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A not-too-subtle subtext of a New York Times piece (shared via gift article) on the petty political divide that threatened to tear apart a Colorado town portrays Fox “News”–and the network earned those quotation marks in 787.5 million ways–as the gas-throwers on a local ember of discord.

Silverton, a town of around 800 people that triples in size with tourists, was in the midst of a common problem in rural towns:  the influx of people moving there from “the outside” and making their personal marks on their new hometowns.  That, of course, leads to conflict with the long-standing residents regarding growth and the traditions that locals practice–like riding ATVs down the streets of the town, which only had one paved road.

After a local resident sent Fox “News” a video of a protest at a town council meeting showing residents definitely reciting the Pledge of Allegiance after the town mayor suspended saying it at council meetings because of death threats sent to one person who refrained from participating, Fox producers jumped at the chance to make the sleepy town the center of one of its fomented “culture wars,” sending a crew out there to hold a live shot in which local conservatives trashed the “carpetbagger” mayor, a Colorado native who had moved back to the state after attending college and working in New York.

Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy agreement, signed to protect the wealth of the Sackler family who have otherwise been shunned from society for enriching themselves as millions died due to addictions to opioids they marketed, will be reviewed by the Supreme Court, CBS News reports.

While rumors started here point to Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito looking to loosen the reins on the billionaire family because they need new roofs on their multiple homes, the case focuses around the lawsuit of Ellen Isaacs, a mother whose son died of an Oxycontin overdose.  Isaacs has been running an international campaign to remove protections previously given to the Sackler family and to erase the Sackler name from prominent philanthropic mentions.

Isaacs does not feel the Sacklers have sufficiently compensated the families of those who died because the Sackler’s company knowing misrepresented the dangers of opioid addiction.  “It’s really important to me that these people get held accountable for all the people that they’ve murdered,” she told CBS News. “They’re criminals and they needed to be treated as such.”

Days after appointing her CEO, Republican Florida Governor and Danny DeVito stand-in Ron DeSantis’s Never Back Down PAC fired its newly appointed leader, Kristin Davison, Saturday, the New York Times reports.  The Times reports Davison was not the only person fired, although the exact number is not known.

Davison took the position after former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt quit the job.  Laxalt quit just two days after DeSantis’s failing appearance in the Fox-hosted debate against Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom in which DeSantis looked completely outclassed in demeanor, knowledge and policy.  And Laxalt took over after Chris Jankowski quit at the PAC’s head just two weeks ago.  Davison will be replaced by long-time DeSantis friend and ally Scott Wagner, with the over/under on his time in office at three Scaramuccis.

“Scott Wagner will now serve as chairman of the board and interim C.E.O. of Never Back Down,” said Jess Szymanski, a spokeswoman for the PAC who apparently has not yet been fired. “Never Back Down has the most organized, advanced caucus operation of anyone in the 2024 primary field, and we look forward to continuing that great work to help elect Gov. DeSantis the next president of the United States.”

Addressing the important things for members of their Party, Texas Republicans removed language from a pro-Israel resolution that would ban its members from associating with Nazi sympathizers and Holocaust deniers, the Texas Tribune reports, because even Texas Republicans need friends.

By a 32-29 votes–so they almost grew a spine–the move knocks down a provision that would have barred Republican leaders and candidates from associating with people “known to espouse or tolerate antisemitism, pro-Nazi sympathies or Holocaust denial.”  The measure was proposed because many state Party officials were concerned after self-proclaimed Hitler fan Nick Fuentes was photographed by reporters coming out of the offices of a key Republican campaign advisory firm.

“I just don’t understand how people who routinely refer to others as leftists, liberals, communists, socialists and RINOs (‘Republicans in Name Only’) don’t have the discernment to define what a Nazi is,” committee member Morgan Cisneros Graham told the Tribune after the vote.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said it was a “regrettable day” when the chamber expelled lying grifter George Santos because it makes governing the chamber more difficult now that he’s down to just a three-vote majority, Politico reports.

