The House Homeland Security Committee announced that the two ranking members of the committee have come to an agreement to form an independent commission to investigate the facts and circumstances of the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol.

As posted by Scott Wong of The Hill, Democratic Chairman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Republican Ranking Member John Katko of New York announced that the 10-member commission will have a chair appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy will appoint the vice chair.

Each party will be able to appoint four other members, who “must have significant experience in the areas of law enforcement, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, intelligence and(/or) cybersecurity.”  The members of the commission do not have to members of Congress, as was the case with the 9/11 commission.

“And with that, it’s over. Elise Stefanik was decidedly selected as GOP conference chair by secret ballot. Final vote count: 134-46” reports Axios’s Alayna Treene.

“Isn’t it incredible that of the vaccines, which I and my Administration came up with years ahead of schedule (despite the fact that including Fauci, said would never happen), that we no longer need masks, and yet our names are not even mentioned in what everybody is calling the modern day miracle of the vaccines? Without the vaccines, this world would have in for another 1917 Spanish Flu, where up to million died. Because of the vaccines we pushed and developed in record time, nothing like that will be even close to Just a mention please! The Biden Administration had zero to do with it. All they did was continue our plan of distribution, which was working well right from the beginning!” – Statement from the Orange God Emperor.

“Alright I’m gunna say it. FUCK TRUMP! Fuck him more than Biden. I’ve followed this guy for 4 years and given everything and lost it all. Yes he woke us up, but he led us to believe some great justice was upon us…and it never happened, now I’ve got some of my good friends and myself facing jail time cuz we followed this guys lead and never questioned it. We are now and always have been on our own. so glad he was able to pardon a bunch of degenerates as his last move and shit on us on the way out. Fuck you Trump you left us on [t]he battle field bloody and alone” – Chat message written by Proud Boys captain Ethan Nordean on January 20th, per DOJ pretrial motion doc.

Don’t fall for Joe and Kamala’s political games with masks.
 
Instead:
 
Get the vaccine.
⬇️
Take the mask off. 
⬇️
Return to regular life. pic.twitter.com/6gsAHxm8q8

— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) May 14, 2021

The Independent: “The first bottles of a so-called ‘artisanal spirit’ made out of apples grown near to Chernobyl have been seized by Ukrainian authorities. According to the Chernobyl Spirit Company, 1,500 bottles of their Atomik spirit were confiscated on 19 March. These bottles were then taken to the Kyiv Prosecutor’s office where they are now undergoing investigation. The spirit is apparently the first consumer product to have been made in Chernobyl since the nuclear disaster struck there in 1986. The company that makes the spirit is run by scientists who work and carry out studies in the 4,000 square kilometre Chernobyl exclusion zone. These studies have included growing crops there to see whether or not food grown there could be safe for consumption.”

“In producing the spirit, researchers hoped to show how land could be put back to productive use, with the idea that eventually communities there could grow and sell produce. This is something which is currently illegal on the ‘officially contaminated land.’ The shipment was apparently taken from a truck at a distillery in the Carpathians and it is thought that Ukrainian authorities seized the batch over some confusion around excise stamps. Prof Jim Smith, a scientist who has studied the exclusion zone for many years and set up the Chernobyl Spirit Company with Ukrainian colleagues explained how this would not ‘make sense’ especially ‘since the bottles are for the UK market and are clearly labelled with valid UK excise stamps,’ reported the BBC. Prof Smith explained that the spirit was ‘no more radioactive than any other vodka.’ Since it was first produced in 2019, the professor and his colleagues have adjusted their recipe to make an apple-based spirit with fruit grown in the Narodichi district, an area just beyond the exclusion zone where agriculture and development is currently still very restricted.”

https://youtu.be/1Ct7yYnZOuo

Michael Fanone, a Washington DC Metropolitan police officer who was attack and tased when he responded to defend the Capitol from the domestic terrorists attacking on January 6th told CNN’s Don Lemon that those members of the GOP downplaying the attack are lying, and pushing that lie is an insult to the officers who were injured protecting them.

“I’m not interested in getting into political squabbles.  I’m not a politician,” Fanone said.  “I’m not an elected official.  I don’t expect anybody to give two shits about my opinions, but I will say this:  Those are lies and peddling that bullshit is an assault on every officer that fought to defend the Capitol.  It’s disgraceful.”

https://youtu.be/Sy0JsogbYrA

Louisiana Republican Congressman Steve Scalise amazingly claims the President Joe Biden “inherited the hottest economy we’ve ever seen.”

For the record, in 2020:  9.6 million people lost their jobs.  The GDP shrank 4.27%.  More than half a million people died in a pandemic.

But then Scalice once spoke to a KKK meeting and didn’t realize it was a meeting of the Klan.  He’s not very smert.

The Republican-dominated Texas legislature passed a bill that will effectively ban most abortions after six weeks, and Republican Governor Greg Abbott said he would sign the bill, the Texas Tribune reports.

The so-called “Texas Heartbeat Act” relies on a medically-dubious claim that life begins when a claimed heartbeat is heard in the fetus.  The Supreme Court standard is the viability of the fetus, which happens after 24 weeks of pregnancy, and a six-week limit means a number of women will be ineligible to get an abortion because they didn’t realize they were pregnant.

In the Texas bill, any person can challenge a woman’s ability to have an abortion simply by claiming she is more than six weeks pregnant.  The person challenging the abortion does not need to have an individual connection to the patient, the provider or the facility where the abortion would be performed.  The law would allow any individual to sue, forcing the woman to go to a court–at an undetermined timeframe–to prove that she was six weeks or less pregnant. 

Andrew Giuliani, the reported offspring of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani (but who’s never had a Gary Busey paternity test), claims that he doesn’t want to live in a country that enforces its laws.  Well, he doesn’t want to live in a country that holds all citizens to the same standards of law.

