ABC13 in Houston has the story on Ed Gonzales’s nomination.

https://youtu.be/YPp1-r5rM9I

In the network’s continuing effort to justify a police officer shooting a Black man in the back, Fox News reporter Griff Jenkins held up a stack of blank sheets claiming that it was a copy of Andrew Brown’s “rap sheet,” which he claimed is 180 pages long.

If you look at the 0:33 second mark of the video, as Jenkins is lowering the exceptionally neat folder of papers, you can clearly see the pages are blank.

Fox News did not explain how Brown’s previous run-ins with the law justified shooting the man in the back five times when he wasn’t a threat to anyone, particularly the deputies that shot him.

A 19-year-old intern for the Idaho legislature has accused 38-year-old Republican legislator Aaron von Ehlinger of Lewiston of raping her after the two had dinner at a Boise restaurant, even after colleagues in the Statehouse warned the representative to stop flirting with female staffers at the capitol, the Associated Press reports.

Numerous women informed their supervisors that von Ehlinger had made inappropriate comments and come-ons to them, with some saying that being around von Ehlinger made them uncomfortable.  The Boise police are investigating the rape allegation, while the legislature’s ethics committee is looking into ongoing complaints about von Ehlinger’s behavior.

The ethics committee reportedly has text messages, letters and transcriptions of interviews the committee did with von Ehlinger, his colleagues, other Statehouse staffers and the young intern who made the rape report, according to records reviewed by the Associated Press.

“What used to be called The Academy Awards, and now is called the ‘Oscars’ – a far less important and elegant name – had the lowest Television Ratings in recorded history, even much lower than last year, which set another record low. If they keep with the current ridiculous formula, it will only get worse – if that’s possible. Go back 15 years, look at the formula they then used, change the name back to THE ACADEMY AWARDS, don’t be so politically correct and boring, and do it right. ALSO, BRING BACK A GREAT HOST. These television people spend all their time thinking about how to promote the Democrat Party, which is destroying our Country, and cancel Conservatives and Republicans. That formula certainly hasn’t worked very well for The Academy!” – Statement from the Office of the Orange God Emperor.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidelines for people’s outdoor activities, saying people who are fully vaccinated can participate in outdoor functions without masks as long as the event isn’t overly crowded, the Washington Post reports.

In loosening the recommendations, the CDC noted that fully-vaccinated people should still wear masks or completely avoid crowded outdoor events because of the continued risk of infection due to developing virus variants or the possibility that they were part of the small percentage of people for whom the vaccination was not effective.  People should wear masks at events likes sporting events, concerts or parades where large numbers of people gather.

People who have not yet been vaccinated can engage in outdoor activities without masks with members of their households, but should maintain safe distancing from people.  Such activities include walking, running or biking. 

The corporate media and the woke mob don’t want you to read this book. They tried to cancel it. They failed. One week until publication – order here https://t.co/Qw1Bovt4Xh

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) April 27, 2021

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “The City Schools of Decatur Board of Education announced Tuesday morning that they are ending the contract for schools superintendent David Dude. The school board said in a released statement that Dude and the board members mutually agreed ‘to amicably part ways.’ His separation comes a week after the board voted to place Dude on paid administrative leave during an investigation into his business conduct. ‘The City Schools of Decatur Board of Education and Dr. David Dude feel it is in the best interest of the school community and our stakeholders that we start anew as we begin our recovery from this terrible pandemic,’ according to the board in a statement. Dude is facing allegations from a lawsuit filed in January by David Adams, a former HR chief who alleges that in 2017, former CFO Susan Hurst told Adams the school board provided ‘an improper salary increase’ by reimbursing Dude’s expenses without receipts. The lawsuit alleged Dude used vacation days that were not tracked in the district’s reporting system.”

The freak out over Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2019 children’s book “Superheroes are Everywhere” supposedly being distributed to migrant kids at government-run shelters is complete nonsense, per a Washington Post fact-check. Long story short, the city of Long Beach, California ran a book and clothing drive for locals to donate books, clothing, and toys to unaccompanied migrants coming from the southern border. One of the books donated happened to be a copy of the VP’s book. A Reuters photographer took a pic of that copy along with other items in the welcome kit, which got picked up by the New York Post, who ran it on their front cover. The MAGA assholes ran with it, per usual, making it sound like taxpayers were footing the bill for hundreds of thousands of copies of the book, as if they were RNC donors with Don Jr and Ted Cruz’s books.

