Ultra patriotic military and veterans first red state Missouri earlier this month sent a $3,200 bill to the family of Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz, who was among the 13 Americans killed by an ISIS suicide bomber during the August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, for the signage designating an overpass on I-70 in Wentzville, Missouri renamed in honor of Schmitz, USA Today reports.
The Schmitzes weren’t the first Gold Star family to be stuck with this either. Good samaritans fundraised to cover the cost and Republicans in the state legislature are allegedly embarrassed enough to make sure it doesn’t happen again, but Jesus Christ what the fuck is wrong with them?
Former Vice President Mike Pence hung out and testified to the grand jury investigating the Trump Reich’s post-2020 election coup attempt for seven hours on Thursday, ABC’s Kat Faulders reports.
The founder of a firm called Sympatico Software tells the Washington Post he’s been subpoenaed by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith about his company’s work for the Trump 2020 campaign to investigate voter fraud and, just like the other guys, his team didn’t find shit.
“No substantive voter fraud was uncovered in my investigations looking for it, nor was I able to confirm any of the outside claims of voter fraud that I was asked to look at. Every fraud claim I was asked to investigate was false,” said Ken Block, adding that Trump was made aware in late 2020.
I don’t think building a prison next to a place that you bring your family is the best idea,” House Speaker pro tem Kevin McCarthy says in Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s ongoing authoritative effort to subvert corporate free speech rights. “I think it would be much better if you sat down and solved the problems but to the same point, if you’re going to be a large employer in-inside this, uh, state you should also abide by the rules, run your business and don’t think you should get into politics.”
Remember when Republicans reveled after the Supreme Court released its Citizens United ruling which essentially bestowed the right to free speech free from government censorship guaranteed to individuals in the Constitution? Well, they don’t like the decision anymore given that corporations are largely rejecting the Party’s phobic and hateful policies, exemplified by DeSantis’s oppressive “Don’t Say Gay” demands on schools, universities and public institutions. And companies operating in Florida–including Disney, the state’s largest private employer–have made it know they’ll largely ignore DeSantis’s dictates subjugating the LGBTQ community and their allies. But it’s now up to people like McCarthy to clean up the ongoing mess in Florida: While DeSantis is in Israel to prop up his weak foreign policy bone fides to prep for a presidential run, Republicans are left to take to the airwaves to try to clean up his dictatorial mandates to try shift the Party from the hateful, impotent and petty grievances voiced by people like Tucker Carlson and DeSantis himself.
You can read the full article about his reaction from Reuters but that quote in the headline should simply speak for itself, that a lawsuit alleging political retaliation is itself somehow “political.”
Burundi’s Supreme Court on Tuesday announced the arrest of rogue former Prime Minister General Alain-Guillaume Bunyoni, a Burundi First patriot who was plotting a coup against President Evariste Ndayishimiye in September 2022 for plotting a coup, AllAfrica.com reports.
Due to new rules on the Democratic primary calendar pushing South Carolina ahead of Iowa and New Hampshire, President Joe Biden will lose the Granite State’s primary to anti-vax freak RFK Jr by default, since candidates are now prohibited from appearing on the ballot there, NBC News reports.
We actually welcome the opportunity for uninformed MAGA dipshits to celebrate Kennedy winning the state and delude themselves into thinking its a major sign of weakness for Biden. That way they can be reminded of their dumbassery a week or two later when Biden captures the nomination.
Democratic former Cincinnati Mayor Gerald Springer died Thursday at age 79, the Daily Beast reports, citing Springer’s family as saying the beloved politician had been suffering from cancer.
Springer, who served one year at the helm of The Queen City in 1975, fell short in his 1982 primary campaign to become governor of Ohio. From there he resumed a career in television and hosted an innovative 1990s daytime talk show which you could argue left a lasting impression that continues to influence American politics in the 21st century. Maybe civility and decorum went down just a notch or two in comparison to prior eras and a certain president with a not terribly dissimilar ethos as Springer accelerated that movement even further with his election.
