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Yeah, I get it:  economics is boring.  It’s not our most popular fare.  Macroeconomics is hard.  Big numbers hurt head.  And it’s not like these stories dominate the themes of the comment threads.  (We know our audience.  Hell, we’re lucky you’ve read this far.)  So humor me:  As we enter a two-year period where we’re going to hear about “librul” Joe Biden and the free-spending, irresponsible Democrats want to spend us into economic catastrophe….

Well, inflation is down, job creation continues and today, the administration announced the federal deficit was slashed by 46% by Prez46 in one year.  (The Deep State trolls well:  46 by 46.  Yeah, we see you.)  Last year’s deficit was $1.4 trillion; the previous year’s was $2.6 trillion.  We all knew Trump and the GOP are bad for the economy, but… well, I’ll let the people from Pro Publica explain:

Trump had the third-biggest primary deficit growth, 5.2% of GDP, behind only George W. Bush (11.7%) and Abraham Lincoln (9.4%). Bush, of course, not only passed a big tax cut, as Trump has, but also launched two wars, which greatly inflated the defense budget. Lincoln had to pay for the Civil War. By contrast, Trump’s wars have been almost entirely of the political variety.

The leaders of the Proud Boys planned to use their members to violently stop Congress from certifying the 2020 election for Democrat Joe Biden, prosecutors said in the opening argument in the trial of the group’s leaders, the first time the Justice Department has acknowledged in court an organized pre-planned plot to attack the Capitol, the Washington Post reports.

In their 90-minute opening statement, prosecutors used the defendants’ own videos, photos and messages to layout the planning Enrique Tarrio, the group’s foreman chair, and the four other defendants undertook to make sure their members led others into the building.

Defense attorneys made a compelling argument, but not one that excuses their clients’ criminal actions.  “President Trump told these people that the election was stolen. … He’s the one who unleashed that mob at the Capitol on January 6th,” Tarrio’s attorney Sabino Jauregui said, adding that it would be an “injustice” to hold the defendants culpable but allowing Trump to carry on without being held accountable for his own actions.

Professor Laura Ingraham of the Rewritten History Department: “If only we had a president who cared more about what was good for the country and less about how to protect his family’s corrupt business interests.”  She’s only two years off on this stunning analysis which was stunningly absent from 2017 through January 20, 2021.

A move obviously done just to be a dick, a Republican Oklahoma state senator has introduced a resolution instructing the Department of Defense that it cannot train foreign soldiers in the state, his effort to stop Ukrainians from being trained on Patriot missile systems.

Natham Dahm, self-described as “Oklahoma’s most conservative state senator,” tweeted that he did not want Ukrainians training “on Oklahoma soil,” which is also American soil, defended by the US military.  “The last thing we need is them misfiring a missile into Oklahoma,” he added.

Citing an errant Ukrainian air defense missile that crashed in Poland two months ago, killing two civilians, Dahm demanded “THAT the Oklahoma Senate directs the Pentagon, Department of Defense, and federal government to reverse course on their attempt to send foreign troops to Oklahoma.”  Apparently, Dahm doesn’t just want to exclude just Ukrainians, but all foreigners because he’s also Oklahoma’s most xenophobic state senator.

Jared Russo was fired from his job as a lieutenant in the Denver Fire Department after an internal investigation found he said some really racist shit to his coworkers and marginalized minority colleagues on the job, theGrio reports.

Begun after a DFD captain formally requested Russo, who was called “racist rover” by his coworkers, not be assigned to his station, the investigation found Russo frequently said racist and demeaning comments to minority peers and subordinates.  Russo once said to a Black firefighter, “All you guys look alike,” and to another, he said, “You drive good for an Asian guy.”  At one point, the investigation found, Russo–a self-described history fan–told his workers, “Hilter was a better person than Abraham Lincoln,” and that enslaved Africans “were lucky to have been brought to this country.”  In his termination letter, the DFD said Russo “does not possess the required character to be a Denver firefighter.”

Russo, of course, is suing to get his job back, setting up a GoFundMe page for his legal costs and family expenses.  “I am now being terminated for discussions with other members at the firehouse over possibly offensive things I’ve said,” Russo claims in his appeal.  “The individuals that I could ascertain were the possible direct victims of my words, have written me positive character witness statements that have been given to the city. All are also good friends. I have also sought out others whom I may have offended and apologized to them.”

The wife of a former Republican Iowa state legislator and current county commission who ran to replace sentient fire hydrant Steve King in Congress faces more than 50 federal charges after casting 23 ballots for her husband in two elections, the Des Moines Register reports.

Kim Phuong Taylor, the wife of Woodbury County supervisor Jeremy Taylor, obtained and filled out absentee ballots fraudulently in the 2020 Republican primary, which her husband lost to current Republican Iowa Congressman Randy Feenstra.  After her husband lost the primary, she ran the same scheme again in the county supervisor race.

