After hook-up Stormy Daniels wrapped up her titillating testimony during his election interference scandal trial in Manhattan Thursday, Donald Trump learned that his steady side thang Karen McDougal was taken off the witness list by prosecutors, the Daily Beast reports.

Apparently prosecutors don’t feel the need for any additional first, um, “hand” testimony into Trump’s sexual proclivities after the porn star’s evidence, feeling that additional attention will draw focus away from the financial cover-up.  They’ll now rely on others’ statements to support the fact that McDougal was also paid to remain quiet about Donald Trump’s vast selection of sateen jammies.

Nothing like trying to close the door after it’s blown off the exit row fuselage:  the Senate passed a wide-ranging aviation bill that reauthorizes the Federal Aviation Administration for the next five years and increases funding to recruit, train and retain air traffic controllers, NBC News reports.  With Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries at the helm, the House is expected to pass the bill next week.

The $105 billion bill includes more than just administrative paperwork for a government agency.  It also funds systems to avoid close-calls on the runway, speeds time for airlines to issue refunds, prevents carriers from charging families more to sit together, and authorizes tazing people who stand up before the plane has come to a complete stop at the jetway.  (Okay, we may have made up that last one.)

Day 14 of Donald Trump’s Manhattan election interference hush money case brought the end of the most overtly salacious testimony provided by porn star Stormy Daniels and more tears from a Friend of Donald.

• Attending today’s proceedings to support Donald Trump:  Republican Florida Senator Rick Scott, who led health insurance company HCA as it undertook the most massive Medicaid fraud scheme in US history, resulting in one of the nation’s largest civil penalties.
• Stormy Daniels returned to the stand for a second day of testimony.  Cross examination by defense attorney Susan Necheles continued
• Necheles worked to undermine Daniels’ credibility, portraying her as a money-grubbing slut.  Daniels matched Necheles’s tone defiantly, admitting that she entered porn because she sought to make a living.
  Read More ▶ “Mango Mussolini’s Manhattan Money Mess: Stormy’s days over”

Coming from parents with no fewer than seven arrests between them, Tyler Boebert is just another travel trailer in the family mobile home park.  After being arrested two months ago in connection with a series of robberies and burglaries, Tyler told a judge last month he wasn’t able to find an affordable lawyer, and one month later, Tyler told the same judge at a hearing Thursday that he still hasn’t found a lawyer, reports Westword, Denver’s independent news outlet.

Although 9th Judicial District Judge John F. Neiley told Boebert to apply for a public defender immediately after his April 11th court date to start the qualification review, Boebert said he had only filed the paperwork earlier this week.  “I have now sent…um, I can’t remember what…like, the document to sign up for a public defender. I’ve sent it in. I haven’t gotten a message back, but it was very recently. It was only a couple days ago,” he told the judge.

Asked by the less butch version of Sean Hannity, Eric Bolling, if multiple people completely unjustifiably saying Donald Trump won’t accept the outcome of November’s election if he loses could be part of a coordinated messaging effort by Democrats–and not, y’know, people who remember 2020–Lara Trump took time off from the promotional tour for her new single to respond:

“(Scoff) I think isn’t it all coordinated?  Isn’t all this stuff coming from one place?  It’s pretty obvious that Donald Trump does accept election results even despite the fact that it was, ah, a very questionable election in 2020 because Joe Biden is unfortunately sitting in the Oval Office today,” the Up With People reject who rose to her rank through marriage and nepotism like a Medieval lady-in-waiting.

An otherwise totally normal Illinois man faces nine counts after shooting his Black neighbor with an assault rifle in what police say is a racially-motivated shooting after years of harassment, ABC 7 in Chicago reports.

Seventy-year-old John Shadbar of Lockport alleged shot his neighbor, 45-year-old Melissa Robertson, multiple times in an assault recorded by neighbors on their cell phones.  After wounding her, Shadbar reportedly circled Robertson, firing additional shots at her.  Robertson was able to drag herself from her from yard to her kitchen, where she was found by a friend who was staying with her.  By the time police arrived, Shadbar retreated to his home, but surrendered later.  Robertson survived the shooting and is hospitalized in critical condition.

Shadbar had harassed Robertson and her two stepchildren for years, hurling racial slurs at them.  At other times, he aimed fireworks at their home and fired at them with blanks in his weapon.

