Former Congressman Lou Barletta, a MAGA dipshit who signed on as a fake Trump elector in 2020 and lost the 2018 Senate race to incumbent Dem Bob Casey, told freelance journalist David Catanese in an interview that people need to show ID to buy a cheesesteak in Philadelphia, therefore voter ID should be required in the state, among other bullshit claims in the brief exchange.

“For anybody that’s been here, you didn’t have to go far to see and hear the stories of what went on. People harvesting ballots, I mean we could go on and on and on. Dead people still voting in Pennsylvania. Now they don’t even have to leave the cemetery to vote, they can mail in their ballots. Act 77 mail in ballots are ripe for fraud, the ballot boxes being stuffed. People bringing multiple ballots to the ballot boxes. There was no control over what happened,” cried Barletta over mail-in ballots. When pressed on how many people, living or dead, he believes voted illegally in the state, Barletta said “I don’t know… In Pennsylvania, 2 million people feel that it wasn’t, so what do you say to them? You don’t matter?” When pressed again, Barletta’s minion, wiener Trump 2020 comms director Tim Murtaugh interrupted, saying “He’s not going to give you a different answer Dave.” Asked if he would mandate voter ID as governor Barletta said “You need to show your ID to get a cheesesteak in Philadelphia,” to which Catanese responded “You do? I don’t think that’s true. Is that true?” “Yeah they were requiring… you had to show a vaccine card” Barletta responded.

Props to Catanese for cornering Barletta like this. What a total bitch this guy is. Typical of the MAGA mindset where they freeze up when forced to explain why they feel like the election was stolen, never wanting to admit to themselves or anyone else that it was not actually stolen from their Orange God Emperor, that he fucking lost fair and square because more legally registered voters in states worth more electoral college votes cast more legal ballots for Joe Biden.

Republican congressional leaders Moscow Mitch and Kevin McCarthy temporarily grew balls after the Capitol insurrection before slinking back to their prostrate positions in fear of the Orange God Emperor, the New York Times reports on an excerpt from the upcoming book “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future” from NYT reports Alex Burns and Jon Martin.

“The Democrats are going to take care of the son of a bitch for us,” said Mitch on January 11th, 2021, about the then-imminent second impeachment of Trump over the riot. McConnell was reportedly ready to vote to convict, but then backed out, saying privately “I didn’t get to be leader by voting with five people in the conference.”

The Republican National Committee pissed away another $350,000 on legal fees in March for their Orange God Emperor, a supposed billionaire facing a criminal investigation in New York State for corruption that has absolutely nothing to do with his time as president, Forbes reports.

The political party, which again is really just willingly getting shaken down by the fat bastard, already paid $1.6 million for Trump’s lawyers as of December 2021, something an RNC spokeswoman called “entirely appropriate for the RNC to continue assisting in fighting back against the Democrats’ never ending witch hunt and attacks on” the Donald.

Nosferatu cosplayer and one-time lawyer Rudy Giuliani made an ignominious appearance on the, um, talent (?) show The Masked Singer, being voted off immediately. Giuliani’s appearance on the show prompted judge Ken Jeong to leave the stage, announcing “I’m done,” angry about the attempt to “normalize” Giuliani after he was a major player in the effort to undermine the Constitution by installing Donald Trump into a unearned second term.

Giuliani attempted to perform George Thorogood’s hard-drinking rock song “Bad to The Bone”–and I’m not saying Giuliani sang it, because there was nothing musical about his performance.

A last-minute candidate for an open House seat, Sarah Palin swears she’ll be dedicated to the causes of Alaska if she gets elected, the Associated Press reports.  The failed reality TeeVee performer and half-term governor will be “all about Alaska,” not trying to rebuild her brand.

“I love to work, and anyone who is around me, they know,” Palin said in an interview with AP. “What I’m doing is applying for a job, for Alaskans, saying: ‘Hey, you guys would be my boss. Do you want to hire me? Because if you do, I’ll do a good job for you, and I won’t back down.’”

Still, Palin will definitely not turn down an opportunity to get in front of the cameras–for Alaska, of course.  Given her media contacts, from Day One she’ll be able to “pick up the phone and call any reporter and be on any show if I wanted to, and it would be all about Alaska.”

Heightening global tensions, Russia tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile that is capable of carrying a nuclear payload, firing the missile about 6,000 miles from northwest Russia to the Pacific Ocean, Reuters reports.

Under development for years, the Sarmat missile test wasn’t a surprise for Western leaders, but the timing–having it while Russia is involved in a war in Ukraine–was unexpected.  Russian state-run television showed a Russian general informing Russian President Vladimir Putin of the test’s success.

“The new complex has the highest tactical and technical characteristics and is capable of overcoming all modern means of anti-missile defence. It has no analogues in the world and won’t have for a long time to come,” Putin said.  “This truly unique weapon will strengthen the combat potential of our armed forces, reliably ensure Russia’s security from external threats and provide food for thought for those who, in the heat of frenzied aggressive rhetoric, try to threaten our country.”

