“Join us for a historic moment at the 2024 Libertarian National Convention as we welcome former President Donald J Trump to the podium. This momentous occasion will mark the first time a former President directly addresses our members, candidates, and executive committee. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear insights from a prominent figure in American politics and watch him engage with Libertarian ideals,” says a page on the Libertarian National Party’s official website. Then it says “Be sure to register for the convention and cast your vote on the topics President Trump will address during his time at the podium. If you aren’t able to make it to convention, no problem! You can still register to vote in this poll by paying the $10 entry fee at the bottom of this page,” lol.

No idea what the hell’s going on here other than maybe Trump is trying to win the party’s nomination so he doesn’t have to worry about an actual Libertarian candidate taking votes from him. The 2020 candidate Jo Jorgensen had ended up taking more votes than the deltas between Biden and Trump in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin – and also came close in Pennsylvania – so whether or not Jorgensen was really an actual “spoiler” against him it would probably make him feel just a little bit more comfortable to have all the third party dipshits be from the “left” this year.

President Joe Biden will address the NAACP Detroit Branch’s 69th annual Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner in Detroit on May 19th, a major stop in front of 10,000 guests, the Detroit News reports.

Court documents filed in former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shae Moss’s lawsuit against now-technically bankrupt extremist fake news outlet the Gateway Pundit obtained in discovery and then picked up by the Guardian reveal that the crew had “major concerns as to the professionalism, reliability, and honesty of several contributors, including Jordan Conradson, who wrote some of the” articles defaming the Georgia mother-daughter duo as Soros-paid saboteurs who tampered with ballots to steal the 2020 election from fat former President Trump.

Freeman and Moss’s lawyers asserted they have an email by Gateway’s counsel John Burns, who warned staff not to rely on a “source” in Georgia named Kevin Moncla, writing that he’s a “goddamned fraud” is a “known fabricator. I wouldn’t touch/publish anything he produces.” And an email from Moncla telling a reporter he will “help you nail these bitches,” referring to the two.

Moncla, who in 2006 was ordered to pay a $3.25 million civil judgment after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor voyeurism charge for hiding a camera in his home’s bathroom to spy on people, wrote in an email that Burns was “entitled to his opinion, as I am entitled to mine. I would challenge the son of a bitch to provide any support for such statements – in the multiple articles I have ghost-written for his client, The Gateway Pundit, or otherwise. I stand by my work and my statements as I invest the time to do the work and research and take very seriously what I publish.” Moncla had managed to obtain Freeman and Moss’s non-public employment files from the Fulton County elections commission, which was probably the only actual real information he got on which to base his defamatory assault on the women who won $148 million from Rudy Giuliani last year.

The Guardian notes that the filing, submitted to a St Louis federal court on April 16th, probably explains why Gateway Pundit founder Jim Hoft filed for bankruptcy protection a week later.

Well here we go again with another ridiculous “Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government,” and again it’s on “the Biden White House’s censorship regime.” On deck as witnesses are Rob Flaherty, former Assistant to the President and Director of Digital Strategy at the Biden White House, Andy Slavitt, former Senior Advisor for the Biden White House’s COVID-19 Response Team, Todd Zywicki, Professor, Antonin Scalia Law School, and Matt Seligman, Fellow, Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School. Should be entertaining for a little while at least.

On Tuesday Virginia Dem Congressman Gerry Connolly announced he would move to disband Jordan’s sad, stupid, failed committee. “It is safe to say this effort is not even in the same league as the January 6th Committee. Two-thirds of the Subcommittee’s hearings this Congress have been on the Twitter Files. Majority witness after majority witness has been coaxed out of the shadows of conspiracy theory only to wither under the lights at our witness table,” said Connolly in a statement.

“Speaker Johnson released the following statement on Congresswoman Greene’s announcement that she intends to call a vote to remove the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives: ‘This motion is wrong for the Republican Conference, wrong for the institution, and wrong for the country,'” says Mike Johnson’s office in a very brief statement on the QAdulteress’s terrorist threats.

