Category: Uncategorized

Democrats lead Republicans 44% to 41% on the generic ballot question on the September 2022 Fox News polls survey, improving from last month’s tie at 41% each. For comparison Fox shows their September 2018 generic ballot poll finding of Dems 46% to GOP 40%, a 6% delta on the way to the eventual result of an 8.6% popular vote win nationally for House Dems. We know a few people who would be pretty fucking happy for the 2022 House popular vote to be +5.6% Dems, as that is a few points more what they need to hang on the majority and likely netting them 5 to 10 more seats.

In what he likely thought was an aspirational portrait, Donald Trump keeps a framed Time Magazine cover in which he is depicted as royalty, featuring the words “King Me,” on the wall of an office at one of his clubs.  And unlike other depictions of him on Time covers that he fabricated, this one is real.

The cover comes from the June 18, 2018 issue of Time, which covered Trump’s 500th day in office.  In the issue, Trump is characterized as acting as though he were an untouchable monarch.  “This portrait of Trump gazing into a mirror and seeing a king gets to the heart of how he and his legal team have approached this past week and the past 500 days, actually,” artist Tim O’Brien says.  It could be used today for the same reason.

Yeshiva University, a Modern Orthodox Jewish college located in New York, must recognize an LGBTQ student group organized on campus, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision, Reuters reports.

The university claimed that recognizing the student group would be a violation of its religious rights, and their sect does not condone LGBTQ relationships, considering it against their teachings.  Recognizing the group, the university argued, would be a tacit endorsement of the members’ sexuality.

Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett dissented from the majority, with Alito claiming the mere fact that the university may be legally directed to recognize LGBTQ people or the groups they belong to, violates the university’s religious freedom.

The insanity of the GOP is quantifiable, and that quantity is 64%.  That the percentage of House Republicans who voted against the “National Aviation Preparedness Plan Act of 2022.”  It’s an innocuous-sounding bill, right?  That’s because it is quite an innocuous bill:  it directs the Secretaries of various Cabinet departments–Transportation, Health & Human Services, and  Homeland Security–to work together to develop a plan to address potential problems from the next pandemic that could dramatically impact US and global transportation.

See, that’s a good thing.  While the US transportation industry–from trucking companies to airlines–was caught flatfooted at the start of the coronavirus pandemic and suffered greatly, particularly during 2020 when there was absolutely no leadership coming from the White House, Democrats led the effort to have leaders develop a plan to direct resources and responses in a pre-planned, coordinated way.  And more than a third of House Republicans agreed with Democrats that, yeah, it would make sense to plan for that.

Coming of his right wing bloc’s surprise victory in legislative elections, Swedish Caucasian leader Jimmie Akesson declared it’s “time to put Sweden first,” (like we haven’t heard “[insert country here] first” from every other goddamned white nationalist party for decades so how about fucking come up with something else already) as Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson threw in the towel and conceded the majority to the four-party bloc, Sky News reports. While the center-left Andersson is gone for now at least, she won’t be replaced by the anti-immgrant Akisson, due to a condition imposed by the less MAGA parties in the bloc, the leader of the Moderates (capital M, that’s literally their name), Ulf Kristersson will take the premiership.

Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office filed a motion in state court to vacate the conviction of Adnan Syed from a 2000 murder trial, a case that gained national notoriety when it was featured on the “Serial” podcast, the Baltimore Banner reports.

Now 42-years-old, Syed was found guilty of the murder of Hae Min Lee in 1999 and burying her body in a Baltimore City park.  Lee were high school classmates who dated briefly, and police theorized that Syed was jealous and possessive of Lee, leading him to kill her.

However, other suspects were investigated by police, including a different man police believed had a motive to kill Lee who reportedly threatened to Lee’s life while he was speaking to someone else. Police never informed the defense of this testimony.  Earlier this year, prosecutors ran new DNA tests on evidence; it’s unknown if those results played into today’s motion.

The latest Quinnipiac survey of Georgia voters finds incumbent Dem Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock leading unhinged maniac Herschel Walker 52% to 46%, and incumbent Republican Gov Brian Kemp at 50% to Stacey Abrams’s 48% ahead of their hotly anticipated rematch in November.