“We allowed [House Republicans] to have a vote of conscience,” Johnson boasted in a Fox News interview, demonstrating that the leadership of the GOP–who uniformly voted to keep Santos in the House–have weaker consciences than its membership.  Per Forbes, Johnson also said that he believes he has enough votes to open up an impeachment probe of Joe Biden even though no GOP-led House committee has produced any information implicating Biden in any unethical or illegal scheme.

We’re joining late so we missed Trump saying he’s “waging an all out war on American democracy” so this is probably going to be a good one – in terms of embarrassing for his fanboys.

“We are a nation that is consumed by the Radical left’s Green New Deal, yet everyone knows that the Green New Deal is FAKE, and will lead to our destruction,” wrote disgraced former President Trump on Truth Social on Saturday, amazingly correct as it is true the “Green New Deal,” a term first coined in 2007 by Thomas L Friedman, then appearing in the Green Party’s 2012 platform, and then applied to a sweeping legislative package proposed by House Democrats in 2019 that went nowhere, is indeed for all intent and purposes “FAKE.” Trump really nailed it this time.

Because there is no Green New Deal. It never passed. None of it ever came into law. Every once in a while some dumb piece of shit blames the would-be landmark climate change legislation for this or that going wrong – like a number of involuntarily celibate Trump fans did for the widespread power outages during the February 2021 winter storm in Texas – but incorrectly so as the Green New Deal does not now and never did exist. It is as “FAKE” as their Lord and Savior proclaims.

It’s not clear however if Trump is actually stating that fact or if, in some tautological slip, he believes it is in fact real but the FAKEness he ascribes to it is to imply that there’s some sort of hidden agenda to this ephemeral deal. Claiming it “will lead to our destruction” carries an implication of imminence to this threat, like he’s describing Obamacare. So maybe he just being stupid here.

“Remind me now…. just who..which party is the threat to democracy”

– The current top comment on the Townhall article “Florida Democrats Cancel Primary Election, Automatically Handing Biden the State’s Votes.” Nowhere in the story is it mentioned that the Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Kansas, Nevada, New York, South Carolina, and Virginia state GOPs all cancelled their 2020 presidential primaries or caucuses, four of them announcing it in September 2019 while former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld, former South Carolina Governor-turned-Congressman Mark Sanford, and former Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Walsh were still running their longshot primary bids against Trump. Weld, the last one, didn’t quit until March of 2020.

They probably skipped it since it wouldn’t be as much fun for their commenters if they had to countenance that set of facts. “Hypocrisy” ends with “y” and “self-awareness” does not.

From Ron Filipkowski, Donald Trump addresses a group Friday night at his Florida geriatric supper club to garner favor with the multi-jurisdictional defendant, more than a year after the FBI seized a trove of classified documents from that location, his remarking to the group something Jack Smith might be interested in:

“Thank you very much for being here. But we have, ah… Y’know, they wanted to use the place. [addresses someone off camera.] This place is packed. We love everything you stand for, very, very special.  We don’t let people use Mar-a-Lago very much and ah…. because, as you know, we hold very, very important documents here.”

While the famously humorless Trump may be joking here–the end of the clip doesn’t reflect whether the crowd took it as a joke or not–Trump statement that they don’t rent out his wedding reception venue “very much” is either a sign of senility or a failing business.

Lurching toward year three of a brutal war of attrition with Ukraine, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s regime on Friday night began a major new offensive with the aim of shoring up morale domestically and rejuvenating the citizenry’s sense of purpose, as the Kremlin’s forces surged against the enemy by conducting a series of raids against Moscow’s LGBTQ+ nightlife scene, the AP reports.

The raids came just two days after the Russian Supreme Court, determined to do their part to boost national morale amid the grinding fight against Ukraine, ruled the “global LGBTQ+ movement” to be an extremist organization, banning citizens from any sort of public demonstrations of extremism such as displaying a rainbow flag, socializing in an establishment marketed to homosexuals, and holding hands, kissing, or otherwise expressing romantic affection to a person of the same sex.

