Category: Uncategorized

Democratic Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin, one of the faces of the efforts to impeach Donald Trump for leading the effort to overturn the 2020 election results, announced Wednesday that he has been diagnosed with a treatable form of cancer, the Washington Post reports.

“After several days of tests, I have been diagnosed with Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma, which is a serious but curable form of cancer,” Raskin said in a statement. “Prognosis for most people in my situation is excellent after four months of treatment.”

In an internal memo obtained by CNN this week – but dated prior to the Supreme Court’s indefinite extension of the Title 42 COVID lockdown at the border – officials at the Department of Homeland Security warned of a potential MAGA terrorist threat following the policy’s expiration.

“So far, we have observed calls for attacks targeting primarily migrants and critical infrastructure, but our insight into DVE plotting is constrained by these individuals’ use of online security measures to limit exposure to law enforcement,” said the December 23 memo, with “DVE” being the Homeland Security department’s shorthand for “Domestic Violent Extremists.” The memo further detailed white nationalist Trump fanboy social media chatter discussing ideas for “firearms attacks, the placement of land mines along migration routes, and luring migrants into trailers to poison them with gas,” with that last one sounding awfully authentic given its level of cruelty and specificity.

Nassau County, New York District Attorney Anne Donnelly, a Republican, on Wednesday told Long Island Newsday in a statement her office is opening a criminal investigation into lying piece of shit Republican Congressman-elect George Santos for yet-to-be determined offenses.

“The numerous fabrications and inconsistencies associated with Congressman-Elect Santos are nothing short of stunning. The residents of Nassau County and other parts of the third district must have an honest and accountable representative in Congress. No one is above the law and if a crime was committed in this county, we will prosecute it,” Donnelly told the newspaper.

Anyone entering the United States after a flight from China must present a negative COVID test taken at some point during the previous two days before boarding the flight, CNN reports, an effort to prevent the massive wave of coronavirus hitting China from quickly reaching the US, CNN reports.

Passengers who had tested positive for the coronavirus ten days prior to travel and show evidence of recovery can travel in lieu of a negative test, which can be administered through a self-test monitored through a telehealth agency.  Beginning in January, the test will be required for people traveling directly from China or from China through a stopover in another country.

Unlike when the outbreak that started in 2019 when the Trump cabal erroneously believed a travel shutdown would prevent the spread of the virus, the Biden Administration is taken steps to monitor and track coronavirus spread.  As idiotic Trump spawn vacantly cry “racism” because the testing impacts people traveling from China, the policy isn’t aimed exclusively at people of Chinese descent, but at people of all races, religions and ethnicities traveling from a country implementing massive shutdowns to curb the latest wave of the coronavirus, which has already claimed more than one million lives in the United States since the start of the pandemic, after President Trump said in February 2020 that we would have “close to zero” cases by early March 2020; Trump then failed to respond effectively to the spread of the virus in the United States, frequently undermining the public health officials in his administration.

A ruling from a DC federal judge on Wednesday in the case against a Capitol rioter appears to suggest that disgraced former President Trump telling his fans to “fight like hell” was a knowing request for them to break the law, which they most certainly did, Politico reports.

The whole thing is some really inside baseball type of shit but is apparently significant as it gives an idea of how the judiciary would handle a case brought from the criminal referrals for Trump by the House January 6th Select Committee. DC Circuit Judge John Bates, a George W Bush appointee, cited the select committee’s report and referrals as he tossed a motion by defendant Alexander Sheppard to use the “public authority” defense to claim “Hey Trump told me it was okay to go to the Capitol,” in his upcoming trial. “Thus, the conclusions reached here – that even if protesters believed they were following orders, they were not misled about the legality of their actions… is consistent with the Select Committee’s findings,” Bates wrote in his ruling, probably ruining Sheppard’s day.

Now to be extra careful with this, nothing from the above two paragraphs does not itself appear in the Politico article in some way or another. They did not use any words like “incitement” or “inducement” so neither did we, despite the temptation to do so. But it’s hard not to read that it’s an “early window into how the judiciary might interpret the unusual findings of criminal violations by a congressional committee,” and not think that they’re really trying to say something a little closer to “A judge just handed prosecutors a road map for charging the fat fuck with ‘inciting or assisting an insurrection’ as referred by the committee.” We’ve gotten in trouble with readers for taking things a little further than we should have a few times this year (even if we were eventually proven kind of right most of those times), so we’ll be circumspect here and keep it at a lower pitch.

US Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise George on Wednesday filed a federal civil complaint against JP Morgan Chase Bank for “turning a blind eye” to the financial transactions that fueled the heinous crimes of their former client Jeffrey Epstein and his pals, Bloomberg reports.

George called her suit, which was filed in a Manhattan federal court, part of an “ongoing effort” to hold accountable those who partook in Epstein’s underage sex trafficking ring on Little Saint James aka “Epstein Island,” lying within the US Carribbean territory. “Human trafficking was the principal business of the accounts Epstein maintained at JPMorgan,” the complaint states.

Of course such action will likely get a lukewarm reception at best from the fanboys obsessed with the Epstein case, even if it could force a public disclosure of entities who paid him for his “services.” Anything that doesn’t “prove” Hillary’s goons murdered him in 2019 to prevent him from implicating her and her husband in the sex trafficking is a “psyop” and a distraction. Never mind that Epstein died in a federal lockup managed by the Bureau of Prisons whose leadership reported to Attorney General Bill Barr who in turn reported to former President Trump, or that it was former Trump Administration Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta who as US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida in 2007 let Epstein off the hook on federal sex trafficking charges. It’s been three years and none of those inconvenient facts never mattered to them, so why should they now?

Violent MAGA QAnon terrorist David DePape on Wednesday pleaded not guilty to the state-level charges in the October 28th attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul, CBS News reports.

DePape was hit with attempted murder, residential burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, false imprisonment of an elder, and threats to a public official and their family charges by the San Francisco DA’s office while Justice Department charged him with the assault on the immediate family member of a federal official and attempted kidnapping of a federal official, the legal term for which might be “completely fucked.” Unless of course he can expose the secret plot of him being some sort of Deep State sleeper agent whose body was seized by Soros nanotechnology to attack Paul Pelosi in a false flag operation. A jury might buy into it if he’s got some compelling evidence.

Soldiers of the New York National Guard are conducting door-to-door checks in parts of the Buffalo region to see how people are holding up – and if they’re still alive after days of punishing cold and snow that has already claimed over 30 lives since last week, the AP reports.

“We are fearful that there are individuals who may have perished, living alone, or people who are not doing well,” said Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz of the sweeps which came as the weather finally began to ease in the area. Forecasts called for temperatures in the low 50s and even some rain later this week. Both will cause minor flooding, probably still preferable to 12 foot snowdrifts.

Current House Sergeant-at-Arms and former commander of the DC National Guard William Walker told the House January 6th Select Committee in his testimony that the day would’ve seen more “deadly force” used if it had been a horde of Black rioters storming the Capitol, NBC News reports.

“I’m African American. Child of the sixties. I think it would have been a vastly different response if those were African Americans trying to breach the Capitol,” Walker told committee investigators per the transcript released Tuesday. “As a career law enforcement officer, part-time soldier, last 5 years full but, but a law enforcement officer my entire career, the law enforcement response would have been different. There were – I saw enough to where I would have probably been using deadly force. I think it would have been more bloodshed if the composition would have been different.”

Of course that’s the “No shit” conclusion that many reached pretty much as the insurrection was still going on, but it’s still important to hear it from a guy who was on duty when it happened in his old job (but hamstrung by lack of authorization to deploy the troops under his command to assist cops and repel the terrorists) and whose current job is to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Anti-LGBTQ legislation.  Subjugating people of color.  Excessive militarization.  Forcing his political will on the nation even though he rules with minority support from the public.  While these sound like platforms from the Republican Party (if they decide to actually write their first Party platform since 2016), they’re actually the plans for Benjamin Netanyahu’s new Israeli coalition government, scheduled to take office Thursday.

According to NBC News, Netanyahu’s platform, released ahead of his installation as Prime Minister after his Likud Party won just 32 seats in the 120-seat Knesset but formed a tenuous coalition government with Parties like one called “Religious Zionist,” doubles down on the conservative policy of building more Jewish settlements in the West Bank, a policy lambasted by foreign governments due to the subjugation of non-Jewish people who live in those regions.  Critics call Netanyahu’s approach modern-day apartheid.