The Washington Post gave it four Pinocchios. Keep in mind it’s only Tuesday and we’re already at two major MAGA controversies collapsing under scrutiny this week – the first being that moronic “Biden wants to ban red meat” shitshow. The one about John Kerry’s probably next.

“Out of office, off of Twitter, still complaining about the election results – the last 100 days or so haven’t been kind to Donald Trump, our new national NBC News poll finds. His ratings among all adults stands at 32 percent favorable, 55 percent unfavorable, which is down from his rating in January (40 percent favorable, 53 percent unfavorable among registered voters), as well as where he was in the poll right before the election (43 percent favorable, 52 percent unfavorable among registered voters)” NBC News reports.

“By comparison, President Biden’s current favorable/unfavorable stands at 50 percent positive, 36 percent negative. Even Trump’s pull within his own party appears to have lessened, with 44 percent of Republicans saying they’re more supporters of Trump than the GOP, versus 50 percent who say they’re more supporters of the GOP than the former president.”

Politico Playbook: “OK, some of you will argue that he lost it long ago. But as careful students of his evening show, we’ve noticed that Carlson has gradually become more unhinged in recent weeks. He’s devoted enormous attention to apologias for the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. He seemed noticeably perturbed the night that DEREK CHAUVIN was found guilty. And under the banner of just asking questions! he has given quarter to anti-vaxxers and Covid-19 conspiracists. But on Monday night, during a rant where it was hard to tell whether Carlson was serious or not – his Trump-like way of distancing himself from the content of his monologues is to always keep you guessing as to whether he’s just putting you on – Carlson made a comment that was beyond the pale even for him, and especially strange for a self-styled anti-nanny state libertarian. ‘Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid at Walmart,’ he said. ‘Call the police immediately, contact child protective services. Keep calling until someone arrives.'”

“My sheep hear my voice;I know them & they follow me.I give them eternal life & they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me,is greater than all & no one can take them out of the Father’s hand.The Father & I are one.”Jn10:27-30

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) April 27, 2021

“A majority of all Americans prioritize ensuring that those who want to vote can do so, rather than making sure no ineligible people can vote, a new NBC News poll finds. But while large majorities of Democrats and independents say they are more concerned with protecting eligible voters’ access to the polls, Republicans overwhelmingly say they are most concerned about making sure ineligible people do not vote. The survey found that 58 percent of Americans say their bigger concern when it comes to voting is ‘making sure that everyone who wants to vote can do so.’ That includes 87 percent of Democrats and 65 percent of independents. A smaller share of all Americans – 38 percent – say they are most concerned about ‘making sure that no one votes who is not eligible to vote.’ More than three-quarters of Republicans – 77 percent – agree” – NBC News.

Daily Beast: “An ongoing ‘audit’ of the 2020 presidential election in Maricopa County, Arizona, is taking its cues straight from a man intimately tied to the QAnon conspiracy theory. President Joe Biden won Arizona – and Maricopa County – in the 2020 election, a victory that was upheld by multiple bipartisan reviews. But last week, a Republican-led coalition launched its own recount of Maricopa County’s votes, a process helmed by a conspiracy-tweeting tech CEO and funded by an unknown slate of donors. The counting has just begun, but already the audit has become almost inextricable from the far-right internet. There, audit-watchers share tips and concerns about security offered by Ron Watkins, a man suspected of helping birth the QAnon craze. The audit, it should be noted, is nonbinding. Arizona’s Republican governor, secretary of state, and state Supreme Court chief justice all previously certified Biden’s victory. Nevertheless, the recount has been embraced by a conspiratorial set seeking to cast doubt on the 2020 election, including former President Donald Trump himself.”

“Watkins is a former administrator of 8kun, the forum that hosted the QAnon conspiracy theory, which falsely accuses Trump’s foes of Satanic pedophilia and cannibalism. A new HBO documentary argues that Watkins is one of the authors behind the conspiracy theory. Watkins, who did not return a request for comment, denies that he is the anonymous ‘Q.’ That hasn’t stopped him from imbuing an outlandish process with an extra dose of paranoia. Even before the audit kicked off, Watkins suggested that it might be attacked by rioters. ‘Will Maricopa county deploy police to protect the auditors from rioters?’ he posted on his Telegram channel in mid-April. ‘Will the police end up standing down? You cannot have information security without physical security.’ He wasn’t the only QAnon-adjacent person stoking those fears. Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn claimed, without evidence, that anti-fascists and Black Lives Matter activists would attack the audit. ‘I’m telling you now, I’ll say it today, because we have intel that they may be bringing people down from Portland and Seattle to disrupt,’ Flynn said during a speech this month. ‘I mean to disrupt finding the truth, discovering the truth?'”

