A measure Matt Gaetz demanded to be brought to the House floor for a vote as part of his deal to buy his support for Kevin McCarthy’s speakership was defeated in a huge bipartisan slap in the face to the nihilistic conservatives.  Roll Call reports the measure that would force President Joe Biden to withdraw all US troops from Syria within 180 days was defeated by a 103-321 vote.

“If Joe Biden wants to keep us in Syria’s war, then he must explain to the American people why, what the goal is, and what winning looks like,” Gaetz said on the floor in an attempt to rally support. “America First means actually putting the people of our country first — not the interests of the Military Industrial Complex.”

A group of around 900 US military, mainly Special Forces, are located in northern Syria to support operations a group of Kurdish, Arab and other tribal groups called the Syrian Democratic Forces fighting local ISIS groups.

Funny how all of this legal trouble is for crimes Donald committed before he declared he was running for president again in 2024. Funnier still is how before he declared he reportedly told his minions he needed to run again and win so he could make all of his legal problems go away. Funniest of all is how badly this fat fuck is plainly panicking while projecting confidence and bluster.

The first-grade Newport News, Virginia student who shot teacher Abigail Zwerner in January, even after the school district had repeatedly been warned about the child’s violent actions, will not face charges in the case, the local prosecutor announced.

According to NBC News, Newport News Commonwealth’s Attorney Howard Gwynn said the age of the defendant would cause a problem under state law which demands the defendant be competent enough to engage in his own defense.  Gwynn said the ability of a six-year-old to participate in case preparation and to understand the gravity of the situation is highly questionable.

Ruling out charges against the child does not mean no one will face charges in the case.  “Our objective is not just to do something as quickly as possible,” Gwynn said. “Once we analyze all the facts, we will charge any person or persons that we believe we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt committed a crime.”

“Finally. Fox has conceded what it knew all along. The charges Fox broadcast against Dominion are false. Fox does not spend a word of its brief arguing the truth of any accused statement. Fox has produced no evidence—none, zero—supporting those lies. This concession should come as no surprise. Discovery into Fox has proven that from the top of the organization to the bottom, Fox always knew the absurdity of the Dominion ‘stolen election’ story. Now, having failed to put in any evidence to the contrary (because no such evidence exists), Fox has conceded the falsity of the Dominion allegations it broadcast.” –The opening paragraph of Dominion Voting Systems’ response in its motion for summary judgment against the Murdoch-run network for defamation.

US House Chief Administrative Officer Catherine Szpindor on Wednesday informed all 435 members of the chamber they and their staff’s personal information had been exposed by a breach of the DC Health Link insurance marketplace, though they weren’t sure if the House was specifically targeted.

“I have been informed by the United States Capitol Police and DC Health Link of a data breach impacting Members and staff. DC Health Link suffered a significant data breach yesterday potentially exposing the Personal Identifiable Information (PII) of thousands of enrollees. As a Member or employee eligible for health insurance through the DC Health Link, your data may have been comprised. Currently, I do not know the size and scope of the breach, but have been informed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that account information and PII of hundreds of Member and House staff were stolen. I expect to have access to the list of impacted enrollees later today and will notify you directly if your information was compromised. DC Health Link will also likely contact you. It is important to note that at this time, it does not appear that Members or the House of Representatives were the specific target of the attack,” Szpindor wrote in a memo.

Fake wrestling circus promotion WWE is in talks with a number of state gambling regulators to legalize betting on their scripted, predetermined matches, CNBC reports and yeah, they’re serious.

The article, almost definitely sourced from inside the WWE, immediately goes into how they’re going to hire Ernst and Young to prevent leaks and how some states allow betting on the Oscars, which is the most similar example they can come up with since that’s a predetermined outcome too. What it doesn’t mention is that the Oscars have had no major leaks in 90-something years and it’s an annual event in which only a small handful of people know who won beforehand, people who probably have bigger fish to fry than risking it all for a few grand on a fucking rigged Draft Kings bet. Very hard to imagine how the same could be said of hundreds of degenerate pro wrestlers and production staff on an ongoing basis for every single weekly WWE show and Pay-Per-View event.

In a potentially worrying sign to right wing propagandists who won’t shut the fuck up about it, a majority of respondents to a USA Today/Ipsos survey agreed that describing something as “woke” is a positive attribute, carrying a socially and culturally virtuous connotation to it.

56 percent of those surveyed say the term means “to be informed, educated on, and aware of social injustices,” including more than 75 percent of Dem and a third of Republican respondents, while 39 percent of overall respondents agreed that “woke” means “to be overly politically correct and police others’ words.” Independent respondents were pro-woke by a 51 to 45 percent margin.

“Most Americans understand that to be woke is to be tuned in to injustices around us,” said Ipsos egghead Cliff Young. “But for a key segment of Republicans who make up the Trump-DeSantis base, ‘woke’ is a clear trigger for the worst of the politically correct, emerging multicultural majority.”

Capitol rioter-adjacent Georgia Congressman Barry Loudermilk, who was credibly accused of leading a recon tour for at least one MAGA terrorist in the days prior to January 6th, 2021, has been selected to lead a new panel investigating the House January 6th Committee, NBC News reports.

The Kilauea volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island finally shut the hell up after 61 days of constant eruptive activity, the AP reports citing the Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

Republican operative Carlton Huffman on Wednesday voluntarily identified himself to the Washington Post as the plaintiff in the sexual assault lawsuit against CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp.

“I’m not backing away. I’m not going to drop this. Matt Schlapp did what he did and he needs to be held accountable,” Huffman told the Post in an interview. He previously has spoken with multiple media outlets on background and was identified in a tweet by Schlapp crony Caroline Wren, who Huffman also sued separately for defamation over the tweet calling him a “scam artist.”

