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You know how you never actually see a criminal on the stand admit to their crimes like the portray it on Perry Mason–“Ya got me, smart guy!  I killed ‘er!  I’m the one that skewered her with 3,000 toothpicks!  But she didn’t deserve it.  Poor Olive!”–well, Donald Trump just did that.

As The Daily Beast reports, in a deposition relating to the investigation into how Trump Organization security personnel treated protesters against Trump’s campaign in 2015, Trump admitted to being solely responsible for the allegedly illegal compensation paid to Trump Organization Chief Operating Officer Matthew Calamari Sr.

Filed with the court Tuesday, the admission that Trump personally approved Calamari’s compensation can be used in other cases in which the Trump Organization is a central focus:  the state investigations into the compensation of Calamari and the ongoing prosecution of former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, who was indicted on tax fraud last year. 

Public approval of the Biden policy to provide weapons to Ukraine jumped ten percent in the past month, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, marking the highest approval for assisting Ukraine since the Russian invasion, Reuters reports.

Three out of four Americans approve of supplying Ukrainian fighters with weapons, up ten percent from the previous month (75% versus 68%).  The support was strongly bipartisan in nature.

In another question, about 60% of Democrats and a little less than half of the Republicans polled said they are concerned Russia will retaliate against the United States by interfering in a future election.

Hundreds of thousands of Twitter accounts were opened, while hundreds of thousands of others closed, in the hours after the announcement that budding oligarch Elon Musk had come to an agreement to buy the social media platform, NBC News reports.

Analysis of the accounts noted that they were nearly all “organic” accounts–those associated with a specific person, not a business or a “bot”–who either left or joined.  More of the story came in by looking at who lost or gained followers:  Marjorie Taylor Greene gained about 100,000 new followers, a 20% increase since the announcement.  Pop singer Katy Perry lost 200,000 of her 109 million followers, or 0.2%.

The pattern seemed to be that the new accounts were attracted to conservative personalities and outlets, while people who are typically apolitical (or nonpolitical on Twitter) are leaving the platform before Musk’s takeover.

“…but the regime media, if honest,” the Fox baigujing Laura Ingraham screech-whines, “they’re embarrassed by their puppet president.  They’re even worried that conservatives are becoming coooolll.”

No, Laura, we’re not that worried.  If you have to talk about becoming cool, you’re definitely not becoming cool.

By February 2022, after the wave of the omicron version of the coronavirus had swept through the United States, about three-quarters of the children under the age of 18 had already developed antibodies to the vaccine, indicating they had been exposed to the virus, NBC News reports.

Because the vast majority of that population was not yet eligible for one of the vaccines available, the acquisition of antibodies came through natural infection for most of them.

Children under 18 typically had slight or no symptoms themselves if they became infected with the virus, but they could infect others with the virus during the virus’s early days.  While the infections rarely led to hospitalizations, studies now show even a mild infection can have long term impacts for children.

Now maybe this could blow over and Kevin McCarthy does survive the gauntlet and become Speaker of the House should the Republicans take the chamber’s majority in November. Tucker Carlson is known to quickly forget about shit when he gets distracted by something else. But damn this is not going to help Kevin or his shrill, insufferable minion Stef. Not going to help at all.

Ginni Thomas’s texts to Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on the day of the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on Congress have prompted a House committee to look into potential ethics violations by her husband, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, TheHill reports.

Texts from Ginni Thomas encouraging Meadows, Donald Trump and others to undermine the Constitution were released last week, leading to questions as to why Clarence Thomas did not recuse himself from a Supreme Court case about turning over Meadows’ communications to the House Select Committee investigating the attack.

While there is no specific requirement for justices to recuse themselves from cases in which they have an apparent conflict of interest, Clarence Thomas should have immediately refused to be part of the panel for cases involving his wife’s communication.  In the case, Clarence Thomas voted to prevent the committee from getting the communications.  His participating in the case–and his vote being the sole one from the court to support hiding the communications from Congress–have raised questions among legal and ethics experts.

A memo from House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet Hank Johnson, prepping for Wednesday meeting, contains a summary of ethical rules used by lower courts.  It also contained language about the House authority to impeach judges and others.  “Threats or inquiries of impeachment as a means of regulating the conduct of Supreme Court justices have had varying effects,” the memo said.

