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Rival Republican Missouri gubernatorial hopefuls Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft – son of far right former US Attorney General John Ashcroft – and state Senator Bill Eigel – the Nazi who literally staged a book burning just a few months ago – are engaged in a contest to see who can perform more loudly for disgraced former President Trump by figuring out some 14th Amendment-based pretext for disqualifying President Joe Biden from the 2024 ballot in the Show Me State.

In one corner is Ashcroft telling NBC News “If Democrat states are saying we’re not going to let these Republicans run, you bet you’re going to see the same thing happening from Republican states. And it’s not good. If you’re playing a basketball game and the other team doesn’t have to dribble the ball, eventually you’re going to say, ‘Why am I worried about dribbling the ball?'” which we guess is supposed to mean something. Biden “let an invasion unstopped into our country from the border,” while Kamala Harris “supported people that were rebelling against the US government during the riots in 2020,” Ashcroft said, adding he’s “99 percent certain the Supreme Court will stop” the Trump disqualification “but if they don’t, chaos is ahead and we’ve got to avoid it.”

Convicted Jan 6. participant: Under Biden, things are getting better. However, MAGA’s narrative around January 6 is getting worse. It's really scary. I have the receipts. I was there that day. I hold Trump totally responsible pic.twitter.com/jaXUu12onn

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) January 6, 2024

Five days after a 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck the region and with aftershocks continuing to hit, rescuers pulled a 90-year-old woman from the rubble of a collapsed building in Suzu, a city in the Ishikawa Prefecture on Honshu, the Guardian reports.

Officials say the likelihood of finding survivors after 72 hours is rare because victims typically succumb to injuries or blood loss before rescuers can find them.  Suzu suffered the second most fatalities from Monday’s earthquake, with 38 dead; around 20 miles away, the town of Wajima, with 28,000 residents, reported 69 dead.

Authorities say 126 people were killed in the earthquake, but that number is likely to increase as rescue and recover efforts continue to be hampered by aftershocks, difficulty getting equipment to some hard-hit areas, and more than 100 landslides in the region that have occurred since Monday.

FBI officials on Saturday announced they apprehended fugitive Capitol rioters Joseph Hutchinson and siblings Olivia and Jonathan Pollock in Groveland, Florida, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

“The FBI executed three federal arrest warrants early this morning at a ranch in Groveland, Florida in Lake County,” the FBI Tampa field office said in a statement. “The subjects taken into custody are January 6 fugitives Jonathan Daniel Pollock, Olivia Michele Pollock, and Joseph Daniel Hutchinson.”

Fairly obvious that the feds had already known where the three were hiding and timed the arrests for the third anniversary of the insurrection, who knows how long they knew though. Hutchinson and Olivia Pollock had been arrested in 2021 for the riot but last year the two had removed their ankle monitors and went on the lam. Jon Pollock has been a fugitive for almost the entire three years.

Here’s two of the most insurrection friendly Congressmen, Texan Troy Nehls and Oklahoman now-Senator Markwayne Mullin having a friendly chat with the “tourists” three years ago, via NBC News.

• The single biggest mystery still surrounding January 6th is:  who is the bomber?  Yes, we joke that it’s Congress’s Three-toed embarrassment, but more than any case not directly involving Trump, this is the last major question that needs to be resolved.  
• Biden is fired up, and rightly so.  He’s not just battling for the office; he’s fighting for the future of the nation.  And as he said, Trump is fighting for his future only.
• “You can have this office keycard when you pry it from my cold dead hands,” Wayne LaPierre didn’t say defiantly as he scurried away.  
• A mentor of mine once wrote something that to me characterizes voters’ mindset today:  “His head always felt about to ache, but never began to.”  Everyone’s been so on edge for such a long time about a pending recession, so the positive economic climate has been ignored to harden ourselves for the expected impact.  We’ve just not yet had that moment of realization that the pain isn’t on the horizon.  
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CLIV”

USA Today reports that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has been hospitalized in Washington, DC at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center since the night of January 1st with a complication from an unspecified elective surgery.   The issue is not life-threatening and Secretary Austin is expected to be back at work by next Friday, but if Lloyd gets interviewed in two weeks looking all refreshed and 20 years younger with no bags under his eyes, like he’s auditioning for RHOTP (“…of the Pentagon”), Jim Jordan’s gonna ask questions.

