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“A Republican congressional candidate’s claims drew a correction from Gov Ron DeSantis’ office over criticisms that Florida has no true authority to deal with illegal aliens attempting to enter the state from its southern waters, but that agents deployed this week will merely ‘do nothing.’ The claims were made by Anthony Sabatini, who is running for Congress to represent Florida’s 11th District,” writes some propagandist for “Florida’s Voice,” an outlet described by Sabatini himself in 2022 as a “Fake News propaganda site” and alleged by Trump fans to be paid by the DeSantis campaign for positive coverage in the lead-up to and during his failed presidential run.

Apparently Tiny D’s regime is on a PR offensive while the security situation in Haiti goes to shit, prompting the custom-booted governor to hold a presser Friday touting the interdiction of a single boat originating in Haiti… that happened more than two weeks earlier. From a Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission press release on the stop: “On Feb 29, at approximately 7:30 pm, two Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) officers conducting nighttime water-based patrol near Sebastian Inlet stopped a 42-foot vessel returning from offshore. Immediately upon stopping the vessel, the officers knew they had intercepted a human smuggling operation. The operator of the vessel was armed and onboard; lying prone on the deck of the boat, they discovered 25 individuals, including five unaccompanied children, illegally entering the country. In addition to the individuals onboard, officers discovered firearms, night vision gear and drugs. The vessel operator and a passenger, both US citizens, were turned over to the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office and the case was referred to US Customs and Border Patrol and the BCSO for further investigation.”

It was dated March 15th, the day that Florida’s Voice printed the above article and linked from another headlined “Florida intercepts, turns over suspected Haitian illegals with weapons and drugs, authorities say.” No they don’t have Disqus. It’s some other lame commenting CMS.

Officials from the neighboring West African nations Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo tell CNN that fat former President Trump’s claims that “the Congo” is emptying their prisons and sending convicts as migrants to the US “is not true” and “very bad for the country,” per DRC government spokesman Patrick Muyaya Katembwe, who added “we want him to stop.”

The Republic of Congo’s ambassador to the US, Serge Mombouli, emailed to CNN on Friday to say “There is no truth or any sign nor a single fact supporting such a claim or statement,” as if Trump cares and isn’t just playing upon his racist fans’ perception of Africans as being violent animals and just using the most African-sounding word he can think – “Congo” – of to stoke fear in them.

• There is no VP addition to a Trump ticket that will add value to the GOP pairing.  No one Trump can select will move the needle for anyone who was not already going to vote for Trump.  Even Tulsi Gabbard won’t help:  she won’t draw away from the left-wing conspiracy nutters who are now in JFK Jr.’s camp.  
• Robert Hur’s testimony in the Mr. & Mr. Comer-Jordan performance art panel is exactly why Americans are losing faith in government institutions:  it was clear Hur was working for the same political goal as the majority Party.
• There’s really no way around it:  the Willis/Wade relationship was inappropriate, and it made the case messier than it needed to be.  The judge’s decision makes it clear that it was a professional problem.  However, in no way did it compromise the case or change the facts of the crime presented.  The Trump side wanted a circus; they got one.  It worked at denigrating Willis’s reputation, but it did nothing to stop the case.
• Gotta love how Ken Buck put a knife in the proverbial back of the extremist GOP Brat Pack leaving the House early.  He’s screwing Boebert over by allowing someone to fill the seat to run as an incumbent in November.  And he’s left the thinnest of margins in the House.  He is not the first to break from the radicals but so far, he is the most calculating.
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CLXIV”

The League of Women Voters, acting on behalf of three New Hampshire residents who received the calls, sued Steve Kramer, a Dean Phillips campaign consultant, and two companies that make robocalls, asking for tens of thousands of dollars in injunctions, NBC News reports.

Made in the nights before the New Hampshire primary, the calls purported to be from President Biden saying that the voter would only get one vote this year and they should not waste it on the primary.  This, of course, is untrue.

“These types of voter suppression tactics have no place in our democracy,” said Celina Stewart, chief counsel at the League of Women Voters of the United States. “For over 100 years, the League of Women Voters has worked to protect voters from these unlawful crimes and will continue to fight back against bad-faith actors who aim to disrupt our democratic system.”

