Category: Uncategorized

Election officials across Texas are returning mail-in ballots to voters en masse as new requirements for Social Security and or driver’s license numbers to be written on the envelopes are ignored or misunderstood by the mostly over-65 absentee voter set ahead of the March 1st primary, the AP reports. Forty percent of mail ballots received so far in Harris County – home to Houston and the state’s most populated – had already been sent back to voters to correct the missing information.

The United States government has halted the importing of Mexican avocados from the state of Michoacan after a US Department of Agriculture inspector received threats on his official cell phone, CNN reports.  The nature of the threat was not released.

Michoacan is the only Mexican state allowed to export avocados directly to the United States having 135,000 tons of the key ingredient to guacamole in the last six weeks, and its location along the Pacific Ocean in southern Mexico makes it a key territory in the Mexican drug war.

“The APEAM (Association of Avocado Exporting Producers and Packers of Mexico) is actively participating in coordination with the authorities of both countries to resolve the problem in order to reinforce internal practices and processes that guarantee the traceability of the fruit. The facts mentioned here have already impacted the economy of the entire program, affecting the industry and the more than 300,000 jobs that depend on it. We encourage all those actors in this value chain to take extreme care and vigilance to preserve such an important export program,” the APEAM said in a statement.

Valentine's Day can still be fun even if you broke up. Do you have information about a former (or current) partner involved in illegal gun activity? Let us know, and we will make sure it's a Valentine's Day to remember! Call 1-888-ATF-TIPS or email ATFTips@atf.gov. pic.twitter.com/OdDIPdIzkr

— ATF HQ (@ATFHQ) February 14, 2022

“Can you imagine that, what should be the biggest story of our time, bigger than Watergate, is getting absolutely no mention, ZERO, in the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC Fake News, NBC Fake News, CBS Fake News, ratings- dead CNN, and MSDNC. This in itself is a scandal, the fact that a story so big, so powerful, and so important for the future of our Nation is getting zero coverage from LameStream, is being talked about all over the world. Just like they wouldn’t talk about the many Biden corruption scandals prior to the Election, (or for that matter now!), they won’t talk about this, which is potentially even bigger. It shows how totally corrupt and shameless the media is. Can you imagine if the roles were reversed and the Republicans, in particular President Donald Trump, got caught illegally spying into the Office of the President? All hell would break loose and the electric chair would immediately come out of retirement. The good news is, everybody is talking about not only this atrocity against our Nation, but that the press refuses to even mention the major crime that took place” – Yet another Trump sob story.

Far right fascist lawyer John Eastman is trying to claim 11,000 of his emails subpoenaed by the House January 6th Select Committee from his former employer Chapman University are subject to attorney client privilege, Politico reports. In an early Monday court filing, Eastman said he reviewed over 46,000 emails – about half of the nearly 100,000 originally subpoenaed – of which he turned over 8,000 emails to the committee, withheld 27,000 newsletters and what not, and claimed the remainder as privileged – something that, while we’re not experts on privilege, seems like it should be forfeit automatically because a university employee inbox should not be used for private practice outside of his functions as a teacher, whether it was Trump-related coup shit or not.

https://twitter.com/RichardGrenell/status/1492951860872839170

Right wing crowdfunding site GiveSendGo, the current main funding resource for the “Freedom Convoy” assholes occupying Ottawa, Canada, has been taken offline by a leftist cyberattack. “Application is under maintenance we will be back very soon,” says a message on an otherwise blank HTML page. The Daily Dot reported late Sunday that the homepage had been replaced by a redirect to GiveSendGone.wtf, which played a video from the Disney movie “Frozen.”

This is wrong. GiveSendGo are evil assholes for helping money get in the hands of seditious scumbags, but taking down the site has no doubt harmed many people with legitimate causes. Not hard to imagine there are plenty of families trying to raise money for their children’s medical bills because of illness or accidents on GiveSendGo, just as an example. Whoever did this should consider that next time, and also let Canadian authorities do their job. The money headed to the protestors was already frozen by TD Bank and the Ontario Superior Court anyway.

The Ambassador Bridge between Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario, the busiest US-Canada border crossing and the conduit for 25% of Canadian exports to its southern neighbor, finally reopened late Sunday after a weeklong blockade by far-right anti-vax protestors was cleared by Canadian police, the CBC reports. No violence or injuries were reported after about 25 of the protestors who remained in defiance of orders to clear out were arrested.

Both Trump and Pence addressed a mass gathering of the Unification Church in Seoul, South Korea on Sunday, with the Donald speaking via a pre-recorded video and Pence appearing in person to tell the cult that the differently unhinged and abusive Kim regime in North Korea poses a great danger, ABC News reports. The Moonies, nicknamed for their founder, the late Sun Myung Moon, who thought he was Jesus and that Korean people were the master race (a belief that the church’s white membership willingly agrees with), are a far right pagan cult embraced by American Conservatives for their votes, money, and – for Donald at least – giving him a chance to rip on the Biden Administration for its handling of North Korea, which he did. This is as if Trump didn’t take his “love letters” from Kim Jong Un from the White House after he left office in disgrace. A sub-sect of the Moonies are those gun worshipping freaks in Pennsylvania, controlled by one of Moon’s sons.

“The Ad Hoc Division of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has issued its decision in the arbitration procedures relating to the Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva (the Athlete): the applications filed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the World AntiDoping Agency (WADA) and the International Skating Union (ISU) have been dismissed,” says the court ruling allowing Valieva to continue skating, despite being caught using banned substances. Their reason: “The Athlete is a ‘Protected Person’ under the World Anti-Doping Code (WADC),” simply because she’s a minor. The Russians probably knew this would happen.

