Former Minnesota GOP Chairwoman Jennifer Carnahan, who was fired by the party last year after her buddy Anton Lazzaro was arrested in a sex-trafficking scheme, is launching her campaign in a special election to replace her late husband Rep. Jim Hagedorn in Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District, vacant since Hagedorn died last month of cancer and karma, Politico reports.

“Whatever happened to free speech in our Country? Incredibly, but not surprisingly, the Big Tech lunatics have taken down my interview with the very popular NELK Boys so that nobody can watch it or in any way listen to it. In the 24 hours that it was up it set every record for them, by many times. Interestingly on the show I told them this would happen because Big Tech and the Fake News Media fear the truth, they fear criticism about Biden, and above all, they don’t want to talk about the Rigged 2020 Presidential Election, all topics discussed. In Russia, the people are not allowed to know that they’re fighting a war with Ukraine, that’s where our media is going, and that’s where our Country is going because it quickly follows – just study history. Are we going to allow this to happen? Our Country is going to hell! Look at your gas prices, Inflation, the Afghanistan debacle, our Border, the war with Ukraine, which should have never happened, and so much more. We need freedom of speech again, we don’t have it and it’s getting worse every day!” says the Orange God Emperor in yet another stupid statement that does not at any point mention Truth Social.

Nor was it posted on Truth Social. Over a year of hype about how “groundbreaking” Trump’s new social media platform would be and he himself has fucking posted on it once. We were so eagerly looking forward to a monumental, hilarious clusterfuck of a launch and what we got was this boring piece of shit that limped to the finish line at launch. We’re even more disappointed than the intended target audience of right wing fanboys certainly are but too sheepish to admit because they cannot be seen as questioning their Invincible Orange Messiah’s divine powers.

Ukrainian troops have reportedly canceled another Russian general, Interfax Ukraine reports. “The good news is that Major General Andrei Kolesnikov, Commander of the 29th Army of the Eastern Military District, became the KIA today,” Ukraine Minister of Internal Affairs Anton Gerashchenko announced in a Telegram post Friday. If confirmed, Kolesnikov would be the third Russian general to have been canceled on the ground in Ukraine since the invasion began on February 24th, joining Major Generals Vitaly Gerasimov and Andrei Sukhovetsky in a Siberian pine box.

Russia’s Prosecutor General is moving ahead to deem Facebook (aka “Meta”) an “extremist organization” and ban its Instagram and WhatsApp platforms inside the country in response to Facebook allowing content calling for death to Russian troops, the Independent reports. “In accordance with the Federal Law ‘On Countering Extremist Activity’, the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation sent an application to the court to recognize Meta Platforms Inc. as an extremist organization and ban its activities in the territory of the Russian Federation,” said the Prosecutor General’s office in a statement Friday. Facebook proper (along with Twitter) has already been banned inside Russia since just after the beginning of the invasion but its two other products, Instagram and WhatsApp, both very popular locally, had remained online.

“I think that the world sees that Ukrainians are strong and we are witnessing what true leadership looks like and it is not coming from a Congressman in North Carolina facing charges for driving with a revoked license… again,” late night newbie Stephanie Ruhle says during the sign-off of her MSNBC Show.

As a consequence of its invasion of Ukraine, President Joe Biden will revoke Russia’s “most favored nation” trade status Friday in a move to which pretty much everyone reacted by questioning “Russia had ‘most favored nation’ trade status?”

According to the Associated Press, the move has bipartisan support and it will be match by similar revocations by the European Union and the Gang of Seven nations.  The revocation will allow the countries to impose tariffs on Russian products.

Both Facebook and Twitter removed posts made by the Russian Embassy in the United Kingdom alleging the deadly attack on a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine was a legitimate attack on a position that had been evacuated of patients, Reuters reports.

Other Russia disinformation stated that the attack on the hospital happened, but it was not done by Russian forces. Instead, it was an attack by a neo-Nazi battalion in the Ukraine army, the claim goes.  These are false:  a bomb dropped by Russian forces exploded on the hospital grounds, killing three and injuring more than a dozen.

“We took enforcement action against the Tweets you referenced as they were in violation of the Twitter Rules, specifically our Hateful Conduct and Abusive Behavior policies related to the denial of violent events,” said a Twitter spokesperson.

