Cops in New Hampshire are starting to suspect that a bear or bears may be responsible for kids disappearing from farms in the area in recent months, the New Hampshire Union Leader reports.

“Our officers have investigated the circumstances surrounding the disappearance and have been unable to find any evidence suggesting that someone other than a wild animal like a bear, as Fish and Game indicated, was involved,” said Exeter Police Chief Stephan Poulin in a statement about the missing kids, who were probably eaten after three were taken away from their parents in Exeter on the night of May 25th and another several weeks earlier. An unknown number of kids were also likely consumed in nearby Hampton Falls last month. No adult goats have been affected, just the kids.

“This is an unusual case that’s obviously very distressing to the owners of these goats, which is understandable,” Poulin said, his stomach probably grumbling for a gyro at the thought of it.

“This was a disgrace. This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt. It’s a rigged trial, a disgrace. They wouldn’t give us a venue change. We were at 5 percent or 6 percent in this district, in this area. This was a rigged, disgraceful trial. The real verdict is going to be November 5th by the people. And they know what happened here, and everybody knows what happened here. You have a Soros-backed DA, and the whole thing, we didn’t do a thing wrong. I’m a very innocent man, and it’s okay, I’m fighting for our country. I’m fighting for our Constitution. Our whole country is being rigged right now,” says convicted felon former President Donald Trump in a statement.

Has a nice ring to it, right? “Convicted felon former President Trump.” Think we’ll start using that instead of “fat former President Trump” or “disgraced former President Trump” in every article.

A Manhattan jury on Thursday has found fat former President Trump guilty on ALL 34 counts of falsifying business records in his complicated yet ineptly executed scheme to interfere in the 2016 presidential election by paying hush money to pornstar Stormy Daniels to remain quiet about an approximately two minutes-long sexual encounter in a hotel room near Lake Tahoe in 2006.

🚨🚨🚨 HOLY SHIT! 🚨🚨🚨 BREAKING NEWS! 🚨🚨🚨 A NEW EPISODE OF REPUBLICAN TEXAS SENATOR TED CRUZ’S PODCAST “THE VERDICT WITH TED CRUZ” WAS RELEASED ON WEDNESDAY. LISTEN ON APPLE, SPOTIFY, OR WHEREVER YOU GET YOUR PODCASTS TODAY!

The Biden Administration has quietly given the Ukrainians permission to use US-supplied weapons to attack in inside Russia if they’re launched from the vicinity of Kharkiv, Politico reports.

“The president recently directed his team to ensure that Ukraine is able to use US weapons for counter-fire purposes in Kharkiv so Ukraine can hit back at Russian forces hitting them or preparing to hit them,” an unnamed US official told Politico, adding the overall policy hasn’t changed.

“In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, Senator JD Vance (R-OH) called on the US Department of Justice to open a criminal investigation into Judge Juan Merchan for his illegal deprivation of President Donald J Trump’s First Amendment rights. In his letter, Senator Vance argues Judge Merchan’s conduct against President Trump, including his imposition of a gag order, his refusal to dismiss prospective jurors who harbored obvious anti-Trump bias, and his barring of exculpatory evidence, could amount to criminal deprivation of rights violations under 18 USC §§ 241–42. 18 USC § 241 criminalizes conspiracies to ‘injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate’ others from enjoying their federally protected rights, while § 242 prohibits any person acting under color of law from depriving individuals of their rights under the Constitution and federal law, including officials acting ‘within’ and ‘beyond’ the bounds of their lawful authority. US Supreme Court precedent expressly declares that improper conduct of judges is subject to prosecution under statute.”

“Merchan has imposed a prior restraint on the protected speech of a former president who is now leading presidential polling of the next election. On Merchan’s orders, a Republican presidential candidate has been made powerless to question the credibility of the witnesses testifying against him, the motivations of the prosecutors pursuing him, or the impartiality of the apparently conflicted judge fining him… Merchan has not been content to deprive President Trump of only his First Amendment rights, either. As a criminal defendant, President Trump is entitled to a fair trial by an impartial jury. Merchan has done his best to deprive Trump of both… When it comes to the admission and exclusion of evidence, Merchan has been just as shameless. He has bent over backwards to allow the prosecution to introduce whatever evidence it wants, eg, by allowing a prosecution witness to testify at length about the alleged details of an unproven sexual episode with no relevance to the underlying charges. But he has taken a strong hand against defense evidence at every opportunity,” says a press release from d-bag Senator JD Vance’s office.

