Category: Uncategorized

The Texas GOP, siding with allegedly corrupt state Attorney General Ken Paxton, is out for revenge against the rebellious faction of the Party who sought to hold Paxton to a modicum of justice for his corrupt acts.

Per the Texas Scorecard, a state news outlet, the Texas State Republican Executive Committee passed a resolution by a 58-2 vote calling for the Speaker of the State House Dade Phelan to step down from his leadership role after Paxton was acquitted on all 16 charges by the state senate.  Phelan had already been sanctioned by his county Party organization.

This action comes a day after the same state committee voted to censure Republican state rep Andrew Murr, who led the House Board of Managers investigation.  After Paxton was acquitted, Murr seemed to know the writing was on the wall, according to TheTexan.com: “We always knew that a two-thirds vote of the Senate, as required by the Texas Constitution, would be a challenging threshold to meet, especially in light of the millions of dollars that Mr. Paxton’s apologists have spent to influence and intimidate Texas senators and Texas constituents,” Murr said.  “Still as chairman of the House Board of Managers, we presented because it demonstrates considerable uncontested, uncontroverted evidence of Mr. Paxton’s corruption.”

Democratic Maryland Senator Ben Cardin will take over as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez stepped aside when he was indicted on federal corruption charges for a second time, the Baltimore Sun reports.

Cardin, who is not seeking reelection in 2024 when his term expires, is on familiar ground:  when Menendez was indicted in 2015 for similar charges–the trial for which ended in a hung jury–Cardin stepped in to chair the same committee as the New Jersey Democrat stepped aside to adhere to Democratic caucus rules.

Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman on Saturday became the first Democratic member of the chamber to call on his corrupt colleague Bob Menendez to quit, writing in a statement “Senator Menendez should resign. He’s entitled to the presumption of innocence under our system, but he is not entitled to continue to wield influence over national policy, especially given the serious and specific nature of the allegations. I hope he chooses an honorable exit and focuses on his trial.”

This probably isn’t Fetterman “going rogue” so much as Majority Leader Chuck Schumer making it look like he’s “going rogue” by using him to turn the pressure up and get Goldbrick Dick to call it quits. Which is understandable. People might be impatient with Dem Senate leadership for not immediately jumping on it to force Menendez out, but we would like to think that out of respect and friendship they gave him a little space to accept that he’s not welcome there any more and if he doesn’t make “an honorable exit” soon then they will move to expel him. We would like to think that.

Separately on Saturday New Jersey Dem Congressman Andy Kim announced a primary challenge against Menendez. We haven’t seen any reporting on whom Governor Phil Murphy is thinking about for a replacement, but this probably would already mean he has to pick a “caretaker,” likely some retired former member of Congress who isn’t going to run in the special election. Again that’s the ideal outcome, but if Murphy picks Kim we wouldn’t really complain either. He’s a good dude.

Hunterghazi “whistleblower” and accused ChiCom spy Gal Luft told associates in 2020 that Trump Administration National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien and Middle Eastern Payoff Expert Jared Kushner had tried to contact him in September of that year while he was in Turkey, with both O’Brien and Jared likely aware Luft was under federal criminal investigation, The Marker reports.

Apologies for the page in Hebrew – in Chrome you can right click and hit “translate.” The whole story is pretty deep in the weeds, but the topline is that Luft was on the Trump Administration’s radar and wanted him to interfere in the election by “revealing” a bunch of bullshit about Hunter. Luft, a dual US-Israeli citizen, knew he was facing indictment and wasn’t exactly thrilled at the prospect of being contacted by any American officials. For reasons not quite clear the Turkish intel service blocked Luft from speaking to any American personnel and also denied “urgent” separate requests from Jared Kushner and Robert O’Brien to travel there in the months before the election. This is all in Luft’s version as told in 2020 to The Marker’s sources, so who the hell knows if he’s reliable.

“Crooked Joe Biden had no intention of going to visit the United Autoworkers, until I announced that I would be heading to Michigan to be with them, & help then out. Actually, Crooked Joe sold them down the river with his ridiculous all Electric Car Hoax…” and blah blah blah wrote fat former President Trump on Truth Social at 2:34 AM Saturday, after he also lost his shit about Howard Stern for God knows what reason and also said Mark Milley should’ve been executed.

• Tim Scott’s girlfriend is the 2024 version of Donald Trump’s taxes.
• The next generation of leaders of the GOP include one credibly accused of child sex trafficking, another seen fondling her partner in public, and a third who thought 9/11 was planned by the CIA.  Republicans have become their Base.
• With her latest stunt, Lauren Boebert’s political career is over.  A primary candidate or two will file paperwork in the coming weeks.  She’s just collecting a paycheck at this point, which is a legitimate concern for a 36-year-old grandmother with no discernable skills.
• Rudy Giuliani was accused by a female White House staffer of inappropriate behavior: not shocking.  That it was just a single staffer:  more shocking. 
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CXXXIX”

Things that come out in juicy tell-all biographies from former White House staffers are, by definition, juicy, and it appears that the upcoming book from Mark Meadow’s former aide Cassidy Hutchinson looks to have enough to supply an Orange Julius.  According to the New York Daily News, Hutchinson alleges Donald Trump refused to wear face masks during the coronavirus pandemic because it exposed his use of bronzer.