According to a count on Ballotpedia, disgraced former President Trump went 222 for 237 on endorsements in Republican primaries in 2022, a 92% win rate. It sounds pretty good in absolutes, but the truth is it’s pretty fucking overinflated. First off, 161 of them were incumbents already in office. The only one of them who lost was Madison Cawthorn. Dozens of others, far too many to sort through, did not face a competitive primary, or simply ran unopposed.

That leaves, by our count, 73 primary endorsements for non-incumbent candidates (Sarah Palin is counted twice in Ballotpedia’s list, primary and general). We’re excluding the Alabama endorsement because that was bullshit, as well as Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania because Trump did it two days before the primary when Doug was surging. We could and probably should exclude more for similar reasons, but again, it would take a while and require a lot of subjective determinations. Anyway, of those 73 endorsements, 19 did not make it on the ballot in the general election, for a 73.7% win rate. Most lost outright, but a few were disqualified or dropped out. And there’s Mo Brooks, who we count as a loss for the Donald, despite the hilarious undorsement.

That’s not really that great for an egomaniacal fat fuck who claims he always wins everything, all the time. It wouldn’t be terrible by anyone else’s standards, but Trump set the high bar himself.

Broward County, Florida Circuit Judge Elizabeth “We try not to comment on women’s appearances at National Zero so we’re not going to add a nickname here” Scherer lit into Parkland MAGA terrorist Nikolas Cruz’s defense team for abruptly resting their case Wednesday morning after court was called into session in the trial to determine whether the Trump-loving incel will be executed for murdering 17 students and staff in the February 2018 massacre at his former high school.

“You all knew about this, and even if you didn’t make your decision until this morning, to have 22 [jurors] plus all of this staff and every attorney march into court and be waiting as if it’s some kind of game. Now I have to send them home, the state’s not ready, they’re not going to have a witness ready, we have another day wasted. Honestly I have never experienced a level of unprofessionalism in my career. It’s unbelievable,” said Scherer, who should’ve hurled her gavel at the defense.

The two package bombs that were delivered to Northeastern University in Boston Tuesday contained notes lambasting Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and the relationship between academic institutions and the social media giant, CNN reports.

The two packages each held a container loaded with explosives; when a University worker opened one around 7 p.m. local time Tuesday, it resulted in a loud but relatively weak device that caused minor injuries to the 45-year-old man’s hands.  They were sent to the University’s Holmes Hall, where the school’s virtual reality center is located.

Police disarmed the second package.  Investigators found the device was a container that had an apparent pressure switch with triggered the device when the lid was lifted.  Inside the container, investigators found a note criticizing Zuckerberg and a relationship Northeastern has with Zuckerberg’s Meta, the parent company of Facebook which is funding research into virtual reality and augmented reality.

Now that you know we exist… you should really try our pillowy biscuits.

— Hardee’s (@Hardees) September 14, 2022

The Durham Investigation, which was supposed to annihilate the Deep State, convict Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, and others of horrific atrocities against America, expose their illegal spying on President Trump, and 100% vindicate and exonerate every member of Team MAGA, will wind down at the end of the year after the October trial of some Russian guy nobody ever heard of, its grand jury having expired without any new charges, the New York Times reports.

Team Durham, having gone one for two in convictions with the May 2022 acquittal of some Dem lawyer nobody had ever heard of, and the August 2020 guilty plea of some FBI lawyer nobody ever heard of – for a crime that had nothing to do with supposed conspiracy itself, resulting in no jailtime, spending at least $1.5 million in taxpayer funds, will issue a final report by the end of the year. The report itself will contain a lot of insinuations about malfeasance by the Deep State, the Obama Administration, the FBI, the Clinton 2016 Campaign, and probably Soros because why not at this point, and lots of excuses blaming others for why they didn’t pursue said malfeasance.

The report itself will be met with rave reviews from the fanboys, whose screams of supreme cosmic vindication over a PDF that they think says “HILLARY SPIED ON TRUMP” will be so loud as to drown out the questions of why the fuck they’re acting like it’s just as good as Hillary being convicted of spying on Trump. But hey, might as well declare moral victory in absence of actual victory.

In an conversation with Punchbowl News, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she not only expects the Democrats to hold their currently razor-thin majority in the House after the midterms, but actually expand it, saying “I was just in 12 cities in 12 days. We’re ready. And understand this. Because of the leadership of [Dem House Campaign Chairman Sean Patrick Maloney], we’re ready. So when the Dobbs decision came down, it wasn’t one of those ‘If only we had known.'”