In a new filing, in the DC federal case, calling for the court to essentially ignore a piece of performance art submitted by the defense, the Special Counsel hints it’s getting sick of the circus headlines stemming from the trial, noting that much of the kerfuffle exists because Trump himself is the Kerfuffler in Chief:

The defendant falsely paints the Government’s voluntary compliance with the motion in limine deadline as an effort to spread “political talking points” and effectively try him in absentia.  Not so. The defendant’s misconduct allegation, to which the Government has responded in its opposition to the defendant’s selective and vindictive prosecution motion is baseless and merits no further response. And the motion in limine itself addresses topics that the defendant has explicitly and implicitly indicated, through public statements or filings, he is likely to raise at trial.

Shouting in Iowa about how pundits are discussing the Trump-appointment-heavy Supreme Court possibly unduly influencing the decisions about the person that gave many of them virtually-unchallengeable lifetime appointments, Donald Trump himself attempts to “play the refs” by issuing a tissue-paper-veiled threat of violence.  “I just hope we get fair treatment, ah, because if we don’t, our country’s in big, big trouble.  Does everybody understand what I’m saying?,” Trump asks the indoctrinated crowd who knows exactly what he’s calling for.

Trump on Iowa’s deadly school shooting yesterday: It’s horrible but we have to get over it pic.twitter.com/8izgCBxcAl

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) January 5, 2024

The fat bastard also complained about Biden calling him a threat to democracy, then did his “one-day dictator” bit, and also repeated that “the stock market is only up because I’m leading in the polls” bullshit. We guess we’ll update if there’s anything new in this stupid rant.

The US Supreme Court lifted a lower court injunction on an Idaho law that bans emergency room doctors from performing abortions, again limiting a patient’s ability to get potentially life saving reproductive care, USA Today reports.  The Supreme Court will hear the case this spring, the second abortion case slated for its docket.

What an absolute avalanche of butthurt from Jesse Watters here reacting to Joe Biden’s spectacular speech. There’s almost too much going on here between Watters acting like Trump himself hasn’t been saying fascist shit and that Donald having supposedly dated Black women is more significant than stuff like elevating the first ever Black women to Vice Presidency and Supreme Court.

The US Supreme Court on Friday granted certiorari to fat former President Trump’s petition to hear his appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling deeming him ineligible to run in the state again under Section III of the 14th Amendment’s ban on insurrectionists. “The case is set for oral argument on Thursday, February 8, 2024. Petitioner’s brief on the merits, and any amicus curiae briefs in support or in support of neither party, are to be filed on or before Thursday, January 18, 2024. Respondents’ briefs on the merits, and any amicus curiae briefs in support, are to be filed on or before Wednesday, January 31, 2024. The reply brief, if any, is to be filed on or before 5 pm, Monday, February 5, 2024,” said the order. Guess it was too much to hope for them to just fuck off.

Bass Pro Shop customers in Leeds, Alabama were alarmed Thursday when a customer who thought he was their intended prey stripped naked and did a cannonball into the outdoor sports megastore’s massive aquarium and then initially refused to come out when police arrived, AL.com reports.

Fortunately for the cops, 42 year-old George Owens then fell over the side of the tank and was knocked unconscious in the fall, allowing them to place him in handcuffs, before he awoke again and began flopping like a fish. The cops then took him to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation. Owens was charged with public lewdness, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, assault on a police officer, two counts of 1st degree criminal mischief and two counts of reckless endangerment.

President Joe Biden is in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania on Friday to deliver remarks warning again of the dark forces of MAGA fascism ahead of the third anniversary of the January 6th insurrection.

“I DID NOTHING WRONG, MY FINANCIAL STATEMENTS ARE GREAT, AND VERY CONSERVATIVE, THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF WHAT THE HIGHLY POLITICAL AND TOTALLY CORRUPT NEW YORK STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL SAYS. SHE RAN FOR OFFICE ON, ‘I WILL GET TRUMP,’ SHE & THE JUDGE FRAUDULENTLY VALUED MAR-a-LAGO IN PALM BEACH, FLORIDA, AT $18,000,000, BECAUSE IT SET THEIR FAKE NARRATIVE, WHEN IT IS WORTH 50 TO 100 TIMES THAT AMOUNT.”