Newly unsealed documents in the prosecution of Democratic Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar show two close associates have flipped and are cooperating with the Justice Department, the Washington Post reports, another bad sign for Cuellar and his wife in the bribery case.

In their respective agreements, Colin Strother and Florencio “Lencho” Rendon described their roles in the scheme that put more than $200,000 into the Congressman’s bank account on behalf of a Mexican bank.  This is in addition to the $600,000 prosecutors say the couple took from the bank and an oil company controlled by the Azerbaijan government.

“Pursuant to House Rule XI, clause 3(b)(8)(A), and Committee Rules 17A(b)(1)(A), and 17A(c)(1), the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Committee on Ethics have jointly decided to extend the matter regarding Representative Ronny Jackson, which was transmitted to the Committee by the Office of Congressional Ethics on March 25, 2024. The Committee notes that the mere fact of a referral or an extension, and the mandatory disclosure of such an extension and the name of the subject of the matter, does not itself indicate that any violation has occurred, or reflect any judgment on behalf of the Committee. The Committee will announce its course of action in this matter on or before Monday, June 24, 2024” says the House Ethics Committee in a statement.

A hard-paywalled article from Punchbowl says it’s over using campaign funds for payments to a private club and that fellow MAGA Texan Wesley Hunt is also under investigation for the same scam.

“I’ve been threatened with JAIL! I’ve been silenced and GAGGED! I was told to sit down and SHUT UP – but I will NEVER SURRENDER! I stormed out of the courtroom because I’m DONE with the election interference. Joe Biden & the LIARS in the media can spread LIES LIES LIES – all while I’m stuck in court and GAGGED! Biden’s tyrannical regime needs to get the message – right here, right now – that we won’t be bullied into silence! So before I get out of court, I’m calling on ONE MILLION Trump-Loving patriots to chip in and say, STOP THE WITCH HUNT AGAINST PRESIDENT TRUMP! I’m counting on you to set the example, PLEASE. If you SPEAK OUT against these relentless attacks, the rest of the MAGA MOVEMENT will certainly follow. I’ve never needed you more. Please, do what you can to help SAVE AMERICA,” writes one of the slob’s lackeys in another stupid fundraising email.

A boozy grandfather’s bright idea to pay a random homeless woman $20 while he sat on a barstool for a few kind of backfired on Monday when the woman refused to give the girl back due to his inebriation, touching off a frantic search by Sacramento County, California Sheriff’s deputies involving drones and a chopper before the girl was returned safely to her family, NBC News reports.

And yeah, it wasn’t the homeless woman who ended up in cuffs. Jason Warren, 54, was first contacted screaming for help finding the girl and claiming she “had been kidnapped for human trafficking,” per a SCSD statement. The woman, 34 year-old Lauren Jope, surrendered to cops after hearing the girl’s name called out from a helicopter loudspeaker during the search. “The female confirmed that Warren had given her money to take the child to the thrift store. She went on to tell deputies that Warren was highly intoxicated and she did not think he could care for the child… The female took the child to her ‘camp’ to get food. Deputies spoke with the child, who corroborated the ordeal,” said the sheriff’s statement. Warren was booked on suspicion of child endangerment.

“The guy was totally belligerently drunk and just kind of scary, he turned into a totally different person and so I got his granddaughter away until things kind of simmered down,” Jope told a local TV station. Sheriff’s deputies agreed. “We were miraculously lucky that it was Lauren that stepped in. She’s a guardian angel… I can’t sing her praises high enough,” said Sgt Amir Gandhi.

Restarting the thread to cover the end of the day’s proceedings in the People of the State of New York v Donald J Trump as Team Orange try another Hail Mary bid for a mistrial.

A Michigan woman was recently discovered to have been living inside the peaked rooftop sign of a Family Fare supermarket in the town of Midland, having built herself a cozy, furnished apartment complete with a little desk, houseplant, computer, printer, Keurig coffeemaker, and a cubbyhole full of food in the empty space within that kind of triangular roof structure common to large chain grocery stores, MLive.com reports on the woman employees have dubbed “the Roof Ninja.”

Not even sure where to start with this, other than to say that it shows how much Alina Habba thinks of the Fox News audience to pretend that Judge Merchan commands some secret police force that will come arrest her if she utters the names “Stormy Daniels” or “Michael Cohen” on live TV.