“A seemingly innocent online connection turned into a nightmare for one Arcadia man when he traveled to Wauchula to meet with a woman he had met on social media. What began as flirtatious banter quickly escalated into a harrowing ordeal, resulting in the arrest of Ms Crystal Skiba. Upon arriving at Ms Skiba’s residence, the victim, whose identity is being withheld for privacy, was invited inside where he was met with unexpected aggression. Ms Skiba allegedly attempted to seduce him before revealing her true intentions. It became apparent to the victim that he was in a dangerous situation when Ms Skiba demanded payment and brandished a handgun, blocking his exit.”

“Despite his attempts to flee, the victim found himself in a life-threatening situation as Ms Skiba fired multiple shots at his vehicle. Miraculously, he managed to escape and alert the Hardee County Sheriff’s Office to the terrifying encounter. Subsequent investigation by detectives uncovered not only the firearm used in the incident but also illicit narcotics within the residence.”

“Shockingly, two minor children were present during the ordeal, further compounding the gravity of the situation. Ms Skiba now faces a litany of charges, including attempted first-degree murder, shooting into an occupied vehicle, and possession of a controlled substance, among others. The safety and well-being of the community, especially its most vulnerable members, remain paramount as law enforcement continues to pursue justice in this case,” says a press release from the Hardee County, Florida Sheriff’s Office. They don’t include any links to safety tips about online dating or anything like that. Maybe because this is sort of a regular occurrence in the area and people kind of take it as a given that Facebook hookups sometimes involve narrowly escaping gunfire.

Well this crazy asshole and her antisemitic sidekick want earned media attention and by God we’re going to give it to them on the hope that their parliamentary terrorism helps invite further chaos among the caucus of a party that has absolutely no business being in the chamber’s majority.

And yeah, if you’ve been watching you’ll have heard Greene claiming she will actually finally maybe actually put her motion to vacate on the House floor at some unspecified point next week.

A CNN/SSRS survey, which we think is probably underselling this because they were pretty obviously full of shit on their presidential race numbers in the same sample, nevertheless found 65 percent of respondents opposed to the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision and 49 favoring Congressional action to codify a right to abortion nationwide, while 37 percent favor “leaving it to the states” and 14 percent still opposed to any access to women’s rights to reproductive healthcare.

The finding was published on the same day a new six-week abortion ban comes into effect in Florida while in Arizona the state Senate is poised to take up a bill repealing the draconian 1864 law revived by the majority-conservative state Supreme Court last month. It’ll probably pass, thereby watering down the issue’s potency in a crucial swing state with an access measure on the ballot.

“Where’s SLEEPY JOE? He’s SLEEPING, that’s where!!!” posted fat former President Trump on Wednesday morning, evidently still upset by credible reporting that he’s been falling asleep in court.

Before that the orange curmudgeon posted “Do you think that the Radical Left Lunatics that are causing all of the CHAOS at our Colleges and Universities are doing so in order to take the FOCUS away from our Southern Border, where millions of people, many from prisons and mental institutions, are pouring into our Country? Just askin’…???” almost as if he was annoyed with himself and the right wing media ecosystem he leads for shifting their own “FOCUS” on the campus protest shitshows that we’ll continue to maintain are not really actually worth their time or attention.

A “senior GOP official” tells Politico Playbook that House Dems masterfully triggered white nationalist Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene with their statement affirming support for Speaker Mike Johnson in the event of a motion to vacate, triggering the psychopath into posting that she (supposedly) will finally move one she’s had sitting in the hopper since March 27th.