A 24-year-old radio journalist for the Kansas City NPR affiliate was shot and killed in her apartment, apparently by a stray bullet that flew through her window and struck her, NBC News reports.

Aviva Okeson-Haberman was found on the floor of her first floor apartment in the downtown Kansas City.  She was transitioning into a new role in Lawrence, Kansas, 40 miles away, covering social issues and criminal justice for the Kansas News Service, which is a reporting partnership.

Okeson-Haberman had interned at KCUR, the Kansas City NPR affiliate.  She joined the station  in June 2019 as the Missouri politics and government reporter.  “Aviva was brilliant,” KCUR news director Lisa Rodriguez said in the station’s story about her death. “Even as an intern, her approach to storytelling and her ability to hold those in power accountable paralleled many a veteran reporter.”

https://youtu.be/h9MKhY9QPbA

Tucker Carlson, Fox News host (and man who routinely loses online tic-tac-toe games), says that people who wear masks in public should be harassed and shamed because they make virus deniers feel bad.  “It’s our job to brush them back and restore the country we were born in,” Carlson says, saying that his followers should confront mask wearers, who are really the oppressors. 

A group of four-star generals, each in charge of one of nine regional commands around the globe, are urging US intelligence community leaders to declassify for intel on cyber attacks and disinformation campaigns being conducted by Russia and China, according to a report by Politico (which is not pronounced pul-LIH-tah-CYO, Tucker).

A memo from the nine officers hope to gain help from allies in detecting and combating Russian and Chinese “pernicious conduct.”  Those alliances had been damaged by conduct by Russia and China, as well as recent US policy.

“We request this help to better enable the US, and by extension its allies and partners, to win without fighting, to fight now in so-called gray zones, and to supply ammunition in the ongoing war of narratives,” the commanders who oversee U.S. military forces in Asia, Europe, Africa, Latin America, as well as special operations troops, wrote to then-acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire last January.  “Unfortunately, we continue to miss opportunities to clarify truth, counter distortions, puncture false narratives, and influence events in time to make a difference.”

“So far in his young presidency, President Joe Biden has been one of the best friends the stock market has ever had. Better, in fact, than any president before him going back to at least the 1950s and the Dwight Eisenhower administration, as the 46th chief executive has witnessed an unprecedented growth on Wall Street in his first 100 days in office as measured from the time of his election,” reports CNBC. “The S&P 500 has risen 24.1% since Election Day with numbers that easily trounce any of his predecessors.”

“Biden’s first 100 days have already delivered the strongest post-election equity returns in at least 75 years, due to record fiscal stimulus and despite heavy use of Executive Orders,” JPMorgan Chase strategist John Normand said in a note. The results are “not bad for some [former President Donald] Trump labeled as Sleepy Joe during the campaign.”

https://youtu.be/4jlYKLd77BY

Apparently, Fox News host (and guy who wore his bow ties just a little too tight) apparently learned how to say “Politico” for the first time today.  Or he’s having another seizure on camera. It’s amazing for a political commentator because the word “politico” is well known term, and the website has been around since 2007.

Wisconsin is not the place to imply your food contains real mozzarella cheese when it actually may be something less. An Elroy woman has sued food giant Kraft Heinz, saying the packaging of its Bagel Bites Pizza Snacks amounts to fraud. Kaitlyn Huber’s federal lawsuit, filed over the weekend in Madison, says a box featuring the Real Dairy seal, and the large type announcing mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce, are ‘false, deceptive and misleading.’ The suit, which seeks class-action status on behalf of anyone who bought the bites in Wisconsin, asks the court to make Kraft Heinz correct its packaging and for unspecified damages.’ Wisconsin consumers want real mozzarella cheese in pizza because they value (1) its soft, moist texture, (2) its milky, yet tangy taste and (3) its high protein and relatively low calories and sodium compared to other cheeses,’ the suit states.”

“The suggestion that Bagel Bites Pizza Snacks are made with tomato sauce is also bogus, according to Huber’s suit. ‘Reasonable Wisconsin consumers expect a product claiming to contain ‘Tomato Sauce’ will contain only tomato ingredients and seasonings instead of thickeners like cornstarch and methylcellulose,’ it reads” – Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.