“A former Arkansas state senator was sentenced yesterday to four years and two months in prison in the Western District of Missouri for accepting multiple bribes in connection with a multi-district investigation spanning the Eastern and Western Districts of Arkansas and the Western District of Missouri. Pursuant to his global plea agreement, Jeremy Hutchinson, 48, of Little Rock, pleaded guilty on June 25, 2019, in the Eastern District of Arkansas to filing a false tax return; pleaded guilty on June 25, 2019, to an information filed in the Western District of Arkansas to conspiracy to commit federal program bribery; and pleaded guilty in the Western District of Missouri on July 8, 2019, to conspiracy to commit federal program bribery. On Feb. 3, Hutchison was sentenced to three years and 10 months in prison for his convictions in the Eastern District of Arkansas and Western District of Arkansas. His sentence in the Western District of Missouri will run consecutive to the previous sentence for a total of eight years in prison,” says a Wednesday Justice Department press release.
Not for nothing, but isn’t the timing a little curious here? The sentence was handed down on Tuesday but Asa had to know it was coming since federal courts schedule these months in advance. Did he set his campaign launch (that we didn’t care about or cover) purposely the day after to try to crowd out the sentencing? Jeremy obviously served in the state Senate during the same period Asa was in office and regardless of Asa’s involvement or non-involvement in the scam it’s not a good look for the punk-ass nephew to be convicted on a felony related to an abuse of political power.
Holy shit this is getting worse and worse for Tiny D as a new Emerson College survey finds Donald leading him by a staggering 62 to 16 percent in a full field for the GOP 2024 primary.
Biden leads Trump 43 to 41 percent in a not-very hypothetical 2024 rematch, probably a little overinflated for the Orange Defendant because Emerson’s always pro-MAGA in their findings. As far as what respondents expect, 40 percent see Biden getting a second term to 35 percent Trump.
Officials at the US Bureau of Reclamation this week projected that Lake Mead will rise by 50 to 90 feet over the next few months based on an updated outlook for snowmelt upstream in Colorado partially replenishing the once-vast reservoir between Nevada and Arizona, Deseret News reports.
Which means body-hunters will have to act fast if they want to find more victims from nearby Las Vegas’s golden age of mafia violence in the 20th century. It could be a while before the skeletal remains of a hapless suspected informant – remains that could still contain gold teeth the goons neglected to remove with pliers before murdering them – are exposed in the mire again.
A new Morning Consult survey of beer drinkers finds 53 percent feel favorable toward a brand that would partner with a trans spokesperson (27 percent very favorable, 26 percent somewhat) versus 28 percent unfavorable (16 percent somewhat, 12 very) and 19 percent not giving a shit at all.
Nebraska state Senate Republicans on Wednesday opened an ethics probe into Dem state Senator Megan Hunt, acting on a complaint from an Omaha MAGA lawyer who argued that since Hunt has a trans son, she has a personal financial interest in opposing the Let Them Grow Act, which would ban hormone therapies and puberty blockers for trans persons under 19, the Washington Post reports.
In a floor speech on Wednesday Hunt accused the lawyer, David Begley, and his Republican allies in the Senate of “using the legal system that we have in our state – to stop corruption, to increase transparency, to hold governments accountable – and using it to harass a member of legislature. The point isn’t that I could gain financially if my kid has rights. The point is the harassment.”
Disgraced former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was questioned for over two hours by police Wednesday over his involvement the January Brasilia Capitol riot, the Guardian reports.
The US Air Force announced it suspended two senior officers in the unit where Airman Jack Teixeira was stationed and from which he illegally removed classified documents he put online, NBC News reports.
The commander of the 102nd Intelligence Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard was suspended from duty, and a detachment commander was also removed. Their suspension are “pending further investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of classified information” by Teixeira, who allegedly removed classified information over months and posted it on various gamer channels.
Fortunately no one was seriously injured when an apparently very confused 84 year-old driver’s flat tire turned into a raging inferno in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Tuesday night, ABC 7 reports. It’s likely the flux capacitor was burned beyond repair if the minivan was in fact equipped with one.
Billionaire Peter Thiel, a major donor to Republican candidates in previous election cycles, has told close associates he won’t financially support any candidates in the 2024 elections, largely because he’s tired of Republicans focusing on abortion and bogus “culture war” topics, Reuters reports.
Thiel backed two GOP Senate candidates in recent elections: Blake Masters in Arizona, who lost, and JD Vance in Ohio, who won. Thiel himself accounted for more than $30 million spent for GOP candidates in the 2022 midterms.
A three-judge panel in the DC Circuit Court rejected Donald Trump’s bid to block his former Vice President and intended piñata Mike Pence’s testimony before the federal grand jury hearing evidence presented by Special Counsel Jack Smith, per Politico’s Kyle Cheney.