Sources tell the Washington Post that disgraced former President Trump last month informed a group of wealthy oil company CEOs gathered at Mar-a-Lago that they needed to contribute $1 billion to his effort to return to power and that doing so would be a great “deal” in exchange for free reign to do whatever they want to the environment, to workers, and probably Greenpeace too.

“You’ll get it on the first day,” the fat fuck reportedly told the oilgarchs while mentioning the Biden Administration’s freeze on liquefied natural gas export permits. The pornstar fucker promised to auction off drilling leases for the Gulf of Mexico, remove restrictions on exploiting the Alaskan Arctic, kill off Biden’s electric vehicle mandate, and other decidedly eco-unfriendly policy changes. Donald also naturally took time to bitch about wind turbines though it’s not clear if he used the cancer line.

“You’ve been waiting on a permit for five years, you’ll get it on Day 1,” Trump said to the rapacious executives. None of this should be surprising, since it’s a great way to own the libs who don’t like such naked corruption in service of technological progress in fighting climate change. There is however a risk in the Orange Man’s jerking off of energy CEOs as it would come quite literally at the expense of the auto manufacturers who have invested billions into EVs. “Automakers need some degree of regulatory certainty from government,” auto lobbyist John Bozzella, who represents the Big Three plus some of the foreign makes, told the Post. “What has emerged instead is a wholesale repeal… and then reinstatement… and then repeal again of regulations every four or eight years.”

The Biden Administration had hoped to keep quiet for as long as possible their decision to block shipments of military aid to Israel due to the “political sensitivity” of such a move prior to the president himself owning it in an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett, the Wall Street Journal reports.

An anonymous official told the Journal they “weren’t trying to break this out into the open, we were trying to handle this in a diplomatic way,” but Israeli officials, as probably should have been expected, ended up complaining to Axios about the move, which then broke it out into the open.

Officials in Flagler County, Florida decided a photo of a “popular” local alligator with half a loaf of bread in its mouth was the last straw, prompting them to call state wildlife officials to have it relocated from a park on account of “food acclimation” from human feeding, Fox 35 reports.

“The gator, really, he came up right into the dock. And as I moved, he moved with me, and so that tells me that he was acclimated,” said Flagler County Assistant Director of General Services Michael Lagasse, adding “If they’re going to see one of us two-legged [humans] walking around, they might approach others.” Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission officials did not return a call for comment yet. The gator would be at least the second Florida reptile relocated this year due to feeding by humans after the obese Tampa Bay-area alligator that formerly resided at an abandoned Coca-Cola bottling facility was captured and rehomed at a local tourist trap in March.

Wiggling your hand with your thumb and pinkie extended–a gesture known as a shaka–is a lot like the word aloha:  it means “hello” and “goodbye” and it characterizes the low-key, casual character of Hawaii.  And now, according to the Washington Post, politicians on both sides of the aisle are working to make the shaka the official gesture of Hawaii.

While it’s got no official origin story, the shaka has been used on the Hawaiian Islands for generations, with each community developing its own meaning for the move, according to documentary film producer Steve Sue, a Honolulu resident who led the effort.

Saying that the shaka embodies “sharing aloha, fostering connection and being pono [the Hawaiian concept of living rightously],” Democratic state representative Glenn Wakai put the legislation in perspective.  “This is not the most monumental piece of legislation.  We’re not improving health care, we’re not getting better educational outcomes. But I do think that it’s important to capture what is special about Hawaii.”

After gaining his highest-profile endorsement from a celebrity murderer to date, adjudicated rapist Donald Trump must be celebrating getting the backing of his old friend, the 92-year-old former boxing promoter Don King, who spent nearly three years in prison after stomping one of his employees to death for an apparently very serious violation of HR rules.

Barron Trump will join his brothers from another mother as an at-large delegate from Florida to the Republican National Convention when his alleged father will be nominated to be the Party nominee for President of the United States, ABC News reports.  His two older brothers Eric and Don Jr., children of his father’s first foreign wife and current golf course fertilizer Ivana, will join him in the delegation, with Eric serving as chair.