You salty, salty bitches. Of course it feels like a recession when you can’t convert rubles into dollars to stash at Trump properties while taking a 20% cut, motherfuckers. How about let the still shitty but way less corrupt banks like Goldman or Chase tell us what they think while you explain why Deustche whistleblower Val Broeksmit was found dead in a public park in Los Angeles today?

Numerous wildfires have broken out across Siberia–an event that happens because like most of the world, they don’t rake the forest floor as a previous world leader instructs–but this year, the blazes are spreading unabated because the military firefighting crews typically deployed to fight them have been sent to Ukraine, the Washington Post reports.

The Russian Federal Forestry Agency announced that last week alone, its firefighters beat down 600 wildfires in Russia’s Far East, an area dominated by peatlands.  Most of the fires in Siberia have been started by humans:  farmers clearing land who let the fires burn out of control.  Still thousands of individual fires burn across the country, with smoke from the blazes affecting the atmosphere as far away as Seattle, where the sunrise Tuesday morning was tinged red due to the smoke from the fires.

“The data are showing that the fires are occurring in the spring fire season, but there has been a high number of fires and the daily total intensity/emissions were well above average for the early stages of the season,” said Mark Parrington, a senior scientist with the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service.

In new audio of a call with House Republican leadership in the days after the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on Congress, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise discussed how Matt Gaetz’s actions “[are] potentially illegal.”  McCarthy called out Congressman Gaetz, the alleged child sex trafficker from Florida, for making damaging and threatening remarks in the aftermath of the attack while mentioned Mo Brooks (Alabama) and Louie Gohmert (Texas) by name.

“I just got something sent now about Newsmax and Matt Gaetz said where he’s calling people’s names out saying ‘an anti-Trump’ in this type of atmosphere, in some of the other places,” McCarthy says in a hidden moment of leadership.  “This is serious stuff that people are doing that has to stop.”

“Since my first Order granting the United States’ Motion to Redact, Plaintiff has once again filed documents in the court record (namely, summonses and returns of service) containing the addresses of former FBI employees Andrew McCabe and Kevin Clinesmith. The United States seeks to have these addresses redacted, as well as an order precluding Plaintiff from filing documents in the public record containing the addresses of the named former FBI employees and permitting the United States to substitute redacted copies of any such offending document filed in the public record without further motion or order from this Court. Plaintiff does not oppose the redactions, but the United States believes that ‘Plaintiff will oppose the additional relief seeking an order precluding future filings containing the offending addresses,'” says an order from US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks, clearly frustrated with Trump lawyers Alina Habba and Peter Ticktin.

A three-month old baby who was kidnapped from a San Jose home while his grandmother was unloading groceries from her car has been located unharmed after a 20-hour search, CBS News reports.  A suspect has been detained.

Brandon Alexis Cuellar was found unharmed and in healthy condition but was taken to a hospital for a check up.  Police have not released details about how or where the infant was found as they pursue an investigation.

Brandon’s grandmother, who was babysitting while the mother worked, had put the boy into the apartment and then went to retrieve the groceries from the car.  Security cameras show a man wearing a facemask entering the apartment after the grandmother stepped out, and moments later, he leaves with a baby carrier covered in a blanket with the child apparently inside. 

The Minnesota Republican Party is running background checks on each candidate’s campaign volunteers and staff ahead of the party’s convention next month to try to weed out any far right QAnon freaks with a history of disrupting events or attacking other candidates get in the door, charging campaigns $30 for each person they plan to bring, the Minnesota Reformer reports.

The moves anticipate the kind of batfuckery that has marred recent local conventions in Minnesota (and in other states) as members of a group called “Action 4 Liberty”, whom check all the anti-vax, anti-RINO, and “Stop the Steal” boxes have caused bedlam during endorsement votes. Cops were called twice to the Morrison County, Minnesota Republican Party convention in March after the extremists seized the floor and held up motions. The Clay County, Minnesota GOP has split into two warring factions with each side’s leader claiming to be county chairman, both of whom reportedly plan to show up to represent the county party at the state convention in Rochester next month.

The Minnesota GOP overall is a complete shitshow after former chairwoman Jen Carnahan was fired last August following the arrest of her close buddy Anton Lazzaro on federal sex trafficking charges (She’s still running for Congress to replace her dead husband Jim Hagedorn though). The party itself pulled in $46,000 in the Q1 2022, while state Dems raised $2.3 million, so it’s quite possible that the $30 per head is more of a cover charge than anything else.

