Category: Uncategorized

Apparently not understanding that losing the popular vote in seven out of the last eight elections is a pattern they should note, the Republican base–a monster of far-right, science-denying, quasi-Christian Trump zealots–have backed a man responsible for two of those losses to be the GOP candidate again in 2024.  Donald Trump won the Washington state primary, according to Decision Desk and the New York Times, sending him over the 1,215 delegate threshold needed to secure the Republican nomination.  This sets Trump up to face the presumptive Democratic nominee and incumbent President Joe Biden in the November election.

“The Hur Report was revealed today! A disaster for Biden, a two tiered standard of justice. Artificial Intelligence was used by them against me in their videos of me. Can’t do that Joe!” posted fat former President Trump on Truth Social after Democrats played a vast multitude of video clips of his addled batshittery during the Hur hearing on Tuesday. They were not AI generated.

Former special counsel Robert Hur’s hearing before the House Judiciary Committee–where Republicans gave him a positive performance review while Democrats underlined his conclusion that Joe Biden didn’t do any wrong while Donald Trump did–brought out the debunked GOP talking point that Biden is a doddering old man with a bad memory, a description helped along by Hur’s editorializing.

But that characterization doesn’t make sense when you look at the transcripts of Hur’s interview with the President, who sat for sessions with the Special Counsel in the days after the Hamas attack on Israel.  In the transcript of the five-hour interview done over two days, Biden responded “I don’t remember” or “I don’t recall” a total of 51 times in the 251 pages.  About ten of those “memory lapses” were when Biden was asked to identify specific people who may have moved boxes that contained documents in the previous four decades, or when asked the last time he may have been in proximity to the documents prior to their discovery.

But is that a lot?  Are Biden’s memory gaps–on average, once every five pages of transcript–excessive?  Here’s where we can look at similar evidence to see how well Biden worked.  Because federal interview transcripts are fairly well standardized–25 lines per page in the same font size–we can see how well others performed in similar circumstances.

“Hillary had top secret classified information, 33,000 deleted emails, bleach-bit, hammers devices, everything we learned.” It’s March 2024, but Fox propagandist Sean Hannity rants like he’s still in 2016 as he tries to make Oversight Committee Chair Jamie Comer feel okay about himself for not being able to do anything effective in his pursuit of an impeachment hearing for someone.

The chief of staff for the recently-murdered opposition leader Alexei Navalny was attacked with tear gas and a hammer as he was getting into his car in Vilnius, Lithuania, Politico reports, signaling another wave of violent retribution for people who oppose Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Leonid Volkov reportedly just got seated in his car outside his home when someone approached the car and smashed out the window with a hammer.  The attacker sprayed the tear gas into the vehicle and started attacking Volkov with the hammer.  Volkov was taken to a hospital by ambulance and is being treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

“You need to understand that these gains were won primarily by Democrats who are willing to vote for them,” John Palmer, a Teamsters Vice President, says.  “I know we get accused of supporting only Democrats, honestly the reason is, the Republicans haven’t supported us.  I mean, they’ve– they’re pushin’ ‘right to work.’  Right to work doesn’t benefit anybody.  It benefits corporations.”  Though the Teamsters have not yet made an endorsement, Palmer strongly hinted to supporting Biden.

President Joe Biden has secured enough delegates for the 2024 Democratic Party presidential nomination with his victory in the Georgia primary where he will pick up at least 100 delegates to put him over the 1,968 threshold, CNN reports.

A massive ransomware attack on Change Healthcare of Tennessee, a part of UnitedHealthcare’s portfolio, is costing providers in the company’s network up to $100 million per day in payments, reimbursements and other compensation because of ongoing system issues, CBS News reports.

With the cyberattack starting in February, Change Healthcare’s system was impacted on all levels.  Along with provider payments, pharmacy orders have been difficult to place and fulfill reliably.  Patient portals, including scheduling appointments and surgeries.  The federal Department of Health and Human Services is working with local providers to ensure continuation of services for those practices, clinics and hospitals impacted.

House Oversight Chairbilly James Comer and his boss, fat former President Trump, met in Florida recently to discuss a way of salvaging their utterly failed effort to vindicate Donald’s two impeachments by hitting Joe Biden with at least one, ABC News reports. The idea of a “criminal referral” for Biden came up as a way of saving face and to give a future Trump Reich some sort of political justification for prosecuting Biden should the fat fuck steal a second term.