“Fresh bait always finds a fish,” the Republican said. “Jeffries throwing that out there, it’s chum in the water. Everyone knows what he did.” Greene’s team did not respond to that yet, but instead Playbooks has them turning their fire on RNC figurehead Mike Whatley. “The only person destroying Republican unity is Mike Johnson. Republicans need a speaker who will deliver President Trump’s America First agenda when he’s back in the White House. Democrat-endorsed Mike Johnson isn’t it,” said a “person close with Greene” in response to Whatley saying “nothing is more important than party unity and ensuring that we are focused on beating Joe Biden and Democrats in November.”

J6 was no MAGA insurrection

Just more Democrat misdirection

— Zach Henry (@zhenryaz) March 7, 2023

Yeah this is probably all you need to know about the guy, but NBC News reports he’s also tweeted that “Alex Jones is a national treasure” and that the House January 6th Committee investigation was a “witch hunt of patriots” for which “ALL Radical Democrats must face a reckoning!” Henry previously served as “deputy communications director” to Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign. The hire comes after a month in which Bobby Jr himself failed at damage control after a campaign email called the Capitol rioters “activists” who had been “stripped of their constitutional liberties” and another, now former, campaign official told a crowd she’s looking to help re-elect the Orange Allah.

Supposedly mainstream but not-so-secretly pro-MAGA outlet Axios spoke to a number of Congressional Democrats who are worried that a few days of on-campus protests from extremist pro-Palestinians are going to be a problem for them in an election six months from now, with one anonymous House Dem saying “The longer [these clashes with cops and college authorities] continue, and the worse that they get, the worse it’s going to be for the election overall” as they fear the shitshow is “bringing out” the squishy, low-info middle electorate’s “most conservative side.”

“Many people are super frustrated and concerned,” another House Dem said. What’s not made clear in the piece is how or why they expect this to go on all summer and into the fall given that just a few weeks are left in the spring semester and that there wouldn’t be bigger problems among the Dem coalition if the “Bibi” Regime is still bombing and massacring innocent people come September.

“We need to remember that a vote for Trump or sitting out this election or voting third party is a vote for Netanyahu,” said one Dem as if this should not be the messaging every single day anyway.

One Democrat who did go on the record, Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, seemed to hint that, God forbid, the pressure could result in the protestors actually getting what they want, telling Axios that “it would be very helpful” if there were “some sort of” ceasefire “in Gaza right now.”

Disgraced former President Trump’s legal team are preparing what Rolling Stone describes as an “emergency writ of habeas corpus” to keep the fat fuck out of jail should he be found in contempt again after Judge Juan Merchan issued what could be reasonably seen as a final warning Tuesday.

“The sources say Trump’s advisers have told him they believe the stay would be granted before New York authorities would be able to sort out the logistical nightmare of getting Trump into a jail cell when he has an armed Secret Service detail with him at all times. Trump would never have to wear a jumpsuit during the criminal trial, even if he were remanded, at least one lawyer close to the former president has assured him,” Rolling Stone writes, which we copied verbatim to show how apparently serious these fucking assholes are taking the prospect of the orange slob getting locked up.

NYPD removes Palestinian flag from CCNY campus, reraises American flag after anti-Israel protest https://t.co/BuN4u9DhGE

— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 1, 2024

Preacher Mike Johnson’s Republican majority now hinges on the mood on any given day of just one of the various glory-seeking self-important, delusional conspiracists in the GOP conference.  Democratic state senator Tim Kennedy won a special election for the vacant New York 26th Congressional District seat Tuesday, CNN reports, temporarily leaving the Republican majority with just one vote to spare.

With a 217 Republican-213 Democratic split, Johnson can spare only one GOP defection if he hopes to pass any legislation, something he’s not been able to do effectively lately without Democratic help.  That margin grows in the next eight weeks as other special elections in strong Red districts will fill vacant seats, including former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s old California district.

The Donald Trump Manhattan criminal election interference hush money trial had a few juicy bits–including the fact that Donald Trump and Michael Cohen hoped to delay the payment to Stormy Daniels until after the election–but from a strategic standpoint, the prosecution continues to lay out the plan and reason for paying off Trump’s lovers:  to help his campaign.

