• In just 25 months, Joe Biden has become the fourth-best post-WWII president for job creation.  With the February jobs report, he overtook his former boss.  Next up:  LBJ.
• Many people suffered lingering trauma during the pandemic.  A large portion of that trauma, because Donald Trump was in the White House.
• CPAC has jumped the shark.  It was supposed to be the center for conservative thought leaders, influencers and most importantly, the young.  Emcee Matt Schlapp–his personal indiscretions/assaults notwithstanding–has made it the center for only the conspiracy-driven, fringe and most importantly, the MAGA. 
• If Murdoch were smart, he’d fire Carlson and Hannity immediately.  Sounds strange to boot your top personalities, but to save his larger investment, he needs to show a judge and jury he’s taken the issue seriously. Of course, shareholders could do the same by ousting Murdoch, who does not own a majority of Fox shares.
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CXII”

George Santos again denied any involvement in a credit card skimming scam a convicted criminal claim he led, NBC News reports, with Santos declaring, “I’m innocent. I never did anything of criminal activity and I’m no mastermind of anything.”

Gustavo Ribeiro Trelha, convicted of skimming card numbers, said in a sworn affidavit sent to the FBI and Secret Service that he would install the skimming devices and then send the stolen data back to Santos, who was living in Brazil at the time. Trelha says Santos was the one who taught him how to operate the devices.

One of the remaining licensed, paid, and non-sanctioned lawyers representing Donald Trump told NBC News that his legal team will meet with him at Mar-a-Lago this weekend to decide how to handle the invitation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to testify before the grand jury investigating potentially illegally hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Joe Tacopina said the legal team has “no plans” as yet to meet with the DA’s office to review the offer, which prosecutors usually make to targets of investigations prior to issuing indictments.  “We are not convinced they will bring a case, but if so we will deal with it,” he commented.

The inaugural class of counselors trained to guide clients who have ingested newly-legal psychedelic drugs through their experience have graduated from Oregon’s six-month certification program Friday, the Associated Press reports.  The class of 35 is the first of three to finish the course this weekend.

Called “facilitators,” the graduates took a pledge similar to other health care providers that they will “do no harm” as they guide their patients experiencing reportedly life-altering effects attributed to psilocybin.  While they received a certification for completion of their instruction, conducted by a private company at literally a retreat in the woods, the facilitators need to pass a state exam to get licensed.

The Oregon Health Authority reports that has received more than 190 licensing requests related to the Ballot Measure 109, passed in 2020, that allows the legal use of psilocybin for “personal development” so long as the use is done in a licensed environment where trained personnel are available to help.  Research has show psilocybin use can relieve issues relating to PTSD, anxiety and other mental health conditions.

“Democrats are setting us up for another big failure, like they did 2008!” says the current top comment on the OAN article “Silicon Valley Bank shut down,” posted Friday afternoon.

Not sure what else to write here. This is even better than when the fanboys warned about a “Pelosi economy” in their desperate panic before the 2018 Midterms, that it was the Democratic then-former Speaker of The House’s fault the entire global financial system nearly collapsed in 2008.

Former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen will testify under oath next week to the Manhattan grand jury investigating fat former President Trump’s hush money payoff to pornstar Stormy Daniels in the days before the 2016 election, the New York Times reports on what appear to be the final stages before the twice-impeached loser is indicted on felony charges for the payoff.

Sources tell GlobalNews.ca that “Progressive Conservative” Ontario provincial parliament member Vincent Ke, an ally of Premier Doug Ford, is suspected as having served as an intermediary in a ChiCom plot to interfere in Canadian elections in a January 2022 report by the Privy Council Office.

“A large clandestine transfer of funds earmarked for the federal election from the PRC Consulate in Toronto was transferred to an elected provincial government official via a staff member of a 2019 federal candidate,” said the report from the Privy Council, (which funny enough is actually the British monarchy’s colonial influence operation) that did not name Ke specifically as having handled at least $250,000 in the Xi regime’s blood money to interfere in Canadian elections.

Several Republican Texas state senators this week have introduced a bill to withdraw the Lone Star state from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), an interstate voter database meant to combat voter fraud by making sure people don’t vote in multiple states, VoteBeat.org reports.

Again, the whole point of ERIC is to make sure people don’t pull the kind of shit that four The Villages, Florida residents were caught doing in the 2020 election and Texas Republican lawmakers and far right activists want to pull out because they think Soros funds it (not an exaggeration, it’s in the VoteBeat article), somehow an even dumber rationale than that of Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen when he pulled the state out earlier this year over false concerns with cybersecurity.

“Now, there is no evidence that ERIC is doing anything to Texas voter rolls, I want to be clear about that, but we do know, again, that the people running ERIC don’t share our worldview,” said Texas state Senator Bryan Hughes during a virtual meeting of their “task force” in October, admitting that there’s actually no problem with ERIC except that he thinks it might be run by Jews.

