Category: Uncategorized

Responding to a request for comment from VoteBeat’s Jessica Huseman about Florida’s decision to withdraw from the interstate Electronic Registration Information Center – the compact designed to keep voter rolls clean and prevent people from voting in more than one state in a single federal election, like at least five Floridians, most of them MAGA and from notorious senior living shithole The Villages, were caught doing in 2020 – a spokesman for heels-wearing Governor Ron DeSantis’s office told Huseman “You will get whatever comment we decide to provide and nothing more.”

The cuntishness of DeSantis’s minions when asked to address a situation just slightly edges out the situation itself for the headline and lede. Like we buried in a long piece on George Soros recently but have covered elsewhere, the ongoing exodus of Red States from ERIC is a significant win by the far-right propaganda site the Gateway Pundit’s long campaign against the system, turning MAGA dumbasses against it because its funding at launch came in part from a grant by Soros’s Open Societies initiative. It’s obvious that DeSantis’s office doesn’t want to come clean on admitting that they were motivated to drop out by some bullshit Gateway Pundit fantasy – especially considering it was DeSantis’s idea to join in the first place. “We want to make sure that the voter rolls are accurate, and one of the best ways to do that, I think, is for Florida to join the Electronic Registration Information Center, known as ERIC,” Tiny D said at a news conference in August 2019.

That’s not even the best right wing self-own on ERIC that Huseman raises in her report. That would go to Judicial Watch douchebag Tom Fitton, who is 2023 calls the system “a syndicate founded by leftists” and whose group successfully sued Kentucky to force them to join ERIC in 2018.

Defund NPR.

— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) April 12, 2023

This storyline was the wrong kind of stupid for our coverage until Jim Jordan, tweeting under the account of the majority side of the committee he chairs, stepped into the ring. In a vacuum a Republican calling for NPR to be defunded is about as noteworthy as them saying they want to lower taxes or allow industrial concerns to pollute the environment. On Wednesday however, it’s obvious that Jordan is now saying this in direct response to NPR’s announcement they would stop using the platform, which in turn was a response to Elon Musk’s shitbrained move last week labelling them as “State-funded media,” a pre-Musk marker originally intended to make Twitter users aware that information was coming from authoritarian regimes in Beijing, Moscow, Riyadh, et cetera. Now Jordan wants that marker removed – along with the very tiny fraction of NPR’s operating budget that comes from the federal government – because, for now at least, they’re exercising their right to not post links to their news on a platform owned by a third of Jordan’s Holy Trinity.

Senate Democrats led by Chuck Schumer on Wednesday will deliver a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking him to open an investigation into the expulsion of Tennessee state House Representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson and to determine whether their removals violated the Constitution or federal civil rights law, the Washington Post reports.

Now we’re not lawyers or constitutional experts – and “however” sounds like a good pick for an annoying contrasting conjunction to use here after qualifying our lack of knowledge in this field – however, this obviously nobly intentioned response to an undemocratic abuse of power by a rogue legislature just doesn’t sit quite right and (again, even after admitting we don’t know shit) we have a hard time seeing how it ends with a judge ruling that the Tennessee state House majority violated the civil rights of voters and/or Justins Pearson and Jones barring an extremely narrow and creative case brought by the DOJ. They’re a gerrymandered nuthouse full of fascist criminals and deranged scumbags who were nevertheless duly elected and empowered under the state constitution to run their chamber by the express consent of their voters. The expulsions were both a moral disgrace on top of another moral disgrace and by all appearances a legitimate exercise of sovereign legislative power for which the DOJ better have some really strong fucking evidence was anything otherwise.

If the FBI finds the NRA delivered a crate full of AK-47s to the House speaker and his buddies to get them to push to expel the Jones, Pearson, and Gloria Johnson then by all means they should be prosecuted. Otherwise it’s hard not to see certain similarities to Jim Jordan’s lame attempts to derail Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of disgraced former President Trump.

A new circlejerk from the Stephen Miller-led “America First Legal Institute” alleges that President Joe Biden had foreknowledge of the August 2022 FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago because of something we’re not going to pretend to understand the way fanboys do with their boundless instant expertise.

