Fri: What Does It Take To Make Alex Jones, the Sane One?

So Much Winning.  Are You Tired of Winning, Yet?

Senate votes to avert rail strike; sends the legislation to Biden for his signature

Biden defended the deal despite its lack of paid leave coverage that some Democrats were demanding.

At a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House, Biden defended the deal despite its lack of paid leave coverage that some Democrats were demanding, blaming Republicans for voting against it.

The president said he’ll continue to fight for paid leave after the agreement is approved by Congress and a rail strike is averted.

“I think we’re gonna get it done, but not within this agreement,” he said. “We’re going to avoid the rail strike, keep the rails running, keep things moving, and we’re gonna go back and we’re gonna get paid leave not just for rail workers, but for all workers.”

Warnock is Winning, But Old White People, Prefer the Lying Woman-Hater, Who Wants to Be a Werewolf.

In the end, the Georgia Senate runoff will all come down to which party turns out more of its diehard voters. But if CNN's latest poll is any indication, independent voters are poised to give incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock a slight edge over his GOP rival Herschel Walker.

The poll put Warnock ahead of Walker by several points, 52%-48%, with 99% of Democrats supporting Warnock while 95% of Republicans were backing Walker. That's about what we'd expect given the highly tribal nature of our times.

But independents favored Warnock in the poll by 25 points, 61%-36%. Independent voters, however, will likely make up a smaller share of the electorate on Dec. 6 than they did on Election Day. The CNN survey suggested they would account for 17% of voters versus making up nearly a quarter of the electorate (24%) in the initial round of voting in Georgia.

But again, with the race so close, turnout will be the ballgame. In the initial round, Warnock edged out Walker by a little less than a point, 49.4%-48.5%.

CNN notes that voters under 35 largely prefer Warnock (74% to 25%), while those 65 or older favor Walker by 26 points (63% to 37%).

Younger white voters prefer Walker too, but not by much, while their elders favor Walker by a lot.

Trouble in Paradise - Maybe they Can Get Some Werewolves to Donate.

Outgunned financially as Democrats dominate early voting, Herschel Walker’s Georgia Senate campaign Thursday begged donors to pony up more money because of Sen. Raphael Warnock’s growing sense of momentum.

“Simply put, we’re being outspent 3 to 1 by Warnock, and we’re being outspent nearly 2 to 1 by outside groups. We need help,” Walker campaign manager Scott Paradise wrote in the memo sent to donors Thursday, which was obtained by NBC News ahead of Tuesday’s runoff election.

The memo calculates that Warnock and the Democratic groups backing him have spent and committed a combined $92 million since the November election, compared with $45 million that Walker and his Republican allies have ponied up.

While urgent last-minute fundraising appeals are a staple of any campaign in the closing days, the sense of concern underlying Paradise’s plea is underpinned by data and concerns from fellow Republicans that suggest the election is trending in Warnock’s favor.

Polling has been relatively scant during the runoff. Most surveys show Warnock ahead of Walker — albeit by an amount that’s inside the margin of error — so the race could be statistically tied. The closeness of the race is emphasized in Paradise’s memo, which calls the contest “winnable” — but only if Republicans, who outnumber Democrats in the state, turn out in force.

I'm Not Tired

The Courts Rule for Sanity



They Also Handed Judge Loose-Cannon Her Head

A panel of judges on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday to overturn the appointment of a special master tasked with reviewing thousands of documents seized by the FBI from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate this summer.

The ruling by the three-judge panel, including two Trump appointees, goes into effect in seven days, absent intervention by the full circuit court or the Supreme Court.

"The law is clear," the judges found. "We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so."

The order effectively eliminates what federal authorities had described as a major obstacle in their ongoing criminal investigation into whether Trump illegally retained highly classified records after leaving the presidency and obstructed efforts by the government to recover them. He denies wrongdoing.

The appellate judges had signaled in a hearing last week that they were likely to order an end to the special master's review. They repeatedly expressed concern that the appointment of third-party judge Raymond Dearie by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida lacked any clear precedent.

