The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Monday it was opening an inquiry into the assault actor Will Smith committed on comedian Chris Rock at last night’s Oscars, the New York Times reports.  Smith slapped Rock after Rock made a joke about Smith’s wife lack of hair; Smith’s wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith, suffers from alopecia.

“The academy condemns the actions of Mr. Smith at last night’s show,” the organization said in a statement issued after meeting Monday. “We have officially started a formal review around the incident and will explore further action and consequences in accordance with our bylaws, standards of conduct and California law.”

Rock issued a statement of apology Monday:

The Great Sioux Nation in South Dakota is demanding a hotel owner surrender her property under the terms of a 1868 treaty because the owner refuses to serve Native Americans, Native News Online reports.

Seventy-six year old Connie Uhre, owner of the Grand Gateway Hotel in Rapid City, posted to Facebook on March 22nd that her business would not serve Native Americans.  “Do [sic] to the killing that took place at the Grand Gateway Hotel on March 19, 2022 at 4 am, plus all the vandalism we have had since the Mayor and Police Department are working with the non-profit organization (Dark Money), we will no longer allow Native Americans on property, including Cheers.”

Tribal leaders issued a “Notice of Trespass (Cease and Desist)” order to Uhre, her family/co-owners and the hotel, calling for them to vacate the property.  They cite the Sioux Treaty of 1868, which states, “no white person or persons shall be permitted to settle upon or occupy any portion of the [land north of the North Platte River or east of the summits of the Big Horn Mountains]; or without the consent of the Indians first had and obtained, to pass through the same.”

“The Court’s ruling today is a victory for the rule of law and clears the way for the Select Committee to obtain materials important to our investigation. The Court found that the then-President of the United States more likely than not committed multiple federal crimes in his attempt to overturn the election. The Court’s opinion also includes a warning: that a failure to pursue accountability could set the stage for a repeat of January 6th. America must not allow what happened on that day to be minimized and cannot accept as normal these threats to our democracy. The committee takes the warning seriously as we push ahead in our work to get answers about January 6th and its causes and to make recommendations to help ensure nothing like it ever happens again” – Joint statement from Reps Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney celebrating John Eastman’s defeat.

Batshit idiot Lara Logan crossed another Rubicon on Monday by implying to a right wing podcast host that Charles Darwin was paid by the Rothschilds to devise evolution as a hoax to de-Christianize the world, Yahoo News reports. “Does anyone know who employed Darwin, where Darwinism comes from? Look it up: The Rothschilds. It goes back to 10 Downing Street. The same people who employed Darwin, and his theory of evolution and so on and so on. I’m not saying that none of that is true. I’m just saying Darwin was hired by someone to come up with a theory – based on evidence, OK, fine,” said Logan, adding that evolution is a “chicken or the egg” debate and “you can’t answer it scientifically.” There’s no evidence the Rothschild family bribed Charles Darwin to fabricate evolution or that they built space lasers to clear out real estate in California.

Claiming that he just returned from his honeymoon to Mar-a-Lago–“This amazing trophy property may be the most valuable residential property in America” (though it’s actually a business property)–Wayne Allyn Root gave an incredible account of Donald Trump as only as ass-kissing toady can:

My wife Cindy and I just returned from our honeymoon at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s estate and private club in Palm Beach, Florida. This amazing trophy property may be the most valuable residential property in America.

I saw Trump each night for dinner. I spent time up close and personal with the man. And I can tell you several things that should scare the heck out of liberals…

—Trump looked healthy, strong and confident.

—Trump was carefree; he was actually spinning records during dinner. He has eclectic taste ranging from opera to rock to rap to pop tunes. I have no doubt he could make millions per night as “DJ PREZ” at Las Vegas nightclubs!

Read More ▶ “Sycophant’s account of Trump’s weekend is laughable”

Senator John Cornyn, March 28, 2022, to Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman on Ginni Thomas: “We ought to leave family members out of all of all of this. It’s ridiculous to attack members of a public figure’s family.” When reminded Ginni Thomas was texting former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, screaming at him to overturn the 2020 election, Cornyn says “Yeah it is what it is. I just think piling onto family members of public figures is just an unfortunate development,” adding he doesn’t think Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from any cases.