“New NARA records obtained through America First Legal’s investigation into the circumstances surrounding the Mar-a-Lago raid further confirmed that the FBI obtained access to these records through a ‘special access request’ from the Biden White House on behalf of the Department of Justice (DOJ). It appears that the Biden White House and DOJ coordinated to obtain the Trump records and perhaps create a pretext for the law enforcement raid by way of a ‘special access request,'” says the AF1L press release heralding their “BOMBSHELL” discovery.

What we think they’re trying to say is that because the Biden White House was aware that Trump had stolen classified documents, was refusing to give them back, and as the next successive administration to Trump’s was cooperating with the National Archives and the Justice Department in their investigation of the theft means they knew and pulled the trigger on the raid (or “execution of a federal search warrant” for all the lib finger-waggers in the audience). What they don’t say is how this is supposed to mean Trump is innocent of stealing the documents and then obstructing justice by defying a lawful subpoena for their return. Who fucking cares if Biden knew FBI agents were going to storm Mar-a-Lago before they did? Is the average voter who isn’t already on board with this “Weaponization” bullshit going to understand the supposed implications, at all?

On a related note Stephen Miller on Tuesday testified for more than six hours to the federal grand jury investigating the Trump Regime’s failed post-2020 election coup attempt, so we sort of understand why he might be a little chuffed at the Justice Department these days.

Russia is bringing its system of compulsory military service in a brutal, grinding death machine of its own making into the 21st century, as on Wednesday the upper house of the parliament rubber stamped a bill allowing for draft notices to be delivered to military-age males electronically, sending it to demented dictator Vladimir Putin’s desk for signature, the Associated Press reports.

Now Russian men don’t have to wait for a visit from military conscription servers to find out they’re being ordered to march into all-but certain death in Eastern Ukraine, they can just get an email or text message to learn they’ve been selected for the meat grinder. The bill also prohibits draftees from leaving Russia, have their drivers’ licenses suspended and be barred from selling real estate and other assets if they fail to show up for their first appointment. Savvy genius!

Was this supposed to be some kind of pleasant surprise, that the all-but-official propaganda arm of the Republican Party would be hosting the first Republican Party presidential primary debate?

Robert Schwarz, a major Fox Corporation shareholder on Tuesday filed a complaint in Delaware against Rupert Murdoch, Lachlan Murdoch, and several members of the Fox Corporation’s board of directors alleging the propagandists violated their fiduciary duty to investors by promoting lies about the 2020 election being stolen on their propaganda television shows, NBC News reports.

The complaint alleges the board chasing “viewers by promoting the false stolen election claims has exposed the Company to public ridicule and negatively impacted the credibility of Fox News as a media organization that is supposed to accurately report newsworthy events. The Company is now the subject of two defamation cases, with combined damages claimed to exceed $4 billion.”

In related news, on Tuesday the judge in the Dominion case on Tuesday ruled that Fox won’t be permitted to argue that the “stolen election” bullshit was “newsworthy” in their defense. Fox did score a minor win when the judge also ruled that Dominion’s lawyer’s won’t be able to mention the Capitol riot, but that would seem kind of minor considering that very few potential jurors haven’t heard of the most brutal attack on the seat of American government power since 1814.

Lawyers for disgraced former President Trump on Tuesday told the judge overseeing the writer EJ Carroll’s federal defamation lawsuit case that their fat client needs a “cooling off” period after getting indicted in Manhattan and asked for a four-week delay to the trial’s start, Politico reports.

“Holding the trial in this case a mere three weeks after these historic events will guarantee that many, if not most, prospective jurors will have the criminal allegations top of mind when judging President Trump against Ms. Carroll’s allegations,” wrote Joe Tacopina in the filing, adding that media coverage was”remarkable for its volume and incitement of animus towards President Trump.”

Having declared “a war on fascism” in a tweet Tuesday, the hacker collective Anonymous has followed through on the threat by apparently released personal information from some high-profile Republicans online.  Photos of information for Republican members of Congress Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and soon-to-be-gramma Lauren Boebert have been posted online, as well as data from Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.  None of the files have been verified.

Update:  A Twitter account reportedly linked to Anonymous claims they did not dox Marjorie Taylor, but the information was put on its timeline.

