One-time VP aspirant and Republican South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem included the story about how she shot the family dog in a roadside ditch in the draft of her first campaign “fluff” biography in 2022, but removed it after her editors, agents and publicists urged her to, Politico reports.

Remember:  biographies like the one Noem put her name on–it was actually written by a ghostwriter–are supposed to help attract voters to the subject.  Just two years ago, when Noem was not running for any office, she put out a bio where she wanted to feature the assassination of the family pet as a metaphor for how Noem handles problems, like her political career.

Battling a degenerative brain disorder, Democratic Virginia Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton took the floor of the House Monday afternoon to present legislation to name a post office in her district after former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright using a text-to-speech app to compensate for her inability to speak due to her condition.  The third-term representative is believed to be the first to deliver a floor speech using the technology.  Wexton was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, a degenerative disease similar to Parkinson’s, in April 2023; she is not seeking reelection in the fall.

On the twelfth day of Donald Trump criminal election interference hush money trial in Manhattan, testimony shifted to

• Eric Trump attended today’s hearing, his second session in a row.  Apparently, running the Trump Org doesn’t take a lot of time when it’s being operated by court-appointed officers.
• Merchan determines Trump violated his gag order by his “95% Democrat” comment about the jury.  He says the $1,000 fines are not having intended effect.
• Merchan mentioned that he would jail/detain Trump. “The magnitude of this decision is not lost on me but at the end of the day I have a job to do. So as much as I don’t want to impose a jail sanction … I want you to understand that I will if necessary and appropriate.”
  Read More ▶ “Testimony links Terracotta Transgressor to checks cut to Cohen”

“[Trump’s] gonna come out with a prison body,” Fox host and man with orange powder on the tip of his nose from kissing someone’s ass so much Jesse Watters.  “That’s what happens when you go to prison, you work out.  That’s all there is to do.”

Congratulations, you just had an infield!  A mother in Texas gave birth to identical quadruplets, one of only 72 documented sets in history, NBC News reports.  Thirty-four-year-old Mercedes Sandhu, and her 37-year-old husband Jonathan already had two sons–three-year-old Luke and 18-month-old Aaron.  Hannah Grace, Lucy Marie, Rebecca Claire, and Petra Anne were born through C-section at 29 weeks of gestation, and initial DNA testing showed that the set are identical, but the family is waiting on additional testing to confirm.

While the frequency of multiple births is increasing, particularly in the United States, thanks to fertility treatments, the Sandhus were not using medical assistance to conceive, and the likelihood of having natural quadruplets is 14 million to one.

“The only thing we need to worry about is whether these self-proclaimed defenders democracy will themselves really accept the will of the voters for whom they have shown so little respect,” Fox host and Trump advisor who was caught lying about the results of the 2020 election Laura Ingraham says in a classic case of projection.

New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed a lawsuit against an anti-abortion group that claims it can halt a medication abortion midway through after the patient has taken the drug, which is, of course, a lie, the Guardian reports.

Heartbeat International, a group affiliated with 2,000 so-called “abortion crisis centers” around the world, promoted “abortion pill reversal” to pregnant patients to get them to avoid abortion.  The process was clinically tested in 2019 but the test was quickly stopped after three patients in the study were hospitalized after.  hemorrhaging blood.  The American College of OB-GYNs said the procedure is “not based on science and do not meet clinical standards.”

“Obtaining accurate information can be especially difficult in the context of reproductive healthcare, where opponents of abortion intentionally distort and obfuscate facts to convince, scare, shame, or guilt people facing unintended pregnancy into deciding not to obtain or complete abortions at a moment when they are particularly vulnerable,” the AG states in the lawsuit. “Defendants’ consumer-oriented statements distort the evidence and mislead New Yorkers to undergo this experimental ‘treatment’, believing that it has been proven safe and effective, when it has not.”

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Monday told reporters that intranational tensions between his junta and rogue terroristic non-state actors Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie have eased as the rebels have deescalated their threats to blow everything up, CNN’s Manu Raju reports.

“We have discussed some ideas and we’re going to meet again tomorrow,” Johnson said, seemingly escaped his dramatic hostage crisis. “I understand the frustration. I share it. I would really like to advance much more of our conservative policy on a daily basis here.” Of course it may only be a matter of time before Greene screams “MAGA-HU AKBAR!!!” and detonates her legislative WMD.

Kind of a chicken and egg thing going on here with all of South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem’s media tour these last few days: Were all these hits penciled in months in advance so she could promote her new book in which she kills her dog and lies about meeting obese North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, or is it all damage control for her new book where she kills her dog and lies about meeting obese North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un? OR are these pre-planned media hits that were supposed to be for promoting the book now being occupied by damage control for the content of the book? It’s quite a fascinating conundrum that ultimately doesn’t matter as it appears she actually killed her chances of meeting with obese dictator Donald Trump to accept the running mate spot on his ticket.

About all that, Politico reports Noem had wanted to include the dog story in her 2022 book but her then-agent and the publisher squashed it. Her new team let her “write” it in this one, lol.

