Democratic Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman did not suffer another stroke according to the doctors treating him, his spokesperson said in a tweet.  “About an hour ago Sen. Fetterman received the results of his MRI. According to John’s doctors at The George Washington University Hospital, the results of the MRI, along with the results of all of the other tests the doctors ran, rule out a new stroke,” Joe Calvello posted.

Calvello also noted doctors are monitoring Fetterman for signs of a seizure, but are seeing no such signs.  Fetterman reported feeling lightheaded while attending a Democratic retreat Wednesday night and was taken to George Washington University Hospital as a precaution.  He suffered a stroke during the 2022 Senate campaign.

BREAKING NOOSE: Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith has subpoenaed former Vice President Mike Pence, roping him in to testify about Trump’s coup plot, ABC News reports.

CNN reported earlier on Thursday that Smith has also subpoenaed former Trump White House National Security Advisor Robert O’ Brien and former Deputy DHS Secretary Ken Cuccinelli.

One of the two MAGA terrorists charged in 2021 with plotting to firebomb the California Democratic Party’s headquarters is “begging” a federal judge to accept a plea deal and sentence him to nine years in prison, the Sacramento Bee reported on a letter filed to the court Wednesday.

“I am 47 years old. I am begging you for a second chance. And, I’m begging you to believe me when I tell you that I know I was wrong, that I made a humongous mistake, and that I deserve to be punished. But, I’m also begging you for a chance to redeem myself and begging you to accept the plea agreement so that after I pay a huge price I can come out of prison and resume being a law-abiding, productive member of the community, a loving husband to my wife, and a doting father to my two precious sons,” wrote Benjamin Rogers, who texted a friend saying wanted to “blow up a democrat building bad,” in the aftermath of his Orange Allah’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

Napoleonic Florida Governor Ron DeSantis expressed support for privatizing Social Security and Medicare during his first campaign for Congress back in 2012, CNN’s KFile has found.

“I would embrace proposals like [some batshit plan Paul Ryan had for privatizing Medicare at the time while he was running as Mitt Romney’s VP pick] and other people have offered, that are going to provide some market forces in there, more consumer choice, and make it so that it’s not just basically a system that’s just going to be bankrupt when you have new people coming into it,” said DeSantis in a video interview with a St Augustine, Florida local newspaper. “Social Security, I would do the same thing,” DeSantis added, long before he knew this would be used as ammo against him in a presidential campaign against a fat, racist game show host and Democrats alike.

Of course never mind that Donald himself while campaigning for reelection in 2020 he would defund both by ending payroll taxes (probably too stupid to have realized that at the time).

In a 2017 special crossover episode in lying piece of shit Republican Congressman George Santos’s criminal career, his love of check fraud and crimes involving dogs collided when he was charged for writing bad checks to Amish dog breeders in Pennsylvania, but got away with it by claiming his checkbook had been stolen, according to court documents newly obtained by Politico.

Santos wrote $15,125 worth of bad checks to the breeders and then gave the dogs away at a Staten Island adoption event hosted by his nonexistent animal rescue charity, Friends of Pets United.

A DC federal judge on Thursday sentenced Capitol rioter Kevin Seefried to three years in prison, just over half the 70 month bit prosecutors had recommended, W9USA reports. Seefried, who famously carried a Confederate flag into the Capitol during the January 6th, 2021 MAGA insurrection, had begged for leniency due to the colostomy bag he’s worn since 2015, which obviously didn’t hold him back from storming into the building and chasing Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman.

Disgraced former President Trump is bringing back deadbeat dad and fellow failed right-wing social media entrepreneur Jason Miller back to serve in a top role for his 2024 campaign, Politico reports.

“It was always a matter of when and not if I returned to help re-elect President Trump in 2024, and seeing the current state of the country under Joe Biden I couldn’t remain sidelined any longer,” Miller told Politico in a statement. “You can impact the world a lot by launching a social media platform, but nothing compares to getting President Trump back into office,” added Miller who, while he was already married with two kids, tried to serve a smoothie made with abortion pills to another woman he’d knocked up, which failed, and then refused to pay her child support after the boy was born.

Clearly having fun nagging Republican Florida Senator Rick Scott over Social Security and Medicare, President Biden again on Thursday pointed out the white collar criminal’s ambitions to cut them.

🦦 The Miami Zoo on Tuesday welcomed three baby North American river otters to its family of animals in the Florida: Mission Everglades exhibit. Mom Zinnia, 5, is said to be doing well.

🐴 Budweiser have welcomed four baby Clydesdale horses to their family of beer delivery horse mascots on its ranch in Missouri. The colts Barron, Sergeant, Stinger, and Razor will appear in future ads for Bud Heavy depicting the good old days when beer was delivered by horse-drawn cart.

🐨 Two new baby koalas emerged from their mom’s pouch this week at the Edinburgh, Scotland zoo. It’s the first time a koala at Edinburgh has given birth to the cuddly eucalyptus leaf addicts.

“This morning around 7:15 am, Rep. Craig was assaulted in the elevator of her apartment building in Washington DC. Rep. Craig defended herself from the attacker and suffered bruising, but is otherwise physically okay. Rep. Craig called 9-1-1 and the assailant fled the scene of the assault. There is no evidence that the incident was politically motivated. Rep. Craig is grateful to the DC Metropolitan Police Department for their quick response and asks for privacy at this time,” says a statement from Minnesota Congresswoman Angie Craig’s office.

