Category: Uncategorized

A relatively massive 3.8-magnitude earthquake struck the town on West Seneca, New York, just outside Buffalo at approximately 6:15 AM on Monday, Fox 5 reports. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage from the temblor, its epicenter in a not seismically-active area.

It was no coincidence that a promo card saying Pfizer had sponsored the Grammy Awards on Sunday night appeared immediately after a Satanic-themed performance of the song “Unholy” by Sam Smith and a transgender pop star named Kim Petras, the Gateway Pundit reports.

“The 65th Annual Grammy Awards held in Los Angeles Sunday night and broadcast on CBS featured the Grammy’s [sic] usual tribute to the Prince of Darkness, this time apparently sponsored by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer,” wrote the Gateway Pundit’s, um, entertainment reporter, Kristinn Taylor, who then added that First Lady Jill Biden made a surprise appearance at the end of the music industry awards show and that “Unholy is definitely a Biden family values song.”

Taylor made no further real effort to establish a connection between Satanism and Pfizer in the article, nor did she ever mention the COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by the pharmaceutical giant.

The death toll from a massive 7.8-magnitude overnight earthquake that struck north of a provincial capital in south-central Turkey continued to climb Monday, with at least 1,300 dead and hundreds more feared trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings, the Associated Press reports.

People were forced outdoors in the middle of the night amid snow and freezing rain by the quake and a 6.6-magnitude aftershock that struck just hours later. The quake was just another hardship imposed on a region ravaged by Syria’s long-running civil war, with an estimated 4 million refugees having fled over the border into Turkey during the now more than decade-old conflict.

UPDATE 2/6/2023 5:55 AM EST: A second 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck Kahramanmaras province, to the north of the earlier 7.8-magnitude quake, at 1:24 PM local time on Monday.

The ChiCom spy balloon spotted over Costa Rica on Friday was “blown off course” from its “weather research” task, Chinese officials said at a news briefing on Monday, according to Bloomberg.

“It has made an unintended entry into the airspace of Latin American countries,” said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning at a regular news briefing Monday in Beijing. “It’s for civilian purposes, and it is affected by the weather and with limited self-steering capability.” When asked by a reporter why China had lost control of two balloons across the Pacific Ocean, Mao said “I’m not an expert, so it’s not convenient for me to answer the question.”

A 7.8 magnitude earthquake has struck central Turkey early Monday morning local time, with a strong aftershock following shortly thereafter, causing massive damage and likely a significant number of casualties, the Washington Post reports.

In an earlier unhinged rant, Trump also wrote “Who sends a Billion Dollar blimp, with the most sophisticated equipment in the World, and large enough to hold ten cars or 3 large buses, into a complex pattern over the United States, without it quite possibly being manned, such as the ‘manned spacecraft?’ China should have been called to ask. If ‘no,’ shoot it down, if ‘yes,’ negotiate the greatest deal EVER!” apparently hinting that Biden murdered ChiCom balloon pilots.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced all members of the Senate will be permitted to participate in a briefing by national security officials on the fourth acknowledged incursion by a Chinese surveillance balloon into American airspace, Politico reports.  “Republican critics were breathless, political, and premature. President Biden and his team were calm, calculating and effective,” Schumer said.

The Biden Administration ordered the military to shoot down the balloon, which the Pentagon opted to do after it drifted over the ocean so it could crash with minimum risk to human safety.  In the first combat kill in the fighter jet’s history, an F-22 Raptor brought down the balloon off the coast of the Carolinas in relatively shallow waters, allowing the US military the opportunity to salvage the wreckage.

With tens of thousands of people suffering without electricity thanks to a crappy power grid, Texas continues its descent into third-world state as 250 residents caused a melee over food being thrown out by an Austin grocery store, CNN reports.

People descended on the dumpsters behind a H-E-B Grocery store after someone posted “free food” was available at the supermarket.  The food, in fact, had spoiled because of the power outage caused by the winter storm that the Texas power grid couldn’t handle.  The spoiled food filled two dumpsters and at least a dozen shopping carts.