Phuong Taylor signed documents and ballots sent to other people, and she told friends that they were allowed to file ballots for relatives who opted not to vote.  Phuong Taylor faces 23 counts of fraudulent voting; 26 counts of providing false information when registering or voting; and three counts of false voter registration.

Ohio Republican Congressman Max Miller, who has been accused of embellishing his military service and that he graduated college on time, and also that he punched his ex-girlfriend Stephanie Grisham while they were both working in the Trump White House, called on the more dishonest and corrupt New York Republican Congressman George Santos to resign on Thursday, Cleveland.com reports

“I believe voters have the right to hold government officials to the very highest standard of honesty and trustworthiness,” Miller, who also lied to voters in his respective district, just not as badly as Santos did, said in a statement. “The people’s representatives must respect the need for transparency and candor with Americans. It is not okay to fabricate or lie for political gain.”

Miller secured Trump’s endorsement and won the GOP primary in Ohio’s 7th District by embracing false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, which we can safely say qualifies as “political gain.”

Republican Wisconsin state lawmakers on Thursday cited some bullshit bureaucratic reason as they voted to block a proposed ban on conversion therapy practices used to psychologically torture gay and transgender people, the AP reports. “It’s not about the policy itself,” said chief of staff to some MAGA asshole state senator who claimed there are issues with the legality of the state board that recommended the ban, as if where proposals originates from overrides whether or not a duly elected state legislature can enact it. Who comes up with this shit?

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“…served as the point person coordinating with special counsel Robert Mueller's office in the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.” https://t.co/2oHoezljml

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 12, 2023

So now this investigation is “rigged” and fraudulent because Robert Hur did something something back when Trump was president even though the investigation does not actually involve Trump at all. Now Republicans already have something to make themselves feel better in a few months when Hur releases a report saying Biden fucked up but didn’t actually commit any crimes.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s 2022 Annual Report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena dropped Thursday, two and a half months after its originally required publication date, examining 366 newly-identified UAP reports collected since March 2021, judging that “more than half” of the objects reported mostly by Air Force and Navy personnel as “exhibiting unremarkable characteristics, 26 characterized as Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) or UAS-like entities; 163 characterized as balloon or balloon-like entities; and 6 attributed to clutter. Initial characterization does not mean positively resolved or unidentified. This initial characterization better enables AARO and ODNI to efficiently and effectively leverage resources against the remaining 171 uncharacterized and unattributed UAP reports. Some of these uncharacterized UAP appear to have demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities, and require further analysis.”

But you know just because the intelligence apparatus of the most powerful military in human history can’t come up with a conventional explanation for the sighting by highly trained personnel doesn’t mean they’re anything extraordinary. They could be some new type of Russian-made weather balloon that flies at hypersonic speeds and goes underwater without slowing down.

White nationalist alcoholic degenerate Steve Bannon wore three shirts and two jackert on his torso and arms during a court appearance ahead of his trial in Manhattan on New York State-level charges in the “We Build The Wall” scam, the Daily Beast’s Jose Pagliery reports. “Bannon had a black undershirt under a black collared shirt, overlayed by yet another black collared shirt, over which he donned a dull blazer, which he hid under his signature green fatigue jacket,” Pagliery wrote and the end of a long Twitter thread reporting other, more material, developments in the hearing.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland will hold a press conference at 1:15 PM EST on Thursday. The exact topic is unknown, however some in politics and media suspect Garland will be announcing the appointment of a special counsel to investigate President Biden’s classified documents fuckup.

If that’s the case then please God almighty let it be John Durham. The fanboys will lose their minds after years of so many disappointments and failures from that fucking paranoid basket case.

UPDATE 1/12/2023 1:19 PM: Garland names Robert K Hur as special counsel to investigate President Biden’s classified documents fuckup. Goddamn it, we really wanted Durham.

Federal law enforcement agents have interviewed “multiple” Obama-era Vice Presidential aides to President Biden in an effort to get to the bottom of how 20 or so documents marked classified ended up in his home in Delaware and an office in DC after he left office in 2017, NBC News reports.

There is, as of this point, no “special master” involved. Biden isn’t shopping around to find a federal judge that he appointed to get the investigation halted. He’s not claiming he telekinetically declassified the documents or calling it a “witch hunt.” His aides are complying with the investigation and not hiding other boxes from FBI agents after they’ve been subpoenaed.

Bloomberg reports Attorney General Merrick Garland is considering appointing a special counsel to investigate the matter. The AG has a press conference scheduled for 1:15 PM on Thursday, however the topic of the presser is unclear and may be on an entirely unrelated matter.

Three of the 16 Michiganders who duly and legitimately served as President Biden’s winning electoral college delegation for the state have filed a lawsuit against all 16 of the MAGA traitors who signed false paperwork claiming to be the rightful electors, the Detroit News reports.

Blake Mazurek of Kent County, Robin Smith of Ingham County, and Timothy Smith of Ottawa County filed the civil complaint Wednesday in Kent County Superior Court, seeking damages of $25,000 each and a declaration from a judge that the “fake elector scheme was illegal under Michigan law.”