“It’s so shameful that anyone employed as a reporter would do something like that without doing any re–, actual reporting whatsoever, even bothering to learn about the subject and then to scold anyone for asking legitimate questions,” Hungarian tourism tsar and Fox host Tucker Carlson laments, having never actually reported on anything in his life.  “So here’s the problem I have with it:   the government does things that are secret.  We don’t always know what they are, maybe in some cases that’s legitimate, but to attack anyone who, American citizen, who ask honest question as ‘tools of Russia’ seems to me so far out of bounds.  I’m worried this is being established as a precedent.”

During tonight’s broadcast, Carlson seemed very disturbed that he would be thought of as a Russian tool.  After all, he’s just asking questions.

I remember a time when you could get banned from social media for simply stating the country of origin of COVID-19? Now calls for violence against individuals from a country is OK? Truly sick stuff people. pic.twitter.com/EO9nzY0tiT

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) March 10, 2022

Jussie Smollett, the asshole who inspired billions of online comments by Trump fanboys as an excuse for incidents of racial abuse, was sentenced to 150 days in jail for his crime of lying about being attacked by white guys in MAGA hats in Chicago in 2019, CBS News reports.

In a bit of delayed justice, the state of New York has announced a policy to give priority for dispensary licenses for newly-legal marijuana to people who have previously convicted of marijuana-related charges, Reuters reports.

“The regulations advanced by the Cannabis Control Board today will prioritize local farmers and entrepreneurs, creating jobs and opportunity for communities that have been left out and left behind,” Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochul said in a statement.

In approving the measure, lawmakers noted that people convicted of possession crimes were not just jailed and fined, they were banned from receiving federal student aid and they were excluded from many jobs.  The goal is to have people who were punished to get the licenses and then hire others in a similar situation.

The 2022 BWR/ESSENCE Poll of American Black women found that economic anxiety was the top concern among those surveyed, with improving the economy and increasing wages the top issue in the upcoming midterm elections.

The poll also found that 88% of the Black women in the poll said “affordable housing” was one of their top ten concerns, with “protecting Social Security and Medicare” the second top issue overall.

Black women are a bellwether for Democrats in elections:  in years where Black women turn out to the polls in strength, Democrats typically win at the polls.

The Biden Administration says recent flights of missiles by North Korea were the regime testing out a new intercontinental ballistic missile, one that could possibly reliably hit the United States, the Associated Press reports.

Officials in the administration war that the tests could be a prelude to a full-scale test of the missile to check its range and guidance system.  The previous tests–North Korea has fired nine rockets so far this year–only went a few hundred miles and splashed into the sea off Japan or Korea’s northern coast.

The missile was debuted during a military parade in 2020.  North Korea has claimed that recent test firing were to test a new camera it’s developed for a future satellite.

https://youtu.be/fPJ42VArUI4

The US Census Bureau released a report Thursday stating that the 2020 Census undercounted Black, Latino and Native American populations while overcounting white and Asian-Americans, the New York Times reports.

The 2020 Census was fraught with problems–some caused by the pandemic and others by mismanagement of the Trump Administration.  The Department of Commerce, which runs the Census, delayed hiring door knockers and created a shorter window to conduct home surveys, which tries to compensate for missing forms by sending people to homes.  Additionally, the Census count took place at a time where the nation was beset by natural disasters, from California wildfires to severe weather in Texas.

The Trump Administration reportedly intended to sabotage the Constitutionally-mandated counting of the population, which stated the US population increased 5% over the previous decade to 323 million people.  Republicans wanted to undercount Black and minority voters because they tend to vote Democratic, so the GOP wanted to lower their impact so Republicans would control redistricting efforts. 

Besieged by threats, challenges and court orders, American elections officials from local boards to federal watchdogs are exhausted, and a new survey shows one in five set to leave their posts by the upcoming presidential election, NPR reports.

The aftermath of the 2020 election–a clear win for Democrats in the presidential race but unreasonably questioned by Donald Trump supporters–brought the frustration of local officials to a head.

“There’s a crisis in election administration,” said Larry Norden, the senior director of elections and government at the Brennan Center. “[Election administrators] are concerned, and they’re not getting the support that they need.”

Disgraced former General Michael Flynn met Thursday with the House January 6th Select Committee and testified under oath to his involvement with the attempted Trump coup in the weeks following the 2020 election, ABC News reports. Flynn had been subpoenaed by the committee in November 2021 over his connection to a Trump draft executive order to have the military and/or Department of Homeland Security seize voting equipment from the swing states.