• For the first time, a member of Trump’s family attending the trial:  son Eric was in the gallery.  
• Judge Merchan found Trump in violation of the gag order, assessing $1,000 for each of nine violations.   The judge ordered the offending posts removed from Trump’s accounts by 2:15 p.m. ET; they were gone before the deadline.
• Merchan did not impose a stricter gag order.  In fact, he clarified that his gag order concerning Trump mentioning witnesses does not prevent Trump from responding to an attack on Trump on social media by a witness.  In that case, Trump may respond, Merchan said, a boundary that will surely be tested by Trump.
  Read More ▶ “Back in court, women’s lawyer links Trump to payments”

Kristi Noem murdering her dog in a roadside gravel pit like Canine Soprano is obviously a horrific tale of animal abuse and psychotic behavior, but it also differs in how conservatives treat working people only by degrees.  It’s almost too on-the-nose to be a metaphor.  

To summarize what Noem claims in a new book she did–feel free to skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want the gory details–Noem says she took the family’s 14-month-old dog Cricket hunting, but the dog didn’t behave.  At a roadside stop, Cricket escaped the car and killed some chickens, snapped at Noem when she tried to get him under control. Noem “hated that dog,” she wrote.  So she pulled Cricket into a gravel pit and shot him.  It was so unplanned, her daughter came home from school that day and asked Noem, “Where’s Cricket?”  Noem also killed a goat which annoyed her in a similar manner although–Noem jokes in the book!–the goat was harder to kill.  There were no other options for these animals in Noem’s opinion: No adoption.  No professional training.  Just death.

Unfortunately, Cricket learned what happens to workers conservatives feel are no longer valuable to them–and when I say “valuable,” I mean purely economically.  There is no other value to conservatives besides the value one brings to the economy.  And Cricket’s value to Kristi Noem was like the true value of Trump’s new technology stock:  virtually worthless.

A massive police presence has grown outside the campus of Columbia University, with police special tactics teams entering the building where demonstrators are holed up in protest of Israeli military attacks in Gaza.  It’s unclear how many, if any, of the sixty people believed to be inside the building are affiliated with the University.

The students have taken over Hamilton Hall, blocking entrances, but New York Police officers are using a vehicle with a ramp on the roof to approach a window at the corner of 116th Street and Amsterdam.  Demonstrators appear to want to have impact similar to the 1968 takeover of the building, except now, just sixty people are believed to be inside.

The Department of Justice officially started the process rolling to reclassify marijuana from a serious Schedule 1 drug similar to cocaine and heroin, categorizing instead as a less-regulated Schedule III substance like ketamine or Tylenol with codeine, CNN reports.  Once the rule is printed in the Federal Register, a review within the formal rulemaking process outlined in the Controlled Substance Act begins that could lead to final reclassification.

Reclassification would have ripples up and down cannabis-related activities from medical research to recreational sales.  Schedule III drugs are regulated as controlled substances that have medical benefits when used within guidelines, whereas Schedule 1 drugs are just scourges to society (allegedly).  The change would also allow cannabis-related businesses to use commercial banking systems with federal approval.  It also provides easier access to marijuana and THC for medical researchers.

UPDATE 9:12 p.m. ET:  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Senator Ron Wyden (WI) and Cory Booker (NJ) will formally announce Wednesday that they are reintroducing their legislation to decriminalize cannabis, the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act.

A panel from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the latest Congressional district map for Louisiana, saying that an extremely gerrymandered new district designed by the Republican legislature to get a Black majority was unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered.  The state’s original Congressional map had five majority-white Congressional districts and one majority Black, even though more than 40% of the state is non-white.  It’s unclear what this decision, which saw two Trump appointed judges outvoting a Clinton appointee, will have on the 2024 election where individual seats could be the margin between Majority and Minority Party in the House.