Why are we sending them further into the heartland of America?

Put them on a bus and send them back across the border.

We don't need gimmicks. We need actual solutions. https://t.co/elxKB8nJib

— Kari Lake (@KariLake) May 12, 2022

In yet another potentially terrifying warning sign for the Republican Party ahead of the Midterms, a Monmouth poll asked respondents to rate their top issue, of which 26% said economic policy and 25% said abortion were important. But yeah, overturn Roe v Wade. See how it goes.

Cephalopod-like man Rick Scott seems to kind of want it both ways on his Senate Campaign platform that called for doing away with Medicare and Social Security, that he’s just spitballing but like actually wants to take things like that away from Americans while increasing their taxes.

An Australian researcher who herself lost a child to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS, has identified a marker in children indicating those who are more likely to succumb to the problem, the Australian ABC network reports.

Having had a son die of SIDS 29 years ago, Dr. Carmel Harrington of The Children’s Hospital Westmead wanted to find the cause of the syndrome.  Working with the theory that the children died because they could not wake up when they were having breathing distress, the researchers identified a key enzyme that is not present at typical levels in the blood of SIDS victims.

The enzyme, butyrylcholinesterase, plays a major function in “waking up” the brain from sleep.  By studying the blood of babies who died of SIDS versus those that didn’t, Harrington found SIDS victims had significantly lower amounts of the enzyme. 

Federal prosecutors have empaneled a grand jury to investigate the circumstances of at least 15 boxes of government documents, many of which were highly classified, being taken to Donald Trump’s club in Florida, the New York Times reports.

After a 2016 campaign where he made a major issue of documents with low security classifications–items like newspaper articles and travel schedules–being found on Hillary Clinton’s private email server, Trump’s handling of classified documents he should not have been in possession of would seem like it should be a big deal for the GOP, but Republicans and their preferred propaganda networks have barely acknowledged Trump’s massive security breach except to say it’s another witch hunt.  But in this case, it appears to have found actual “witches,” metaphorically.

Justice Department prosecutors have issued a subpoena to the National Archives and Records Administration for an inventory of the documents found in at least 15 boxes that were delivered to Mar-a-Lago after Trump was kicked out of the White House.  The boxes contained government documents, many of which were classified; gifts; government property from the White House; and letters.  All those material should have been turned over to the National Archives as part of the Presidential Records Act or other laws dictating what belongs to the individual occupying the White House and what is required to be left to the federal government.  The Trump camp apparently ignored those laws and took whatever it wanted.

In a rare event, the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on Congress has issued subpoenas for five members of the US House of Representatives, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the Associated Press reports.

Republican Congressmen Jim Jordan from Ohio, Andy Biggs from Arizona, Mo Brooks of Alabama, and Scott Perry from Pennsylvania were also subpoenaed.  It is extremely rare for a House committee to issue subpoenas to compel the testimony of one of their peers, but the Committee reportedly felt that the GOP members were withholding key evidence because it would detrimentally impact their careers to have information about their efforts to overturn the Constitution released.

The House panel had requested voluntary testimony from the men, all of whom admit to being in communication with Donald Trump, the White House and/or members of allied groups attempting to overturn the November 2020 election because they were upset Trump didn’t win.

British law enforcement are looking into a $630,225 donation made in 2018 by London art dealer and former Conservative party treasurer Ehud Shedeg to the party before its landslide 2019 victory, the New York Times reports. Barclays Bank flagged it earlier this year as probably having actually comes from Shedeg’s wealthy father-in-law, Russian oligarch Sergei Kopytov, who served as a politician in the former pro-Kremlin Ukraine regime and owns a network of hotels and real estate across Russia and Crimea. “We are able to trace a clear line back from this donation to its ultimate source,” Barclays wrote in their report to UK authorities. Republican United States Senators Rand Paul and Ron Johnson were unavailable for comment on the New York Times story.

https://youtu.be/P_MB1AEeNlc

North Carolinians will have another 20-something political dilettante on the ballot in their upcoming election with 26-year-old Republican Bo Hines taking on one of the Top Ten Dumbest Members of Congress® Virginia Foxx for the 5th Congressional District nomination.  Hines wants everyone to know how pure he is, both in the “Christian” sense and in relation to his false idol, Donald Trump, and he doesn’t think voters should swallow their claims.

“[Garbled] a lot of America First imposters out there, too, and the voters see right through it,” Hines says.  “They know who the real fighters are.  They know who the real conservatives are, and in the next Congress we need to make sure we have enough people so we can hold the line and hold our ground and even go on offense.  I mean, we just can’t allow these, these lukewarm conservatives ta, to dominate our party any longer.  Ya know, I’ve said for quite some time that Scripture tells us that God spits lukewarm ‘Christians’ outta his mouth; it’s high time that the Republican Party, we start spitting lukewarm conservatives out’ve our mouth.”

