Getting Smaller: Appearing in the Diplomatic Room of the White House yesterday, President Trump for the first time said he will leave the White House if the Electoral College votes for Joe Biden. But he was also saying that won’t happen.

  Sitting behind a tiny desk dwarfed by the presidential seal, Trump promised a revelation of massive fraud in the November 3^rd election. “You’re going to see things happening over the next week or two that are going to be shocking to people.” 

  This is something like his promise of shocking information about Barack Obama’s birth certificate, and the nation is still waiting.

  Asked whether he would leave the White House if the Electoral College goes for Joe Biden, Trump said, “Certainly I will, and you know that.” No, we don’t know it, and that’s why it’s a question.

  The President had just delivered a Thanksgiving greeting to troops around the world but questions from the press turned to the election.

  Trump can’t live with the label of “loser.”  He said, “I know one thing, Joe Biden did not get 80 million votes, and I got 74 million. But there were many ballots thrown away, so I got much more than that. But I got 74 million. 74 million is 11 million more than I got last time. It’s millions more than Ronald Reagan got when he won 49 states.” 

  He actually said he didn’t lose Georgia because there were so many Trump/Pence signs on display. “We were robbed,” he claimed. “I won that by hundreds of thousands of votes. Everybody knows it. You go down the streets, there are Trump/Pence signs all over the place.”

  Trump won’t say whether he will ever concede the election.

  In a testy exchange with Jeff Mason of Reuters, he said, “It’s going to be a very hard thing to concede because we know there was massive fraud.”

  Mason: But will you? Sir, just to be clear, if the electoral college votes for Joe Biden, will you concede?

  Trump: If they do, they made a mistake, because this election was a fraud.

  Mason: But will you?

  Trump: Just saying, I said, this election was a fraud.

  The President  then carried on about his claim of fraud in Georgia before Mason pressed his question.

  Mason: You won’t concede?

  Trump: I think it’s a possibility. They’re trying to… Look, between you people-

  At this point there was some crosstalk.

  Trump: Don’t talk to me that way.

  Mason: Sorry, sir

  Trump: You’re just a lightweight. Don’t talk to me that way. I’m the President of the United States. Don’t ever talk to the president that way.

Feeling Their Religion: The Supreme Court on Thanksgiving eve overruled lower courts deciding that New York State may not limit religious services because of the coronavirus pandemic.

  The court’s newest justice, the ultra-Catholic Amy Coney Barrett, played a vital part in the decision with Chief Justice John Roberts going with the minority in dissent.

  The unsigned majority opinion said New York Gov. Cuomo’s restrictions violated the First Amendment’s protection of the free exercise of religion. The state recently fined a Brooklyn Hassidic sect $15,000 for holding a wedding attended by thousands of people, few of whom were wearing masks.

  New York has a color-coded system of restrictions according to the severity of virus outbreaks, limiting attendance even in mega-churches with plenty of room for distancing. In “red zones,” no more than 10 people may attend religious services. “Orange zones” are capped at 25. 

  In a concurring opinion Justice Neil Gorsuch, also a Trump appointee, said, “It is time — past time — to make plain that, while the pandemic poses many grave challenges, there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive edicts that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutter churches, synagogues and mosques.”

Viral News: Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson has been diagnosed with the coronavirus as the pandemic continues to hobble the National Football league season. The Colts Thanksgiving day game with Pittsburgh was rolled over to Sunday and could be postponed again, resulting in a one-week extension of the NFL season. 

  In the past 24 hours another 1,179 Americans died of the virus and another 107,000 were diagnosed. Hospitalizations have doubled in the past month.

The Bulletin Board: In the crush of online shopping caused by the pandemic, Amazon has added more than 427,000 new employees in the past ten months. — As five federal prisoners face execution, the Justice Department has created new rules allowing for execution by firing squad and electrocution. — The Army Corps of Engineers denied a permit for the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska, likely killing the project that would have extracted the world’s largest deposits of copper and gold ore. The mine was considered a threat to the  salmon breeding grounds in Bristol Bay. The project was turned down under the Obama administration, but revived under Trump.

A Dark Day: Today, the day after Thanksgiving, is the day the merchants of Christmas have unfortunately named “Black Friday,” the day when profits finally go into the black. It sounds like the day the stock market hit zero or America lost a war. It certainly doesn’t sound like the beginning of the Christmas season. As President Trump embarks on a spree of pardons and reprieves, he might actually go down in history as a great man if he banned the term, “Black Friday.”

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