Madison Cawthorn can’t help but keep tripping over his own feet.  First there’s the coke-fueled DC orgies, then it was multiple traffic violations for failing to have a valid license, then bringing guns onto planes, and now insider trading.

From the very conservative Washington Examiner:  Cawthorn has been implicated in a pump-and-dump stock manipulation scheme involving the now-worthless Let’s Go Brandon cryptocurrency that became a fad earlier this year when some people in a crowd at a NASCAR race shouted a epithet targeting Joe Biden, but it was misheard by a sports commentator.

It seems Cawthorn knew that the owners of the cryptocurrency were going to purchase advertising on a NASCAR race car.  He’s pictured on various posts to social media with James Koutoulas, a hedge fund manager who created the LGB crytocurrency.  In March, just days before Koutoulas bought sponsorship of the racecar, costing in the low eight-figures, Cawthorn reportedly bought shares of the LGB crytocurrency and pumped up the commodity to rally crowds.

“This is going to the moon, baby! To the moon!” Cawthorn said while pointing to an LGBCoin logo pinned to Koutoulas’s suit jacket in a post for LGBCoin on Twitter. “Letsgobrandon.com — get on the train. Get on the train. Take the power of currency away from the government.”

The Kremlin announced that it will stop oil and gas exports to Poland, a key ally of Ukraine through which much of the material and supplies being sent by western governments flows to those fighting the Russian invasion, Bloomberg reports.

The ban is a major escalation for Russia, cutting off one of its top customers for natural gas and oil.  The Russian state-owned Gazprom energy company sent nearly 10% of its exports to Poland in 2020, making Poland its seventh-largest customer.

Poland has sent military and economic support to the Zelenskyy regime in Kyiv, and it has acted as a conduit of supplies, armaments and material though its southeastern border with Ukraine.  The cutoff of petroleum products will cause a significant increase in fuel prices in Poland, with a ripple effect throughout the European Union.

Republican North Carolina Congressman Madison Cawthorn was reportedly cited Tuesday morning for attempting to bring a loaded 9 millimeter handgun onto a flight at Charlotte International Airport, WSOC ABC-9 in Charlotte reports. This is the second time in just over a year that Cawthorn has attempted to bring a loaded weapon onto a flight.

In February 2021, Cawthorn was caught trying to smuggle another 9 mm handgun onto a flight leaving Asheville, North Carolina. In the latest incident, TSA officers confiscated a Staccato C2, a highly desired weapon for gun collectors that retails for up to $2,000 depending on the add-ons.  It is unclear if Cawthorn will face legal action for this.  He is already scheduled to appear in court for driving without a valid license at least twice.

Thanks to Walter (Owen’s grandp for the tip. 

Republican Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, an aficionado of licking electrical outlets given his hair style, tells Secretary of State Anthony Blinken that he does not support the US supporting Ukraine’s entry into NATO because it would mean American military forces would have been thrust into war with Russia after it invaded Ukraine.

Blinken points out that had Ukraine been a member of NATO, Putin would have had serious second thoughts about invading the sovereign nation because of NATO protections, to which Paul responds, “You could also argue that the countries [Russia] attacked were part of Russia.” This is untrue: Georgia and Ukraine were independent nations. Paul then pivots: “… were part of the Soviet Union,” a nation that ceased to exist two decades ago.

Florida’s Chaz Stevens has filed lawsuits to get the Bible removed from school libraries in a motion using the new Ron DeSantis-supported legislation that bans discussions of sexuality from classrooms, NPR reports.

In petitions sent to school districts across the state, Stevens demanded the “immediately remove the Bible from the classroom, library, and any instructional material,” Stevens wrote in the letter to superintendents. “Additionally, I also seek the banishment of any book that references the Bible.”

The Bible has depictions of pedophilia, sexual deviance, incest, murder, patricide, filicide, state-sponsored mass murder, suicide, bestiality, group sex, infanticide, polygamy and other actions deemed inappropriate for minors, according to DeSantis.  The middle section of the book details the story of a homeless liberal man who dismisses the lessons of the early section of the book, chapters in which the supreme being annihilates millions of people because they did things like wore differing materials.

OMG HUGE NEWS!!!