When Governor Youngkin promised to bring back the Spirit of Virginia, we didn't think he’d go this far…#MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/Er8pvDtvnH

— Glenn Youngkin (@GlennYoungkin) March 10, 2023

Tropical Storm Freddy, which may be the longest-lasting named tropical cyclone in recorded history at 33 days and counting, is forecast to come back and strike the coast of the southern African nation of Mozambique in a second landfall two weeks after its first hit, Reuters reports.

A United Nations relief industry put the death toll from the February landfall at 10 in Mozambique and at 17 in neighboring Madagascar before the storm moved back out to sea and spun around aimlessly for two weeks. This second hit is expected to affect a wider swath of the country.

Former Vice Presidential executive assistant Kathy Chung will testify before a hearing of the House Oversight Committee on her handling of Joe Biden’s documents, Fox News reports on what’s sure to be a moronic performance by James Comer and the rest of his crew of Republican assholes.

Chung, who served in the role from 2012 to 2017, will answer at least several stupid questions about Hunter Biden because, per Fox, he was the one who recommended her for the job with his dad.

The US House on Friday unanimously passed COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023 requiring the Director of National Intelligence to declassify all documents about the origins of the virus sending it to President Joe Biden’s desk for approval as it has already cleared the Senate, NBC News reports.

Friday’s daily presidential tracking poll from right wing scam outfit Rasmussen Reports finds President Joe Biden’s approval rating at 50 percent, the highest since December.

Our only justification for reporting this comes from the days of the Trump era when fanboys would tout similar numbers for Donald as proof of his “majority” popularity. Otherwise it’s meaningless.

A Manhattan federal judge on Friday rejected disgraced former President Trump’s bid to suppress the infamous 2005 “Grab them by the pussy” tape from the upcoming trial in writer EJ Carroll’s lawsuit credibly alleging Donald had raped her in a department store dressing room in 1995.

“In this case, a jury reasonably could find, even from the Access Hollywood tape alone, that Mr. Trump admitted in the Access Hollywood tape that he in fact has had contact with women’s genitalia in the past without their consent, or that he has attempted to do so. And that conclusion is supported by the other evidence discussed below. Accordingly, the tape satisfies Rule 415 by virtue of Rule 413(d)(2) and (d)(5),” wrote SDNY Circuit Court Judge Lewis Kaplan in the ruling which is not great for the Orange God Emperor with the trial coming up next month. It’s still not clear yet if the trial is strictly for the defamation case brought by Carroll in 2018 or if it will also incorporate the state-level complaint Carroll filed November 2022 after a new law came into effect temporarily opening a window for victims to sue in cases otherwise expired by the statute of limitations.

Sources in the White House tell CNN the US intelligence community believe Russian agents are on the ground working to stir up unrest in Moldova with the goal of taking down the tiny former Soviet republic’s government and install new leadership loyal to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

Moldovan President Maia Sandu last month said publicly she believes the Kremlin was planning “a series of actions involving saboteurs who have undergone military training and are disguised as civilians to carry out violent actions, attacks on government buildings and hostage-taking.” The country, which sits on Ukraine’s western border, has been stuck for 30 years with an unrecognized Moscow-backed breakaway region called Transnistria and part of the Russian effort to destabilize greater Moldova has been false claims that Ukraine is readying an invasion of the area.

Investigators with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are looking into two possible sites in and near Montreal, Quebec suspected of being secret bases for ChiCom police agencies to spy on and harass members of ethnic Chinese communities in the region, the Associated Press reports.

“The RCMP recognizes that Canadians of Chinese origin have been victims of the possible activities conducted by these centers. It is important to support communities that may be affected by these activities,” said RCMP Sgt Charles Porier of the ongoing investigation into the Xi regime’s transnational repression. Last fall the FBI raided a similar site in Manhattan’s Chinatown.

In related news, CTV News reports Candian Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino on Friday announced that the Liberal government are opening a public comment phase on creating a foreign agent registry to help prevent the ChiComs and other malign foreign actors from meddling in Canada’s affairs after two election cycles riddled with suspected interference by the Xi regime.

Dad dresses as Julius Caesar at school board meeting to protest teacher's gender-fluid attire https://t.co/E02lWtkj0h

— Fox News (@FoxNews) March 10, 2023

Rival Middle Eastern Islamic regimes Iran and Saudi Arabia on Friday reached an agreement to resume diplomatic ties and reopen embassies, a landmark shift after decades of hostilities and proxy sectarian warfare in smaller nations in the Levant and Arabian peninsula, CNN reports.

A new Des Moines Register/Selzer Co survey of Iowa Republicans finds 47 percent would “definitely” vote for fat former President Trump, a drop from 69 percent the last time they were asked in June 2021. The shift is significant given the concern over electability among Republicans in the corn-filled early caucus state. Trump’s favorability also dropped from 91 to 80 percent.