With a final defensive stand forcing a failed fourth down, the Los Angeles Rams beat the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl LVI. The Rams won by a final score of 23-20 in a game played in their home stadium – something that had never happened in NFL history until last year when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers made it to Super Bowl LV, also winning. The Cardinals have their work cut out for them.

The NFL is now the league of sexual anarchy. This halftime show should not be allowed on television.

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) February 14, 2022

“Well, again, March 5th, we’re gonna gad, gather in Coachella Valley for an all-day event.  March 6th, we’ll send off the truckers.  They will travel east toward Washington, D.C. and it’s going to be entirely peaceful.  It’s going to be a gathering that will gain momentum as it proceeds, and I think it’s going to be a gathering that’s supported by millions of Americans who come out to, y’know, literally make sandwiches for the truck drivers, who, who come out as they did in Canada which shows of solidarity and support at the roadside and of course, ah, o-our our goal is to demonstrate and to, ah, be together…” –Aaron Kheriaty, the Orange County, California psychiatrist and member of the Central Committee running “The People’s Convoy” which sounds like something out of Mao’s Little Red Book.

And that's the game! Your @BISSELLclean #PuppyBowl MVP is: KIRBY!

Congrats Team Fluff! pic.twitter.com/FmmdAF9hNn

— Animal Planet (@AnimalPlanet) February 13, 2022

Snoop Dogg-coached Team Fluff defeated Martha Stewart’s Team Ruff in Puppy Bowl XVIII, taking a 69-66 lead in the final seconds of the most important sporting event aired on television on Sunday. Team Fluff GR Kirby won the Bissell Clean Most Valuable Player Award.

American Erin Jackson took the gold medal in the 500 meter race at the Beijing Olympics, becoming the first Black woman to win an Olympic speed skating medal, the Associated Press reports.

The 29-year-old from Ocala, Florida–hardly a hotspot for speed skating–was an inline skater before strapping on the blades prior to the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang.  She joins American Shani Davis as the only Black athlete to win a medal in long-track speedskating.

Jackson won a spot on the team after slipping in US Olympic trials and finishing third.  The skater who won the event, Brittany Bowe who is also from Ocala, surrendered her spot in the 500 so Jackson could make the team and compete in Beijing.

…is literally the entire text of Trump’s statement on Sunday afternoon. The Donald’s really freaking the fuck out – again – about being spied on as he has done on and off over the years whenever he felt like creating a distraction from his own self-inflicted clusterfucks.

According to a New York Times reports, a coalition of anti-Donald Trump Republicans are aggressively recruiting less insane members of the Party to run for offices up in the November mid-terms in the hopes of avoiding a takeover.

Former president George W. Bush reportedly discussed running for Senate with Republican Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, who would challenge incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly.  Bush has been a steadfast, though publicly silent, opponent of Trump’s.

McConnell, on the other hand, publicly pushed to advance Trump’s agenda when Trump was in office with only rare rebukes, but since January 6th, the Senate Minority Leader has been more vocal about the damage Trump has caused to America.  In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attack on Congress, McConnell gave a speech in which he seemed to support the idea that Trump would be tried by the courts for his malfeasance; McConnell has been more quiet about that in recent months as investigations have progressed.

We missed the Saturday night New York Times report that said Rudy Giuliani was talking to the House January 6th Committee about testifying and cooperating. We would however like to report it’s in all likelihood bullshit to get Trump to finally help out with Rudy’s legal bills which Donald’s been refusing to pay (both Rudy’s actual invoices for legal services rendered to Trump and all the legal fees that Rudy’s incurred in the numerous civil and criminal cases against him).

We’ve seen this before. Back during Trump first impeachment, on November 19th, 2019, Rudy told Fox News “I’ve seen things written like [Trump is] going to throw me under the bus. When they say that, I say he isn’t, but I have insurance,” said Giuliani in response to reporting about Trump letting the wolves come after him when his “Fraud Guarantee” pals were indicted. Then a few hours later:

TRUTH ALERT:

The statement I’ve made several times of having an insurance policy, if thrown under bus, is sarcastic & relates to the files in my safe about the Biden Family’s 4 decade monetizing of his office.

If I disappear, it will appear immediately along with my RICO chart.

— Rudy W. Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) November 23, 2019

Not hard to imagine that within that five or six hour gap Donald got someone else to write a check for legal fees defending Rudy from whatever numerous federal investigations into him were going on at the time. Now that had been a thinly veiled threat Rudy publicly made and publicly walked back, so the next time we’ll hear about him “cooperating” will very likely be the committee saying he’s not actually cooperating. We’d love for the prediction to be wrong.

Law enforcement officers in Windsor, Ontario arrested the remaining protesters and started to tow cars and trucks off the road so they can reopen the 1.6-mile Ambassador bridge between Canada and the United States, the Wall Street Journal reports.

At 8 a.m. ET, police set up a perimeter around the protesters and started arresting and detaining them. Around a dozen protesters were arrested and two vehicles towed in the hopes of motivating others to leave the area; it’s apparently worked.  Authorities predict the bridge will be open to normal traffic sometime Sunday to normal traffic.  “We are hoping to have the roadway open and the bridge open later today,” Sgt. Steve Betteridge, a spokesperson for the Windsor Police, said. “But as you can appreciate, it’s a very fluid situation.”

The protesters, fueled by encouragement from an online community organized by foreign interests including American conservatives, protested mandatory requirements for truckers entering the United States to have coronavirus vaccines.