Spandex-wearing grapple freak Congressman Jim Jordan will be empowered to fondle deep into ongoing criminal investigations with a proposed “select subcommittee” on “weaponization” of federal law enforcement in the 118th Congress, Politico reports. The new select subcommittee will automatically be granted access to any information available to the House Intel Committee.

The new MAGA subcommittee’s mandate includes an investigation of how the executive branch obtains “information from, and provide information to the private sector, non-profit entities, or other government agencies to facilitate action against American citizens,” likely a reference to the meltdown over “FBI interference” with social media companies prior to the 2020 election.

A panel of federal judges ruled that South Carolina legislators must redraw the state’s 1st Congressional District because the redrawn district was intentionally designed to eliminate Black voters to make the seat safer for Republicans, PBS reported.

Republican Nancy Mace won the district by one percentage point in 2020 prior to it being redrawn; in the 2022 midterms, she took the race by 14 percentage points.  Democrat Joe Cunningham represented the term from 2019 to 2021, having taken the long-time Republican seat previously held by hiking enthusiast who took the Appalachian Trail to his lover’s house in Argentina Mark Sanford.

To accomplish their goal, state Republicans cut off a significant area of the district where mostly Black residents lived and put it into the state’s 6th Congressional District, a safe Democratic district served by stalwart Congressman Jim Clyburn.  The Court ruled that the district must be redrawn before any further elections can be taken there.

Florida man and Representative-elect Matt Gaetz is already feeling the backlash of his drama.  During the fifteenth rollcall vote for the Speakership–the one Kevin McCarthy has won by limping across the line by the opposition voting “present” to lower the threshold of votes needed–Arizona’s Andy Biggs voted “present” and got applause for changing his vote.  (Boebert had flip-flopped earlier.) Eli Crane of Arizona voted present, which also drew a round of applause (and technically gave McCarthy the office).  And then ringleader Matt Gaetz voted present and got… crickets.

• I don’t know how else to say this except:  Kevin McCarthy is jeopardizing the fate of the United States by caving to demands from the radical right nihilistic fringe of the GOP and handing them significant power so that he can achieve personal glory.  That is the most unpatriotic action one can do.  His duty as an elected official is to the country, not his political ambition.
• January 2021:  Republicans fail at the peaceful relinquishing of power.  January 2023:  Republicans fail at peacefully assuming power.  They’re not very good at government.
• Golf clap to Dark Brandon for telling election deniers to fuck off in the classiest possible by giving the Presidential Citizens Medal to the people who stood up to intense pressure–from job threats to political suicide to actual physical violence–to defend the 2020 election.  Celebrate democracy on the anniversary of their attempted coup.
• The way the Speaker will be elected–with a weakened McCarthy ultimately appointed and the Gaetz/Boebert/Biggs et al faction now pariah in their own Party–is the most dee-licious for Democrats short of Hakeem Jeffries winning the title because of Republican chaos.
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CIII”

Follow us live as Kevin McCarthy’s utter humiliation continues on Friday, starting with the twelfth vote for Speaker of The House. Supposedly there’s a deal between McCarthy and some of the Freedom Caucasians, but didn’t they report that on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday too?

In his continuing effort to destroy education and limit opportunities for people he doesn’t like, Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has appointed a noted anti-civil rights advocate and conservative “intellectual” many credit with igniting the CRT conspiracy theory Christopher Rufo to the board of directors of New College of Florida, FloridaPolitics.com reports.

Rufo tweeted, “Left-wing radicals have spent the past fifty years on a ‘long march through the institutions.’ We are going to reverse that process, starting now,” signaling a coming organized attack on colleges and universities that is clearly DeSantis establishing his conservative anti-education bona fides for the 2024 Presidential bid.

New College has highly unusual operating conditions under which students learn.  They do not have a typical tuition model; instead, students sign a contract to pass a certain percentage of classes.  Students are encouraged to probe different topics and subjects to challenge themselves.  Independent study projects are encouraged and students graduate after presenting a detailed thesis based on their path of education.  Because of its unusual approach, the school attracts many students who are “non-conforming to society norms” like LGBTQ individuals and free-thinkers who would not thrive in conventional higher educational institutions–an environment Rufo is openly challenging.

A six year-old patriot stood his ground against a teacher and expressed his God-given Second Amendment rights in an elementary school classroom in Newport News, Virginia, sending the teacher, a woman in her 30s, to the hospital with life-threatening injuries, the AP reports.

“We did not have a situation where someone was going around the school shooting,” Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew told reporters. “We have a situation in one particular location where a gunshot was fired,” he said, adding that the celebration of American freedom was not an accident.

California Dem Congresswoman Katie Porter is gearing up for a bid for senile Dem Senator Dianne Feinstein’s seat, even before Feinstein officially announces her retirement, Politico reports.

“This afternoon a group of demonstrators were illegally blocking traffic on Independence Avenue, SW, near First Street, SW. The group did not have a permit to demonstrate on Capitol Grounds. Officers established a clear police line to prevent the group from moving further west on Independence Avenue, SW. The officers and officials told the group to get out of the road or the group would be arrested. The sidewalk was open. A woman in the group was given multiple warnings to get out of the road. Instead of getting out of the road, the woman refused to leave, turned around with her hands behind her back, and asked to be arrested. Around 1:45 p.m., the woman was arrested for two Capitol Traffic Regulations – §16.3.20 Obey An Order, as well as §16.3.40 Blocking And Obstructing Roadways. The person was identified as 58 year old Micki Witthoeft. As is typical for this charge, Ms. Witthoeft was processed and released this afternoon after being given a citation to appear in court at a later date,” says the USCP in a statement.