Addressing the two unique arguments presented by disgraced former Republican Attorney General Edwin Meese in an amicus brief in Donald Trump’s federal documents case in Florida, Jack Smith Special Counsel’s office called the claims “meritless” in a filing Friday evening.

Meese argues that the status of the Special Counsel must be resolved before the case can go forward because there are SO many questions about the appointment of Jack Smith to the post.  Plus, Meese claims, a Special Counsel must be appointed by the President, not the Attorney General.  Therefore, Meese claims, no one can prosecute Donald Trump.

Smith notes that the first issue has been addressed, but any future challenges may be pursued after the investigation and trial are complete.  And as far as the second challenge, relying on the Appointments Clause of the Constitution, Smith says that his position is not a “superior officer” requiring Presidential nomination and that the Attorney General has authority.

Basically, Meese argues that because Smith supervises lawyers under him, his position is a “superior officer” over “inferior officers” and must therefore be nominated by the President.  Smith counters that the Special Counsel is itself an inferior officer by the nature of it reporting to the “superior officer” of the Cabinet department, the Attorney General, even though he has the authority to bring charges on his own authority.

Never one to accept a loss–like in an election or a court case–Kari Lake has resurrected a lawsuit she filed during her failed 2022 Arizona gubernatorial campaign to ban the use of electronic voting machines, the focus of many MAGA conspiracy theories, Politico reports.

It’s unlikely the suit will succeed:  it was thrown out by a federal court in December 2022 for lack of standing, and the lawyers representing Lake and fellow losing conspiracist Mark Finchem, who ran for Arizona Secretary of State, were sanctioned for repeatedly making “numerous false allegations about Arizona elections” in their filings.

“My name is Laura Haynor and I’m a Minnesota resident and a Minneapolis-based pilot for Delta Airlines,” the representative from Airline Pilots Association International said in opening her testimony before a Minnesota state senate committee hearing on Thursday.

“Miss Haynor, is that correct?” Republican state senator Gene Dornink of Freeborn and Mower Counties inquires as though this is the first time he ever listened to a woman, which he clearly had not.  “Can you tell me what a typical week, work week looks like for you as a stewardess?  How does…”

As the room around him murmurs, Haynor replies, “I’m a First Officer for Delta.”  When Dornink again says he didn’t hear the woman, she repeats, “I’m a pilot for–”

“I’m sorry, I apologize,” Dornink interjects.  “I don’t know why I said that.”  Perhaps he doesn’t, but we do.

The committee representing the myriad creditors to whom disgraced former Trump attorney and one of his current co-conspirators Rudy Giuliani owes money filed a motion with the bankruptcy court overseeing Giuliani’s finances asking it to order him to sell his Florida condo to help settle some of the outstanding debts.

Giuliani filed bankruptcy after two Georgia election workers were awarded $146 million in a defamation case against the former New York City mayor.  The condo, located at 315 South Lake Drive in Palm Beach, Florida, has an estimated value of $3.5 million.  Giuliani’s Manhattan apartment is already for sales, which was listed for $6 million before being delisted in February.

Agents from the US Secret Service and the FBI conducted a search of a foreign national’s residence in Serbia, labeling the individual as a “person of interest” connected to more than 100 “swatting” calls that targeted American politicians and government officials including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and other Biden Administration officials, CBS News reports.  American investigators seized computers and other electronics in the raid.

A representative for New York Republican Congressman Brandon Williams, who was the victim of a swatting call at his home on Christmas Day, said Williams was notified that a “foreign national living overseas” was identified in connection with his incident and others.

Trump White House advisor Peter Navarro has made one last ditch effort to avoid reporting to federal prison for his four-month term for convictions on contempt of Congress charges, appealing directly to the Supreme Court just like any other person would because there sure isn’t a two-tier justice system.

