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The fourth week of Donald Trump’s Manhattan election interference hush money trial wrapped up with a string of mundane witnesses addressing the origination and authenticity of records–boredom mandated by Trump’s lawyers who refused to stipulate to the legitimacy of phone records.

• Judge Juan Merchan denied Trump’s effort to subpoena Mark Pomerantz, a former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney who resigned in February 2022 in protest for Alvin Bragg not pursuing changes against Trump.  Pomerantz later wrote a book about the investigation.
• Merchan asked why Allan Weisselberg couldn’t testify instead of having prosecutors submit various documents.  Prosecutors said they didn’t want him to testify because he is still owed more than $500k from the Trump Org to stay silent and his testimony is unreliable; he may also take the Fifth.  When told no one approached Weisselberg about testifying, Merchan said he may want to hear from Weisselberg himself on the issue to determine if his testimony would be beneficial, efficient and honest.
• Madeleine Westerhout starts back on the stand with the defense team questioning her.
  Read More ▶ “Manhattan trial wraps week with records testimony”

Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Mark T. Pittman sided with banks and credit card companies and blocked a Biden Administration regulation slated to go into effect next week that would limit most consumer credit card late charges to $8.00 per month, the Washington Post reports.

Continuing its quest to eliminate consumer costs Biden calls “junk fees,” the administration looked to relieve $14 billion in late fees alone collected by credit card companies and other lenders in 2022.  Pittman issued an injunction preventing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from enforcing the rule, which was supposed to go into effect May 14th.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued its first severe geomagnetic storm watch, but there’s nothing you can do but shelter in place.  The reason:  the storm is hurtling towards Earth from the Sun in the form of five massive coronal ejections and a slew of sunspots will result in disruptions in the Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field.

According to CNN, the solar activity has shot out a cloud of radiation that will hit the planet over the next few days, resulting in possible sightings of the Northern Lights as far south as Alabama.  Though there’s no immediate risk to life, electronics in orbit and on the surface could be disrupted by the energetic blast.

Federal prosecutors recommended a 30-year prison sentence for Paul Wayne DePape, the QAnon conspiracy theorist who broke into then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home in October 2022 and assaulted Paul Pelosi with a hammer.  The sentence would encompass a 30-year sentence for assault with a 20-year term for kidnapping being structured to come to 40 years in prison.

“The defendant planned a violent hostage-taking of the Speaker Emerita, and then nearly killed her husband,” prosecutors wrote.  “The defendant planned and unleashed violence and has stayed true to his belief that his actions were necessary. The sentencing factors compel the statutory maximums recommended here, and demonstrate that the 30 years maximum on the count with the most significant statutory maximum is not sufficient to meet the sentencing goals; […].”

“A man who thought an endless stream of made-up, folksy anecdotes were enough to hide the fact he believed in nothing, nothing at all except building his own brand and helping his family get rich,” Fox host and woman who recently visited Kari Lake’s spray tanner Laura Ingraham blathers from Bizzaro World.

Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss filed a complaint with the federal court in the Southern District of New York asking it to enjoin disgraced former mayor and landscaper marketing director Rudy Giuliani from slandering them any further.  Giuliani already owes them nearly $150 million from an earlier judgment.

“Mr. Giuliani’s persistence in making these statements after all that has transpired, coupled with his refusal to agree to refrain from continuing to make such statements, make clear that he intends to continue in his campaign of targeted defamation and harassment,” the filing states.  “Accordingly, there is an overwhelming, ongoing, and imminent risk that Mr. Giuliani will inflict substantial reputational and emotional harm on Plaintiffs. This has to stop.”

Just days after the Trump cabal announced the youngest spawn was joining the latest grift, Melania Trump countermanded the directive and said Barron would not be a delegate to the Republican National Convention, the Daily Mail reports. “While Barron is honored to have been chosen as a delegate by the Florida Republican Party, he regretfully declines to participate due to prior commitments,” the Office of Melania Trump said in a statement with no other details.

The news may be a blow to Trump, who told a Philadelphia radio show that he frequently gets political advice from his 18-year-old son with his third wife.  “He’s really been a great student. And he does like politics. It’s sort of funny,” Trump said on Kayal and Company, a conservative talk show.  He’ll tell me sometimes, ‘Dad, this is what you have to do.'”

