A sailor on a US Navy minesweeper bound for the Strait of Hormuz had a little monkey mishap on a beach in Phuket, Thailand and had to be medically evacuated back to base in Japan for treatment due to a scratch inflicted by the small primate, Axios reports without further detail on the attack.

“Weird stuff happens. This was definitely an unknown unknown,” an official said. The assailant is thought to be a long-tailed macaque, both ubiquitous in Thailand and aggressive toward humans. Whether the attack was somehow provoked is unclear but the monkey ought to be spanked.

Oh wait, wrong video feed. Meant to paste in the Trump one…

Binge-drinking date rapist Pete Hegseth on Wednesday fired Navy Secretary John Phelan over what Fox News actual journalist Jennifer Griffin reports was Phelan’s refusal to ignore a federal court blocking the Pentagon from punishing Dem Senator Mark Kelly for the “Don’t Give Up The Ship” video from about five months ago. For those keeping score at home the Navy is currently on a mission to blockade the Strait of Hormuz and Hegseth fired its top official for complying with a federal court order blocking them from retaliating against a US Senator who publicly urged service members of their responsibility to refuse illegal orders and to not to commit war crimes.

Lacking any further specifics, Al Jazeera reports in a live update that Iran’s Nour ⁠and Mehr news agencies are claiming that “Air defense batteries ‌had ​been activated ​in parts ⁠of Tehran.”

The immediate previous update in the live feed quotes Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz saying the IDF is “awaiting a green light from the US – first and foremost to complete the elimination of the Khamenei dynasty… and additionally to return Iran to the Dark Age and the Stone Age by destroying key energy and electricity facilities and dismantling its national economic infrastructure.”

“When socialist democrats don’t believe laws should be enforced, or believe judges should legislate from the bench, then their opinions on how well someone does those things are irrelevant” – Top comment on the Fox News article “Poll: 56 percent doubt White House’s competence at managing government,” posted Wednesday and, most damningly, sourced from their own polling.

That’s actually pretty good… for a political cohort full of mental children. Evidently they realized the old “THESE POLLS ARE FUCKING FAKE” wasn’t really doing it anymore and switched it up to “These polls don’t matter because of our subjective spin on how 56 percent of these respondents feel.”

The same poll also found Dems up +4 on Republicans on the economy for the first time since 2010.

SHOCKER: People who own shares of Warner Bros would like to see them increase in value regardless of the downstream effects on American news and entertainment media, Axios reports.

“Iran is having a very hard time figuring out who their leader is! They just don’t know! The infighting is between the ‘Hardliners,’ who have been losing BADLY on the battlefield, and the ‘Moderates,’ who are not very moderate at all (but gaining respect!), is CRAZY! We have total control over the Strait of Hormuz. No ship can enter or leave without the approval of the United States Navy. It is ‘Sealed up Tight,’ until such time as Iran is able to make a DEAL!!!” posted grandpa on Thursday morning, leaving no hint of how much of his little story is happening in his head as opposed to somehow, maybe kind of tenuously connected to reality in a way that if you make a few inferences…

Maybe he should have an AI rewrite them for him before he posts. That might help.

1. This is fake. Democrats do not have this money.

2. WSJ is acting like a DCCC press shop here.

3. What’s not fake is massive GOP money, which will make every House DEM fight for their political life.

Republicans can sleep well. https://t.co/ryc1bnZcM0

— James Blair (@JamesBlairUSA) April 23, 2026

Moonlighting as a young woman who effs older guys for cash and gifts, 29 year-old Homeland Security Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism Julia Varvaro cleaned up over $40,000 in cash and gifts in just three months from an older divorced dad. Then he found her profile on another Sugar Daddy site and told the Daily Mail everything, leading to what Fox News reports is a leave of absence. It’s not clear if Markwayne Mullin suspended Varvaro for embarrassing the Department or for never telling him about her other job. Suppose there could be other possible reasons.

“Republican Red Winery today announced it has received three prestigious awards at the 2026 Monterey International Wine Competition, including Best of Show and Platinum for its America 250 Sparkling Wine (scored 94 points) and Gold for its Vino MAHA Cabernet Franc (scored 91 points).”

“The Monterey International Wine Competition is recognized as one of the nation’s respected wine judging events, bringing together experienced industry professionals including winemakers, sommeliers, wine writers, retailers, and educators. Wines are evaluated through a rigorous blind tasting process designed to ensure impartiality, with judges assessing entries based on quality, balance, structure, varietal expression, aroma, and finish. At a time when the US wine industry is experiencing declining consumption and an oversupply of grapes, Republican Red Winery continues to expand its portfolio through thoughtfully developed releases that resonate with consumers seeking meaning and connection in the products they choose. By focusing on craftsmanship, American sourcing, and wines tied to cultural moments and shared values, the winery has identified a distinct niche that continues to support growth even amid broader industry headwinds,” says a Wednesday press release from said winery and this is just so, so maddeningly fucking stupid.

They could’ve just slapped “Trantifa Reserve” on the bottle and it’d be the sa- Forget it. It’s this deeply sus “Monterey International Wine Competition” that merits scrutiny as it carries the air of the little fake “Palme d’Or” emblems you see on the marketing for some dogshit B-movie that, when you look close at them, turn out to say “Entrant, 2025 North Platte Film Festival” or similar.