Senator John Cornyn, January 27, 2020, via Twitter: “Although we won’t vote on additional witnesses in impeachment trial until Friday, House managers need to know that both sides will have same chance to identify potential witnesses to call. Obvious choices are Adam Schiff, Joe Biden and Hunter Biden for starters,” emphasis added.

Maybe this would be less obvious if they picked “Paddington Bear” or “Courdouroy” or maybe not even a teddy bear at all and went with “The Little Engine that Could” for their storytime videos but here we are with Shen Yun, egged on by the Epoch Times in promoting a certain character that a certain someone is awfully sensitive to being mentioned with in the same sentence.

After Fox’s nepotism mascot Peter Doocy mischaracterizes a number of President Biden’s statements–Doocy erroneously stated that Biden claimed he would respond by deploying chemical weapons if Russia used them in Ukraine, which is a violation of international law, and wrongly claimed Biden said he was sending troops to Ukraine–President Joe Biden not only corrects the record, but calls Doocy “silly” for pushing the President to reveal US military and foreign policy plans for Russia:  “I’m not going to tell you.  Why would I tell you?  You gotta be silly.”

Timidly, Doocy responded, “The world wants to know.”  “The world wants to know a lot of things,” Biden replied.  “I’m not telling ’em what the response would be.  Then Russia would know the response.”  Biden has already demonstrated far more discipline in national security matters than his predecessor, who shared classified information with Russians during his first week in office, showed the premier of China classified intelligence information over chocolate cake at Mar-a-Lago, and planned a Middle East response with Kid Rock in the room.

United States Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco announced Monday that part of the Justice Department’s 2023 budget request includes funds to hire 131 more lawyers to prosecute cases related to the January 6, 2021 insurrection “at any level,” CBS News’s Rob Legare reports.

Pennsylvania man Mike Moye, who kind of sounds like he’s laughing as shit goes completely haywire Monday during a sudden snow squall on Interstate 81 in Schuylkill County, does an impressive job filming the scene from his phone. Bonus points for holding it in landscape mode too.

After he attempted to swipe at Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson for a decision to grant a non-violent offender supervised parole, Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley’s own record as a prosecutor of similar cases is coming under scrutiny.

Hawley falsely claimed that Jackson’s sentencing history showed a tendency to give light sentences to sexual predators.  “Judge Jackson has a pattern of letting child porn offenders off the hook for their appalling crimes, both as a judge and as a policymaker” Hawley tweeted, claiming it showed an “alarming trend of lenient sentencing.”

But Hawley’s own record shows that he was even less stringent with sexual offenders.  The American Independent resurfaced an op/ed piece written by a former member of Hawley’s prosecution team when he was Missouri Attorney General.  Knox County Sheriff Robert Becker was charged with domestic violence and sexual abuse for choking a former partner to near unconsciousness.  Hawley approved a two-year probation deal for a defendant.   

Speaking to a mouthpiece from propaganda network NewsMax, Donald Trump claims that Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton all deserve to be tried for treason and possibly face the death penalty for his debunked claim that they spied on his presidential campaign in 2016.

Escalating from his trademark mob-inciting “Lock her up” chant, a former United States President is calling for the execution of his political opponents based on a scenario he created out of thin air, and he does so without a modicum of awareness that he is energizing the fringe members of his already-fringy base to take the law into their own hands.  The dog whistles are becoming blow horns.

Former Trump White House coat rack Jared Kushner will appear before the House January 6th Select Committee via video call as early as Thursday, sources tell ABC News. It is unclear if it is an informal interview or if Kush will go under oath. Last month it was reported that Jared’s wife Ivanka was in talks with the committee to answer questions pursuant to their investigation about King Donald’s state of mind during the insurrection which is important to establishing a criminal case.

This is one of those creepy videos of a far-right religious nutter–in this case, Trump supporter and self-described QAnon profit prophet Johnny Enlow–declaring that God has “commissioned” GOP Oregon gubernatorial candidate Marc Thielman, GOP Senate candidate Darin Harbick, and local office candidate Patti Adair.  Enlow declares God has given him a vision that the trio will win their races, so any loss in the state is obviously the work of the Devil, socialists, Hillary Clinton, Mau Mau revolutionaries, George Soros and the manifestation of Vishnu.

