Ron DeSantis isn’t very good at invoking rage.  Partly because he’s a pre-programmed ambitious Republican bot encoded to emote faux outrage for political gain.  And partly because when he tries to be an Everyman, his silver spoon roots sneak through.  According to FloridaPolitics.com, DeSantis is being a good li’l Republican ‘phobe and swearing off Bud Light and all Anheuser-Busch products for its overt support of the LGBTQ–particularly the T part–community.  He’s actually a Guinness man, he says.

Well, not only is Guinness Irish, it’s also owned by Diageo, one of the most trans-friendly companies in the world.  They’re so trans-supportive, they aired this ad for its J&B Scotch brand about a trans grandfather and his grandson.  Now poor Ronnie’s gotta get another fake favorite.  Or maybe be more authentic and discuss the various vintages of Bordeaux he has in his cellar.  Y’know, like an Everyman.  (Credit to Arthur Schwartz for noting the hypocrisy.)

In what would be by more than a decade the longest bit for a MAGA insurrectionist if the judge goes along with it, federal prosecutors on Monday submitted a sentencing memo seeking 24 years in the tombs and a $71,000 fine for Pennsylvania Capitol rioter Pete Schwartz, a lifelong scumbag with numerous drug and assault convictions on his rap sheet who bragged about dousing cops with pepper spray and throwing chairs at them during the melee, CBS News’s Scott MacFarlane reports.

Schwartz, who according to the DOJ’s sentencing memo, wrote on Facebook “What happened yesterday was the opening of a war. I was there and whether people will acknowledge it or not we are now at war,” sang a different tune in his own memo, with his lawyer writing “there remain many grifters out there who remain free to continue propagating the ‘great lie’ that Trump won the election, Donald Trump being among the most prominent,” in asking for just four and a half years.

Sentencing is set for May 5th in front of Obama appointee DC Judge Amit Mehta, who will probably go less easy on Schwartz than the more lenient Trump-nominated Trevor McFadden would have.

“There was nothing more satisfying than seeing fridges full of Bud Light, normally the best seller.  We all drank a local IPA beer instead.  So did most everybody else,” Fox host and Pomade’s second best customer Pete Hegseth pontificates.  “Now I was gonna make a big deal about this, proud of our stand we took until Primetime producers the local beer we were drinking is actually owned by Anheuser-Busch.”

First, Pete Hegseth hasn’t had Bud Light touch his lips since he was in high school in an upper middle-class Minnesota neighborhood.  Second, I remember when Fox hosts complained about product boycotts when they targetted Fox advertisers, which is why Fox features commercials from a stuffed foam salesman and various cash-for-gold scams.

Shitty home improvement hobbyist Florida MAGA Congressman Greg Steube on Monday ignored heels-wearing Governor Ron DeSantis’s pleas to keep the powder dry on endorsing the Orange God Emperor, doing exactly that in an appearance on Newsmax. Also called him “Donald J Chump.”

Chalk up another victory for Dark Brandon.  After initially agreeing to supply Russia with 40,000 missiles to assist its invasion effort, the leadership of Egypt pivoted after lobbying by the Biden Administration and will now produce artillery shells for the Ukrainian defenders, the Washington Post reports.

In February, days prior to the invasion, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi agreed to provide the arms to Russia, but instructed his staff to keep the deal quiet so Western leaders wouldn’t learn about it.  However, American diplomats reached out to El-Sisi contemporaneously and persuaded Egypt to manufacture artillery shells for Ukraine.  Egypt hoped to leverage its cooperation into getting higher-technology arms from the United States, which views Egypt as a key ally in the Middle East.

This is disgusting textbook predation of underage boys. And Nick Fuentes was in on it. #NickKnew

“In exchange for recanting his accusation, [Nick] Fuentes and [Ali] Alexander offered to get him a job in politics.”@FBI should investigate. https://t.co/prvdViu2iZ

— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) April 17, 2023

In a Sunday interview with the Dallas Morning News, Texas billionaire Harlan Crow defended his 27-year friendship with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, carefully avoiding questions about what they talked about and claiming he didn’t try to influence the Justice’s opinions.

Crow says he was introduced to Thomas, who has been on the Supreme Court 32 years, in 1996 when he was in Washington for a meeting with leaders of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a now-defunct organization that lobbied to reduce government regulations on business.  Thomas was scheduled to give an address to NCPA’s Dallas chapter, and Crow volunteered to fly Thomas to the event on his private jet.

UPDATE: 6:40 p.m. ET:  CNN reports the shooter, identified as 85-year-old white man Andrew Lester, will face two felony counts:  assault in the first degree and armed criminal action.  Clay County attorney Zachary Thompson commented, “I can tell you there was a racial component to this case.”  The shooter was not yet in custody when charges were announced.