Hutchinson relates that during a visit to a Honeywell facility where they made masks in May 2020, she pointed out the straps of the white N95 mask Trump had been wearing on a facilities tour to the petulant president, who was horrified to see his cosmetics exposed. “Why did no one else tell me that?” he reportedly snapped. “I’m not wearing this thing.”

Trump was not seen in public until July 2020, when he made a visit to Walter Reed Military Medical Center to visit wounded soldiers, and he routinely mocked people who wore masks, likely contributing to MAGAts ignoring public health recommendations.

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s “little bitch” Lauren Boebert went on Jesse Watters bro show on Fox to do her penance after getting caught on security footage acting like the immature 36-year-old grandmother she is.  LB² tells Watters she wasn’t drunk, that she was just really into the show (and apparently, her date’s pants), and that she’s learned her lesson.  She says, “It is my responsibility to bring levity to my constituents’ lives, never gravity.  Never should my action burden those who I represent, ah, so, ah, I will, ah, work, ah to only bring levity to them and, ah, try to bring as many solutions as possible.”

After Democratic New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez was indicted on various bribery charges, Governor Phil Murphy, a fellow Democrat, has called for him to step down immediately, the Washington Post reports.  The state Democratic Party chair echoed the sentiment, suggesting that Menendez could somehow step aside and be replaced temporarily until the charges are resolved, something not really possible constitutionally.

Menendez, who has served in the Senate since 2006, stepped down as chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, complying with a rule of the Democratic caucus.  (A call to Congressman George Santos’s office to check if there was a similar rule for Republican Congress members went unanswered.)

Desperado lawman Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith done called up his former deputy Alex Whiting from the overseas detail at that Hague war crimes tribunal come help out lasso in some’a em no-good yella-bellied fuckin’ rattlesnakes in the Trump Boys gang, Politico reports.

The Trump Boys gang – named fer their leader, Dirty Donald “El Gordo Puto” Trump, who’s a lyin’, cheatin’, whore-diddlin’, no-good son bitch wit’ a reputation fouler than a buzzard’s grundle – are wanted fer vote rustlin, flim-flammin simple folk, tryin’ a hang Mike Pence without a lawful permit fer hangin, among other crimes ‘gainst the Republic. Smith an Whiting are fixin to bring Dirty Donald and his toadies like Rawdog Rudy and Kid Kraken to justice and perdition. The showdown’s a comin.

President Joe Biden has accepted an invitation from United Auto Workers chief Sean Fain and will join the striking union members in Michigan on Tuesday, the Washington Post’s Jeff Stein reports.

The visit comes a day before fat former President Trump will hold a rally with members of… some union, it wasn’t really specified… to “counter-program” the GOP primary debate he’s skipping. Of course the MAGA media will spin it as Biden reacting to Trump, even though he had been holding out for the formal invite from Fain to make an appearance with the striking UAW members.

Whatever you old fart.

We are electing a new President.

Turning 45 into 47.

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) September 22, 2023

“One has to wonder what Menendez did that made the Democrats want him gone. It certainly wasn’t the bribery. That seems to be a staple in the lives of Democrats” – The current top comment on the Gateway Pundit’s article “US Attorney for SDNY Damian Williams Details Shocking Charges Against Democrat Senator Bob Menendez and Wife Nadine Menendez.” One has to wonder indeed.

“Is this suppose to prove non-partisan justice under the law? Good distraction but I’m focused on the Big Guy” – Top comment on the Daily Wire’s article and more of the same insufferable solipsism.

“All that for only a few hundred thousand dollars?? Menendez is a two-bit amateur compared to the Biden Crime Family that received tens of millions of dollars” – Top comment at PowerLine Blog.

“Menendez must have forgotten about the 10% for the big guy” – Top comment at PJ Media.

“Is this an attempt by Democrats to pretend they are being ‘even handed’ with their frivolous indictments of Biden’s principal political opponent?” – Top comment on RedState.com’s article.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Friday heralded the swearing in of the NYPD’s newest rookie K5, a state-of-the-art, 420 lbs, egg-shaped RoboCop assigned to patrol the sprawling, maze-like warrens of the Times Square subway station during the 12 to 6AM graveyard shift, WCBS reports.

“The K5 will operate between midnight and 6 am at the Times Square subway station for two months. For the duration of trial it will be accompanied by a police officer at all times. For the first two weeks, it will be trained to map out the station. It will move around the main station area and not on the platform,” said Adams, evidently wary of the machine possibly working around its lack of armaments by learning to push criminals in front of oncoming trains or down the steep concrete steps. Adams did not address the possibility that K5 could manipulate its human partner into arresting or even killing persons known to be employed by rival robotics manufacturers.

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled that just because Mike Lindell was pissed that FBI agents showed up and seized his phone while he was waiting at a Hardee’s drive-thru doesn’t mean that the search warrant is invalid nor does it prevent prosecutors from examining the phone.

