Opening Blast: President Trump opened the NATO summit meeting today in London with a tirade against French President Emmanuel Macron for saying the organization is “brain dead” without US leadership. He said Macron had been “very insulting” to the alliance and called the remarks a “very, very nasty statement essentially to 28 countries.”

  Trump himself has repeatedly threatened to quit NATO and he is reducing the amount of money the US pays to NATO’s central budget. Macron has said Europe can no longer count on unwavering support from America.

  The President and Macron are scheduled to meet later. That’ll be fun.

  Trump spoke to reporters for nearly an hour, taking the opportunity to defend himself as the impeachment proceedings continue in Washington. “This is a witch hunt by the Democrats,” he said.

Twisted Words: The President yesterday took the words of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and inflated them in his own defense to claim he did nothing wrong holding back military aid.

  Trump tweeted, “Breaking News: The President of Ukraine has just again announced that President Trump has done nothing wrong with respect to Ukraine and our interactions or calls.”

  Well, no, that’s not what Zelensky said. The Ukraine president has said he felt no pressure from Trump but he told Time Magazine, “Look, I never talked to the president from the position of a quid pro quo. That’s not my thing.” Zelensky said. “I don’t want us to look like beggars. But you have to understand: We’re at war. If you’re our strategic partner, then you can’t go blocking anything for us. I think that’s just about fairness. It’s not about a quid pro quo. It just goes without saying.”

  Trump took that and told reporters, “The Ukrainian president came out and said very strongly that President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong. That should be case over.”

  Again, no, that’s not what Zelensky said.

Gutpunch: Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, whose text messages critical of President Trump made her a target of the President for the past two years, said she’s finally spoken up after Trump in a Minnesota rally imitated her having an orgasm with her FBI lover.

   “It’s like being punched in the gut,” Page told the Daily Beast. “My heart drops to my stomach when I realize he has tweeted about me again. The president of the United States is calling me names to the entire world. He’s demeaning me and my career. It’s sickening.” 

  Page had an affair with FBI agent Peter Strzok and the two traded texts, some of which were politically critical. Trump seized on that to claim that the prejudice of Page and Strzok was instrumental in having him investigated for colluding with Russian election hackers. There’s no proof that it’s true.

  Trump has accused both Page and Strzok of committing treason. She said, 

“And when the president accuses you of treason by name, despite the fact that I know there’s no fathomable way that I have committed any crime at all, let alone treason, he’s still somebody in a position to actually do something about that. To try to further destroy my life.”

The Bulletin Board: In retaliation for Washington’s adoption of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act supporting pro-democracy protesters, 

China is barring the US Navy from making port calls and preventing American military aircraft from visiting Hong Kong. — President Trump’s reelection campaign announced it would no longer credential Bloomberg News reporters after the outlet said it would not investigate its owner, Michael Bloomberg,or any other Democratic presidential candidate. — A Newsweek reporter was fired for writing an article that claimed President Trump would be “Tweeting, golfing and more” on Thanksgiving while the President was actually going to Afghanistan for an unannounced visit to the troops. The reporter, Jessica Kwong, violated the basic rule of journalism that you can never say what “will” happen. — McDonald’s has landed on the beach in the fried chicken wars, testing a new artery clogger in Knoxville and Houston. It’s a fried chicken filet topped with butter and crinkle-cut pickles on a potato roll.  

The Darwin Report: A 65-year-old man in Van Buren, Maine was killed by a booby trap in his own home on Thanksgiving eve. And he’s the one who set the trap.

  Police report that Ronald Cyr had set a trap that fired a handgun if anyone tried to enter the front door. Cyr set off his own trap and was able to call 911 before he expired. After finding other devices in the home, police called the bomb squad. 

Conversion Therapy: Molly McNearney, a writer for “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” tweeted that, “My dad is a lifelong Republican who voted for Trump and told me over turkey he regrets putting that ‘dangerous, incompetent, Anti-American, lying sociopath’ in office. I gave my dad all the pie.”

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