The “It’s never a drag queen” meme crowd are going to love this one: The Boston Globe reports that Portsmouth, Rhode Island Neo-Nazi Stephen Thomas Farrea, 34, was arrested last week on felony charges of possession of child pornography charges. Farrea’s a member of the Nationalist Social Club-131, a MAGA Nazi group famous for – wait for it – disrupting drag queen story hours.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Thursday responded to Senate Democrats’ calls for a meeting over Sedition Sam Alito’s flag fuckery with a thanks but no thanks, the AP reports.

“I must respectfully decline your request for a meeting. As noted in my letter to Chairman Durbin last April, apart from ceremonial events, only on rare occasions in our Nation’s history has a sitting Chief Justice met with legislators, even in a public setting (such as a Committee hearing) with members of both major political parties present. Separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence counsel against such appearances. Moreover, the format proposed a meeting with leaders of only one party who have expressed an interest in matters currently pending before the Court – simply underscores that participating in such a meeting would be inadvisable,” Roberts wrote in response to Senators Dick Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse’s request.

“Traffic on a pair of California highways turned into a jam when a truck loaded with strawberries overturned, dropping barrels of the fruit into the road. The California Highway Patrol said the overturned truck, carrying about 40,000 pounds of fruit, blocked the northbound connector ramps to Highway 101 and Interstate 880 in San Jose on Wednesday morning and was leaning over a guardrail. The ramps were closed as crews worked to lift the truck upright and remove the fallen barrels of strawberries,” wrote some prick who works for UPI wire service, emphasis ours, to show everyone just how goddamned clever and witty he is with reporting these sort of things.

Oooh look at you Mr Whimsy, taking dry news and making it a little more lighthearted and fun for the whole family. Bet you really felt good about yourself with that “jam” line, didn’t you? Must’ve had that idea for a while, waiting for the perfect moment to break it out when a produce truck or maybe a freight train car or cargo ship or whatever spilled a shit ton of berries following an accident.

Right? Well riddle us this: If you’re so snappy and quick-witted then why didn’t you also write that it was a “berry messy commute for local drivers”? Ouch, right? You’ll probably regret that one for a while. Maybe the rest of your life, right up until you die and they berry you in the ground! LOL!

“Apprentice Employee Claims Trump Used N-Word, Discriminated Against Black Americans on Set – Trump: ‘I mean, would America buy a n- winning?’ A bombshell report this morning from a former ‘Apprentice’ producer newly released from his NDA recalled Donald Trump’s racism on the set of his show and outlined a damning account of Trump using the N-word to refer to a Black finalist on the show, questioning whether the American people would ‘buy’ a Black American winning a show about prowess in business, and fighting back against his colleagues’ recommendation to hire him. The account is just the latest example of textbook racism from Donald Trump, who discriminated against Black tenants, suggested the Exonerated Five should face the death penalty, and launched his political career spreading the racist birther conspiracy theory against President Barack Obama.”

“Biden-Harris 2024 Black Media Director Jasmine Harris released the following statement: ‘No one is surprised that Donald Trump, who entered public life by falsely accusing Black men of murder and entered political life spreading lies about the first Black president, reportedly used the N-word to casually denigrate a successful Black man. Anyone notice a pattern? Donald Trump is exactly who Black voters know him to be: a textbook racist who disrespects and attacks the Black community every chance he gets, and the most ignorant man to ever run for president. It’s why Black voters kicked him out of the White House in 2020, and it’s why they’ll make him a loser a second time this November,'” says the Biden-Harris campaign in a statement on Trump talking like his voters.

I’ve been saying from the beginning.

We will vote for President Donald J Trump even if he’s in jail.

A wrongful conviction will bring a landslide for Trump, and prove to America, Democrats are the party of corruption, communism, and tyrants.

Go ahead, pull the curtain back.

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) May 30, 2024

Look, we’re not trying to load you up with hopium and say fat former President Trump’s an absolute lock to become a convicted felon and that would then subsequently make President Joe Biden an absolute lock for reelection. We cannot however help but note how similar this vile maniac sounds to the main Republican line about the political fallout after Dems pulled the trigger and impeached him in 2019. Like the propaganda machine was fucking overheating with declarations that the foregone conclusion of his acquittal would ensure a landslide reelection victory and a deluge of libtard tears.

How’d that work out? Yeah, you could say COVID was what actually cost Trump reelection (and without COVID George Floyd wouldn’t have been murdered, which was what made it close in the end). But keep in mind he was pretty unpopular before the pandemic and there were plenty of early polls before then showing an uphill battle. The whole Impeachment 1.0 clusterfuck also trained the media to tune out the other, later shit about Hunter Biden, especially the “October Surprise” laptop.

The campaign would’ve been about Trump’s lawlessness and corruption, giving Joe Biden plenty to work with. They’re virtues to his base and no one else. It is not a good thing if “convicted felon” is prepended to his name. No amount of gaslighting by this mutant and her ilk is going to unring that bell. It may not guarantee his defeat but in no fucking universe does it actually help him. That the MAGA dickbags just going to say this shit anyway (again) should tell you that they know it too.