The Biblical passage Hines refers to is not in fact the Word of God, but most likely of a trippin’-on-acid prophet named John of Patmos (Revelation 3:17), who in the same passage went on to condemn the wealthy for thinking riches make them holier than others.

Conservative parents are taking their fight against free speech into the interwebs by calling on public library systems to pull the plug on e-reader apps that allow kids to read the books that treat non-white and LGBT people as humans, NBC News reports. The Karens have already successfully gotten school and public library districts to cut off access from e-reader platforms in Texas, Florida, and Tennessee, showing you don’t need a big bonfire to march vorwarts into a safer future.

“Over 20 years, there’s not really been any history of a sustained challenge like this to our public library service,” said e-reader platform Overdrive CEO Steve Potash. “Individuals who are not supporters of materials with certain diverse voices – probably without reading the material – are creating an alarm. We stand with and trust librarians and the professionals,” Potash added, obviously unaware that you can’t spell “librarian” without “lib”, so no one should trust them.

Available for a minimum donation of $45 to Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, the newest official Trump-branded purity t-shirt is an incredibly strong symbol of commitment to chastity among true believers in the power of ULTRAMAGA. Adult virgins and adult spiritual virgins alike can wear it to display their faith and dedication to abstaining from sexual intercourse. Far more conspicuous than a simple purity ring, the ULTRAMAGA t-shirt signals “Do not fuck this person, ever” loud and clear to other adults. “I will remain pure indefinitely. I am not waiting for the right person because I will never find one while wearing this,” says the ULTRAMAGA t-shirt purity pledge, regardless of whether or not the wearer even knows it. That’s what true faith in Trump looks like

Hardcore MAGA Republican candidates for state governor and US Senate in Pennsylvania are scaring the shit out of the GOP establishment, even Trump himself, about their prospects in November. On the Senate side, a Fox News poll shows batshit insane insurgent candidate Kathy Barnette is in a statistical three way tie with Trump-endorsed TV quack Dr Mehmet Oz and Ted Cruz-endorsed, amoral-capitalist-pretending-to-be-MAGA David McCormick, has got the Donald “nervous about Oz’s prospects,” a Trump advisor tells CNN adding “For the past five months, he’s been told the only threat to Oz is named David McCormick. This is a twist no one saw coming.”

Even Sean Hannity was freaked out enough to try to attack Barnette on his Thursday night show, trying to spin old tweets of hers to make her seem either anti-Trump or too extreme to nominate. It wasn’t really that clear because the whole thing was a self-contradictory shitshow.

Things are just as bad on the gubernatorial side, as cue-ball-headed QAnon fan state Senator Doug Mastriano’s commanding lead in the polls among a crowded field has Allegheny County GOP chairman Sam DeMarco telling Politico that state Republicans worried they “may be nominating the only Republican who would be unelectable in November.” So radioactive is Dougie that the all but guaranteed Dem gov nominee Attorney General Josh Shapiro paid for ads supporting Mastriano’s primary campaign, touting him as “one of Donald Trump’s strongest supporters”.

“During this spring, an important discussion on Finland’s possible NATO membership has taken place. Time has been needed to let Parliament and the whole society establish their stands on the matter. Time has been needed for close international contacts with NATO and its member countries, as well as with Sweden. We have wanted to give the discussion the space it required.”

“Now that the moment of decision-making is near, we state our equal views, also for information to the parliamentary groups and parties. NATO membership would strengthen Finland’s security. As a member of NATO, Finland would strengthen the entire defence alliance. Finland must apply for NATO membership without delay. We hope that the national steps still needed to make this decision will be taken rapidly within the next few days” say Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin and President Sauli Niinistö in a joint statement released Thursday.

Signaling serious butthurt, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded by saying “Finland joined the unfriendly steps taken by the European Union towards our country. This cannot fail to arouse our regret, and is a reason for corresponding symmetrical responses on our side.”

Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has “paused” the moronic “review” into the 2020 election led by braces wearing fat former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, supposedly while civil cases against the fake probe work themselves out, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. “Until we win those lawsuits, you know, we are pausing the investigation because it’s not like we’re going to keep looking into things we’ve already discovered,” said Vos, still probably pissing his pants in fear of the Orange Caesar endorsing some primary opponent against him.