I’ve got a number of questions about the corruption of religion for the Trump cult, but my big one for them is this:  if God was on your side and wanted Trump to win the 2020 election, why didn’t he?  Could it be that God doesn’t really like him–or you?  Could it be that God doesn’t support the GOP agenda?  That might be one with pondering, MAGAts.

It was much better than a Twitter fight with people saying tough things on their keyboard behind their screen.

They handled the issue and then they actually carried on.

2/2

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) March 28, 2022

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis totally owned the gays and Disney by signing his controversial new bill prohibiting any discussion of sexuality for students under 10 into law Monday, Axios reports.

“A drug trafficker was sentenced March 25, 2022, to a total of 29 years in federal prison. Curtis James Johnson, age 36, from Talladega, Alabama, received the prison term after a July 30, 2021 guilty plea to possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance and an August 16, 2021 guilty plea to possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. Johnson sold methamphetamine to another individual in May 2021. Law enforcement’s subsequent searches of two homes led to the discovery of methamphetamine and a loaded firearm at a relative’s residence and a loaded firearm at another residence associated with Johnson. This all occurred in the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, area. Johnson was arrested after the searches.”

“Following his arrest, Johnson called his mother using another inmate’s phone account in the jail and discussed paying a witness to not attend Johnson’s upcoming trial. Prior to the current conduct, Johnson had amassed a lengthy criminal history, including convictions for battery causing bodily injury and assault causing bodily injury. Johnson was also previously convicted of burglary and felony drug trafficking offenses. Evidence at sentencing showed Johnson was also involved in making ‘hooch’ while in jail,” says a Justice Department press release that does not actually make it clear why the ‘hooch’ is relevant to the proceeding, since Johnson wasn’t charged for it.

If anything it’s annoying as shit that they included the detail about the hooch but didn’t elaborate and explain what kind of juice boxes he was using and if he made it in his cell’s toilet.

A federal judge has ordered fascist MAGA lawyer John Eastman to stop fucking around with fake claims of attorney-client privilege and hand his emails over to the House January 6th Committee, voiding privilege by ruling that Eastman and Trump were committing a crime – an extraordinary development in the ongoing clusterfuck over the coup attempt. “The illegality of the plan was obvious. Our nation was founded on the peaceful transition of power, epitomized by George Washington laying down his sword to make way for democratic elections. Ignoring this history, President Trump vigorously campaigned for the Vice President to single-handedly determine the results of the 2020 election,” Carter wrote, adding it was “more likely than not” there was a crime.

“Dr. Eastman and President Trump launched a campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history. Their campaign was not confined to the ivory tower—it was a coup in search of a legal theory. The plan spurred violent attacks on the seat of our nation’s government, led to the deaths of several law enforcement officers, and deepened public distrust in our political process. More than a year after the attack on our Capitol, the public is still searching for accountability. This case cannot provide it. The Court is tasked only with deciding a dispute over a handful of emails. This is not a criminal prosecution; this is not even a civil liability suit.”

“At most, this case is a warning about the dangers of ‘legal theories’ gone wrong, the powerful abusing public platforms, and desperation to win at all costs. If Dr. Eastman and President Trump’s plan had worked, it would have permanently ended the peaceful transition of power, undermining American democracy and the Constitution. If the country does not commit to investigating and pursuing accountability for those responsible, the Court fears January 6 will repeat itself. With this limited mandate, the Court finds the following ten documents privileged: 4553; 4793; 4794; 4828; 5097; 5101; 5113; 5412; 5424; 5719.289 The Court ORDERS Dr. Eastman to disclose the other one hundred and one documents to the House Select Committee,” writes US Judge David O Carter.

After a meeting earlier this month in Kyiv, Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and at least two members of the Ukrainian peace delegation began suffering from peeling skin on their faces and other symptoms consistent with poisoning, the Wall Street Journal reports.