Trying to stay buzzworthy in the lunacy of the state’s GOP circles, Florida Republican Congressman Cory Mills filed articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden on Friday saying Biden’s statement that he would withhold offensive weapons from Israel if it invaded Rafah is the same as Donald Trump threatening to withhold weapons from Ukraine if it didn’t assist his reelection bid, per Fox News.

“In violation of his oath to faithfully execute the office of President and to uphold the Constitution, President Biden abused the powers of his office by soliciting a ‘quid pro quo’ with Israel while leveraging vital military aid for policy changes. This egregious action not only compromised the credibility of the United States but also undermined the interests of our longstanding ally, Israel. Therefore, President Biden’s conduct warrants impeachment, trial, removal from office, and disqualification from holding any future office under the United States,” Mills said in a statement.

The differences between the Biden/Israel and Trump/Ukraine cases are obvious to anyone but Mills, who is as much a fan of impeaching people as the cloven Georgian:  Mills drafted articles of impeachment against Biden for something, something the border last June.  This impeachment effort is so important and so sincere that there’s no mention of it on Mills’ website; the last press release shown, from mid-April, touts his efforts to rename a post office in Casselbury, Florida.

Rudy Giuliani has been fired from hosting his stupid AM radio show on NYC-based right wing talk station 770 WABC for violating election denial policy, the Huffington Post’s Yashar Ali reports.

Interesting how lying about the 2020 election has gotten the alcoholic shitbrain indicted on felonies in two separate jurisdictions, nearly disbarred, and hit with an $148 million defamation judgment, so you think that maybe he would have stopped by now but now he’s fired too… Well technically “suspended” but 770 AM owner John Catsamatidis cancelled his weekday and Saturday shows.

Republican campaign staffers in swing states tell the Washington Post they’re starting to get pretty nervous about fat former President Trump’s lack of any actual effort to build out infrastructure in the places he actually needs to win the Electoral College, and apparently don’t realize yet that little if any such efforts are forthcoming from Team Orange and the newly extra-Trumpfied RNC.

“In order to win close elections in Georgia, you have to have a ground game that emphasizes turning out early votes and absentee votes,” said Cody Hall, senior adviser to Gov Brian Kemp. “I have seen no evidence of them having any of that. The Trump campaign has a consultant in Georgia, but there is nothing else that I can see… Everyone is generally concerned.” Arizona GOP operative Kim Owens says there’s “no sign of life. Especially in a state that Trump lost so closely last time, you’d expect to have more of a presence. I would think, ‘Let’s step it up.’ I think it’s a terrible mistake.”

The plan, laid out over a few dozen paragraphs, is to literally just let Trump motivate his fans to vote for him by holding campaign rallies and putting out ads, leaving the state GOPs and outside groups like Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA to figure out the nuts and bolts of turnout efforts. Donald himself is the mastermind of it, wanting all the resources for traditional street-level campaigning to go to “election integrity,” confident that he can coast to victory just by being himself.

Not much else to add here, just to say let’s see how that ends up shaking out for the fat bastard.

Two skiers, 23 and 32, killed in Utah avalanche, third survives after digging out of snow https://t.co/LEc2UAwDMu

— New York Post (@nypost) May 10, 2024

The House Ethics Committee on Friday issued a report stating far right Texas MAGA Congressman Troy Nehls – the cigar smoking twat who said he wanted to impeach Biden to help fat former President Trump win in 2024 – had “reported campaign disbursements that may not be legitimate and verifiable campaign expenditures attributable to bona fide campaign or political purposes.”

“If Nehls converted campaign funds from Nehls for Congress to personal use, or if Nehls’s campaign committee expended funds that were not attributable to bona fide campaign or political purposes, then Nehls may have violated House rules, standards of conduct, and federal law. Nehls may have omitted required information from his annual House financial disclosure statements. If Nehls failed to disclose required information in his annual House financial disclosure statements, then he may have violated House rules, standards of conduct, and federal law. RECOMMENDATION: The Board recommends that the Committee further review the above allegation concerning Nehls because there is probable cause to believe that Nehls may have converted campaign committee funds to personal use,” the report continued, indicating that the asshole just might be in trouble.

Fun fact: Nehls voted against expelling George Santos, saying at the time he didn’t want the House GOP to lose another vote. Not that we necessarily disbelieve that, but now we’re thinking there just might be some consciousness of guilt on Nehls’s part going into that decision too.