Editor’s Note:  We thank the various commenters who have posted about this in comments.  However, we ask that you do NOT publish the doxxed information in the comments.  There are significant ethical and legal issues to hosting that information that we do not wish to address.

Flopping like a Jim Jordan weaponization hearing, the Twitter Files were such a big nothingburger even Twitter’s petulant oligarch-in-training Elon Musk wants to move on, telling the BBC, “Let’s move on to the future.”  Using Twitter Spaces, Musk agreed to a “last minute conversation” with a BBC to highlight the feature, and he apparently enjoyed it so much he wouldn’t end the interview, even when the interviewer attempted to stop multiple times.

While dismissing respected media, Musk questioned why “legacy media” wouldn’t pay for Twitter’s new meaningless blue check marks, which can be purchased for $8 per month.  “It’s a small amount of money, so I don’t know what their problem is.  We’re going to treat everyone equally.”.

Musk said he’s cut Twitter staff from 8,000 to 1,500, and that his takeover of Twitter has been “painful” and “not fun at all.”  Initially saying he wouldn’t sell Twitter if someone offered him the same amount he paid for it–Musk has admitted the value of the company has been cut in half since he took over–he revised his answer to say he would if the new buyer was someone as committed as he was to honesty.

With the $1.6 billion trial set to start next Monday, the judge overseeing the case between Fox and Dominion Voting System called Tuesday’s disclosure that Rupert Murdoch was an officer of the news division “bizarre, Reuters reports.  “I’m not very happy right now,” Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis said during a hearing Tuesday, telling Fox attorneys, “You have a credibility problem.”

Dominion’s lawyers reportedly learned when they got a letter from Fox with Murdoch listed as “Executive Chairman.”  Fox lawyers claim a lawyer for Dominion noted Murdoch’s title with the propaganda division during depositions; at the time, Murdoch called the title an “honorific.”

However, Murdoch’s active role within the news division became apparent during the investigation, and his title demonstrates that he had authority over the news division, something he tried to downplay in depositions, Dominion lawyers claim.  The plaintiff’s lawyers say the fact that Murdoch was an officer of “Fox News” and not just an officer of the umbrella corporation would have changed how they questioned him in depositions and what information they sought in discovery.

Authoritarians can never be told “no.”  So when the Walt Disney Company outsmarted Florida’s glob of smug and Old Spice Ron DeSantis by removing all power from a board overseeing its properties, DeSantis could not let that stand.  In his quest to punish anyone who challenges his claim of unquestionable authority, DeSantis has directed the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board to take over approval for development for the two Florida jurisdictions where Disney has properties, Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista.

When Disney spoke out against the bigotry inherent in DeSantis’s signature “Don’t Say Gay” law that effectively bans discussion of LGBTQ people in schools, it put the power of the state’s largest employer in opposition to the well-heeled governor, who has sights set for the White House.  The latest DeSantis resolution, made possible when the Republican legislature gave him more power over the property, would put the CFTOD in charge of approving all development in the two cities, taking that authority away from local governments, Reuters reports.  The retaliatory move would give DeSantis’s hand-picked board members direct authority to reject any changes the company wants to make on the 25,000 acres it controls.

“A-and our culture, what is what we’re focused on as a culture?” Republican Florida Man and perpetually failed presidential candidate Marco Rubio inquires.  “We’re focused on the fact that now that some man pretending to be a woman gets paid millions of dollars to sell Nike sports bras and Bud Light.  So the world looks at that and says, this place is a laughingstock, and they react to it.  I could go on for an hour about all the thing we are, we are being embarrassed on the world stage.  Our adversaries are taking advantage of it, and our friends are saying, hey, we may have to go out on our own here because these guys are about to commit societal suicide.”

No, Marco, we’re not focused on it.  You are.  The world’s not laughing at us; they’re laughing at you.  And your Party.  You’re trying to push focus onto your culture war against LGBTQ people–and now specifically trans people because you calculated they’re easier targets politically.  See, it’s not the 1980s anymore, when conservatives started their war on gay men–conservative white men have always liked lipstick lesbians, so that demo was largely exempt from attacks unless she got a talk show.  But now, with the three first letters of the acronym integrated into American society, conservatives have to target the group that will get the most traction, and it’s not their gay neighbors or their bisexual niece.  No one else is focusing on trans people, Marco.  It’s just the GOP, and they’re doing it because you don’t have anything to run on, so yeah, you could “go on for an hour” with meaningless “culture war” bullshit because you must propagate hate to get your Republican base enraged.