A Comer spokesperson wouldn’t comment to ABC on the content of the conversation or exactly where it occurred, saying only that “While having lunch with Vernon Hill in Florida, Congressman Comer unexpectedly ran into President Trump and they had a brief 10-minute conversation.”

Hardcore anti-vax and anti-semitic third party presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr has approached red-pilled asshole New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers and former pro wrestler-turned Predator laser weapon victim-turned-Minnesota Governor Jesse “The Body” Ventura to see if either would be interested in joining his ticket as his running mate, the New York Times reports.

An influential committee that determines policies governing the case management and administration for all the courts in the United States–except, of course, the Supreme Court–has proposed a new policy that would minimize the ability of litigants to “judge shop” for specific jurists by filing in divisions where a single judge with a known political philosophy sits.

The proposal from the Judicial Conference’s Committee on Court Administration and Case Management would apply only to cases where a party sought injunctions or immediate relief involving state or federal laws, rules, regulations, policies, or executive branch orders.

These situations–where a plaintiff files a case in small jurisdictions where only one judge may hear a case in federal court–are increasingly being exploited by conservatives in north Texas, a district Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said is notorious for judge shopping because it’s comprised primarily of one-judge divisions.  In Northern Texas, ten of the eleven sitting judges were appointed by Republicans, including six by Donald Trump.  One Trump appointee, 47-year-old Matthew Kacsmaryk, is the sole judge in the Amarillo division, and he’s responsible for a number of controversial decisions including one that jeopardizes patients’ access to birth control medication. 

Lawyers for disgraced former President Trump on Tuesday notified Judge Juan Merchan that they intend to assert an advice of counsel defense in the upcoming Stormy Daniels hush money payoff trial, except that it’s not “formal” in that he doesn’t want to waive attorney-client privilege between himself and whichever lawyer he claims gave him the bad advice that led to the indictment.

“While President Trump intends to elicit evidence concerning the presence, involvement and advice of lawyers in relevant events giving rise to the charges in the Indictment, he does not intend to assert a formal advice-of-counsel defense that would require him to prove at trial that he ‘(1) made a complete disclosure to counsel [concerning the matter at issue], (2) sought advice as to the legality of his conduct, (3) received advice that his conduct was legal, and (4) relied on that advice in good faith,'” the lawyers wrote, whatever the hell that means.

Sounds like Trump just wants to blame Michael Cohen without having to waive whatever privilege that may or may not still exist with him and/or avoid testifying taking the stand during the trial.

It’s not 100 percent clear but it sounds like Ken Buck was set off by Tuesday’s shitshow of a House Judiciary Committee hearing starring former Biden docs fuckup special counsel Robert K Hur as the final straw in his decision to resign about ten months before he was going to retire.

Politico’s Olivia Beavers reported at 2:17 PM EDT that Jesus dork Speaker Mike Johnson told her that Buck had not given him the heads-up on his resignation and that Johnson looks forward to chatting with him. Beavers then followed up with Buck’s office and a spokesperson told her that Buck did in fact leave a voicemail with the Speaker. So who knows what would’ve happened had Johnson actually picked up the phone when one of his members was calling him. Maybe not the above interview – or the resignation at all. Maybe Johnson could’ve talked him off the ledge. Oh well.

“I think we speak for the VAST majority of human beings on planet Earth when we say that Adolf Hitler did not in fact – do ‘good things.’ Donald Trump’s praise for Hitler is disgraceful but wholly unsurprising from the man who has parroted Nazi rhetoric on the campaign trail, called his political opponents ‘vermin,’ and sucked up to dictators and authoritarians like Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, Kim Jong Un, and the rest of the gang. When Donald Trump talks like a dictator, praises dictators, and says he wants to be a dictator, we should probably believe him,” says a statement from the Biden Campaign attributed to the president referring to CNN’s Monday report that former Trump White House Chief of Staff John Kelly told others Donald had praised Hitler.

“It has been an honor to serve the people of Colorado’s 4th District in Congress for the past 9 years. I want to thank them for their support and encouragement throughout the years. Today, I am announcing that I will depart Congress at the end of next week. I look forward to staying involved in our political process, as well as spending more time in Colorado and with my family,” wrote Colorado Congressman Ken Buck in a statement Tuesday, not even waiting until the end of the term to leave town and screwing over House Speaker Mike Johnson’s tiny GOP majority even further.