Or maybe she really is that dumb and incompetent that she didn’t bother to read the gag order and see that it applies only to the defendant and not his subordinates, even the ones actually representing him in this trial. If she thinks that maybe because the order includes the words “directing others to make public statements” that anything she says could theoretically considered to have been induced by the Orange God Emperor and put him in jail then okay, but Rick Scott said it all like three hours ago and nothing happened. So yeah, Habba’s probably full of shit.

Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley will be hosting a gathering of her main donors as a way of thanking them for their support, the Associated Press reports while addressing the question of what she’s going to tell them about the general election: Sources say Haley will not be endorsing fat former President Trump nor will she be encouraging her fans to vote for him next week.

There’s still plenty of time left for Haley to do what (most of) the rest of them have done and make an about-face so who knows. We don’t want to predict one way or the other how she’ll weigh in but maybe the best to hope for is just a milquetoasty write-in vote like Romney and Pence have pushed.

“The Committee on the Judiciary continues to conduct oversight of politically motivated prosecutions by state and local officials, as well as oversight of the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office’s (FCDAO) receipt and use of federal grant funds. As part of our oversight, the Committee sent you a letter on January 12, 2024, requesting six specific categories of documents relating to your former employment with the FCDAO. On January 26, 2024, the Committee received an unsolicited letter from Fulton County District Attorney Fani T Willis responding on your behalf to the Committee’s letter. Ms Willis’s letter, however, refused to provide the Committee with any responsive information and merely repeated arguments that the Committee has already considered and dismissed at length. To date, you have failed to comply with, or even respond to, the Committee’s request. We write to reiterate our requests and ask again for your voluntary cooperation with our oversight,” writes spandex-wearing grapple freak Jim Jordan to former Fulton County special prosecutor Nathan Wade in a politically motivated, if deeply impotent and whiny, letter.

After a productive-ish Wednesday off from having to ignore pretty much all other news it’s back to the grind here in fabulous New York City as pornstar/director/writer/etc Stormy Daniels continues to take abuse from fat former President Trump’s legal team on the stand as they cross-examine her to try to, uh, it’s not really clear what they’re trying to do as her credibility isn’t all that relevant to their defense of the twice-impeached loser given the paperwork nature of the charges.

You just KNOW she thought she was making the next "Hamilton" pic.twitter.com/3nJajKJjca

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) May 9, 2024

The National Wether Service on Thursday declared the entire northern half of the state of Georgia to be under a tornado watch until 1 PM EDT at the earliest, WSB-TV reports. The affected region includes QAnon fan Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s 14th district, which by her standards may mean that “God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent” since it coincides with an expect emergence of cicadas as did last month’s earthquake/eclipse combo in the New York City area. It’s not clear if Greene will now somehow repent for her sins of adultery and wrath as she had urged Americans to do when the geological and astronomical plagues had mildly affected Gotham.

In a move that the Florida Bulldog calls “highly unusual,” Republican state Representative Randy Fine will get a second shot at a review from the state’s Commission on Ethics which previously found probable cause that the Trump ball-sucking lawmaker had abused and misused his elected office after a judge vacated the decision. No reason was given for the ruling by Judge James Peterson III.

Fine’s greatest hits include tweeting “I have news for the embarrassment that claims to be our president – try to take our guns and you’ll learn why the Second Amendment was written in the first place” in 2022, being found hiding under his desk when servers showed up with a subpoena, and threatening to defund a local Special Olympics over “perceived slights.” Naturally the Orange Jesus endorsed Fine’s bid for a state Senate seat in February, declaring him a “MAGA warrior.”

The Ethics Commission’s probably going to land a little differently than last year’s 7-1 decision to find that Fine “abused his position to obtain a disproportionate benefit and that he misused his position by threatening to take away state funding over a personal feud with a Brevard County School Board member, and that he [interfered] in a council member’s response to a public records request for communications related to the dispute.” Six of the seven commissioners who made that determination are gone and the new chair is Moms for Liberty co-founder Tina Descovich, a Fine ally. Descovich has already declared she will not be recusing from any new case involving Fine.

pic.twitter.com/aWTh9r45gh

— House Republicans (@HouseGOP) May 9, 2024