Llano County, Texas commissioners are debating shutting down the county’s public library after a court ordered books the commissioners voted to ban returned to circulation.   The books included children’s books like Isabel Wilkerson’s “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents”; “They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group” by Susan Campbell Bartoletti; the graphic novel “Spinning” by Tillie Walden; and three books from Dawn McMillan’s “I Need a New Butt!” series, per NBC News.

Commissioners said the books were inappropriate for children, along with Maurice Sendak’s “In the Night Kitchen”; Robie H. Harris’ “It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health”; and four other children’s picture books with “silly themes and rhymes,” like “Larry the Farting Leprechaun,” “Gary the Goose and His Gas on the Loose”; “Freddie the Farting Snowman” and “Harvey the Heart Has Too Many Farts.”

The commissioners claimed they were ridding the library of “pornography;” one of the children’s books include a drawing of a child’s rear end.  And while the KKK is generally disgusting, its history falls far short of full-frontal.  Plaintiffs in the case successfully argued the decision of the county commission violated First Amendment rights and the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause.

So you don’t have to, we’re watching Fox’s frozen food heir and perpetually befuddled host Tucker Carlson, broadcast his pre-taped and edited interview with indicted felon Donald Trump.  A half-hour in, there’s nothing really new except a series of utterly false statements–like “Biden didn’t know “about nuclear” and that Trump “never mentioned nuclear.”  (…well, except for the whole threatening North Korea with a “bigger button” and nuking hurricanes, but that’s how he wants to re-write history.)

Along with the string of consistent lies, Trump mentioned that people are making too big of a deal about global warming, which he claims will only increase water levels one inch in 300 years.  (More like an inch every three years, but like Stormy related, Trump probably doesn’t know how long an inch is.) “The problem we have, the biggest problem we have in the whole world, it’s not global warming.  It’s nuclear warming.”  And Tucker responds with his trademark vacant, gaped-mouth stare.

Many people have noticed something missing from Trump’s public appearances at his rallies, at his speech, and at his arraignment:  his third wife, Melania.  While she was recently photographed sitting with him while he shoveled down a plate of food and two Diet Cokes at Mar-a-Lago, she hasn’t been present for any of his public activities, leading people to speculate that she’s getting fed up with the discord.  Oh, and paying nearly a half million dollars in total to schtup a porn actress while she recovered from the birth of their son probably didn’t help either.

According to the scoop from People Magazine, insiders say Melania “really don’t care” about pursuing life in the public eye again, and she’s quite happy staying out of her husband’s political, criminal and legal endeavors. “Melania is not now or hasn’t recently taken part in her husband’s political events.  It is not comfortable for her,” ,” a source told the celebrity rag, adding, “Melania can be aloof and not particularly friendly because she simply wants to be left alone. … At this stage of her life she does not want to be in the spotlight.”

The Trump Administration policy of taking children away from their parents if they were suspected of crossing the southern border illegally resulted in children who were American citizens being removed from the custody of their parents, with the parents shipped to their home countries without their children, the New York Times reports.

The Trump policy made separation far more of a burden for the American children of foreign parents.  Non-citizen children separated from their parents were placed in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which registered the children in a database and allowed them to communicate regularly with their parents.  Children that were US citizens were dumped with local foster care groups or child welfare agencies with no tracking or follow-up; many times, the agencies had no idea what happened to a child’s parents.

Officials of a children’s rights organization said at least 226 American children were put into the foster care system in one jurisdiction, California’s San Diego County.  There are no available records for most other jurisdictions, including the states of Texas, Arizona and New Mexico.  This also complicates matters because states not only lack foreign diplomatic contacts to try to reunite the families, but also each state has its own criteria for allowing children to be reunited. 

Leaked US intelligence documents reveal that the United States, Britain, France, and other Western countries have special military units operating on the ground in Ukraine, the BBC reports

Biden takes son Hunter and sister Valerie to Ireland as investigations heat up https://t.co/aESdNhcHHm

— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 11, 2023