“The owner of a traveling carnival business was charged May 7 with multiple crimes tied to an alleged scheme to exploit foreign workers following an investigation conducted by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Houston, the Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service and the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General. Angel Reyes Isidro aka Lucas Isidro Reyes, a 41-year-old Mexican national residing in the United States, was charged in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas with visa fraud, fraud in foreign labor contracting, making false statements and mail fraud. The indictment alleges Reyes, who operated and managed J&G Concessions LLC in Houston, submitted falsified temporary employment applications to the United States in 2019 to obtain H-2B visas for foreign seasonal workers. Upon the workers’ arrival, Reyes allegedly charged them illegal fees, paid them substandard wages, and made threats of deportation and loss of future employment opportunities to cause them to work despite horrible conditions.”

“From 2022 to the time of his arrest on April 28, 2024, Reyes allegedly continued to operate his carnival business with unauthorized workers. During the hearing, the court heard that Reyes poses a serious flight risk and is a danger to the community. The court further heard that Reyes possesses a firearm that he allegedly used to threaten workers, that he allegedly sexually harassed women temporary workers and assaulted one of them, and also threatened and retaliated against the victimized workers,” says a Department of Homeland Security press release that does not mention if any of the victims were Lizard Boy or a bearded lady or anything like that.

Former Trump lawyer William Brennan, who we can’t even remember which friggin case he worked or anything else except to say that he’s not one of the ones who’s since turned against the fat bastard and shit talks him on cable news now, wasn’t the most consistent or intellectually honest in gaming out how Stormy Daniels’ testimony landed with the jury on CNN on Friday, with female hosts Dana Bash and Kasie Hunt taking turns in pointing out his contradictions and misogynist bullshit.

A new Florida Chamber of Commerce survey finds 61 percent of respondent in the Sunshine State are in favor of Amendment 4 to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution, with another 10 percent undecided and the remaining 29 percent opposed. The threshold for a ballot measure in Florida is 60 percent, not 50 like in most other states, so this is obviously going to be very tight.

The United Nations General Assembly voted 143 to 9, with 25 abstentions, to grant new “rights and privileges” to Palestine and urge the Security Council to reconsider the request for the occupied, ghettoized, and partially destroyed territory to become the 194th member, the AP reports.

White nationalist alcoholic Steve Bannon is finally much closer to the four-month stay at a federal prison that he’s put off for almost two years now as the DC Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday upheld Bannon’s 2022 conviction on contempt of Congress charges for fucking off on a 2021 subpoena from the House January 6th Select Committee, Politico’s Kyle Cheney reports. It’s still not clear when Bannon will actually join fellow former Trump White House scumbag Peter Navarro, who inexplicably at this very moment is nearly halfway done serving the very same sentence for the very same crime of blowing off a subpoena from the very same committee as Scumbag Steve still has en banc and then the Supreme Court to appeal to but it does not appear that the stay remains in place.

Bannon’s also got bigger problems in Manhattan, where none other than Judge Juan Merchan last month told the triple-shirted Nazi to get ready to face justice for the wall scam in September.

Well the whole “Biden crime family” scam fell apart due to James Comer’s incompetence and lack of real evidence so might as well try to make this hold on aid to Israel to try to get them to stop killing innocent Palestinians with malevolent abandon just as bad as when Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine to try to get them to announce an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden.

It’s been a while, but the American crocodile is making a big comeback in Florida, with a biologist employed by Florida Power and Light telling CBS Miami that the utility’s canal system outside the Turkey Point nuclear plant have been providing an excellent habitat for the vicious aquatic reptiles to recover their numbers to nearly 2,000 after dipping to the low hundreds in the 1970s.

Maybe the lead should’ve been that potentially radioactive crocodiles have been breeding in Florida but we’re already committed to the rhyme here. Anyway biologist Mike Lionet says the 168 miles of cooling canals for the nuclear reactor “a sanctuary for” the crocs. “It’s safe here. We have one of the most concentrated nesting areas in Florida and the United States,” Lionet continued.

With Stormy Daniels’ two-day testimony out of the way, the Manhattan DA’s case against fat former President Trump will on Friday ease up on the EXPLOSIVE-ness, with former White House assistant Madeline Westerhout continuing to unsensationally but importantly pre-corroborate elements of Michael Cohen’s story. Cohen himself will not take the stand until Monday, and Karen McDougal is out of the witness lineup, so whoever comes after Westerhout is isn’t likely to be that big of a deal.