NBC News | January 16, 2020
Georgia election server showed signs of tampering, expert says - "A computer security expert says he found that a forensic image of the election server central to a legal battle over the integrity of Georgia elections showed signs that the original server was hacked. The server was left exposed to the open internet for at least six months, a problem the same expert discovered in August 2016. It was subsequently wiped clean in mid-2017 with no notice, just days after election integrity activists filed a lawsuit seeking an overhaul of what they called the state's unreliable and negligently run election system."

Maher returned last night with a Nancy interview.

She was great.

"You have to be able to take a punch.  You have to be able to throw a punch.

Why Rod Serling's "He's Alive" is THE TWILIGHT ZONE's Most Important Episode

SHOCK slips into THE TWILIGHT ZONE to examine what might be the show's crowning achievement.

It's a great thing.  But the really interesting part was how white supremacists were viewed and dealt with back in the good old days shortly after that war thing was fought to defeat them.

Jeralyn: "I know there's lots of attention being paid to the impeachment and Ukraine matters, but surely other things are happening."

The burgeoning scandal over revelations of the Houston Astros' sign-stealing during their 2017 championship season has now cost three managers their jobs over the last few days -- A.J. Hinch (Astros) in Houston, Alex Cora (Red Sox) in Boston and just today, Carlos Beltran (Mets) in Queens, NY.

There is also growing anger among sports journalists over the revelations, with some veteran writers and broadcasters even calling for MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred to vacate the Astros' 2017 World Series title. And nowhere is that anger more palpable than in L.A.:

"For three years we've wondered, and now we know. How did the Houston Astros' hitters so easily pound three of the Dodgers' hottest pitchers in two key games in Houston in the 2017 World Series? How did they so easily wreck Yu Darvish for four runs in the second inning of a Game 3 Astros victory? How did they so effortlessly score 10 runs against Clayton Kershaw and Brandon Morrow in the Game 5 victory? They cheated, that's how."

How oddly coincidental, yet somehow historically appropriate, that this scandal should explode on the 100th anniversary of the first public leveling of allegations that eight key members of the Chicago White Sox had conspired to throw the previous year's World Series to the Cincinnati Reds on behalf of gambling interests.

Sadly, those particular revelations proved all too true, and the resultant federal criminal indictment of eight White Sox players and five racketeers severely impugned the game's institutional integrity, from which Major League Baseball took a long time to recover. The federal criminal trial in Chicago during the summer of 1921 was itself the subject of scandal, with incriminating evidence against the players -- including depositions and confessions -- mysteriously disappearing from the courthouse during the proceedings.

"Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player who throws a ball game, no player who undertakes or promises to throw a ball game, no player who sits in confidence with a bunch of crooked ballplayers and gamblers, where the ways and means of throwing a game are discussed and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball again."
- Kennesaw Mountain Landis, Commissioner of Baseball (August 3, 1921)

Despite the White Sox players' eventual acquittal in court by a Chicago jury that had clearly been favorably predisposed toward them from the outset, there's really no question regarding their actual guilt, given that several of them had already publicly confessed to their respective parts in the scheme not only to the authorities but also the local media. And so, only one day after that acquittal, all eight players were subsequently banned for life from professional baseball by Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis.

There are many surprises contained within Avenue 5, HBO's new sci-fi comedy about a space cruise to Saturn that goes awry. Some of these are good, and it would ruin many of the show's jokes to reveal them here. But the biggest surprise is a disappointing one: that Veep creator Armando Ianucci's first TV series since he left behind Selina Meyer is kind of an unwieldy mess. The good surprises may eventually solve the bad one, but it's hard to tell based on the four episodes provided for review.

Thanks to a lease agreement struck by a local radio operator, a Kansas City area radio station can now broadcast Kremlin-funded propaganda six hours a day, The Kansas City Star reports.

RM Broadcasting LLC has agreed to broadcast programming from the Russian state media program Radio Sputnik.

The Star reports that the lease agreement lets RM Broadcasting air Sputnik's programming "from 6 to 9 a.m. and 6 to 9 p.m. seven days a week. KCXL's website, which says that it's the radio station that will `tell you the things that the liberal media wont (sic) tell you,' lists Radio Sputnik in its morning programming."

As The Star points out, Sputnik, along with the Kremlin-funded outlet RT,  "contributed to the influence campaign by serving as a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences," according to an assessment from the Director of National Intelligence.

Here's a report on the Rotherham scandal which was another Northern city where girls were being groomed and abused by British men of Pakistani Muslim descent:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scand

This is said to be part of a larger effort to boost Bernie from the right.

Marathon on SHO.   I really think this might be the episode when Ray finally rids the world of Mickey.

The alleged suspect who may still be at large is a man in his 60s who had reportedly threatened his landlady as she tried to evict him. She was also shot, and is currently listed in critical condition at The Queen's Medical Center. The suspect then set multiple fires that have now consumed at least elven homes.

Today's incident marks the first time since 1987 that Honolulu police officers have been killed by gun violence in the line of duty. And it further underscores why most police officers list domestic violence calls as their most feared and potentially dangerous job hazard.

In the 10th season opener of HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, creator and star Larry David mocked Trump and his supporters by using the infamous red "Make America Great Again" hat to repel both frenemies and innocent bystanders alike throughout the episode. Some of those scenes can be seen in the embedded videos below.

The denial of the motions means that the responses to the petitions will not be due until February or March, too late for the court to hear oral arguments this term even if the petitions are granted.

The Trump Administration has refused to defend the ACA and has argued that there is "no emergency."

The court's decision means that the fate of Obamacare is up in the air, at least, until after the November 2020 presidential election. Which is, I believe, the point.

The Democratic primary contenders, and, ultimately, the Democratic nominee, need to campaign on the premise that the ACA will be found wanting by this Supreme Court (elections have consequences), if Trump has his way leaving behind differences among tactics for achieving universal health care coverage, not only details of Medicare for All, but also, the Klobuchar-type building on an ACA that may no longer exist.

An Indian man has died after a tussle with his rooster -- on their way to a cockfight.
Saripalli Chanavenkateshwaram Rao, 50, was hit in the neck with a blade tied to the rooster's claw on January 15. A police spokesman told CNN the father of three was taken to hospital, where he later died from a stroke.

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department has concluded that two of the four court orders allowing the FBI to conduct secret national security surveillance on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page were not valid because the government made "material misstatements" in obtaining them, according to a newly declassified judicial order.

The disclosure by James Boasberg, the top judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, underscores the extent to which the FBI bungled its handling of a highly sensitive case, a failure that is continuing to have serious policy and political repercussions.

The order says the department told the court it now believes it did not have probable cause to believe that Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, which was required to obtain the surveillance.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The FBI declined to comment.

Trump will not leave if he loses.  We all need to try to understand this.  

watching this will be worth the creeps it gives you because he is absolutely dead right

Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, 41, is among five people killed in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California, a source confirmed to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski.

The virus can cause pneumonia and is blamed for more than 800 illnesses and 26 deaths. British researchers estimate the virus has infected 4,000 people.

A second person in the U.S. who visited China has been diagnosed with the Wuhan virus, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. Public health workers are monitoring 63 additional patients from 22 states.

Influenza has already sickened at least 13 million Americans this winter, hospitalizing 120,000 and killing 6,600, according to the CDC. And flu season hasn't even peaked. In a bad year, the flu kills up to 61,000 Americans.

Worldwide, the flu causes up to 5 million cases of severe illness worldwide and kills up to 650,000 people every year, according to the World Health Organization.

And yet, Americans aren't particularly concerned.

Fewer than half of adults got a flu shot last season,