Along with his sons, Junior’s lap-dancing girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle will scream on the delegation’s platform committee, presumably because she thought it had to do with stages.  Barron will also be joined on the delegation by his sister from yet another mother, Tiffany, and such Trump Florida favorites as Super PAC CEO Sergio Gor and former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.

With the vibe of an MLM sales meeting with Heaven’s Gate members wearing gold sneakers, Donald Trump Merchandising Industries Inc. fulfilled a pledge it made with the so-called “Mugshot NFTs,” the electronic vapor depicting Trump in various superhero poses. Judging from the “red carpet” photos done in front of a gen-u-wine AI-generated “Thor” Trump in front of the site of his cult’s January 6th attack as 1960s retro-style jets fly overhead printed on a trade show display (it’s a bit much), the crowd is going to love it.  No, really, they will.  They will soak in every single fucking second of it.

According to the Art Newspaper, which has a much better take on it than the original reporting from Axios, suckers who bought at least 47 separate editions of Trump’s various NFT–spending $99 per item at MSRP–were invited to the dinner, with the special few who have bought 100–at a cost of $99,000–will get to mingle with the Grapefruit Groper at a cocktail party where they’ll be asked to spend more on Trump’s Authentic Gnarled T-bone® or a genuine Kimberly Guilfoyle lap dance.  Hey, don’t judge:  it takes money to keep up the grift.

“Shutting down the Keystone Pipeline XL pipeline.  Inflation continues to go up because of it.  Our gas prices we know are high, gives us [phone ringing in background] on the world stage just a really weak position,” the Garfunkel to Autotune’s Simon and co-chair of the RNC Lara Trump says.  “You probably wouldn’t have seen the war with Russia in Ukraine without that decision.  You wouldn’t see the war in Israel with Hamas without that decision and really dumb stuff coming out of the Biden Administration.”

First, Lar, the Keystone Pipeline is operating.  It’s transporting about 500,000 barrels of oil per day.  The XL part wasn’t constructed, so there was nothing to “shut down.”  Second, the US is producing around 13.2 million barrels of oil daily–the maximum output.  So the red thread linking Keystone XL to Hamas’s attack–already thread-thin–is some “really dumb stuff.”

The Department of Justice is reportedly responding to House Ethics Committee requests regarding Florida Republican Congressman and real-life Beavis Matt Gaetz’s alleged transaction with a teenage sex worker, the Daily Beast reports.  While the DOJ’s case into Gaetz’s underage human trafficking has reportedly closed with the decision not to prosecute, the Ethics Committee has renewed its investigation into its colleague.  And typically, when the DOJ closes down an investigation, it handles Congressional information requests expeditiously, so its decision to slow-walk these records makes one wonder if they’re still being used in other investigations.

A 1,000-foot cruise ship pulled into the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal with the corpse of a 44-foot endangered sei whale on its bow, CBS News reports.  The carcass was removed and towed to a beach in New Jersey just like other waste from New York, and authorities will perform a necropsy to determine if the marine mammal was killed by the ship strike or if it was dead when impacted by the ship.

The unexpected passenger on the MSC Meraviglia did not cause significant damage to the ship nor did it delay the cruise schedule much:  the Meraviglia arrived at a port in New Brunswick on Wednesday.

I feel confident of the result even with a six-worm handicap.

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) May 8, 2024

After acknowledging that US-supplied weapons have been used to kill civilians in Gaza, President Joe Biden said in a CNN to be aired Wednesday night that he would cut off the supply of American-made offensive weapons to Israel if Israel invades Rafah, the Washington Post reports.

“Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers,” Biden said in the interview.  “I made it clear that if they go into Rafah–they haven’t gone in Rafah yet–if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities–that deal with that problem.”

