Category: Uncategorized

The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade (NIBBB) didn’t mean to attack Canada.  It didn’t expect to require the US military to expend a $400,000 missile at its tiny little balloon with a tracking package on it.  But apparently, that’s exactly what happened, according to NPR.

With Republicans harping on about national defense and Chinese overflights and Hunter Biden’s laptop–when is it not about Hunter’s laptop?–President Biden, in cooperation with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau–shot down an unknown balloon over Canada last week.  Conservatives groaned about how ineffective Biden was at deterring foreign aggression because balloons!

It turns out that “foreign aggression” originated about 40 miles north of Chicago, where the NIBBB launched K9YO-15, a balloon equipped with a Pico transmitter allowing the club to track its whereabouts.  The club lost track of the balloon, likely because of a transmitter malfunction, and it believes it’s possible its balloon (total cost:  <$100) may have been destroyed by the $400,000 Sidewinder–though it’s not sure.  (The Pentagon announced yesterday it called off the search for the wreckage of the object it shot down.)

The panel in charge of the Republican National Committee’s primary debates will meet next week to consider requiring a “loyalty pledge” to support the eventual nominee from all contenders before they’re permitted to take the stage at the debates – likely starting this summer, Fox News reports.

Which is pretty goddamned hilarious that a party built on dishonesty and nihilism would pretend publicly that they expect their malcontent presidential candidates to honor their word. Even better is that it’s obviously directed at one man and one man alone, a man who once said the US Constitution should be declared null and void to restore him to office because Twitter once blocked a New York Post story for a few hours. It says quite a lot that they really think he’s going to honor some fucking “loyalty pledge” and support the nominee – let alone not run third party – if he loses the primary.

Jacksonville, Florida permanent substitute teacher Jason Covey says he was fired this week after he posted photos of empty bookshelves in a school library while the books were being “reviewed” for potential thoughtcrime content, Jezebel reports on an obvious act of political retaliation.

The firing came the day after Napoleonic Governor Ron DeSantis told reporters that the pics were a “fake narrative,” as if they somehow weren’t showing exactly the consequence of his ongoing war on completely manufactured threats to schoolchildren in his state’s education system.

In very much related news, the Daily Beast reports that DeSantis’s recent suggestion that the state do away with the Advanced Placement classes high school seniors can take to earn college course credits early is – surprise! – kind of hypocritical given that Ronnie Meatballs himself benefitted from them before going to Yale. DeSantis was even named “AP US History” student of the year, according to a copy the 1997 Dunedin, Florida High School yearbook the Beast obtained.

Hardcore anti-vaxxer and disgraced former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro probably got secretly vaccinated for COVID-19 in 2021, Brazil’s comptroller general’s office said Friday, per Reuters.

The officials found records from the country’s health ministry indicating Bolsonaro got the shot, but cautioned they weren’t totally sure if the record was real. Which doesn’t really add up as why would Bolsonaro fake it and then have the record hidden? The friggin virus nearly killed him back in 2020, of course he secretly got vaxxed and then lied about it to his fans.

• Republicans tackling the nation’s big problems like teenage menstrual cycles and Super Bowl entertainers.  All around the world, they’re laughing at how unserious they are.
• Hannity, Carlson and Ingraham–as well as their lesser-known outrage artists on Newsmax and OAN–are simply characters created by entertainers, the way the “Stephen Colbert” character on the Colbert Report was separate from the actor.  The difference is, the actors and the audience are on different pages about the authenticity of the performer.  In these cases, the audience is not in on the joke.  
• Congrats to Rush Limbaugh on the second anniversary of being drink- and drug-free.  Some people go to great lengths to remain sober, and Limbaugh is fully committed.
• I’m becoming increasingly convinced that the identification of overflying high-altitude balloons was a problem caused by the creation of Space Force.  My guess: It’s the same old song.  The Trump Administration screwed up and never established a definitive altitude when the Air Force stops operating and Space Force takes over, and the balloons fell in that interim altitude.  

I’m not going to transcribe her comments because it’s nonsense, but the fact that Tucker Carlson, recently revealed to apparently not believe a single word he says on television, booked Tara Reade, the discredited woman who accused Joe Biden of sexual harassment on his program to discuss the Ukrainian war and how Russia is the actual victim–being bullied by NATO, you see–shows that Carlson only wants to push buttons, not report actual news or reality.