Netanyahu also promises to institute anti-LGBTQ policies, allowing businesses to deny services to gay, lesbian and trans people, claiming such bigotry is biblically justified.   Additionally, as with any conservative government, Netanyahu supports an expansion of the military, something Republicans will greatly endorse to help US military contractors and to increase the likelihood of their anticipated war in the Middle East that, they believe, will lead to a glorious apocalypse that will shepherd the Second Coming of Christ, in a completely rational and well-thought out foreign policy.

Barry Croft, Jr., the man who planned and led the effort to kidnap and potentially execute Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, was sentenced to 235 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker, who commented, “I do think of Mr. Croft as the more seriously culpable … more so than even Mr. Fox.  I think he was the person who gave Mr. Fox something to grab on to.”

According to NBC News, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler called Croft “fully radicalized” and still holding on to the view that Whitmer acted tyrannically after issuing public health instructions for people to stay isolated during the coronavirus pandemic.  Croft and his followers planned an elaborate scheme involving blowing up bridges to facilitate the kidnapping and show trial of Whitmer, whom they intended to execute in a live stream broadcast.

Thousands of Glasgow, Scotland-area customers of Virgin Media broadband are going to be stuck without internet access for over a week as the company estimates repairs for an outage will be corrected next Thursday, STV News reports. “We are aware of an issue currently in the Glasgow area, the current estimated fix date is January 5, 2023 although this is being worked on to fully resolve as quickly as possible,” a Virgin Media spokesperson said in a statement.

Eight days sure sounds like a high estimate even if we assume they’re doing the old “underpromise and overdeliver” to customers. Like if in reality it was only going to take a day then tell them Friday just to be safe and disingenuously earn a little goodwill. But even that would be too long. God knows how many of these customers aren’t just kids watching YouTube or playing Xbox but actually important commercial and human infrastructure like banks and doctor’s offices. This shit is going to be seriously disruptive to people’s lives and livelihoods in all sorts of awful ways.

Seems like part of a pattern of certain mission-critical products and services not being delivered for people who count on them for their needs are like “LOL fuck you… LMAO” to consumers forced to live with the outcome of their incompetence. Sure it sucks when Pepsi didn’t deliver any Diet Sierra Mist to your local store or when that cool Batman-themed roller coaster at Six Flags gets closed for safety inspection on the day you visit or when the Halo Infinite multiplayer servers get taken offline so they can patch some bugs when you wanted to play, but you don’t need them.

People do however need baby formula, Adderall, to get where they’re going without spending fucking three days in an airport, broadband internet, and all sorts of other products and services subject to similar interruptions. Yet capitalism demands that the means of accountability for failure to deliver the comforts of life be the same as failing to deliver the essentials. It’s time to start asking out loud if the market is going to remain the only “solution” to these sort of fuckups.

“Wokeness has no place in our US military, period, so it’s unfortunate that we’ve seen under the Biden Administration with him as our commander in chief,” former local television news anchor, woman who never wore the uniform and Republican Iowa Congresswoman Ashley Hinson declares.  “Um, we’ve seem some in the Department of Defense prioritize pronouns over preparedness.”

Just a note for this history-deprived conservative:  Stop talking about “readiness” if you’re going to object to members of the military getting a vaccine to ensure operation readiness.  You sound like fucking morons that don’t know what you support:  the military has led the way in “wokeness” since its inception.  Washington required members of the Continental Army to be vaccinated something “un-woke” conservatives fight now thanks to their inherent stupidity, knee-jerk hatred of intelligence, and ongoing temper tantrums.

The racial integration of the military was quickly accepted by the civilian population.  After the proverbial glass ceiling was broken, women rose through the ranks to leadership positions.  And strangely, after initial problems, there has been little rancor in the military about “wokeness” except from those of outside looking to cause trouble.

MAGA dating app “The Right Stuff,” founded by Trump minion Johnny McEntee and backed by psychopathic billionaire vampire Peter Thiel, has pretty much flopped three months after its debut on the iOS app store, with only about 61,000 downloads, the Daily Beast reports.

Apparently offended that a Fox host would hold a Republican to account for lies, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (Q-Ga.) took to Twitter to lambast substitute Tucker Carlson Tulsi Gabbard for aggressively questioning Republican New York Congressman-elect and professed liar George Santos.