The Gateway Pundit confirms Witthoeft is Ashli Babbitt’s mother.

Former Republican West Virginia state delegate Derrick Evans, one of only two elected officials convicted of offenses related January 6th, 2021, on Friday used the occasion of the MAGA insurrection’s second anniversary to announce he’s running for a House seat, the AP reports.

“I chose today to announce my bid for the House of Representatives because it is an important anniversary in US history,” said Evans in a statement. “While my name will indelibly be part of it, we should also use as a chance to remind ourselves about why democracy is so important and how easily it can be threatened,” he added, not sounding contrite at all. Evans, who was elected in November 2020 and served only briefly in the West Virginia state House as he resigned just days after the insurrection, served 90 days in jail and is still currently on probation. Evans still has a better chance of winning in his home state than fellow insurrectionist and former Otero County, New Mexico Commissioner Couy Griffin, who in September was banned from elected office in New Mexico for life under the 14th Amendment due to his conviction.

President Biden on Friday will deliver remarks on the second anniversary of the January 6th MAGA insurrection and honor US Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman, credited with saving Senator Mitt Romney from getting murdered by misdirecting the horde as they poured into the Capitol.

A Connecticut judge on Thursday slapped scumbag Alex Jones’s lawyer Norman Pattis with a six month law license suspension for the now infamous fuckup in which Pattis accidentally disclosed discovery information, including his clients’ private text messages, CNN reports

“At a basic level, attorneys must competently and appropriately handle the discovery of sensitive materials in civil cases,” wrote Judge Barbara Bellis wrote in the court order. “Otherwise, our civil system, in which discovery of sensitive information is customary and routine, would simply collapse,” she continued, like she were teaching Pre-Law 101 to some freshman.

Walgreens CFO James Kehoe on Thursday admitted “maybe we cried too much last year” about the retail theft problem for the chain that inspired countless erections from MAGAmericans obsessed with crime in blue cities in the lead-up to the 2022 midterms, CNBC reports.

But hey, it did the job. Plenty of Fox News viewers living in places like rural Wisconsin and Ohio found themselves more motivated to vote Republican after seeing segments about the company closing down a handful of locations in San Francisco, supposedly due to thefts, which were definitely Joe Biden’s fault because of woke open borderflation gender inclusive policies.

Damar Hamlin FaceTimed into our team meeting today to talk to players and coaches.

What he said to the team: “Love you boys.” ❤️ pic.twitter.com/8dorrWNaxt

— Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) January 6, 2023

Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith has hired two top former lieutenants onto his team investigating disgraced former President Trump’s crimes against democracy, CNN reports. The new additions, Raymond Hulser, the former DOJ public integrity section chief, and David Harbach, who conducted cases against former Senator John Edwards and Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, are another sign Smith is hitting the ground running on their way to taking on the fat bastard.

At least seven cops are dead in a wave of unrest centered in the northern Mexican city of Culiacan as the Sinaloa drug cartel’s goons voiced their displeasure over the arrest of kingpin Ovidio Guzman, son of notorious boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Reuters reports.

Authorities ordered schools closed Friday as the city descended into anarchy, with the cartel assholes setting fire to as many as 250 vehicles to create roadblocks. Airline Aeromexico said one of its passenger planes had been hit by gunfire after taking off from the city’s airport. Aye Carumba.

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House Republicans angry something McCarthy weak and worthless whatever when the fuck is this going to be over something it’s not fun anymore whatever BREAKING no new progress something Byron Donalds whatever. Democrats offer help consensus something candidate that doesn’t actually exist whatever Politico Playbook and Punchbowl News and Steve Kornacki report whatever fuck.

Mexican cartel leader “El Neto” was canceled in a shootout with police in the border city of Ciudad Juarez early Thursday, just days after he escaped from prison, Fox News reports.

“El Neto,” real name Ernesto Alfredo Pinon de la Cruz, was among dozens on the lam after a mass jailbreak which left at least 29 guards and inmates dead on Sunday. Another seven cops and escapees were killed in a separate shootout Monday. Neto’s death came on the same day police nabbed Ovidio Guzman, cartel boss and son of notorious kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

Two MAGA assholes in “Speaker-Elect” Congressman Kevin McCarthy’s hometown of Bakersfield, California on Monday accidentally set themselves on fire while trying to torch a business called Servicio de Inmigracion, Vice News reports. The suspects haven’t been identified yet, but it might not be long before they get cuffed, as an employee of the firm reportedly found one of their phones dropped at the scene and handed it over to cops. The arson was mentioned on Tucker Carlson’s show Thursday night as an example of rampant urban crime, naturally omitting that the business is an immigration service and the attackers are all but confirmed to be Trump fans.

Lava has broken through the dome on Kilauea, a month after lava stopped flowing from it and its neighbor Mauna Lua.  First spotted as a glowing mass by someone watching a webcam (really), the cracks have come through to look like a city seen at night from a plane, shown above in a screenshot of a live panorama cam of Halemaʻumaʻu, down-dropped caldera floor from the west rim of the summit caldera, looking east.  No property or people are likely to be injured in this “eruption,” though the people of Pompei were taken by surprise, too.