“THEY NEVER USED THE ‘NYS STATUTE’ FOR THIS BEFORE, I WAS NOT ALLOWED A JURY, THERE WAS NO VICTIM, NO DEFAULT, NO DAMAGES, NO ‘NOTHING,’ ONLY A VERY HAPPY BANK THAT GOT ALL OF ITS MONEY BACK, WITH BIG PROFITS. THE HIGHLY RESPECTED EXPERT WITNESS SAID IT WAS THE BEST FINANCIAL STATEMENT HE HAD EVER SEEN. THIS CASE SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN BROUGHT, SHOULD BE IN THE COMMERCIAL DIVISION (THE RIGGED JUDGE WOULD NOT LET GO OF IT!), AND I SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN GAGGED. NOW THE CORRUPT AG WANTS $370,000,000 AS BUSINESSES FLEE NEW YORK. THEY SHOULD PAY ME. THIS IS PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT – A DOJ WITCH HUNT!” writes disgraced former President Trump, reacting no doubt to New York State Attorney General Letitia James’s motion asking for Judge Arthur Engoron to ding the fat fuck for $370 million and a lifetime ban from running any real estate business.

Complete piece of shit longtime National Rifle Association president Wayne LaPierre resigned in disgrace on Friday, just before a civil trial in which New York Attorney General Letitia James threatens to completely dismantle the terrorist group down to the last bullet, ABC News reports.

The deadline for pre-trial motions for the 15 remaining defendants in the sprawling Fulton County, Georgia Trump 2020 election coup attempt RICO case is next week and with it comes a “flurry of docket activity” two-fer courtesy of Lawfare’s Anna Bower. First up is Rudy Giuliani’s bad news:

“The Defendant moves for an indefinite extension of the January 8th motions deadline citing his incomplete review of voluminous discovery. Defendant does not articulate exactly what discovery must still be reviewed, or why the review has not been completed in the approximately four months that have passed since arraignment. While Defendant claims to have filed ‘many’ motions concerning discovery, none appear on the docket. Extensions are only considered upon filing of a particularized motion containing a detailed, fact-based explanation of the need for the extension including the amount of time needed. The motion is DENIED. All deadlines remain in place,” writes Judge Scott McAfee, emphasis ours because lol, in an order informing the alcoholic shitbrain former New York City mayor that his inability to get his act together is not the court’s problem.

Next up is “Black Voices for Trump” asshole Harrison Floyd, who is asking for a six-week extension to conduct an expert study to move for a change of venue because, per his motion, “he cannot impanel a fair and impartial traverse jury in Fulton County, Georgia because of the media coverage, negative governmental press conferences, and the political bias of potential jurors.”

Floyd wants the trial moved to – wait for it – Coffee County, Georgia. The county where the Kraken’s minions and the Cyber Ninjas hacked into the Dominion server with the help of two of Floyd’s remaining co-defendants, former County Clerk Misty Hampton and former County GOP Chairwoman Cathy Latham. That’s where Floyd thinks he can find “a proper, statutory, and constitutional venue to conduct a jury trial or to use as a source of fair and impartial traverse jurors.” His motion cites some sort of statutory justification, but the problem is that Floyd himself had nothing to do with the server breach as that episode it was a completely separate prong of the case from his.

“Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the US Government on behalf of the family of Ashli Babbitt, the US Air Force veteran who was shot and killed inside the US Capitol by then-Capitol Police Lt Michael Byrd on January 6, 2021 (Estate of Ashli Babbitt and Aaron Babbitt, et al v United States of America). The lawsuit includes claims against the US Government for wrongful death, assault and battery, and various negligence issues.”

“Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt was a 35-year-old resident of San Diego, California, where she owned and operated a successful pool business [99 words in and they’re already fucking lying, as Babbitt’s business owed $71,000 to one of those shitty pound-of-flesh lenders who sued her after she stopped repaying a rescue loan] with her husband Aaron. Ashli traveled alone from San Diego to Washington, DC, to attend the Women for America First (aka Save America) rally on January 6, 2021, at the Ellipse [and you know the rest]… Plaintiffs seek ‘the full and just amount of Thirty Million Dollars ($30,000,000), plus costs and interest according to law, and any and all further relief to which Plaintiffs may be justly entitled,'” says far right scam operation Judicial Watch in a statement.

New York Attorney General Letitia James on Friday filed a brief with Manhattan Judge Arthur Engoron seeking $370 million in penalties and a lifetime ban from the real estate business for disgraced former President Trump as punishment for his decades of fraud and thievery.