Huffman’s past is pretty par for the course for a Republican campaign employee: Glorifying the Confederate flag, calling for “preserving the European American culture of the United States,” and so on and so forth. “That is not who I am anymore,” he claims to the Post in the interview, also showing them a text to his former boss Mark Meadows on January 6th, 2021 condemning the insurrection.

But again, none of that calls Huffman’s credibility into question. If anything it makes it more believable that a sick right wing fuck like Matt Schlapp would find himself sexually attracted to him.

UPDATE 3/8/2023 1:39 PM EST: Well now we know why Huffman came forward, as Politico’s Josh Gerstein reports a Virginia court denied him anonymity in the suit against Schlapp.

The FBI is assisting with an investigation into last week’s toppling of a Verizon cell tower in Furnas County, Nebraska, the Kansas City Star reports on what sure sounds like right wing domestic terrorism given the similarity to the recent spate of attacks on power infrastructure.

Guy wires supporting the tower were found to have been intentionally severed to take the tower down, according to a press release from the Furnas County sheriff’s office. At this point the FBI is assisting the locals but are considering escalating it to a domestic terror investigation.

The Biden White House on Wednesday decided to help kick Tucker Carlson in the dick for his January 6th footage clusterfuck, sharing a statement with Politico in a rare naming of names.

“We agree with the chief of the Capitol Police and the wide range of bipartisan lawmakers who have condemned this false depiction of the unprecedented, violent attack on our Constitution and the rule of law – which cost police officers their lives. We also agree with what Fox News’s own attorneys and executives have now repeatedly stressed in multiple courts of law: that Tucker Carlson is not credible,” said White House spokesman Andrew Bates.

Georgia Republican Congressman Mike Collins on Wednesday was “just asking questions” on whether Norfolk Southern writing an email to shareholders about DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) polices somehow contributed to the East Palestine, Ohio disaster and other recent train wrecks.

“The Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) announced today it will be undertaking two important reviews: one related to the Memphis Police Department (MPD) and one that will examine the use of specialized units within law enforcement. First, the COPS Office, through its Collaborative Reform Initiative Technical Assistance Center (CRI-TAC), will conduct a review of certain policies and practices of the Memphis Police Department. Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland and Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn J. Davis requested this review, which will cover policies, practices, training, data and processes related to MPD’s use of force, de-escalation and specialized units. At the conclusion of the review, the COPS Office will issue a public report outlining its findings and recommendations.”

“The COPS Office’s CRI-TAC initiative is led and supported by nine leading law enforcement stakeholder associations. CRI-TAC provides a wide array of technical assistance services using a ‘by the field, for the field’ approach. Since its inception in 2017, the program has provided technical assistance for over 800 law enforcement engagements. Separate from the Memphis review, the COPS Office will produce a guide for police chiefs and mayors across the country to help them assess the appropriateness of the use of specialized units as well as how to ensure necessary management and oversight of such units, including review of policies, tactics, training, supervision, accountability, and transparency,” says a Justice Department press release.

Nominal Speaker of The House Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday formalized – temporarily, at least – the cessation of his power to right wing psychopath Marjorie Taylor Greene as he was probably busy working on some other way to keep her from removing him as figurehead. House Reading Clerk Susan Cole did an admirable job of not screaming “Oh fuck this shit” or vomiting on the rostrum while announcing that the evil adulteress was presiding over the chamber for the day.

Much to the chagrin of already-stressed panacea of Fox network liars claiming Joe Biden is destroying everything, payroll company ADP reports a better-than-expected jobs report for February, with 242,000 jobs created in the month, about 20% more than expected, CNBC reports.

Annual wages for workers who did not change jobs increased 7.2% year-over-year, a slight decrease from the previous month’s pace.  Job-hoppers’ incomes jumped 14.3% in the last 12 months, slightly lower than the 14.8% of January.  Leisure & hospitality, financial services and manufacturing reported the largest job growth.

On International Women's Day, we are reminded that all women have unique gifts to share with the world, and we must lift each other up to achieve our collective goals and dreams.#InternationalWomensDay #IWD2023

— MELANIA TRUMP (@MELANIATRUMP) March 8, 2023

Spandex-wearing grapple freak Jim Jordan wrestled to answer a question from Semafor on why his fake whistleblowers are getting paid by a group run by MAGA scumbag Kash Patel.

“You lose your job for coming forward and telling the truth as a brave whistleblower, you’re going to get help from where you get help,” Jordan said about the Kash-cash. “These guys got families to take care of, for goodness sake,” he added, as if he would be similarly magnanimous if, say, Cassidy Hutchinson had been paid by Soros prior to her Capitol riot committee testimony.

Republican Tennessee state Representative Paul Sherrell on Monday withdrew his bill to rename a stretch of Nashville’s 5th Avenue that in 2021 was named John Lewis Way in honor of the late great civil rights leader and congressman to “President Donald Trump Blvd” in honor of the still-living racist and twice-impeached failure who lost the 2020 election, the Tennessean reports.

“While work is underway to understand every issue, NASA is making progress assembling, testing, and processing the elements for Artemis II ahead of the late 2024 mission. The heat shield will be attached to the crew module in May, and the crew module and service module will then be connected ahead of integrated testing. The SLS solid rocket booster motor segments and core stage will be shipped to Kennedy later this year, after the engine section and RS-25 engines are connected to the rest of the already-complete stage. Teams expect to transport the mobile launcher to launch pad 39B this summer for testing, including evaluation of the emergency egress capability needed for Artemis II. The recovery team, along with personnel from the Department of Defense, recently completed rigorous testing of a new crew module test article in support of Artemis II efforts and will conduct open water recovery testing in the coming months to ensure the crew on board are quickly and safely removed from the spacecraft,” says a NASA press release.