Gableman, pictured above, will still get paid $5,500 a month (plus $2,500 for rent) for doing nothing, however, while the five separate lawsuits into the probe are adjudicated. “This is going to end up costing taxpayers a lot more than $5,500 because it’s going to drag on for months and months and months. Lawsuits tend to rack up other expenses,” said Dem state Rep Mark Spreitzer.

Mike Pence–remember him? The guy Trump wanted hanged by the neck until dead?–tweeted his faux anger that the Biden Administration had canceled the sale of drilling licenses for areas in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.  “Unleash American Energy Joe!” he tweeted without regard for punctuation, which Republicans apparently think is too “Democrat” now.

The problem with the current market is multi-fold–from the greed of the oil companies to maintain their profit percentage to refineries switching over to summer blends to a sharp increase in demand–but the issue has never been a lack of crude oil.

American refineries ran at around 90% utilization last week, the eighth straight week they were running at or above 90%.  That’s not good.  With a maximum capacity of 18 million barrels per day, US refineries need to periodically have downtime to conduct maintenance, updates, repairs and formulation changeovers.  Except for scattered spikes, US refinery capacity typically runs in the low-80s. 

The survivors and the families of the 98 people killed in the Champlain Towers South condo collapse in Surfside, Florida will split a $997 million settlement with the developer, complex manager, insurers and other defendants, Reuters reports.

The settlement provides funds to the families of the fatalities, as well as for those injured in the collapse and for those who lost their housing.  The judge overseeing the case, who must approve the deal, had said he wanted a settlement in place before the one year anniversary of the collapse, June 24th.

The collapse of the twelve-story residential tower, which was built in 1991, focused attention on the lax building code inspection practices of Florida counties.  Residents of the towers had complained to building management and county officials about cracks that they had seen in the foundation and throughout the structure.

When Donald Trump wants to smear someone, who else would he turn to than his prime time consigliere, Fox’s Sean Hannity?  In this case, Trump is nervous that Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Kathy Barnette will leech enough support away from the Trump-annointed Mehmet Oz that either she or David McCormick, a more “moderate” far-right loon, would win.  With Barnette’s popularity rising–because she’s a conspiracy-spouting Republican–Trump’s cabal is nervous. So Hannity pulls out all the stops, which means acknowledging many of Trump’s 2016 campaign tropes were false–like Obama wasn’t born in the US.  By implying that Barnette’s old tweets are those of an unstable person, Hannity is admitting Trump is not stable.

All the crypto douchebags are freaking out because something something invested way too much money in stupid digital fiat currency backed entirely by hype, even gold and diamonds have real world industrial applications so what the fuck is crypto’s use besides pretend money something something but the crypto douchebags who made “Let’s Go Brandon Coin” and invested in it don’t really have to worry about that stuff. They were completely screwed weeks ago. Seriously, if you bought $10,000 LGB Coin when it first launched in November 2021, your investment would be worth $9 today. You could’ve spent the same amount on a used Hyundai and it would depreciated less than that. Hell you might’ve even turned a small profit reselling it with car prices these days.

A group of unidentified bystanders helped to stop a coasting car after the driver of the car had a medical emergency and slumped over the steering wheel in Boynton Beach, Florida. A coworker of the woman, driving in another car, saw the woman slumped over her steering wheel as she drove by her after they left work. The coworker got out of the car and ran alongside the coasting vehicle. Bystanders ran to the car to stop it, while another person got a barbell to break the back window and get into the car.

Boynton Beach Police wish to identify the good Samaritans to honor them for helping the woman, who was taken for medical attention, WPBF ABC 25 in Palm Beach reports.  (Note that YouTube slapped an unwarranted age restriction on it for some reason.)

Let’s start by acknowledging that Tucker Carlson is an idiot.  We’ll have more commentary after you read/listen to this:

But then this week, the Post took things even further than that.  They published an op/ed that reads, quote, that George Washington University needs a new name.  But honestly, George Washington University is such a bad and ridiculous university, like, who cares what they call it, prolly better just to shut it down or make it in’a some kind of subsidized housing for MS-13 and their baby mamas.  That would be the preferred outcome, but why are they offended by the name?  ‘Cuz it’s named after George Washington, and that means it’s racist.  Well, what does that mean for the Washington Post, which [starts seizure] is named after Washington.

First, it was an opinion piece, submitted by a reader, not the opinion of the Washington Post or its editorial board.  (Actual journalists understand the difference.)  Second, Tucker slides in his trademarked racism.  Third, we can figure out who didn’t get admitted to the 72nd best university in the nation, according to Forbes.  (Tucker’s alma mater, Trinity College, ranks 86th.)  And someone needs to get this man his anti-seizure meds pronto.