I wanted to slow down a bit and make sure you absorb the full weight of the 11th Circuit ruling today in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. Specifically this was a ruling on the civil suit which Donald Trump brought to short circuit and hobble the Justice Department probe of his theft and illegal possession of a host of highly classified documents at his South Florida villa. Remember Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump appointee judge who Trump forum-shopped into the case and who then proceeded to disregard logic, precedent and self-respect to take up as, in essence, Trump’s own lawyer from the bench? The three-judge panel on the 11th Circuit, made up of two Trump appointees and one George W. Bush appointee, ruled against every aspect of Cannon’s involvement in the case, including being involved at all in the first place. The whole special master episode? Nope. Done. Josh Kovensky walks us through the details.

There are about a hundred Donald Trump-related investigations happening at the moment, so today I’ll save you the Google with this brief rundown of the Trump Organization criminal tax fraud case, which is wrapping up closing arguments either this evening or sometime tomorrow morning. The jury will then begin its deliberations.

Federal appeals court rules that the U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has no jurisdiction to hear former President Trump’s challenge of the FBI’s seizure of government documents at Mar-a-Lago and orders her to dismiss the case.

Far right Twitter clone site Parler announces Kanye’s purchase of Parler is off.

From Parler HQ: “Parlement Technologies has confirmed that the company has mutually agreed with Ye to terminate the intent of sale of Parler. This decision was made in the interest of both parties in mid-November. Parler will continue to pursue future opportunities for growth and the evolution of the platform for our vibrant community.”

Like many others I’ve been watching the alt-right take over of Twitter evolve in real time. The whole operation is now chained to the manic outbursts and enthusiasms of majority owner Elon Musk and he — as I explained here — is locked in an increasingly tight embrace with a series of far right accounts who keep buttering him up into an escalating froth about how his battle for “free speech” on Twitter is a battle in which the future of humanity at stake. “This is a battle for the future of civilization. If free speech is lost even in America, tyranny is all that lies ahead,” he tweeted on Monday. (Seriously, I watch this clown so you don’t have to …) But just over the last couple days it does seem like there’s a purge of progressive accounts on the site.

At first some of the banned account were ones that can be reasonably classed as radical anti-fascist accounts. To be clear, I do not in any way equate these groups with the fascist paramilitaries they oppose. But these are groups that mobilize to confront Proud Boys type groups on the streets. Some provide armed security at LGBTQ events and other marginalized group/threatened events. It’s plausible that they might say things that could be reasonably construed as endorsing violence. They might be “doxxing” far right individuals. My point is that in a climate of unequal enforcement of Twitter’s terms of service they might actually be violating those terms of service. Again, I’m not justifying their suspensions. I’m providing context for what might be driving them.