• We always understood the Supreme Court was political.  We now know it’s partisan, too.
• First question to Trump from any legit journalist after this current trial is over (or if he’s stupid enough to take the stand):  “How many other catch-and-kill arrangements did you have, Mr. Trump?”
• I’m certain that at every Trump rally held during the Manhattan criminal trial, a lawyer will be handling a microphone kill switch.  “And I just wanna say about that weaselly judg– [zzzzzzzppffft]…(47 seconds of the Muzak version of “Man from Ipanema” plays over the loudspeakers)…award-winning clubs I own. It’s a beautiful golf course, some say one of the best in the world…”
• Biden’s interview with Howard Stern put the President in the ears of millions of usually apolitical listeners who now better understand Biden’s successes and Trump’s persistent weaknesses.  Alternative media is the way to reach the people, so if campaigns want to reach out, my email is jack@nationalzero.com. (I’m here for you, Mr. President.)
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CLXX”

The headline’s a paraphrase, but not a snappy or cheeky one. Former Attorney General Bill Barr was indeed pretty casual in the way that he just told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins about how fat former President Trump would often lose his shit and demand this or that person be executed on his orders.

Additional notes by Jack: Although he personally couldn’t confirm Donald Trump once wanted to execute the person on the White House staff who leaked information that Trump fled to the complex’s security bunker during the BLM protests in Washington, DC in 2020, former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr says something scarier: “I wouldn’t dispute it. I mean, it doesn’t sou– The President would lose his temper and say things like that. I doubt he (chuckles) would’ve carried it out.” Barr doubts Trump would’ve carried it out? That should send chills up anyone’s spine who wants to work in a Trump White House in a potential second term.

After the New York Court of Appeals overturned his convictions for sexual assault on Thursday, disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein will be back in a New York courtroom next week when the DA Alvin Bragg’s office refiles charges, ABC News reports.  In a 4-3 decision, the Appeals Court found prosecutors used improper testimony about alleged previous assaults by Weinstein that were never prosecuted and not part of the case which “portrayed defendant in a highly prejudicial light.”

Don’t worry, though:  New York will continue to try Weinstein on the charges, with Bragg contacting the victims who filed charges in the first case to ensure their cooperation.  And Weinstein will not be released pending trial:  he will be transferred to California, where he was sentence in separate cases and sentenced to a 16-year prison term.

The Manhattan courtroom hosting Donald Trump’s felon election interference case was abuzz with action as three witnesses testified, but reportedly, it wasn’t enough excitement for some.

• Early in the session, under cross examination, David Pecker admitted to holding stories until after the election because the stories would be detrimental to Trump’s campaign.
• Pecker testified that running the McDougal story would have been “pure gold” for the National Enquirer, but didn’t because it would hurt Trump.
• Pecker said he did not take the lead in paying off Stormy Daniels for two reason:  he had already laid out a lot of money to cover up Trump’s indiscretions, but also, he did not want to get involved with a porn star scandal for fear he would lose distribution in stores like Walmart if evangelicals learned he paid a porn star.
  Read More ▶ “Trump trial roundup: witnesses help set prosecution’s foundation”

Laura Ingraham is very, very upset that people noticed only one person with the surname “Trump” is sitting in a Manhattan courtroom, and she won’t have you think it’s because they don’t want to be seen with the adjudicated rapist on his wife’s birthday.  While they record their podcasts, or count their blood money, or run their corrupt companies, Donald will sit alone at the defendants table because, according to Laura, they don’t want to waste their time.

A lawyer for the Republican National Committee sent a letter to the Secret Service asking the agency to move the area designated for protestors during the July convention in Milwaukee further away from the convention site so attendees will not have to walk past them, the Washington Post reports.  The city’s Orwellian named “Free Speech Zone” is located between two main walkways into Fiserv Forum, the arena hosting the event.

“This will force thousands of peaceful attendees and demonstrators, who may otherwise choose to avoid or limit direct, proximate engagement with one another, to be in extremely close, consistent, and unavoidable proximity,” whined the lawyer for the RNC.  “As recent college and university campus clashes make plain, forced proximity heightens tensions among peaceful attendees and demonstrators of differing ideologies and increases the risk of escalation to verbal, or even physical, clashes and corresponding law enforcement intervention.”

Florida GOP Congressman Bill Posey–who was a birther before joining MAGA–announced on Friday he would not seek reelection for the 8th District seat, one week after the deadline for candidates to file to run for his seat but curiously after his personal choice to succeed him quietly filed to be a candidate, Politico reports.