“I absolutely love Marjorie Taylor Greene. She’s got Spirit, she’s got Fight, and I believe she’ll be around, and on our side, for a long time to come. However, right now, Republicans have to be fighting the Radical Left Democrats, and all the Damage they have done to our Country. With a Majority of One, shortly growing to three or four, we’re not in a position of voting on a Motion to Vacate [blah blah blah a bunch of bullshit] It is my request that Republicans vote for ‘THE MOTION TO TABLE.’ We WILL WIN BIG – AND IT WILL BE SOON!” posted fat former President Trump at 5:59 PM EDT on Wednesday, about 15 minutes after the vote to table had already passed.

Meaning, per usual, he already knew (or is that stupid) that the motion had been killed and belatedly acted publicly like the vast majority of the House Republican caucus had been obeying his orders.

“Today, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced charges against former Adams Township Clerk Stephanie Scott, 52, and her private attorney Stefanie Lynn Junttila, 42, also known as Stefanie Lambert, for allegedly permitting an unauthorized computer examiner access to voter data, including non-public voter information, concerning the 2020 General Election.”

“The Department contends that Scott intentionally disregarded numerous instructions from the Director of Elections, acting on behalf of the Secretary of State, to present the Adams Township voting tabulator to an authorized vendor for maintenance and testing and withheld the tabulator until it was seized by Michigan State Police pursuant to a search warrant. The Department also alleges Lambert illicitly transmitted data from the Adams Township Electronic Poll Book concerning the 2020 General Election under the direction of Scott,” says a statement from the Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office about more trouble for Lambert, who was indicted last summer along with two other “Stop the Steal” shitbags for possessing a stolen Dominion tabulator.

The US House of Representatives on Wednesday quickly voted to table white nationalist Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene‘s motion to vacate Speaker Mike Johnson. The final count was 359 to table with only 11 Republicans and 32 Dems a no, plus another 7 Dems present.

White nationalist Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene on Wednesday formally triggered the motion to vacate process against Jesus dork Speaker of the House Mike Johnson as revenge for his support for military aid to Ukraine and other sundry bullshit far-right grievances.

This was simply not fair to Wisconsin MAGA Congressman Glenn Grothman. It was like an amateur flag football team against the Chiefs, a puppy against Kristi Noem, a fudge sundae against Sarah Huckabee, Kristi Noem against a Fox News host. Just utter savagery on Jamie Raskin’s part.

This one NBC News story is pretty fucked up, sad, and another example of how goddamned stupid some domestic murderers can be. Minnesota man Dr Connor Bowman, 31, faces an absolute shit ton of circumstantial evidence indicating that he was responsible for August 20, 2023 poisoning death of his wife Betty, 32: Connor worked for a “poison control center for an extended period of time prior to his residency” according to a court document, had started contacting woman on dating app Bumble on August 29, had “brought up the large life insurance payout he received, using it to pay off student loan debt” in a conversation on the app, lied to another woman via the app about how long it had been since his wife had died, and had asked a female friend and some others “out for drinks two days after Betty’s death and appeared to be happy or at least indifferent to” losing his wife.

However probably what sticks out the most is this: Betty was hospitalized with colchicine toxicity on August 16 and passed away August 20th. On August 18th Connor googled whether “widow” was a “gender neutral” term. So on top of all this shit pointing at his consciousness of guilt – again it’s circumstantial and thus he’s only facing a second degree homicide charge – he had to go and do the “woke” thing when preemptively putting himself out on the dating market again. What a dick.

Disgraced former President Trump’s lawyers on Wednesday further murdered irony by urging a New York State Appeals court to expedite their challenge to the gag order imposed by Judge Juan Merchan in the criminal trial over the fat fuck’s 2016 election interference scam, ABC News reports.

🚨 #BREAKING: @Jim_Jordan and @RepJamesComer refer MICHAEL COHEN to DOJ for prosecution.

Cohen lied SIX times to Congress and is Alvin Bragg’s star witness in President Trump’s NYC trial. pic.twitter.com/axJMyXBFhX

— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) May 8, 2024

Jordan and Comer actually look even more impotent when you stop to realize this is not just them trying to gin up some Fox News headlines and muddy the water politically but that it’s actually their brilliant plan to stop Cohen from testifying to a New York State court within the next week.