ORIGINAL STORY:  Various bits of information have been released relating to the shooting of Ralph Yarl, the 16-year-old Black Kansas City boy who was shot after he mistakenly went to the wrong house as he was trying to pick up his younger twin brothers from a friend’s house.

According to the Kansas City Star, Kansas City Police have sent the case file over to the prosecutor’s office, but have not yet referred charges because they have not yet had a formal interview with Yarl, who was reportedly shot in the head and arm by an 80-year-old white man.

Yarl was supposed to pick up his brothers at a house on 115th Terrace; he mistakenly went to a residence with the same house number on 115th Street.  Parking in the driveway, Yarl rang the doorbell.  The man opened the door and fired a shot through the glass storm door, striking Yarl in the head and knocking him back onto the ground.  The man then fired another shot at Yarl, hitting his upper arm; it’s unclear if the man fired through the storm door again or if he stepped out to fire the shot.

In a particularly obvious, but still pretty fucking funny, finding of a recent CBS News/YouGov survey, 77 percent of self-identified Trump 2020 voter respondents said there was “Too much” coverage of their Orange Allah getting indicted and booked on 34 felonies for covering up his sexual dalliances in New York, while another 9 percent said “Not enough” and 14 percent said “Right amount.”

Among all respondents, 50 percent said it was too much versus 19 percent not enough and 31 percent the right amount. And objectively some aspects of it were – especially with Fox News preempting whatever other bullshit they were going to cover with hours of live footage of Trump departing Florida, landing in New York, and then going to the courthouse. CNN and MSNBC were guilty of it too – and so was National Zero to an extent, if only that the sheer volume of Trump indictment coverage reduced bandwidth for other news, so it makes sense that half of Americans overall – including 28 percent of Biden 2020 voters – would think it was over-saturation too.

But any reporting on it at all was too much for the fanboys, simply because they’re embarrassed and furious that it happened at all. Could be that something finally sank in at some point after his first impeachment when they said “LMAO YOU LIBS JUST REELECTED TRUMP LOL” and then he lost that maybe, just maybe, getting indicted for felonies actually isn’t a good thing for him with swing voters.

CBS also found that 46 percent of Republican respondents say it’s “Very important” to be loyal to Trump, up from 35 percent in January, and that 56 percent say they want Republicans in Congress to whatever they can to derail any and every criminal investigation into the fat orange slob.

Officials at the Carowinds Amusement Park in Charlotte, North Carolina on Sunday sentenced an unidentified teenager to a one year ban from the premises after having to rescue his ass from the inside of the Cosmic XL Bonus Game claw machine, the Associated Press reports.

The boy had crawled inside the machine to retrieve a comically oversized plush stuffed toy for unknown reasons though officials haven’t ruled out that it might have been to impress a girl, because he was high, or both. While the teen was able to climb in through the prize dispensary door, he was unable to escape out the same direction, requiring a park employee to come and unlock the side door normally meant to stock the claw machine with the prizes. The boy was apprehended by security on the spot and examined by park medical personnel before being ejected until next April.

An Ohio grand jury declined to bring charges against eight Akron police officers who chased and shot Jayland Walker, a motorist whom they say first a single shot from a moving vehicle within the first minute of the chase, which began when an officer pulled Walker over claiming he had a broken taillight, the Associated Press reports.

According to police bodycam footage, Walker refused multiple orders to stop during the vehicle pursuit and subsequent foot chase, which ended when officers fired at least 80 rounds at Walker, who was reportedly unarmed when he was shot, although officials say a loaded handgun was found on the seat of the car he was driving.  Walker was killed after sustaining 40 gunshot wounds in the incident.

Senate Minority Toady John Cornhole told CNN’s Manu Raju on Monday he’s opposed to Chuck Schumer’s plan to have another Dem sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee while 89 year-old retiring Senator Dianne Feinstein ails with shingles – something that isn’t going to happen without 60 votes on the full floor and thus continuing to hold up Biden’s judicial nominees.

Democratic Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman returned to the Senate Monday after a two-month leave of absence to be treated for clinical depression following his stroke and a campaign in which he defeated TeeVee doctor Mehmet Oz for the seat.

Republican Long Island Congressman George Santos, who lied about graduating college, being an NCAA volleyball player, working for Goldman Sachs and Citibank, stole $3,000 from a GoFundMe that was raising money for surgery for a disabled veteran’s dog who suffered horribly and then later died of cancer, wrote bad checks to Amish dog breeders, is credibly accused of participating in an ATM card skimming scheme, stole his ex-boyfriend’s phone, stole his ex-roommate’s expensive Burberry scarf, committed multiple acts of campaign finance fraud in the United States and check fraud in Brazil – where he used to be a drag queen named “Kitara” – and there’s probably like 2 or 3 other things we missed, announced Monday he’s running for reelection in 2024.