Amid growing political pressure to ask for help Ohio Gov Mike DeWine on Friday announced that FEMA officials will deploy to the small town of East Palestine, two weeks after a train derailment spilled burning toxic chemicals into the nearby environment and sickening locals, KDKA reports.

In 2002 Warner Bros released a direct-to-DVD collection of short animated films titled The Animatrix, intuitively named as the shorts were all set in universe of The Matrix films which at the time was building up hype toward the debut of the 2003 sequels The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. Two of the shorts, The Second Renaissance Parts I and II, told the story of how mankind came to be enslaved within the series’ eponymous virtual prison world.

The person who uploaded them to YouTube split each into two parts, so click here for the second half of Part I and then here for Part II’s beginning and then here for the end if you want to keep watching. It’s not clear why the story is titled “The Second Renaissance” but like all things the Matrix you don’t need to buy into all the inscrutable Eastern mysticism-inspired psychobabble and manufactured gravitas to get something out of it (naming the killer house servant robot B166ER was actually pretty slick though). The story it tells is both terrifying and provocative on its face and it holds up pretty goddamn well two decades later, both in production value and its relevance.

In cooperation with Syrian forces, US military units staged a raid Thursday that killed Hamza al-Homsi, a senior commander in ISIS, a terrorist organization Donald Trump claimed he “100%” defeated, CNN reports.

It’s the second major elimination of an ISIS leader in less than a week by American forces:  US Central Command announced February 10th the death of Ibrahim Al Qahtani, described as “an ISIS official associated with planning ISIS detention center attacks,” locations where Syrians are holding more than 10,000 former ISIS fighters.

In the al-Homsi operation, all four soldiers and the military dog where hurt when an explosion erupted as the soldiers approached al-Homsi to potentially capture him.  Officials have not said if a booby trap was set off, if al-Homsi detonated a suicide vest, or if some other explosive caused the blast.  One soldier later returned to active duty; the other three and the dog are being treated at an Iraqi hospital, but may be moved to a facility in Germany for additional medical treatment. 47

After spending two weeks claiming he never even suggested safety net programs Social Security and Medicare should be sunsetted, one of the two bald Republican Senators named Scott released a revised version of his disastrous plan that removed the part he said didn’t exist.

The Tampa Bay Times reports Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott declared on Friday that there should be “specific exceptions for Social Security, Medicare, national security, veterans’ benefits, and other essential services” to the 5-year sunset requirements for all laws he laid out in his “Rescue America” plan on which he led the Senate electoral campaign that lost one net seat in the midterms.

Six people have been shot dead in the Mississippi town of Arkabutla, population according to the 2020 Census: 285 (now likely less).  The Associated Press reports the male suspect is in custody and officials believe he acted alone.

According to CNN, the shooter was taken into custody by Tate County deputies after shooting people in multiple locations, including a store and a nearby residence.  Two other victims were found in another nearby house, with two others found outside that house.  This would be the 72nd mass shooting in the US so far in 2023; it’s only the 48th day of the year.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation confimed that its computer system has been hacked by an outside intruder, though the hack has been contained and is now being investigated, Reuters reports.  The breach appears to have hit the FBI’s New York office, specifically a system used by law enforcement in child sexual exploitation cases.

While this case seems to involve criminals interested in or who gained access through material being investigated by the FBI, other hacking efforts have been directed at federal cyber infrastructure by foreign governments.  A 2020 attack by Russian hackers allegedly working for the Kremlin gained access to systems in multiple branches of government.

A flight from Auckland, New Zealand to New York City’s JFK airport on Friday turned around over the middle of the Pacific Ocean, eight hours into the flight, due to a power outage at the terminal which would have forced the plane itself (but not the passengers) to be stuck on the ground in NYC for several days while the schedule got fixed, the Wall Street Journal reports.

A spokesman for former Vice President Mike Pence on Friday said that FBI agents “completed a thorough and unrestricted search of Advancing American Freedom’s office for several hours and found no new documents with classified markings. One binder with approximately three previously redacted documents was taken.” The binder that was taken reportedly concerned Pence’s 2020 debate prep, so it’s not clear why the FBI would’ve taken that unless maybe they wanted to figure out what kind of men’s haircare product might accidentally attract flies.

We’re still sifting through this monster motion for summary judgment from Dominion in their defamation lawsuit against Fox News and need to get a big lowlight reel together, but this one deserves its own update: In discovery Dominion’s lawyers learned that fat former President Trump had dialed in to right wing asshole Lou Dobbs’s now-canceled Fox Business News show on the evening of January 6th, 2021 but didn’t get on air as Fox News executives blocked it.