Posey said that he planned to run for reelection, however “circumstances beyond his control” that arose last week will prevent him from seeking a ninth term, and he was throwing his support behind former state senate leader Mike Haridopolos, who happened to file the appropriate paperwork to run for the office with little fanfare although Posey was highly favored to win reelection in the bright red district.

The timing of Posey’s announcement after the filing deadline meant a number of possible challengers for the Congressional seat opted to file for other races.  Under Florida law, a candidate for certain offices can only appear once on the ballot; if they filed for the GOP Congressional primary, they could not run for the GOP nomination of lower offices.  By postponing his announcement, Posey hands the Party nomination–along with his endorsements and supporters–to Haridopolos.

Republican former Michigan Congressman Peter Meijer, who served all of one term as he was primaried out of his seat in 2022 for voting to impeach disgraced former President Trump for the Capitol riot – and then tried to repent for it with an amicus brief to the US Supreme Court opposed to banning the fat fuck from the ballot – has dropped out of the US Senate primary race to fill a seat to be left open by retiring Dem Debbie Stabenow, the Detroit Free Press’s Todd Spangler reports.

In summary: A former member of Congress voted to impeach with the full knowledge that the eventual outcome could have been Trump being banned from office for life wanted to return and in a better position in Congress. So he walked that back by filing an argument to the Supreme Court to help prevent Trump from being banned from office for life. Trump endorsed some other asshole former member of Congress for that seat and now Peter Meijer has absolutely nothing to show for having sold out the deeply perilous yet principled stand he had taken three years earlier. There are a great many similar arcs that capture the very essence and culture of the Republican Party in the Trump era. Very few do so eloquently and succinctly than this woeful tale of Peter Meijer.

MAGA insurrectionist John Sullivan, the unhinged maniac whose connections with the Black Lives Matter movement prior to the January 6th, 2021 Capitol riot did more than its fair share of work for Trump fanboy conspiracy freaks trying to make it seem as if the mayhem had been incited by leftist infiltrators, was sentenced to three years in the clink on Friday, Politico’s Kyle Cheney reports.

It’s not clear if Sullivan is a Trump fans or just liked riots. Probably the latter as he was kicked out of a Salt Lake City BLM chapter months before the insurrection. Inside the Capitol he screamed “We accomplished this shit. We did this together. We are all a part of this history. Let’s burn this shit down,” and smashed at least one window, despite claiming he was only inside the building in his capacity as a “journalist.” Video captured by Sullivan – including the clearest known angle of Ashli Babbitt’s death at the hands of a Capitol cop – was used as evidence against him at the trial.

And yes fanboys, we’re sure Sullivan’s keeping quiet and not flipping because he’s afraid Antifa will murder his family while he’s in prison. We’ve got you covered on that goalpost move.

‘Squad’ members descend on Columbia encampment, offer 'support' for anti-Israel agitators https://t.co/2l83Q1MlkV

— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 26, 2024

“Crooked Joe Biden just announced that he’s willing to debate! Everyone knows he doesn’t really mean it, but in case he does, I say, ANYWHERE, ANYTIME, ANYPLACE, an old expression used by Fighters. I suggest Monday Evening, Tuesday Evening, or Wednesday Evening at my Rally in Michigan, a State that he is in the process of destroying with his EV Mandate. In the alternative, he’s in New York City today, although probably doesn’t know it, and so am I, stuck in one of the many Court cases that he instigated as ELECTION INTERFERENCE AGAINST A POLITICAL OPPONENT – A CONTINUING WITCH HUNT! It’s the only way he thinks he can win. In fact, let’s do the Debate at the Courthouse tonight – on National Television, I’ll wait around!” posted fat former President Trump on Friday, clearly a little overmedicated and should cut back on the Adderall. Or just quit it altogether.

“Voters in Maine and voters in Maine’s 2nd congressional district value their independence, but they also value fairness and playing by the rules. If Nebraska’s Republican Governor and Republican-controlled Legislature were to change their electoral system this late in the cycle in order to unfairly award Donald Trump an additional electoral vote, I think the Maine Legislature would be compelled to act in order to restore fairness to our country’s electoral system. It is my hope and the hope of my colleagues in Maine that the Nebraska Republican Party decides not to make this desperate and ill-fated attempt to sway the 2024 election,” says Maine state House Majority Leader Maureen Terry in a statement on Nebraska Republicans’ plans to switch from apportioning one Electoral College vote per district to a full-state winner-take-all like the other 48, evening the score to get to 270.