No kidding … https://t.co/645OoVPdVA

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 23, 2026

Nobody who Politico talked to – including his own fellow New Jersey Republicans – has seen or heard from Congressman Tom Kean Jr since March 5th, fueling questions about whether he’s actually still alive on top of the more prosaic political problem of representing a swing district but not voting on the floor of Congress for nearly two months. “I don’t even know the truth myself or even enough to disclose any information,” Union County GOP Chair Carlos Santos said. “But I have been texting with him and was told he’ll be fine and make a full recovery in the next couple weeks.”

Note how the guy said “texting” and not “called” or “seen in person” or “FaceTimed,” etc.

Having given up on messaging like “We lowered your gas and grocery prices,” “ICE is protecting American citizens from violent illegal alien maniacs who would shoot them four times in the face unprovoked,” “Bill Clinton is the only president with alleged to have raped Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking victims,” “We’re entitled to five more seats,” “Look at how awesome our Obamacare replacement plan is,” and “The Big Beautiful Bill cut taxes for working families,” the top minds of the Trump and Republican Party political messaging teams held a little powwow at the former Trump DC Hotel to come up with a game plan for the next six months of the usual overdone propaganda ops.

According to CNN, the best that White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Team Orange top strategist James Blair, and other MAGA minions could come up with was “You think everything sucks now? It’ll be even worse if Democrats win the House and Senate.” Now that was not a direct quote, but the actual summation from one of the scumbags present was that Dems want “to make it a referendum on, ‘Do you think everything is perfect?’ For us, it’s about, do you want to go forward and continue the work that is being successful and finish the job? Or go backwards to record inflation and high crime?” without so much of a hint of irony on the tonal overlap with “We’re not going back!”

Remember how confident Dems were that Americans would not return to power the convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, the bloated corpse endowed like a piglet tail who lasted approximately 120 seconds during a coerced sexual encounter with a porn star, the racist criminal shitbrain who thought bleach would be a viable COVID treatment? Shouldn’t top Republicans actually kind of understand that better that anyone given their successful memory-holing campaign of 2024?

“A RIGGED ELECTION TOOK PLACE LAST NIGHT IN THE GREAT COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA! All day long Republicans were winning, the Spirit was unbelievable, until the very end when, of course, there was a massive ‘Mail In Ballot Drop!’ Where have I heard that before – And the Democrats eked out another Crooked Victory! Six to five goes to ten to one, and yet the Presidential Election in November was very close to a 50-50 split. In addition to everything else, the language on the Referendum was purposefully unintelligible and deceptive. As everyone knows, I am an extraordinarily brilliant person, and even I had no idea what the hell they were talking about in the Referendum, and neither do they! Let’s see if the Courts will fix this travesty of ‘Justice!'” posted the sore fucking loser on Wednesday after a loss that would have been wider if his minions hadn’t begged him to stay out of the state or otherwise they would’ve gotten absolutely crushed.

For the second time in two days the current House GOP majority’s margin grew by one as Georgia Dem Congressman David Scott died Wednesday at the age of 80, Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman reports on an exit obviously far more tragic than that of Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick’s.

Verbatim from the first few sentences of The Independent’s Tuesday report about a British gas station owner suffering £2,000 in thefts since convicted felon President Trump attacked Iran:

“‘If someone steals £100 worth of fuel from us, that is £100 out of my profit for the day,’ Goran Raven said. ‘It’s absolutely a straight loss for us.’ Speaking from his Shell garage in Romford, east London, Mr Raven said he’s lost around £2,000 to fuel theft since the war between Iran and the US broke out on 28 February. Higher pump prices in the wake of the Iran war have meant his fourth-generation family-run business has suffered a significant blow as more people take off without paying.”

Emphasis added on the last part, because, well… British gas stations don’t require you to pay first before you pump? Sure, there’s plenty to be said here about the needless privations inflicted upon people in a country completely removed from the destructive hubris of that fat, saggy orange fuck and the Israeli tyrant that suckered him into the attack on Iran, the reminder that even if a retail establishment bears the logo of a large multinational corporation oftentimes it’s owned and operated by a person in your community who feels it more than Walmart does when you treat yourself to a pack of AA-batteries at the self-checkout as recompense for greedflation, and so on in this story.

There’s a lot else to be said here and yet, what the fuck? What gas pumps in the US can be activated by means other than (A) from the control panel operated by the cashier after you hand them $50 and tell them the pump number or (B) by swiping your credit/debit card at the pump itself?

Evidently having decided that if they already went bankrupt twice then it couldn’t happen again, convicted felon President Trump’s minions are close to announcing a $500 million rescue package for widely-disliked airline Spirit, the Wall Street Journal reports on more waste, fraud, and abuse.

Now sure, there’s so much stupider and often evil shit that much larger sums of taxpayer funds are pissed away on by this regime and there are thousands of regular folks like pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, gate agents, and so on who will be out of a job sooner rather than in a few years when it goes bankrupt anyway… then it’ll be “Gavinomics” or “Kamalanomics” that did Spirit Airlines in.

Anyway, if the cost of jet fuel had not spiked recently because of “certain international developments” then Spirit would not be facing such imminent oblivion. Whether they would be “fine” is a different question subject to interpretation, but it’s unambiguous that the US government would NOT be fucking throwing good money after bad if the demented old corpse in the White House had simply listened to his neckbeard Vice President and not launched his moronic crusade in Iran.

Hey America, let’s look super busy and productive in DC by having no fewer than five simultaneous hearings. Please don’t look at it the other way in that these could be more spread out on the calendar if Congress was actually in town more often instead of days off for campaigning, attending fundraisers, vacations with lobbyists, hanging out at Mar-a-Lago, and other not actual work.