What a dishonest statement.

170,000 felony crimes were reported in New York City last year — the most since 2006.

Major crimes up 23%.

Sounds overrun to Real America. https://t.co/FCansEsDST

— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) April 17, 2023

Damn. Jim Jordan (obviously him using the Judiciary GOP account) seems more than just a little stung by the Associated Press’s not really “objective” take on his moronic field hearing in NYC.

Well here’s another MAGA groomer: “Stop the Steal” dipshit Ali Akbar, aka Ali Alexander, apologized in a statement Friday for asking teenage boys to send him dick pics, the Daily Beast reports.

“I apologize for any inappropriate messages sent over the years,” Alexander wrote somewhere, maybe on Telegram, who knows. “When I’ve flirted or others have flirted with me, I’ve flexed my credentials or dropped corny pick up lines. Other times, I’ve been careless and should’ve qualified those coming up to me’s identities during flirtatious banter at the start.”

The allegations surfaced last month when Colorado man Aiden Duncan, now about 22 or 23, told a podcast he first began exchanging messages with Alexander, now 39 or 40, on SnapChat in 2015 and that the MAGA activist had asked for nudes and promised Duncan access to fellow gay right winger Milo Yiannopoulos. “No matter what, I’ll let you meet Milo. There’s probably five ppl I’ll introduce to him. But who will be my arm candy – the one with me always in VIP and in/out? Well that is to be determined by the boy who plays his cards the most correct. Arm candy > baby sitting.”

In another message, which again he has not denied writing, Alexander said to Duncan “Everything is secret and private. We’re family… Boundaries are cool. Allowed to say no. However, the less you deprive me of, the less I deprive you of. I’m a big sharing person unless it’s not even.”

Heralding his new revenge plan against the entertainment giant for daring to speak out against his homophobic regime and then circumventing his original revenge plan, heels-wearing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Monday floated an idea for making Disney World less magical:

Someone should let Jim Jordan know the government is being weaponized against private citizens, even if he and Pudding Fingers go way back to the early days of their Freedom Caucasians club.

Federal law enforcement officials in the Eastern District of New York will hold a news conference announcing arrests made in a “significant national security matter.” Spartan might be live on the scene if they let him into the room so he can take a photo to prove he was there to add to his application to the New York City office of press credentialing.

In a weekly email newsletter sent on Sunday, white nationalist Republican Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar shared an article from “Veterans Today” titled “Warmongers Nuland & Blinken ‘Are Dangerous Fools Who Can Get Us All Killed,'” quoting Gosar railing against Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland.

Problem is however that the actual headline on Veteran’s Today was “Jewish warmongers Nuland & Blinken ‘Are Dangerous Fools Who Can Get Us All Killed,'” emphasis ours, and Media Matters describes VT as “antisemitic website that has called the Holocaust a ‘lie’ and a ‘hoax’ and praised Hitler as a ‘great man’ and ‘a man of valor.'” So yeah, that omission wasn’t a typo.

“In the first 100 days of the new majority, House Republicans have been hard at work fulfilling our commitment to America on behalf of its hardworking people.  Already, House Republicans have passed 59 bills that focus on creating an economy that’s strong, a nation that’s safe, a future that’s built on freedom, and a government that’s accountable.

“Our majority has passed more bills, sent more rule bills to the president’s desk, and had more rule bills signed into law than the Democratic-led 117th Congress did at its 100-day mark. House Republicans have achieved these milestones despite having a Democratic-controlled Senate and White House, even though the 117th Congress had the advantage of one-party rule in Washington.  Even though the legacy media truly underestimated what a House Republican majority could accomplish, we have hit the ground running and set the agenda.”  –Republican New York Congresswoman and GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik in an opinion piece in the far-right Washington Examiner.

In fact, according to Congress’s own legislative tracker, the House has introduced roughly 3,200 different pieces of legislation since it was called into session after the GOP’s debacle trying to appoint a Speaker.  Only four House-introduced bills have made it to the President’s desk, and two of them were vetoed. In total, the House has passed 93 pieces of legislation since it named Kevin McCarthy Speaker pro tem on the 15th ballot.  And despite Stefanik promoting the number of “rule bills” that have been passed, it’s really a non-achievement:  these are bills that are sent to the Rules Committee to schedule floor debates.  (In case you’re wondering about the two House bills that became law:  one dealt with DC criminal law (HJR 26) and the other terminated the COVID national emergency (HJR 7).