more than 200 House Representatives voted by proxy on Thursday.

Though Greene took advantage of this procedure, she heavily criticized it in the past and introduced a bill in March to scrap the practice, according to Business Insider. "Now that COVID is over and we're back to normal life, Congresswoman Greene is ready to end proxy voting," Greene's spokesman Nick Dyer told the outlet in May.>

<The off-camera insult-flinging between Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump is intensifying as the two prepare to potentially square off against each other to secure the Republican presidential nomination.

The latest news comes from a Vanity Fair report, in which Gabriel Sherman writes that Desantis called Trump “a moron who has no business running for president,” according to former staffers of the Florida Governor.

The Behind-Closed-Doors Brawl: Although the two haven’t spoken since the summer, according to the report, insulting each other surreptitiously appears to be a warm-up exercise ahead of a potential face off in the 2024 presidential race. DeSantis already has a plan in place for how to deal with the former president if the two were to face off in a debate.

“The only way to beat Trump is to attack him head-on,” said DeSantis, according to a Republican source who spoke to Vanity Fair. “He says he would turn to Trump during a debate and say, ‘Why didn’t you fire Fauci? You said you would build the wall, but there is no wall. Why is that?’”

As for Trump’s plans, the former president has been keeping a close eye on DeSantis and his poll numbers, while also gathering information on how visitors at his Bedminster golf club view the Florida governor, according to Benzinga.

DeSantis, meanwhile, left a bad taste in Trump’s mouth after failing to adequately acknowledge the role Trump played in boosting DeSantis during the 2018 gubernatorial primary.

“Trump says (DeSantis) is overrated, disloyal, and a know-nothing,” according to one of Trump’s friends, who spoke to Vanity Fair.

The former president also refers to DeSantis as “fat, phony and whiny,” according to a new book by New York Times correspondent Maggie Haberman.

Trump’s Competition: Desantis has gained the support of big backers such as Citadel founder Ken Griffin and Stephen Ross, a real estate mogul and Miami Dolphins owner, who admire DeSantis’ qualifications and views on deregulation.

One top GOP donor described the Florida governor as Trump “without the insanity and the tweets at three in the morning,” according to Vanity Fair.>