The panel was skeptical of assertions from Trump's lawyer Jim Trusty, who described the search of Trump's home as "an extraordinary case" that warranted intervention from an outside arbiter to review all the materials seized in August.

Cannon had empowered Dearie, as special master, to evaluate the approximately 13,000 materials taken from Trump's club, including roughly 100 documents with classification markings.

As part of his work, Dearie was supposed to analyze if any of the documents that were taken raised privilege concerns, either executive privilege or attorney-client privilege.

Thursday's opinion makes clear the appellate judges' belief that Cannon stepped widely outside of her jurisdiction in appointing the special master.

The judges wrote that Trump had made no argument and presented no proof that the government exercised a "callous disregard" for his rights in carrying out the search, which would be the necessary standard for such an extraordinary intervention by the courts into the executive branch's law enforcement functions.

They dismissed as a "sideshow" Trump's legal team's argument that the Presidential Records Act gives him some right of personal possession over the documents, noting that even if he was correct -- the items would still likely be subject to seizure under the search warrant.

"The status of a document as personal or presidential does not alter the authority of the government to seize it under a warrant supported by probable cause; search warrants authorize the seizure of personal records as a matter of course," they wrote.

The judges also addressed whether Trump's status as a former president would create some kind of exemption or carve-out to justify judicial intervention in the search.

"It is indeed extraordinary for a warrant to be executed at the home of a former president—but not in a way that affects our legal analysis or otherwise gives the judiciary license to interfere in an ongoing investigation," they wrote. "To create a special exception here would defy our Nation’s foundational principle that our law applies “to all, without regard to numbers, wealth, or rank.”

Ye Is Like Will Rogers. He Never Met a Man He Didn't Like.

In an hourslong interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, the rapper Ye praised Hitler, made antisemitic jokes and talked about his recent meeting with former President Donald Trump.

The interview became one of the biggest stories on the internet Thursday, dominating discussions on social media for hours. “Kanye” became the top trending topic on Twitter and, according to Google Trends, searches for “Infowars” spiked during the interview.

During the livestreamed exchange, Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, repeatedly referred to antisemitic stereotypes, made antisemitic jokes and praised Hitler. NBC News previously reported that Ye had used antisemitic language in workplace settings and spoke positively about the Nazi dictator, resulting in at least one paid settlement.

“The Jewish media has made us feel like the Nazis and Hitler have never offered anything of value to the world,” Ye said at one point during the interview. “I see good things about Hitler, also.”

What Does It Take To Make Alex Jones, the Sane One?


On a Highway to Hell!  How Silly Is It That This Is Being Fact-Checked?

KANYE West has made a lot of extreme claims in an interview - praising fascist dictator Adolf Hitler.

West made claims that Hitler was responsible for creating microphones and highways, but is this true?

There is a lot of debate as to who initially invented the microphone, but one thing is for certain, it wasn't Adolf Hitler.

Many believe the creator to be David Edward Hughes, who brought out the carbon microphone in 1878.

However, a US supreme court ruling in 1892 gave credit of this to Thomas Edison, despite Emil Berliner attempting to apply for a patent for the invention.

American James West also holds a patent for the development of the microphone. Born in 1931, he invented the foil electret microphone.

In terms of highways, West's claims are also false.

The invention of the highway can be traced back to 1907, when the Vanderbilt family built The Long Island Motor parkway in New York.

Germany's first autobahn was completed in 1932, a year before Hitler became German chancellor.

The initial idea was conceived in the 1920s.

Wanna' Get Away?

A popular music trade magazine was caught up in some bad timing of biblical proportions.

On Thursday, Billboard magazine posted a tweet linking to an article that named Kanye West, the rapper who now goes by Ye, as the “Top Gospel Artist of 2022.”

The tweet was one of many noting the top artists in various genres, but this one had the unique misfortune of being posted around the same time Ye was praising Nazi leader Adolf Hitler to conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

“Every human being has something of value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler,” Ye told Jones on Thursday, while noting that “Hitler was born Christian.”

Billboard has since deleted the tweet, but it’s been preserved in screenshots for posterity.