“The afternoon of January 6, after the Capitol came under attack, then President Trump dialed into Lou Dobbs show attempting to get on air. But Fox executives vetoed that decision. Why? Not because of a lack of newsworthiness. January 6 was an important event by any measure. President Trump not only was the sitting President, he was the key figure that day. But Fox refused to allow President Trump on air that evening because it would be irresponsible to put him on the air and could impact a lot of people in a negative way. The same is true of statements Fox chose to air about Dominion. Not only did the charges severely impact Dominion and its employees, they were based on verifiable falsehoods that any accurate and disinterested reporting would have mentioned. Fox chose to spread lies instead of telling the truth. The neutral report privilege provides no comfort to Fox on these facts,” wrote Dominion’s lawyers on page 171 of the filing (but page 184 of the PDF).

Nice of them to add that in, even though it’s not something directly material to their case against Fox News. Seems like it should’ve been more of a House January 6th Select committee thing, seeing as how they published text messages between Sean Hannity and the White House from that day.

The Radical Left’s worst nightmare. 😂🇺🇸 #Trump2024 pic.twitter.com/9YySdABvFY

— Kimberly Guilfoyle (@kimguilfoyle) February 17, 2023

Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s team have subpoenaed at least four current and former MAGA Arizona state lawmakers for testimony and documents relevant to disgraced former President Trump’s failed effort to overturn his loss in the state in 2020, the Arizona Mirror reports.

Federal grand jury subpoenas were issued to state Senate President Warren Petersen, state Senator Sonny Borrelli, former state Senator Michelle Ugenti-Rita, and state House Speaker Ben Toma, and possibly more, for their testimony and for records of all email and text communications with Rudy, the Kraken, Lin Wood, former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien, and a lengthy list of other minions from within a period before, during, and after election day.

As Republicans push to weaken child labor safety laws in states where they have a political majority, a company that cleans and services machinery in food processing plants has been fined more $1.5 million for using children as young as 13-years-old to clean dangerous equipment, including those with blades, the Washington Post reports.

The US Department of Labor cited Packers Sanitation Services for using 102 children to spray dangerous chemicals on factory equipment, including machines with “razor sharp blades” and “head splitters”–equipment used to automatically butcher and process meat–to clean them as part of their normal business practices.

Republican legislators in states like Ohio and Iowa have introduced proposals that would lower the ages of children eligible to work, extend the hours they are eligible to work to help employers, and/or reduce the safety considerations on the jobs such children would take.  An estimated 300,000 to 500,000 children under the age of 18 work in the American agriculture industry alone, with some Republican-led states allowing employers to require children under the age of 16 to work up to 12 hour days.

.@GenDonBolduc spent his life serving our country as a combat veteran.

He is a true patriot and I am thankful for both his and Sharon’s endorsement and friendship.

Here we go New Hampshire! #FITN #LFOD pic.twitter.com/8D2nIDrobP

— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) February 17, 2023

Are we missing something here? Not going to pretend to we’re experts on the dirtscape of quadrennial New Hampshire GOP presidential politics, so if there’s some more significance to Don Bolduc other than that he was a Trump-endorsed QAnon dipshit who managed to lose the 2022 Senate election by 9 points while the incumbent Republican governor on the same ballot won by 13 please let us know. If Bolduc is actually some monster power player in the state party who nobody fucks with and this really is a big clinch for Haley then we’ll happily issue a correction.

And sure, the simpler take could be that if GOP primary voters nominated this guy for Senate last year then his endorsement should carry weight, but probably the only reason enough of them voted for Bolduc in the 2022 Senate primary was because Trump had endorsed him. So now he just looks like a disloyal “RINO” for betraying the Orange God Emperor and Haley’s hitched her wagon to a guy who won the primary by 1.2 percent and then cost them a winnable Senate seat. Savvy genius.

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko on Friday rushed to Moscow to personally apologize to his boss, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, a day after Lukashenko fucked up and invited US President Joe Biden to Minsk to help broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, the Daily Beast reports.

“Thank you for agreeing to come,” Putin told Lukashenko during their televised metting. “How could I not agree?” Lukashenko replied. Putin mentioned he’d seen Lukashenko’s invite to Biden during a Thursday press conference. “Of course you did… It probably upset you?” Lukashenko quivered. Putin then assured him he wasn’t upset. Publicly at least, as Lukashenko was likely dangled upside down by his ankles out of an open 12th story window for the transgression during a later private chat.