As rumor of the free food spread online, cars lined up and caused gridlock in the neighborhood.  Police responded to find hundreds of people fighting and battling each other for the goods.  Police and grocery store company officials warn the people who took the food to throw it away because it is unfit for consumption given how long it went without refrigeration.  But, yehaw, Texans, do what you want as you battle to become New Florida.

And to be clear, when we say he’s “still got it” we mean he’s still got the fucking weasely, sniveling disregard for any sort of logical and moral consistency whatsoever that we all know and hate.

Disgraced former President Trump was very upset and annoyed Sunday morning after the Pentagon disclosed that at least three ChiCom balloons had entered US airspace during his maladministration.

This unhinged rant raises some questions we’d like MAGA trolls to address: If the ChiComs had too much respect for “TRUMP” then why did they rig the 2020 election against him with those bamboo ballots and hacked thermostats? Isn’t “FAKE DISINFORMATION” a double negative too? And why isn’t Donald on the same page with Tom Cotton, who said it happened but was Obama’s fault?

Marco Rubio is clearly pissed the Pentagon pointed out that ChiCom spy balloons entered US airspace at three times during his Orange God Emperor’s reign, trying to argue that it only happened “briefly” during those four years. As is the usual MAGA way, they can ignore all the little details and qualifiers that challenge their version of their story, but when the shoe is on the other foot they get incredibly frustrated when their “but actuallys” are ignored by everyone else.

The Koch Brother who’s still alive is gearing up to oppose disgraced former President Trump’s bid for a second term in the White House, aiming to turn “the page on the past” and support another GOP primary candidate for 2024, according to an internal memo obtained by the New York Times.

It’ll be the first time the Koch Network, described by the Times as “an array of political and advocacy groups backed by hundreds of ultrawealthy conservatives,” will actually directly support a candidate in a Republican presidential primary. To that we say good fucking luck as it’s just going to bolster Donald’s “renegade” status with his fans against the Moscow Mitch side of the party.

A DC federal judge on Friday tossed disgraced former President Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the Washington Post, ruling that the fat orange bastard had failed to meet the minimal standard of “actual malice” in his March 2020 complaint over the Post’s coverage of his 2016 campaign’s connections with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s regime, Bloomberg reports.

Weird how all these lawsuits keep getting tossed. Almost like the “liberal media” outlets reporting on Trump’s criminal connections to Russia used factual information in their coverage.

Tennessee’s MAGA Gov Billy Lee last week axed $8.3 million in AIDS funding because treating people suffering from the virus is against the disease is against the bible or something, NBC reports.

“China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and protest against the US’s use of force to attack civilian unmanned airships. The Chinese side has repeatedly informed the US side after verification that the airship is for civilian use and entered the US due to force majeure, which was completely accidental. China clearly requires the US to handle it properly in a calm, professional and restrained manner. A spokesperson for the US Department of Defense also stated that the balloon will not pose a military or personal threat to ground personnel. Under such circumstances, the U.S. insists on using force, obviously overreacting and seriously violating international practice. China will resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of relevant companies, while reserving the right to make further necessary reactions.”  —The Chinese government official statement said (via Google translate) reacting to the Biden Administration ordering the military to bring down a surveillance balloon floating over the US.  The Pentagon is sending ships to salvage the platform, shot down off the coast of the Carolinas in water less than fifty feet deep.

Citing an exclusive excerpt from the forthcoming book by Defense Secretary pro tem Christopher Miller, the conservative diaper bin the Daily Caller reports–somehow gleefully–that former White House denizen Melania Trump joined her hubby and the leadership of the American military to oversee the assassination of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019.