In a six-tweet thread, Marge voiced upset that “while George is admitting and apologizing for lying about his resume, [Gabbard] just like her former colleagues are giving George zero grace & even demanding he resign,” a demand made because the man falsely claimed to have graduated from various colleges; worked at various companies; been Jewish, Jew-ish and devoutly Catholic; and a gay man who failed to disclose he was once married to a woman.

So Marge isn’t made about that.  She’s mad that Gabbard dared to question Santos’s integrity while Gabbard voted to support pro-choice rights, gun control and other policies while a member of Congress.  Because when one wants to talk about integrity, you should take the lead from the reportedly adulterous conspiracy theorist who threatened the lives of her Congressional colleagues.

In a move a completely innocent person would do, Donald Trump considered issuing a blanket pardon to all those “peaceful tourists” who illegally entered the Capitol during the January 6th Republican-led domestic terrorist attack on Congress, newly released transcripts confirm, the New York Times reports.

Trump’s “body man” Johnny McEntee, the director of personnel, recalled Trump bringing up a blanket pardon during a meeting, but noting that White House Counsel Pat Cipollone rejected the idea for a pardon for anyone who illegally entered the White House.

At another point, Trump tossed out the idea of giving everyone working in the White House a pardon.  “Well, why does anyone need a pardon?” McEntee recounts Cipollone as saying.  When someone mentioned a pardon would prevent Democrats from going after “every little thing,” Cipollone erroneously stated, “Yeah, but no one here has done anything wrong.”

If you’ve ever known a family whose child had heart surgery, here’s a ray of good news:  A revolutionary new heart stent designed for children grows with the patient, increasing the diameter of the device as the patient matures, thereby eliminating the need for additional invasive surgeries later in life to insert a wider stent, CBS News reports.

More than 40,000 children in the United States are born each year with congenital heart problems that will require surgery as an infant, virtually all of them requiring follow-up surgeries as they grow older to replace the initial stent.  Currently, in 60% of cases, surgeons use off-label equipment or adapt a small-diameter stent design for an adult to fill the need.

The innovation could prevent literally tens of thousands of surgeries annually as doctors treat growing patients.  The stent, called a Minima stent, has been used on ten neonate and pediatric patients, all of whom showed normal function at their six-month follow-up examinations.  The device aims to become the first endovascular stent to be approved exclusively for the treatment of infants.

Filling in for presumably vacationing bowtie dipshit Tucker Carlson on Tuesday, genocidal fascist cult member Tulsi Gabbard looked on sympathetically as fraud Congressman-elect George Santos explained he himself is real and not some sort of illusion. “I am not a fraud. I am not a fake. I didn’t materialize from thin air,” said Santos as if the third one somehow cancels out the first two.

A Maricopa County, Arizona judge ordered losing Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake to pay her victorious Democratic opponent, Katie Hobbs, more than $33,000 to reimburse Hobbs for expert testimony needed to counter Lake’s debunked claims of election fraud, CNN reports.

The ruling falls short of awarding Hobb’s reimbursement for her legal expenses to fight Lake’s claims, estimated to be in excess of $600,000.  Hobb’s lawyers argued that Lake and her legal team put forth an argument to the court that they knew could not be substantiated to a legal certainty and that Lake’s team failed to provide even the slightest bit of evidence that parties within the state government conspired against her in the gubernatorial race by intentionally making it difficult for people to vote on Election Day.

Lake has vowed to continue her fight for the governorship of Arizona despite having lost the statewide race by more than 17,000 votes, a margin confirmed by recounts in various counties, including Maricopa County, which accounts for 60% of the votes in the state.

Southwest Airlines on Tuesday canceled more than 2,500 flights, some as far in the future as the upcoming New Year’s weekend, in the aftermath of massive schedule disruptions brought on severe winter weather, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The Southwest cancelations accounted for more than 90% of the total flight cancelations in the United States on Tuesday, triggering a ripple throughout the airline’s schedule because of the need to reset aircraft and crews.

To get the airline back on schedule, Southwest CEO Bob Jordan told the Wall Street Journal it would run at one-third capacity until it can position crews and planes to restart its normal schedule of around 3,000 flights daily.