Thursday is the first hearing for spandex-wearing grapple freak Congressman Jim Jordan’s new “Weaponization” select subcommittee investigation into how everything’s so unfair against MAGA.

On deck as witnesses are Republican Senators Ron “RonAnon” Johnson and Chuck “Should Be Pushing Up” Grassley, New Age “Hindu” death cult member former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, and some washout former FBI agent calling herself a “whistleblower” Nicole Parker, and more.

US House Resolution 104 “Condemning the Chinese Communist Party’s use of a high-altitude surveillance balloon over United States territory as a brazen violation of United States sovereignty,” passed with the 2/3rds majority required on Thursday, 419 to 0. There might be some more yes votes waiting but we’ll update this only if some member votes no.

The resolution is non-binding and does not contain any new statute legally establishing that ChiCom spy balloons are bad for America or prohibiting them from containing bioweapons from Wuhan.

California Dem Congressman Robert Garcia will on Thursday intro a resolution to expel lying piece of shit George Santos, CBS’s Jacqueline Kalil reports on what’s sure to be a hell of a vote.

“The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is investigating President Biden’s connections to certain international and domestic business transactions and practices, including you and your associates who peddled influence to generate millions of dollars for the Biden family. Evidence shows that you engaged in foreign business deals with individuals who were connected to the Chinese Communist Party and received significant amounts of money from foreign companies without providing any known legitimate services. You and your associates’ financial conduct raises significant ethics and national security concerns. The Committee requests documents and communications related to our investigation of President Biden’s involvement in your financial conduct,” writes House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer in a letter to Hunter Biden.

A Thursday memo from the White House tore into the MAGA Republican circlejerk hearings being held in the House, a day after the Twitter Oversight train wreck and with hours to go before the MAGA “Weaponization” subcommittee’s first hearing, all but certain to go considerably worse.

“Today, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan is launching the Fox News reboot of the House Un-American Activities Committee with a political stunt that weaponizes Congress to carry out the priorities of extreme MAGA Republicans in Congress. Instead of working with President Biden to address the top priorities of the American people – fighting inflation and lowering costs, creating jobs, boosting manufacturing and infrastructure, and protecting and expanding people’s health care and rights – this is what House Republicans are focused on. Led by Jordan and Congressman Matt Gaetz, this committee plans to weaponize the MAGA agenda against their perceived political enemies, going after civil servants, private citizens, and the rule of law – all in service of getting booked on Fox News. In fact, its initial hearing even will include ‘witness testimony’ from multiple Fox News commentators. It appears the committee plans to target ‘ongoing criminal investigations,’ protect insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol, and continue the never-ending quest to deny and relitigate the outcome of the 2020 election,” says the fairly lengthy memo by Biden aide Ian Sams.

And yeah, it’s confusing to call this “New McCarthyism” given that the 1950s-era psychopath Republican Congressman Joe McCarthy who led a paranoia-fueled witch hunt shares a surname the current cowardly House Speaker Kevin McCarthy who is pretending to lead the true powers in his caucus as they launch a paranoia-fueled witch hunt. We’re open to suggestions for a new sobriquet.

We missed this on Wednesday because of the Twitter hearing shitshow, but Rick Scott had a meltdown and demanded Biden resign after he called Republicans out over Scott’s suicidally stupid “Rescue America” platform in which he called for all federal government programs – Social Security and Medicare included – to be sunetted every five years and then subject to Congressional renewal.

Scott’s best comeback is that Biden proposed something similar back in fucking 1975. He’s not wrong to panic, as Social Security and Medicare might just be kind of popular in a state like Florida, even among Republican voters, ones who he’s going to have to face in a primary in 2024.

Former Trump Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf last month sat down for an interview with Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s team investigating the post-2020 election coup attempt, specifically looking into if Donald had interfered with the DHS’s cybersecurity division’s election protection infrastructure before or after the election, Bloomberg reports.

Iowa conservative activist Bob Vander Plaats, described in a Thursday Politico piece as “president of The Family Leader, a socially conservative advocacy group, is one of the most sought-after endorsers in the Iowa Caucus,” claimed to a reporter that all the potential 2024 Republican presidential candidates have agreed to him to not stay too long in the race if (or when) it becomes clear that splitting the anti-Trump vote will just hand the primary to the Orange God Emperor.

“I tell them that there is an open and fair playing field here in the state of Iowa, and that we will introduce you to our base, and we will give you all kinds of opportunities for you to introduce yourself. And if you have the call in your heart to run for president, I am the last person to tell you to not to. But do not listen to your consultants, who have a vested interest in you staying in. I can help you decide if you should stay in or not. They all agree right away,” Vander Plaats said.

Well maybe “claimed” they said that isn’t so accurate as there’s no reason to question that Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence, Niki Haley, etc told Vander Plaats they would drop out at the right time. They definitely said that to him. That he’s apparently fucking stupid enough to believe them, so much so that he tells a national politics website they’ll do “the right thing” might be the real lede here.

Another GOP strategist sums up the situation pretty nicely. “Everybody on every campaign says, ‘Why is it our responsibility to keep Donald Trump from winning?'” said consultant Dave Carney.

Cowardly Republican Missouri Senator Josh Hawley was kicked off the Senate Armed Services Committee at some point last month by Minority Leader Moscow Mitch in retribution for a challenge to Mitch’s authority, Roll Call reported on Wednesday. The removal is the second such known punishment meted out by the Turtle Man, who last week kicked creepy white collar criminal Rick Scott off the Commerce Committee following Scott’s unsuccessful bid for Senate GOP leader.