The timing may be pretty bad for current 3rd District Congressidiot turned 4th District primary candidate Lauren Boebert too, as the primary isn’t until June 25th and – we’ll be upfront that we don’t know shit about how Colorado election law is supposed to handle this, but it’s possible that the Secretary of State could set the primary and/or general to finish out Buck’s term on the same day which would mean that Boebert could possibly need to switch seats mid-Congress, thereby screwing her out of the seat or handing Johnson yet another vacancy if she wins.

I love my new family at Smile Texas! The video says it all, and I am so grateful for their help fixing my smile for me. 😊🙌🏼😊 pic.twitter.com/z2kTmiY8td

— Kristi Noem (@KristiNoem) March 12, 2024

…but why the hell is the currently sitting governor of a state filming an informercial for a teeth whitening clinic… One based in another state no less. Don’t the hard working dentists and hygienists and orthodontists and whoever else work at South Dakotan teeth whitening clinics deserve a shout out from their state’s leader? Actually forget that and ask maybe the more important questions about how much she got paid to promote the service and whether or not it’s legal to do so.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Tuesday determined that the MAGA petition effort to recall Republican state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos for the crime of failing to decertify the 2020 election and other “election integrity”-related sins fell short of the minimum number of valid signatures to initiate a recall election by about 900, the Associated Press reports.

That the assclowns who slapped the effort together came up short was actually kind of a blessing for the Commission at least given the state Supreme Court’s decision to redraw the heavily gerrymandered state legislative maps would have created a situation in which the panel would’ve had no idea under which map to hold the recall election. “I’m lucky enough to be an attorney and it’s very, very murky to me,” said Dem member Mark Thomsen. “Nothing is clear about this process.”

Knowing that failing to do so could have serious consequences both legal and political, former President Trump’s shitbag lawyers and minions have been pleading with the Obese Orange God Emperor to keep his mouth shut and behave during his upcoming trial in Manhattan over his interfering in the 2016 election by paying hush money to pornstar Stormy Daniels, with whom he’d had a 45 second sexual encounter over a decade earlier, sources tell Rolling Stone.

So delicate is the situation that the lawyers freaked out when an outside adviser told Donald not to testify in the trial to avoid upsetting the jury because the fat bastard would defiantly do the opposite, and the teams is desperate to “prevent him from talking his way into a mess.”

“Nobody from President Trump’s team has advised what is alleged and the legal team does not share these absurd views peddled by cowardly unnamed sources. We won’t litigate this case in the media and those who try [to] do so clearly are speaking from ignorance and stupidity,” said large-headed Trump Campaign spokesman Steven Cheung in a typically rage-filled statement.

Former Biden classified documents fuckup investigation special counsel Robert K Hur will testify before spandex-wearing grapple-freak Jim Jordan’s House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, just hours after the transcript of Hur’s October 2023 interview with the president revealed that the Republican prosecutor had at best grossly exaggerated the extent of Biden’s memory lapses – and more plainly exposed Hur as a partisan twat who wanted to help the GOP feel like they got a win politically when fat former President Trump faces trial for far worse mishandling of top secret info.

Media Matters’ Matthew Gertz nicely sums up the shitstorm Hur walked the media into with “The Washington Post ran 33 stories about Biden’s mental fitness in the four days following the Hur report, per @JuddLegum. After reviewing the transcript, the paper concludes that Biden ‘doesn’t come across as being as absent-minded as Hur has made him out to be.'” Here’s hoping House Judiciary Democrats drank some extra Red Bull this morning when they face this son of a bitch.

Republican Pennsylvania Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, situationally one of the good guys when it comes to Ukraine aid, on Tuesday opened up a discharge petition to signatures to do an end-run around Jesus dork Speaker Mike Johnson and get critical military supplies sent to the beleaguered ally as they suffer setbacks on the battlefield against Russia, Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman reports.

The bill, originating in the Senate, also funds military support for Israel and Taiwan. All is needed are 218 signatures to get it passed, though some of the other specifics remain unclear to us.

In related news, NBC’s Vaughn Hillyard points out that the Trump campaign has not pushed back on Hungarian dictator Viktor Orban’s claim that Donald told him privately that “not another penny” of American aid would go to Ukraine should the Orange God Emperor reclaim his throne. This is as if it wasn’t already clear enough that Trump’s foreign policy goal is total Russian victory.