“For the first time in our nation’s history, a senior presidential advisor has been convicted of contempt of congress after asserting executive privilege over a congressional subpoena. Dr. Navarro has appealed and will raise a number of issues on appeal that he contends are likely to result in the reversal of his conviction, or a new trial,” Navarro argues.  “Chief among them are whether an ‘affirmative’ invocation of executive privilege was required to preclude a prosecution for contempt of congress; what was required of former President Trump for a “proper” invocation of privilege; and whether such an invocation required, ‘personal consideration,’ [citation deleted] all questions of first impression.”

New York Judge Juan Merchan issued a 30-day stay on Donald Trump’s Manhattan trial for financial fraud related to his cover-up of an extramarital affair with a porn star in an effort to protect his presidential campaign, noting that the volume of evidence recently turned over to the District Attorney’s Office and the defense team forced the delay.  Ignoring suggestions from the defense, the judge issued a delay per what DA Alvin Bragg had requested.

Merchan also called for the defense team and the DA’s office to turn over all communication regarding the recently released evidence and their efforts to get it from the Justice Department’s Southern District of New York, scheduling a hearing on the matter for March 25th.  Apparently, Merchan wants to know what the DOJ threw a wrench in his trial schedule by dumping the information at the last moment.

Former White House advisor and current son-in-law of the presumptive Republican nominee for President Jared Kushner has not been called to testify before any House committees investigating allegedly corrupt relatives of presidential candidates despite getting a $2 billion parting gift from the Saudi crown prince (presumably for not seeking justice for the murder of a US-based journalist).  And one could say he’s become emboldened by Republican indifference to Republican corruptions, as is laid out in a New York Times (gift-link) article describing Kushner’s proposed foreign business dealings.

Leveraging connections he made while working in the Trump White House, Kushner is on the verge of closing three deals to develop luxury real estate developments in Albania and Serbia, and he’s relying on another former Trump lackey, Richard Grenell, to use his connections from the time he was an ambassador in the region.

Because they would require the sale of government-owned land, two of the projects would require the permission of the current foreign administrations to complete, and should those Albanian and Serbian administrations might be wary of pissing off an unbalanced Republican nominee before an election.  But yeah, no hint of trading on a relative’s political influence here, eh?

BREAKING NOOSE: Former Vice President Mike Pence told Fox News’s Martha McCallum on Friday that he will not be roped into endorsing fat former President Trump for the 2024 election.

Pence, who said his non-endorsement “should come as no surprise,” even if it is kind of surprising, further explained himself with “Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years. That’s why I cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump.” It’s not clear if he mentioned the hanging thing.

🚨🚨🚨 BREAKING: The RNC will Officially WORK with Scott Pressler to increase Republican voter turnout.

New RNC Co-Chair @LaraLeaTrump confirmed to me that she will HIRE @ScottPresler to LEAD Legal Ballot Chasing Operations.

Laura Trump: “He is the first person I thought of…” pic.twitter.com/rjElugQmMO

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) March 15, 2024

RNC co-chair Lara Trump on Friday told dipshit MAGA influencer Benny Johnson that she’s hiring Islamophobic QAnon activist Scott Presler to lead their ballot “chasing” operations (“chasing” we guess is the new euphemism for “harvesting”) this year, even though the last time Presler was officially employed by an official Republican Party it ended with him getting fired for having sex with another man in the office and posting pics of the encounter on Craigslist. That’s before you get into all the QAnon bullshit that made Presler so toxic even Elise Stefanik wouldn’t campaign with him.

Remember these are people that freaked out when that staffer for Dem Senator Ben Cardin filmed himself having sex with another man in the Senate Judiciary Committee room, with Johnson plainly pissed last month when the Capitol Police announced they weren’t going to pursue charges against the kid for an incident Johnson described as “filming hardcore porn in the Senate.”

MSNBC reports that Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor in Fulton County at the center of an appeal from a co-defendant in Donald Trump’s RICO case for election fraud, has resigned his position, allowing prosecutor Fani Willis to stay on the case against the former president and other co-conspirators.  In his letter of resignation, Wade specifically noted that while there was no finding of a conflict of interest, he would resign to comply with the judge’s order in the case.