“No. We believed we were going to win from Jan 6 on – well, even November of last year on,” Pelosi continued. “So we’re ready. Mobilizing on the ground… messaging, raising the money. But the biggest factor of all is not only do we believe, the candidates believe. So for a year, 10 months, eight months, terrific people had put themselves out there believing they could win.” Other Dem leaders echoed the Speaker’s sentiment, with former DCCC Chair Congressman John Larson of Connecticut saying “There are a number of factors and they keep helping us out. I mean, Lindsey Graham’s comments today, no way, these are things that we did not have in 2010.”

Of course even when shit looks bad leaders stay outwardly confident to keep their side motivated to fight to the end, but Pelosi’s team are an undeniable contrast to the way Mitch McConnell mumbles dejectedly every time a reporter asks him about his feelings on the GOP’s prospects in the Senate, or how Vladimir Putin has been fucking off from meetings with Russian military leadership since last week’s counteroffensive by Kyiv routed his armies in northeastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky paid a visit to the recently-liberated northeastern city of Izium on Wednesday in an effort to boost already high morale among troops whose sweeping offensive has Ivan on the run, the New York Times reports “Our blue-and-yellow flag is already flying in de-occupied Izium. And it will be so in every Ukrainian city and village,” said Zelensky in remarks at a local municipal building, before chatting and taking selfies with rank and file soldiers.

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, was not doing the same to his troops. He was somewhere in Russia, no doubt planning a purge of dissidents who dared question whether the political and economic destruction wrought on the country was worth it if they were getting their asses kicked.

It’s been a long night & we’ve come up short. I want to thank my supporters for all the blood, sweat & tears they poured into this team effort. I just called and wished all the best to @GenDonBolduc. The focus this fall needs to be on defeating Maggie Hassan.

— Chuck Morse (@ChuckMorseForNH) September 14, 2022

There was still some lingering doubt as of Cook Political Report expert Dave Wasserman’s call late Tuesday night, but ultimately his “I’ve seen enough” in the Granite State was right yet again and unhinged MAGA asshole Don Bolduc will take on Dem Senator Maggie Hassan in November.

Separately, Wasserman early Wednesday called the NH-02 primary for Bob Burns, another pro-Trump extremist who defeated a more moderate-ish local mayor backed by Governor Chris Sununu. MAGA-QAnon extremists went 3-for-3 in New Hampshire Congressional primaries. Wasserman moved both the NH-02 and the Senate races to “Lean Democrat” but kept NH-01 at “Toss-Up.”

Citing some complete bullshit technical reasons, the Texas Department of State Health Services delayed a report on pregnancy-related deaths occurring in the state that had been due this month, delaying it until next summer at the earliest, the Houston Chronicle reports.

“The information we provide is not easily understood, and not easily and readily comparable to what goes on in other states,” DSHS chief Dr. John Hellerstedt Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee this month. “And the fact it isn’t easily understood or easily comparable in my mind leaves room for a great deal of misunderstanding about what the data really means.”

What it means is Low Energy Greg and his buddies are burying a report that makes them look bad and depriving Democrats of more ammo to use against them in campaigns after they enacted an incredibly barbaric ban on abortions in the state and the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade.

In order to have his August deposition – the one where he pleaded the Fifth more than 440 times – held at the Trump Tower rather than at the New York State Attorney General’s office in Manhattan, fat former President Trump’s lawyers told them the Secret Service had concerns with the security situation at their office, concerns that were news to the Secret Service officials who were asked about it by the Daily Beast, with with Secret Service comms chief Anthony Guglielmi saying they were “unaware of any security challenges at the Office of the New York State Attorney General,”

One person was injured at Northeastern University in Boston Tuesday evening after the package he was opening exploded, wounding him in the hands, and another similar package was destroyed by the Boston police bomb squad, WBTS NBC-6 in Boston reports.

The package was delivered to Holmes Hall on campus.  Police found another package with similar wrapping and writing, and it was destroyed as a precaution.

Couldn’t agree more, Rick. And if anyone else wants to read your plan to put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block, they should go to https://t.co/xDudwYX85v.

Thanks for stopping by. https://t.co/9YXhMisGf5

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 14, 2022

Don Bolduc, the over-the-top former Army general who started trafficking in conspiracy theories and was so unstable the Republican Party was running ads against him, has won the GOP primary and will take on in incumbent Democrat Maggie Hassan.  Cook’s Dave Wasserman made the call.