I mean, Junior Busey doesn’t want to live in a country that thinks his assumed father should be held to any legal standard… ’cause what happened to him can happen to you. 

https://youtu.be/o4Ky0RyNsnQ

“If the camel lady is wearing a mask outside while kissing her husband, that does not inspire confidence at a– at all,” Fox News host and frozen food trust fund baby Tucker Carlson says, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris as “the camel lady” as he continues to undermine government guidance on the coronavirus and vaccines.

Please forgive the quality of this video.  It’s taken directly from the broadcast.

Bill Maher, host of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” has tested positive for the coronavirus after receiving his coronavirus vaccine, Variety reports.

The 65-year-old Maher, who frequently rants on his show about how healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle stave off most diseases and how the America’s health issues can be largely eliminated if people just lost weight and ate healthier foods, was forced to cancel the live broadcast of his show, which had been filming before a live audience.

“Bill tested positive during weekly staff PCR testing for COVID. He is fully vaccinated and as a result is asymptomatic and feels fine,” HBO said. ” ‘Real Time’ production has taken every precaution following COVID CDC guidelines. No other staff or crew members have tested positive at this time. The show will be rescheduled at a later date.”

https://youtu.be/ub7nuoL2VOg

Fake farmer, California Republican Congressman, and future co-conspiracy defendant Devin Nunes thinks we’re all missing the lesson of a ransomware attack on a private company that secure its IT systems.

“There’s a couple things we need to learn from this.  One is, we need more pipelines.  We should not be reliant on only one pipeline.  That’s the whole point of the Keystone Pipeline that Biden stopped on his first day,” Nunes claims.

Well, Nunes is wrong.  The Colonial Pipeline transported refined petroleum products–gasoline and aviation fuel–from refiners to transfer points along the East Coast, so it could go to consumers.  The Keystone Pipeline–which is in operation and not canceled as Nunes would like to have you believe–brings unprocessed crude oil to refineries in Texas, from which it is put on the global market so a Canadian oil company doesn’t have to pay Canadian tax on profits.

Screenshot of fundraising email for Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ Arkansas gubernatorial campaign.

https://youtu.be/wDdJNmvlp4I

Wyoming Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney took to Fox News–and took it to Fox News–for their continuing encouragement of the delusions of Donald Trump.

“We all have an obligation–and I would say Fox News especially, especially Fox News–has a particular obligation to make sure people know the election wasn’t stolen–” Cheney starts after Fox News host Bret Baier questioned her ability to lead Republicans who continue to support Trump and encourage his ongoing lie about the November 2020 elections.

“We’ve said that many time,” Bret Baier interrupts.

“Bret, I’m going to answer your question,” Cheney continues.  “Fox News needs to make sure that the American people–

IDF air and ground troops are currently attacking in the Gaza Strip.

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 13, 2021

New York Times: “Israel sent its military into Gaza early Friday, a major escalation of violence between Palestinians firing rockets into Israel and Israeli forces carrying out airstrikes in Gaza.  It was not immediately clear if the Israeli incursion was a limited bid to destroy rocket bases or kill leaders of Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, or if it was a full-fledged invasion akin to the one in 2014 that killed more than 2,000 Palestinians.

“The news was announced by the Israeli Defense Forces with a one-line tweet at 12:22 a.m. (5:22 p.m. Thursday on the East Coast of the United States): ‘IDF air and ground troops are currently attacking in the Gaza Strip.’  An Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, confirmed that ‘There are ground troops attacking in Gaza, together with air forces as well.'”

Harry Litman:  “Two things the Greenberg plea tells you, both ominous for Gaetz: 1) DOJ has concluded Gaetz is more culpable than Greenberg in his conduct; i.e w/o regard to his being a Congressman, which Merrick Garland’s DOJ would set to the side. In the phrase that Gaetz will be very sorry to have used and that will show up repeatedly at trial if there is one, Greenberg was the “wingman,” Gaetz the head pilot.

“2. DOJ has conduced that Greenberg is telling the truth AND that he will be a useful witness to a jury. Given his litany of sleazy dishonest crimes, which will make his impeachment a bloodbath, that suggests to me that DOJ has corroborating evidence, eg. testimony from the young woman whom Greenberg will say Gaetz had sex with when she was 17.”

(Minor note:  Gaetz cannot be impeached; impeachment is something only for officials in the executive and judicial branches.  Gaetz, however, can be expelled from the House with a vote of two-thirds within the House.)

“A former staffer is suing U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), accusing the congressman of taking a ‘reckless’ approach to COVID-19, exposing his staff and himself to the virus. The suit alleges the congressman flouted U.S. House safety rules, ignored warnings about unsafe conditions, and required staff to provide personal favors and tasks for the congressman’s family.”

“The suit also accuses the congressman of sleeping in his congressional office in D.C. after he knew his staffers were exposed to the coronavirus. The lawsuit also said the congressman allowed his son to live in a storage space in the basement of the Capitol for weeks when his son was relocating to Washington” – NBC Washington.

Getting vaccinated = seeing smiles again. 💕

— Jill Biden (@FLOTUS) May 13, 2021

https://youtu.be/Mh2FiCsMVZ0

Cue the maniacal laughter.  In a statement sure to outrage Fox News hosts, President Joe Biden addressed the nation this afternoon celebrating the new CDC guidelines reducing mask-wearing and social distancing recommendations for fully-vaccinating people.

Talking about people who will continue to feel more comfortable and safe wearing a face mask, Biden said, “So if [you see] someone with a mask, … please treat them with kindness and respect.  We’ve had too much conflict, too much bitterness, too much anger, too  much politicization of this issue, about wearing a mask.”