In Willis’s response accepting the resignation, she commended Wade’s service and noted that others turned down the appointment due to attacks on their professional reputation and threats against them and others close to them.

Manhattan federal prosecutors on Friday asked a judge to impose a 40 to 50 year bid for convicted crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried, a far cry from the five to six years his defense lawyers put in their sentencing memo, with both being far from the max of 110 years given the many counts the idiot scumbag could be facing at his March 28th hearing, the New York Times reports.

One factor working in Bankman-Fried’s favor is that, unlike Bernie Madoff, who did die in prison, the victims of the FTX scam were able to recover their assets. A factor working against him is that he was a total asshole on the witness stand and at one point told a prosecutor he was answering her question in “answer the question the way he thought she should have asked it.”

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are suddenly skyrocketing in popularity in Texas, PC World reports on a development no one could have foreseen unless they read our article on what happened the last time PornHub blocked itself in a state that imposed an age verification requirement.

More from @alexmarlow and @mboyle1's exclusive interview with @realdonaldtrump: Trump talks about his meeting with Laken Riley's family–and how Biden has demonstrated he just doesn't care about her murder.

On Riley's family: “Her parents are great people. They lost an angel…… pic.twitter.com/bQ3wSrJfDL

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) March 15, 2024

There’s plenty to be said about the questionable moral horizon Laken Riley’s family are entering here by weaponizing their daughter’s death in service of a demented dictator, especially one who would think that autographing a photo of their murdered child is normal. But more on that later.

“Today, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released its third Center for Countering Human Trafficking (CCHT) Annual Report, highlighting the Department’s successful efforts to train more than 275,000 individuals, including aviation and transportation personnel, law enforcement partners, and nonprofit organizations, to recognize the indicators of human trafficking and take action to stop this heinous crime. The Annual Report outlines the Department’s role as a global leader in the fight against human trafficking through a wide range of efforts including victim identification and assistance, criminal investigations, civil enforcement actions, intelligence and analysis, training and public education, and external outreach.”

“In Fiscal Year (FY) 2023, the Department of Homeland Security expanded efforts to educate the public on human trafficking. CCHT led 135 training and outreach events for the DHS workforce and law enforcement partners with more than 14,000 participants. The Blue Campaign hosted 194 public awareness trainings with 19,626 participants from the federal government, non-governmental organizations, law enforcement, and general public – more than double the number conducted in the previous fiscal year. The Blue Campaign launched 63 new partnerships – a 46 percent increase over FY22 – including with higher education associations like Florida International University and Phoenix Dream Center, the nation’s largest human trafficking recovery program for young adults.”

“By further expanding our trainings and partnerships and educating more of the public than the previous year, CCHT has better positioned DHS to improve its counter human trafficking efforts, including investigating and prosecuting perpetrators. DHS agencies arrested 2,610 individuals for human trafficking-related offenses and assisted 731 human trafficking victims. DHS personnel supported 1,044 human trafficking-related indictments and their work led to 519 convictions,” says a press release from DHS. Yeah but Sound of Freedom‘s box office numbers, right fanboys?

Disgraced former President Trump’s lawyers on Friday sent Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan a letter telling him District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s offer of a 30 day delay for the Stormy Daniels hush money payoff trial start after the federal Southern District of New York dragged their asses on producing discovery evidence is “not sufficient” and are asking for a hearing on the matter to be scheduled for the week of March 25, when the trial is supposed to start, Politico’s Erica Orden reports.

There’s no indication yet from Merchan on how to handle this but, let’s just try to be optimistic here because everyone else is like “OMG TRUMP’S NOT GOING ON TRIAL,” there’s always a decent chance that Donald’s asshole lawyers are going to find some way to piss off the judge and he’ll only give them an extra week or two to review the documents. Judges really don’t like Trump’s lawyers.

Now for the bad news: Any delay in Trump’s trial pushes back Steve Bannon’s trial for the “We Build The Wall” scam since Merchan is overseeing that one too. It’s supposed to start in May, although it’s hard to see that one taking particularly long given that his three accomplices were all convicted at the federal level after Bannon was pardoned by Trump at the last minute in 2021.