Pic posted by Dem Florida Attorney General candidate Daniel Uhlfelder of a memo from the Walton County Public School District listing 58 books now banned from its libraries. “A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo” is mistakenly listed as “Marlon Brando”, a children’s book about a gay bunny getting married, written to satirize former Second Lady Karen Pence’s book about their family rabbit. “The Hate U Give” is about a Black teenage girl who witnesses her Black male friend get shot dead by a cop. “The Kite Runner” is about an Afghan refugee dealing with guilt over a male childhood friend being raped by a man. It does not imply that the rape was somehow a good thing.

An audio recording of the interview between Piers Morgan and Donald Trump seems to refute Morgan’s claim that Trump stomped out of the interview when Morgan started pushing him about the 2020 election.

The amazing thing is, the recording was provided to NBC News by a representative of Donald Trump himself, demonstrating when it fits their narrative, they can turn over evidence.  The recording appears to confirm parts of the promotion released by Morgan, but at the end of the interview, instead of storming out of the room, Trump and Morgan exchange pleasantries and seem to shake hands.  At one point, the two men thanked each other for their time and shared a laugh.

Remember Bill O’Reilly?  It’s okay if you don’t.  He’s one of the various interchangeable Angry White Men who dominated media during the Obama Administration, always yelling and upset about the loss of their America.  Think of O’Reilly as a Silly Putty version of Rush Limbaugh stretch to be taller and less obese.

An infamous hothead who was fired from Fox Noise in 2017 for various sex harassment episodes–and this after they had an eight-figure settlement with a former O’Reilly producer for sexually harassing her–O’Reilly made news this weekend for a video of him blowing up at a Jet Blue gate agent because his flight to Turks and Caicos was five hours late.  O’Reilly repeatedly threatened the gate agent, including telling the man, “You’re lucky I don’t put my fist through it” after looking at the ID badge hanging around his neck.  He also promised that the man would be fired, because a gate agent controls the mechanical maintenance, weather and air traffic of an entire airlines jet fleet.

Well, now, O’Reilly says that the incident was all the fault of the people who made the video of the April 3rd threats go viral.  Oh, and it was Joe Biden’s fault.  But it most certainly wasn’t his fault, despite the video showing him threatening people.

Tucker of the Tumbling Testosterone re-ups his promotion of the fake election fraud story continually pitched by the 2020 vote loser, Donald Trump.  “Joe Biden believes he’s, quote, the only one who can beat Donald Trump which, if nothing else, suggests Joe Biden believes he beat Donald Trump the first time,” Carlson the Hungarian Tourism Specialist proclaims before putting on a cartoonish voice:  “‘Hey, guys, I got 81 million votes.  Maybe I’ll get 500 million next time.'”

And yes, Tucker is still fixated on a joke Barack Obama made at the White House two weeks ago, because he’s got nothing but stale old material.

The Democratic National Committee is filling its coffers with donations from people hoping the Party can hold off a push from Republicans in the midterm elections, raising $16.8 million in March, Politico reports.

For the first quarter of 2022, the Party’s haul exceeded $42 million.  The average online donation was $26, with more than half of the donations being “small dollar” donations under $200.

The Committee has already pledged $48 million to midterm candidates fight to keep control of the Senate and the House.

Newly financial bankrupted but longtime morally bankrupted conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has reached out to the Department of Justice offering to cooperate with prosecutors investigating the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol, the New York Times reports.

A key player and cheerleader for the “Stop the Steal” movement, Jones could provide valuable information on the amount of coordination between various groups and the Trump camp in the days and weeks prior to the attack.  Jones was a speaker at a January 5th rally during which he encouraged people to fight for Congress to halt the certification of state electors voting for Joe Biden’s election victory.

Through his lawyer, Jones maintains that he still distrusts the government, and that he would require full immunity from prosecution for any activities involving the January 6th attack–immunity Jones doesn’t need, his lawyer says, because he did nothing illegal.

The Capitol complex was momentarily in chaos when a unknown airplane wandered into the airspace over the Capitol, causing a security alert that prompted the evacuation of the Capitol office buildings.

MSNBC reports that the plane was flying to the Washington Nationals ballpark, about a mile away from the Capitol, where it discharged four members of the Army Golden Knights parachute team, who dropped in to the Nationals’ game for Military Appreciation Day.

Apparently, the pilot never registered the flight with the FAA or Secret Service even though he knew the flight path would take him into restricted airspace.

Hearing from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Justice will appeal the ruling of an inexperienced federal judge in Florida who issued a national repeal of the mask mandate on planes and trains, the New York Times reports.

DOJ Director of Public Affairs Anthony Coley announced on Twitter that the department had already filed an appeal after hearing from the CDC that the mask mandate would benefit public health.