A new YouGov/Economist survey bring worrying signs for archconservative Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas as their favorability ratings find them 7 percent and 10 percent underwater, respectively, while concerns over their personal conduct and connections to shady MAGA billionaires grow. The pollsters found just 26 percent of respondents view Alito favorably to 33 percent unfavorably, the remaining 41 percent saying they don’t know enough to form an opinion, while Thomas is at 31 percent favorable, 41 percent unfavorable, and 28 percent don’t know.

And when we say these numbers are “worrying signs” we’re trying to posit a theoretical scenario in which the two of them actually care what regular Americans think about them and would rightly make an attempt to become more open about the process in which they make their decisions that have far-reaching consequences on people’s lives as well as make a renewed commitment to being held to the highest standards of integrity. Like it’s absolutely possible that they could want to polish their respective public images, so accordingly we’re going to frame our coverage of this poll as such.

Not is only is that totally within the realm of potential outcomes here, it’s also an important tenet of journalistic ethics to operate on the assumption that the most powerful jurists in our nation would be steadfast in their adherence to democratic principles and thus responsive to public opinion. Any less would be a serious breach of the decorum expected of we in the Fourth Estate.

Former Apprentice producer Bill Pruitt, whose NDA just expired after 20 years, writes in Slate that then-corrupt businessman/game show host referred to the first season’s runner-up, Kwame Jackson, as the n-word when deciding to choose his white guy, Bill Rancic, as the competition’s winner. And it’s on tape, somewhere, as the production staff recorded all behind the scenes meetings to determine the outcome, but Pruitt is less than optimistic it can be found.

Slate adds that the other two people in the room, showrunner Jay Bienstock and then-Trump Organization Executive VP Carolyn Kepcher did not reply to requests for comments about the incident. Pruitt writes earlier in the piece (which is chock full of other embarrassing shit) that he’s come to believe that the tape of this exchange and others “will never be found.”

Jury deliberations resume Thursday in fat former President Trump’s Manhattan pornstar payoff hush money trial and as such there’s no real reason to do a live blog feed to cover every single little minute update in however long it takes for them to hopefully do the right thing. We’ll replace the above video feed with a clip of Donald’s ranting when it happens. If it happens.

Whoa, you may need to sit down for this one: A shocking new report in Politico says that in the event former President Trump is convicted by the jury in his New York pornstar hush money case, he and his campaign plan to simply spin it is a “win” for him and boldly deny its legal legitimacy.

That’s fucking crazy, right? It gets better. “Insiders” say the “spin” will entail “leaning in” to an image of Trump as a persecuted victim of an abusive justice system run by Democrats. That’s so mind-blowingly outside the box that political scientists are going to be studying the strategy for years.

But wait! There’s more: Trump may also use an adverse outcome to portray himself as a resilient “fighter” whose sheer force of will transcends the petty machinations of the bookworm Democrats who live in a cloistered world defined by dated rules and nebbishy “norms” of governance.

Watch out media! This Donald Trump guy just might know a thing or two about attracting attention.

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday told Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman he plans to set a date and time within the next eight weeks for Israeli dictator Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress to help “Bibi” advance his genocidal, far right agenda in both the US and Israel.

Colorado law will require disclosure of AI-generated content in political ads https://t.co/1cjcU71Y3s

— John Solomon (@jsolomonReports) May 30, 2024

Though the situation on the ground in Ukraine has been better for them lately thanks to Republicans in Congress taking way too fucking long to send more aid to Kyiv, Russian military conscripts still have it pretty rough and leaders are looking for new ways to make it seem like less of a violent nightmare to those bound for the front. The Daily Beast reports one Russian Orthodox Church leader has conjured up a new way to improve morale: Tell men they can be miraculously resurrected.

“In war, there are no unbelievers! When you are facing physical death, every fiber of your soul comes alive. Right now, there are many wonderful testimonies of Christ’s victory over death. My wife sends me many military testimonies and video clips. Before Lent, I watched a video about one Chinese man who participated in the special military operation. A bullet hit him in the stomach, destroying all of his insides. He died from this and then was resurrected,” Russian Orthodox Church Archpriest Artemiy Vladimirov said during a bit on Russia’s state-run version of Fox News earlier this month.

“Saint Luke of Crimea appeared to him and completely healed him, his insides were fully restored. He was baptized along with his relatives, all of them are photographed together, dressed in white clothes, baptized into our Orthodox Church,” Vladmirov continued, unsubtly telling fans of the Soyuz TV network they could be resurrected in combat too if they just have some faith in the Holy Kremlin.