It’s not like this was the absolute, most obvious upshot when Charlie Kirk and his fanboys started applying the pressure to the Nebraska GOP last month and then it got to Trump – and the fat fuck posted “Most Nebraskans have wanted to go back to this system for a very long time, because it’s what 48 other States do,” emphasis ours – or when a lot of the circlejerkers hyping this were laying out how switching Nebraska could result in a 269-269 Electoral College tie and a de facto Trump win if Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada flip red. There was just a hope that Maine Dems would be keeping an eye on the situation and be ready to respond. It’s still not a 100 percent sure thing they would.

The Fox News ladies didn’t know what to think about Joe Biden telling Howard Stern he’s game to debate their Orange God Emperor, with one of these idiots worried Donald will get kneecapped.

With Judge Juan Merchan’s working hours obviously occupied by another matter, the New York County Criminal Court system on Friday rescheduled white nationalist alcoholic Steve Bannon’s state-level trial on fraud charges stemming from the “We Build the Wall” scam crowdfunding campaign to September 2024, per CourthouseNews reporter John Russell, whose tweet included a screenshot of a pretrial hearing set for 2:15 PM EDT on Wednesday, May 1st, 2024.

That screen was dated Wednesday, April 24. On Thursday, Merchan scheduled fat former President Trump’s contempt hearing for the very same time, forcing his presence in the courtroom – under pain of arrest – on a day he was supposed to be hitting the trail. In fact Trump’s campaign had already set a Wisconsin rally for 1 PM EDT and a Michigan rally for 6 PM EDT on Wednesday, which would make for definitely the second and probably a third MAGA rally in a row to be canceled, lol.

CORRECTION: On Friday Merchan pushed the contempt hearing to the morning on Thursday the 2nd, per MSNBC’s Katie Phang. That’s so friggin lame, but allows for more violations at the rallies.

President Joe Biden on Friday told acclaimed radio journalist Howard Stern in a live interview that he’ll be “happy to” debate fat former President Trump, despite being given an opening to eff off after the Orange Slob did so in the 2024 Republican primary, the AP’s Seung Min Kim reports.

Sounds like it’s going better than the 2006 interview in which Trump told Stern about this blonde woman that he knows, saying “She’s actually always been very voluptuous. She’s tall, she’s almost 6 feet tall and she’s been, she’s an amazing beauty.” And in 2004 when he called the same woman a “piece of ass.” Both times Donald was referring to future White House advisor Ivanka Trump.

Former supermarket tabloid hustler David Pecker on Friday continues to face cross-examination from fat former President Trump’s defense lawyers and maybe another witness will take the stand.

Steven Spielberg, the acclaimed director of Hook, 1941, AI Artificial Intelligence, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Post, and some other movies has been tapped by Joe Biden’s reelection campaign to “help choreograph August’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago” and is “participating in multiple strategy sessions on how to best tell the president’s story,” according to a tweet by Puck News’s Dylan Byers linked to an article that’s paywalled. Since we have enough subscriptions and are pretty sure we already got the gist of the story that ought to do it.

Daily showers are purely ‘performative’ and have no real health benefit, experts insist https://t.co/nK2Xx4EWK9 pic.twitter.com/LUalmlWF4e

— New York Post (@nypost) April 25, 2024

Officials in several large Chinese cities have ordered hotels to remove facial recognition technology from surveillance camera systems installed in lobbies and hallways, Semafor reports while credulously calling it “a sign the government is responding to public concerns over privacy.”

Just going to throw this out there: Maybe it’s that Commie Party brass are just pretending to be responsive to “public concerns” as a convenient cover for their own concerns that cameras that can identify one visiting a hotel accompanied by, say, a person who is not one’s spouse for two hours on a weekday afternoon and Semafor might just want to mention that as a possible privacy issue.

Two of NASA’s most experienced astronauts, with four previous spaceflights, eleven spacewalks and 500 days in orbit between them, are preparing to embark on perhaps their most perilous mission:  the first crewed mission on a craft built by Boeing.  According to CBS News, Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams will be the first to pilot Boeing’s “Starliner” spacecraft, which has had two unmanned flights.

Wilmore and Williams will take the vehicle up on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket at 10:34 p.m. ET on Monday, May 6th after what can be assumed will be the most bolt-tightening preflight inspection in history.  The craft will dock with the International Space Station two days later and will return to Earth on May 15th.

The craft was first launched on an unmanned mission in December 2019 and was scheduled to dock with the ISS, but serious communications, software and control functions led to that test being aborted prior to the near-destruction of the craft as it reentered the atmosphere.  A second test flight in 2021 went much more smoothly but exposed other problems.  It’s unclear if any problems related to spacecraft’s exit row door plug.