The lawsuit comes just days after Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced she was reopening her criminal investigation into the Trump scumbags, citing “clear evidence to support charges” turned up by the House January 6th Select Committee’s investigation. Nessel had previously referred the matter to federal prosecutors, who sure have been taking their time with it.

When asked by a reporter on Thursday about how he expects people to comply with Congressional subpoenas when he himself refused to comply with one from the January 6th Select Committee, House Squeaker Kevin McCarthy struggled to make a coherent response, saying he actually complied but something something about the January 6th committee’s membership. “The other side will get to name their members on the [Jim Jordan Ultra MAGA select sub-]committee. It won’t be handpicked by me and denying the Democrats their voice,” McCarthy said, apparently satisfied.

When another reporter pointed out that he’s “indicated he’s not going to let” Congressmen Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff sit on certain committees. McCarthy then got mad at the reporter. “Let me phrase something very direct to you: If you got the briefing I got from the FBI, you wouldn’t have Swalwell on any committee,” McCarthy said, pausing multiple times for lame dramatic effect.

Russian officials released US Navy veteran Taylor Dudley at a border crossing with Poland on Thursday, nine months after Dudley was arrested in April 2022 on some bullshit charges, former New Mexico Gov Bill Richardson, who worked to secure Dudley’s release, told ABC News.

Meanwhile arms dealer Viktor Bout, who last month told notorious Russian spy Maria Butina in a TV interview he would “readily volunteer” to serve on the front lines in Ukraine following his release from US custody in exchange for WNBA star Britney Griner walked back on his prior bravado on Wednesday, according to the Daily Beast. Bout reportedly became irritated when a caller asked him if he’d received any offers to fight with the Wagner mercenary group, saying “No, there were no offers to join the [private military company]. There again, you have to understand where you can be most useful, and which of your skills and knowledge would be handy,” which we guess means, no, he won’t be picking up a rifle to fight the Ukrainians any time soon.

“As we stated previously, we are fully cooperating with the National Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in possession of the Archives. Following the discovery of government documents at the Penn Biden Center in November 2022, and coordinating closely with the Department of Justice, the President’s lawyers have searched the President’s Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, residences — the other locations where files from his Vice-Presidential office might have been shipped in the course of the 2017 transition. The lawyers completed that review last night.”

“During the review, the discovered among personal and political papers a small number of additional Obama-Biden Administration records with classified markings. All but one of these documents were found in storage space in the President’s Wilmington residence garage. One document consisting of one page was discovered among stored materials in an adjacent room. No documents were found in the Rehoboth Beach residence. As was done in the case of the Penn-Biden Center, the Department of Justice was immediately notified, and the lawyers arranged for the Department of Justice to take possession of these documents. The White House will continue to cooperate with the review by the Department of Justice,” says White House Special Counsel Richard Stauber in a statement.

“For seven years, from the day I came down the escalator in Trump Tower, the Democrat Party has WEAPONIZED the ‘Legal’ System, using City, State, and Federal Law Enforcement against me and the Republican Party as though they were a Private Protection Agency. The greatest Witch Hunt in American History must end now. I beat the Fake Impeachments, the disgraceful Mueller Persecution, and much else that the Fake News doesn’t want to write or talk about, but this charade MUST STOP NOW!!!” wailed the fat bastard in a second post, the continuing his evident panic over recent subpoenas, writing “Fire a man who may very well turn out to be a criminal, Jack Smith. His conflicts, unfairness, and mental state of derangement make him totally unfit for the job of ‘getting Trump.’ Go after Biden and the Biden Crime Family instead. Like Bill Barr, the U.S. Attorneys in Delaware and Illinois are weak, ineffective, and afraid to do what must be done. The Election was RIGGED, and we are now losing our Country. We can’t let that happen. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Apparently the “government official in prison” Donald is referring to here is Smith prosecuting former Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi for crimes against humanity including “murder, enforced disappearance of persons, persecution, and torture,” calling him responsible “for nearly 100 murders. The crimes alleged in the Indictment involve hundreds of known victims of Kosovo Albanian, Serb, Roma, and other ethnicities and include political opponents,” per a 2020 press release.

Dick Grenell freaked out over that last month. “Ask yourself – why did Jack Smith indict Thaci weeks before Trump was about to end his cushy job in Europe? And after years of nothing – only to have no details in the charges?” Grenell wrote, as if Smith just made the charges up.

FBI agents in October conducted a raid on an office in Manhattan’s Chinatown rented by a “Chinese community organization” but was allegedly being used as an outpost of the city of Fuzhou’s police department to keep tabs on Chinese-speaking pro-democracy activists, the New York Times reports. It’s not clear what specifically the raid was for, but it came amid an ongoing federal law enforcement push against transnational repression by the ChiComs. On Wednesday the Justice Department brought an indictment against a Chinese citizen student at the Berklee College of Music for stalking and harassing an activist who had post fliers in support of democracy in China.