Seriously. “Lindell takes issue with the manner and execution of the search warrant – his cell phone was seized from him while in the Hardee’s restaurant drive- through lane at 10:30 am while he was on his way home from an out-of-state duck hunting trip. After calling his lawyer, Lindell decided to comply with the warrant and turn over his phone to the agents. Lindell’s irritation as to where and how the government took possession of his cell phone does not give rise to a constitutional claim, let alone a showing of a callous disregard for his constitutional rights,” a panel highly qualified federal jurists had to write to a grown man who owns a nationally recognized pillow brand.

“Likewise, Lindell’s frustration that the government has not prosecuted the Colorado Secretary of State for conduct he believes violates federal law does not signify that the government’s investigation into Lindell’s actions amounts to a callous disregard for his constitutional rights. As in this case, most subjects of a search warrant cannot satisfy the extraordinarily high hurdle of a callous disregard of their constitutional rights, which is intentional and designed to prevent ‘a flood of disruptive civil litigation,'” they continued and man is he so screwed over that Mesa County Dominion “hack” shitshow that’s been going on for more than two years now at this point.

Sources tell NBC News that during their Thursday meeting at the White House, President Biden informed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky the US will supply Kyiv with a limited number of ATACMS long-range missiles to be used for targeting military infrastructure such as rail lines and command bases inside Russia’s borders, something Ukraine’s been asking for quite a while.

“We have people that want to bring pain. Uh, um- misery is a political strategy for the left. Understand that. So their goal is shut it down, bring as much misery as we can to get it turned around on the Republican Party and not try to find any solution for the American people,” MAGA Utah Congressman Burgess Owens told Fox Business News on Friday. Note that Owens was speaking from inside his home – probably in Utah as it looks like it was in the pre-dawn hours and this is his family home rather than a rental in DC – and not from inside the Capitol where he would be if he were working on the legislation and getting ready to vote on it if they made any progress.

Also keep in mind that the whole fucking cause of this situation is that House Democrats have been left out because the Freedom Caucasians told him they would bring up a motion to vacate the speakership if he worked with them on any part of the budget process. That’s the real “pain” here.

“A press event will be held today at 11:00 am to announce the unsealing of an indictment charging Robert Menendez, US Senator from New Jersey, and his wife, Nadine Menendez, with bribery offenses in connection with their corrupt relationship with three New Jersey businessmen,” says the Southern District of New York’s Twitter account on yet another set of charges for Menendez.

The indictment’s already been made public and alleges Menendez accepted “hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes in exchange for using Menendez’s power and influence as a Senator to seek to protect and enrich [corrupt businessmen Wael Hana, Jose Uribe, and Fred Daibes] and to benefit the Arab Republic of Egypt. Those bribes included cash, gold, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low-or-no-show job, a luxury vehicle, and other things of value.”

Yeah, fuck this guy. The last time Menendez was indicted Chris Christie was the governor and would’ve appointed a Republican to the seat if he’d resigned. That’s not the case anymore and we feel pretty confident there’s plenty of decent, electable Democrats in the Garden State who could take over and win a special election easily to maintain the Dem Senate majority. Time to walk the walk on integrity in contrast to the MAGA party and send this corrupt asshole packing.

You would think this new ProPublica report on far right Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas hanging out with Charles Koch and his buddies at their donor events would be like a five alarm fire for the regular MAGA assholes since it comes just two days after fat former President Trump called Koch a “very stupid, awkward, and highly overrated Globalist” who “doesn’t have a clue,” ominously adding “watch what happens to Charles Koch,” since it would mean one of their heroes is basically a “Globalist” too, and a traitor to the greatest president of their lifetimes. And maybe you’d be right.

But probably not. We feel pretty comfortable assuming that they’re going to just ignore it or call it a “leftist propaganda attack on the nation’s highest court” or whatever they said the last five or six times that ProPublica reported on all the unseemly shit Thomas and Alito have been up to with their ultra-wealthy buddies. They might quietly bitch about it here or there, but by and large nobody should expect a sudden, massive “IMPEACH CLARENCE THOMAS” campaign from MAGAmerica.

And the fabled “Bohemian Grove” meeting of the global elite Thomas is said to have attended? That shit should be like catnip for the QAnon pussies. They freaking love incorporating pre-2017 staples of conspiracy theory folklore into their new narratives. Vaccines, reptilian aliens, the Bavarian Illuminati, Freemasonry, underground bases, you name it. Bohemian Grove to them is like what the Contra 30 lives code is to the Nintendo generation. You just know it by heart. And yet, again, we don’t anticipate much if any panic among the Q generation over Thomas hanging out with World Economic Forum guy Klaus Schwab or any of the other shadowy supervillains who would be there.

Rather than being sarcastic or cheeky we’ll just call it what it is: A purely tribal non-reaction that maybe might have gone slightly differently if there was a Republican president and Senate majority to replace Clarence with some hardcore MAGA judge like Aileen Cannon or Matt Kacsmaryk.