“In practice, it could happen that the Russian authorities, with this court ruling in hand, will enforce the ruling against LGBTQ+ initiatives that work in Russia, considering them a part of this civic movement,” said Russian human rights lawyer Max Olenichev, plainly impressed by Putin’s iron will and determination to see hated rival Volodymyr Zelensky’s armies defeated once and for all.

A new detail has emerged in the shocking crime (but not shocking who the alleged perpetrator was) regarding the horrific rape of a woman by the head of the Florida Republican Party who had been in a “throuple” with the woman and his wife:  According to WFTS ABC-17 in Tampa, Florida GOP Chair Christian Ziegler went to the woman’s home after the woman sent a text message because his wife, Mom’s For Liberty founder and Sarasota School Board Member Bridget Ziegler, canceled.

“Sorry I was mostly in for her,” the woman texted, which apparently dealt such a blow to Christian Ziegler’s ego that he went over to the woman’s apartment, where he waited outside until she opened her apartment door to take her dog for a walk, then pushed her back into her home where he brutally attacked her.  Video footage shows Ziegler’s pickup truck arriving at the woman’s apartment complex on the day in question and leaving 38 minutes later.

• George Santos got the Republicans to show the smallest amount of ethics.  Stress on the smallest. But Republican leadership voted against Santos’s expulsion from the House, which tells you all you need to know about the kinds of people Republicans like hanging around with.
• How detailed is the work Jack Smith is doing?  The report of investigators asking about a Pence comma should tell all you need to know about how carefully they’re reviewing evidence and filings.  If Trump’s lawyers misplace a comma, it could end badly for their client.
• Besides wiping the floor with DeSantis, Gavin Newsom did two things:  showed Democrats that you need to take Fox “News”  head-on, which Dems need to do to break the Trump hold.  The second thing he did:  showed Fox viewers what Democratic leaders looks like compared next to their GOP counterparts.  
• I won’t make any Oscar predictions for the new Trump biopic starring Sebastian Stan, but I would bet the house there will be various and sundry lawsuits from Mar-a-Lago.
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CXLIX”

An independent government watchdog agency determined two White House communications personnel violated the Hatch Act–which bar campaigning on government property–by using the term “MAGA” repeatedly to refer to Trump’s cult, the Washington Post reports.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and deputy press secretary Andrew Bates was found in violation by the independent Office of the Special Counsel, a non-partisan group not affiliated with Jack Smith et al to adjudicate administrative issues.  The office noted that since neither had used the term on banned government grounds since June, it was closing the investigation.

To qualify for the CO primary ballot, the state party requires that candidates post something on social media that announces their excitement while encouraging their followers to follow the state party’s social media accounts
for updates about the state party primary and events.…

— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) December 1, 2023

DeSantis goes on to unconvincingly state:  “I’m excited to officially be on the ballot for the Colorado primary! Coloradans, it’s time for Republicans to start winning again. As your nominee, I will run Biden ragged across this country and help Republicans up and down the ballot WIN. Stay informed with @cologop for updates!

Suspiciously, book sales for Marjorie Taylor Greene’s biography, MTG, jumped from #65 in Amazon’s “Women’s Biographies” category to #9 just days after the Georgia Republican Congresswoman was mocked by late-night host Jimmy Kimmel for trying to get booked on the show after threatening to sue the host.  “Marjorie Taylor Greene’s book is such a bomb, I might have to report it to the Capitol Police,” Kimmel quipped.

As reported by Newsweek, on Monday night, Kimmel noted Marge’s book trailed not one, but two books by former First Lady Michelle Obama, including Obama’s 2018 biography, which ranked 50 spots ahead of Marge’s book, which was published in mid-November hoping for a Black Friday jump, but that jump apparently didn’t happen until after Kimmel’s mention.  Marge’s book now sits at #9 in “Women’s Biographies” after a sudden burst of sales.  Given how conservatives manipulate the sales of books to promote their egos and line their pockets by turning PAC funds into author royalties, some discount warehouse store can expect a pallet of returns in a month.