With the National Counterterrorism Center at the time, Miller reports Melania basically just showed up in the doorway of the Situation Room while the operation was going on.  Then-Defense Secretary Marc Esper gave up his seat next to her ostensible husband so she could… um… counsel him.  The fawning story in the Daily Caller notes that Melania, allegedly an Einstein visa recipient, gave Don some good advice after the killing by drone.  Photos of the event taken by the official White House photographer do not show the former Third Lady in the room; instead, the White House distributed an obviously posed image of a stern-posing Trump flanked by his aides like Mike Pence, who would later be suggested by Trump for lynching, and military leaders.

The Daily Caller loses in the fawning-est department to the suck-ups at the Gateway Pundit, who titled their report on this “WHAT A GREAT WOMAN: Book Reveals First Lady Melania Trump Played A Key Role In Situation Room During Operation That Killed ISIS Leader Al-Baghdadi.”  And no, that is not a parody; it’s real.

In their Saturday press release on the successful downing of you know what, the Pentagon went just slightly out of the way to let it be known that ChiCom balloons floated over the United States at least three times while fat former President Trump was occupying the White House.

“Long before the shoot down, U.S. officials took steps to protect against the balloon’s collection of sensitive information, mitigating its intelligence value to the Chinese. The senior defense official said the recovery of the balloon will enable U.S. analysts to examine sensitive Chinese equipment. ‘I would also note that while we took all necessary steps to protect against the PRC surveillance balloon’s collection of sensitive information, the surveillance balloon’s overflight of U.S. territory was of intelligence value to us,’ the official said. ‘I can’t go into more detail, but we were able to study and scrutinize the balloon and its equipment, which has been valuable.’ The balloon did not pose a military or physical threat. Still its intrusion into American airspace over several days was an unacceptable violation of U.S. sovereignty. The official said Chinese balloons briefly transited the continental United States at least three times during the prior administration,” the Defense Department wrote in their press release, quoting an anonymous US military official.

People in a mile-wide radius around a train wreck in East Palestine, Ohio remain under an evacuation order nearly a full day after a 50-car derailment set cars carrying chemicals ablaze, causing people in the area to experience burns on their skin and eyes, the Washington Post reports.

Firefighters initially attempted to fight the fire that ensured from the accident at the town, located along the Pennsylvania border about an hour from Akron.  Emergency response units from five states–Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland and Virginia.  However, after authorities learned one of the burning cars carried vinyl chloride, an explosive, highly dangerous chemical, officials pulled back the fire crews and evacuated the area, putting a shelter-in-place order in for the rest of the residents.

Early Saturday, East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway issued a proclamation stating that the town “has been or is immediately threatened by a natural/man-made/technological hazard and or nuclear or conventional attack, and; at approximately 9:00 pm on Friday February 3, 2023 Norfolk Southern had a train derailment with hazardous materials.”

This never happened under Trump!  Frigid temperatures and high winds across the Northeast at Mount Washington, New Hampshire combined to set a new record wind chill for the United States on Friday night:  minus 108° F, according to CNN.

Temperatures of minus 46° F, matched with wind gusts in excess of 120 miles per hour, brought on the feeling of a temperature colder than the average temperature on Mars.  The prior wind chill record on Mount Washington was minus 102.7° F, set in 2004.  The previous record in the entire United States was minus 104° F set in Alaska in 1989.

This isn’t as much fun as it used to be. It’s not to say that I’m not enjoying it and am giving up on this site. Fuck no, not at all. I still love doing this. Hell maybe I love it even more than I did a year ago. What’s changed is the drive behind it. It’s become more clinical, more professional-ish, more of delivering the news and less of entertaining the audience here. I’m getting older, more experienced, things surprise me less and less, my technique for parsing out info from upstream is more honed (except for the first article of the day, that one is usually shit), and I’ve been staying ahead of the other site (and the other other site) on most of the storylines that matter the most to me.

However, I don’t think it’s just me taking the job more seriously. Or even that the total volume of the news feels like it’s been stuck at a 10 since last May or so (it has, even after the midterms). Something else shifted in the overall vibe far beyond just me personally. It’s hard to nail down but there’s this feeling I get like all the color has been drained from the picture somehow.