Legal pundits expressed dismay at the ruling by 35-year-old Trump-appoint federal judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, a controversial court pick confirmed after Trump had lost the 2020 election even though she was rated “not qualified” by the American Bar Association because she had graduated from law school just six years before her nomination to a lifetime appointment on the federal bench.  Mizelle didn’t hear any testimony in the case and made her decision based solely on the briefs submitted by both sides.  In her 59-page opinion, Mizelle cited debunked conspiracy theories and made her ruling, which should have only applied to the parties in the case, a national mandate.

Piers Morgan is a douche.  That’s something widely agreed upon on both sides of the Atlantic (and like on the other side of the Pacific, as well).  When a clip comes out showing an interview with Donald Trump where Trump storms off the set, there’s nothing to say this wasn’t a pre-arranged dust up to get Morgan publicity for his new television show.

And Morgan’s account written in the tabloid The Sun doesn’t help the impression that this is all one big set up.  Morgan claims that just minutes before he was to interview Trump, Morgan learned that Trump had receive THREE WHOLE PAGES of insults Morgan at hurled at the former president* in the last two years.

So there you have the set up:  an angry Trump, steaming because Morgan said bad things about him, still comes into the room to do a recorded interview for Morgan’s brand new TeeVee show, and then Trump becomes all infuriated with Morgan’s questions about the 2020 election and storms off.

Don’t be surprised to discover this was one TeeVee personality helping another TeeVee personality, all the while giving Trump another opportunity to show he still believes the election was stolen.

The campaign of Donald Trump has been ordered to pay the legal fees incurred by former campaign and White House aide, former “Apprentice” contestant Omarosa Manigault Newman, whom Trump sued claiming that she was in violation of an unenforceable non-disclosure agreement.

As the New York Times reports, this case was one in a series of losses Trump incurred relating to non-disclosure agreements he made his White House staff sign.  Courts have repeatedly ruled that such contracts forced on government employees are not enforceable because the signer works for the government, not the person holding office.  Trump wanted to stop confidantes from writing tell-all books–something of a tradition for White House staffers for decades–and Newman did just that, publishing “Unhinged” in 2018.

“Respondent was defending herself in a claim which was extensively litigated for more than three years, against an opponent who undoubtedly commanded far greater resources than did respondent,” the arbitrator noted.

Thanks to emnyc for the tip.

Remember Mike Flynn, the disgraced Army general who hid contacts he had with the Russian government and also appeared with Putin at a Russian dinner?  Yeah, well now he’s challenging the bravery and patriotism of former MSNBC pundit Malcolm Nance, who joined the International Brigade fighting alongside Ukraine soldiers against an invading Russian army.

“So is he fighting for…” Flynn starts before being cut off by the hostess of the low budget cable access talk show on Mike Lindell’s broadcast network.  “Is he fighting for a fascist–I’m sorry [directed at hostess]–Is he fighting for a fascist dictator or is he fighting for communi–, y’know, for communism?  Y’know what, wh-wh-who’s side is he on here.  Y-Y-Y-Y’know, is he on the side of… a, ay, a, really… dat dat dat that’s, ah, that’s the first time I’ve seen that clip actually and, ah, I just find that fascinating, I mean… Y’know what?  [chuckles] War is not fair, and ah, y’know, is he, is he supposed to be a journalist that’s reporting the news or is he out there tryin’ to make the news?  What kind of, what kind of ploy is that, and frankly, y’know….”

The longest-serving member of the North Dakota Senate, Republican Ray Holmberg, is stepping down as chair of an influential committee because he was texting with a jailed alleged child pornographer, the Associated Press reports.

Jailhouse records show Holmberg, who is 79 years old, exchanging six dozen messages with Nicholas James Morgan-Derosier while Morgan-Derosier was being held at Grand Forks County Jail on child porn charges last August.  The jail recorded the times the text messages came in and went out, but they did not record the contents of the messages.

The local newspaper, the Forum of Fargo, obtained the jail records showing the exchange.  Holmberg told the newspaper he no longer had copies of the text messages, although he said Morgan-Derosier had done some yard work for him previously.  “They’re just gone,” he said.

An investigation by the US Department of Justice found that he State of Mississippi allowed the state prisons to devolve into unsafe places where prisoners had a hard time accessing health care, including mental health care, leading to the unwarranted deaths, the Washington Post reports.

At the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, at least 12 prisoners have died by suicide and 10 others were victims of homicide since December 31, 2019, a day when prisoners took control of parts of the prison in a riot, which lasted several weeks.

“We have concluded that the conditions at Parchman are severe, systemic and exacerbated by chronically deficient staffing and supervision, resulting in serious harm and substantial risk to people confined at the prison,” Associate Attorney General Kristen Clarke, who oversees Justice’s civil rights division, said at a news conference also attended by U.S. Attorneys Clay Joyner of Mississippi’s Northern District and Darren J. LaMarca of the Southern District.