Judge Tanya Chutkan denied Donald Trump’s effort to dismiss the DC federal charges for trying to undermine the Constitution by supporting the Republican-led January 6th domestic terrorist attack on Congress to re-install him for a second term he did not win in the 2020 election.

Trump had tried to get the case dismissed based on a number of spurious grounds–due process, executive immunity, and double jeopardy–each of which was summarily dismissed by the Judge, adding to the further judicial humiliation of the multiple-indicted sexual assaulter.

The Bellevue, Washington home of Democratic Congressman Adam Smith was vandalized with graffiti calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war, with local police working with the Capitol Police to investigate the incident, the Washington Post reports.  In Congress since 1996, Smith has been vocal in his support of Israel in its fight against Hamas, having given many interviews to show his support.  Smith noted that he’s met with people who oppose his views, including pro-Palestinian and left-wing activists.”

Federal prosecutors on Friday revealed attempted murder charges against 52 year-old Mexican Mafia gangbanger John Turscak, accusing him of stabbing former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin 22 times last Friday at the FCI Tucson prison in Arizona, the Associated Press reports.

Turscak, on a 30 year bid for unspecified crimes, informed for the FBI at some point and – yeah, you already knew where this was going. Right away the fanboys are claiming this is rock solid proof of a Deep State hit on Chauvin. “Oddly enough, Turscak is a former FBI informant!! Coincidence? I don’t think so,” tweeted Laura Loomer. “John Turscak, the man who stabbed Derek Chauvin 22 times, is allegedly a former FBI informant,” wrote “Red Pill News” and so on. This is still fresh so it might be another hour or two before the Gateway Pundit and the other bigger MAGA sites get on it.

Of course these assclowns think “FBI informant” automatically equals “FBI agent,” which is the entire basis of their stupid bullshit “Fedsurrection” conspiracy theory since there were a number of informants among the Capitol rioters. Law enforcement constantly leans on bad guys to get worse guys, and bad guys constantly oblige to save their own asses – or at least minimize their sentences.

If the Department of Justice wanted Chauvin dead they could have announced he was found dead in an empty stairwell and that would be the end of it. They don’t have to coax some asshole who couldn’t even finish the job into it and then charge the guy with attempted murder.

Yes, silly us for expecting that kind of logic from the people who want to believe it. Also funny is how the MAGA kids point out Turscak’s alleged invocation of Black Lives Matter after the assault, which we were to understand was cool with MAGA now that “BLM” endorsed Trump for 2024.

Oklahoma Republican Congressman Kevin Hern is now officially on fat former President Trump’s shitlist, as minions Chris LaCivita and Susan Wiles have caught Hern redhanded using the Holy Visage of the Orange Allah in mailers for his campaign committee, prompting Wiles and LaCivita to write this fucking hilariously bitchy letter to Hern which we’ll print here in full. Emphasis theirs:

“It has come to our attention that House Conservative Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee that principally benefits [Kevin] Hern for Congress, along with TAG Strategies have been engaging in unauthorized use of President Donald J Trump and his family’s name, image and likeness in your fundraising appeals. Your appeal goes so far as to mislead those who received the solicitation into thinking their donation would help President Trump and his children fight off a weaponized Department of Justice when, in fact, it does not. Earlier this year, we distributed a memo outlining our position: President Trump does not consent to the use of his name, image and likeness in unauthorized fundraising appeals for candidates he has not endorsed and committees he may or may not support. Going forward in determining which candidates he will support, the President and his team will consider whether the candidate is paying a digital fundraising vendor that routinely fundraises off of his name, image and likeness without his authorization.”

“With your most recent violation, you have decided to openly and flagrantly disregard our clear guidelines which leaves us no choice but to denounce any political entities and vendors associated with you. We will not allow you or a scam PAC to mislead the American people in order to steal their hard-earned money through dishonest and deceptive tactics usually employed by other scam PACs.”