Caucasian Congressnazis Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tom Massie have been in Speaker Mike Johnson’s office for over an hour as of 4:55 PM EDT on Monday, meeting with the not-really-embattled House leader as they continue to threaten to vacate him, CNN’s Melanie Zanona reports.

The Netanyahu Regime on Monday rejected a nascent Egyptian-and-Qatari-brokered ceasefire offer from terrorist group Hamas and proceeded to attack the city of Rafah in Gaza, Bloomberg reports.

“This judge is giving me a gag order and said you’ll go to jail if you violate it. And frankly, our constitution is much more important than jail. It’s not even close. I’ll do that sacrifice any day,” said fat former President Trump as he departed the courthouse on Monday. Not two minutex later a reporter gave him the opportunity to violate the gag order by asking if upcoming witnesses pornstar Stormy Daniels and former lawyer Michael Cohen were lying. Trump then simply walked away.

Jurors in a Wichita Falls, Texas-area court on Monday heard secretly-recorded audio of local MAGAchurch Pastor Ronnie Allen Killingsworth telling congregants last year that the six counts of indecency with a child he was facing were not his “first rodeo” and that the case against him was “an attack on this assembly and myself,” the Wichita Falls Times Record News reports.

The accusations, which Killingsworth said were the work of the devil, were brought by three now-adult women who were members of the Rephidim Church when the pastor “allegedly” abused them.

“The victims and members of their families have testified that Killingsworth discussed sexual topics such as sodomy and homosexuality in the presence of young children. The defense witnesses said sexual topics were discussed but were not explicit,” the Times Record News writes in their report, as if it was any mystery why this fucker said it wasn’t his “first rodeo” being accused of sexual abuse.

We hate stupid Raw Story and Mediaite’s habit of treating regular editorials as newsworthy, but this one’s pretty freaking good: New York Times contributor Jonathan Alter suggests that, if and when disgraced former President Trump violates his gag order again, that Judge Juan Merchan sentence him to community service in the form of trash pickup in a Manhattan park rather than jail.

Citing the precedent that such punishment has been meted out before and the fact that the Secret Service could fairly easily secure a smaller, obscure park, Alter writes that the fat bastard “would need a long trash stick because even after losing some weight, he’s still too heavy and out of shape to bend down. The orange man in the orange jumpsuit would need help picking up all of the cigarette butts, Styrofoam coffee cups and old newspapers with headlines about his disgrace.”

Alter leaves it up to the reader to imagine the humiliation that would result from what would (hopefully) be a series of images of Donald struggling through a few hours of manual labor. It’s a compelling argument as jail would suck for him but this would suck worse in so many ways.

“The Office of the Prosecutor is aware that there is significant public interest in its investigations, and it welcomes comments, communication of concerns, and engagement in its activities from State and elected officials, non-governmental organisations, scholars, and activists. The Office seeks to engage constructively with all stakeholders whenever such dialogue is consistent with its mandate under the Rome Statute to act independently and impartially. That independence and impartiality are undermined, however, when individuals threaten to retaliate against the Court or against Court personnel should the Office, in fulfillment of its mandate, make decisions about investigations or cases falling within its jurisdiction. Such threats, even when not acted upon, may also constitute an offence against the administration of justice under Art 70 of the Rome Statute.”

“That provision explicitly prohibits both ‘[r]etaliating against an official of the Court on account of duties performed by that or another official’ and ‘[i]mpeding, intimidating or corruptly influencing an official of the Court for the purpose of forcing or persuading the official not to perform, or to perform improperly, his or her duties.’ The Office insists that all attempts to impede, intimidate or improperly influence its officials cease immediately,” says the International Criminal Court’s prosecutors office.

The statement is a response to Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton and 11 other malevolent freaks threatening the ICC if a war crimes arrest warrant was issued against the Netanyahu Regime.

Gaza terrorist group Hamas on Monday agreed to ceasefire terms with Israel brokered by Qatari and Egyptian negotiators, Bloomberg’s Jennifer Jacobs reports. The precise contours of the ceasefire deal were not clear just yet so we don’t know if this is a short or middle-term end to the near-constant bombing that has cost tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian lives. More to come.

UPDATE 5/6/2024 1:31 PM EDT: Whatever the terms were is moot now as Israeli officials tell Reuters they have not actually agreed to what had been proposed. War still on for now.

“Trump has shown us who he is. We should believe him. To think he is going to change at the age of 77 is beyond improbable… Unlike Trump, I’ve belonged to the GOP my entire life. This November, I am voting for a decent person I disagree with on policy over a criminal defendant without a moral compass,” writes former Georgia Lt Gov Geoff Duncan in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution op-ed.

The piece is headlined “Why I’m voting for Biden and other Republicans should, too,” lest there be any doubt who Duncan is talking about. It’s one thing for a prominent-ish conservative to undorse Trump and say they’re going to write someone in or whatever – hell, we have plenty of examples of that, even currently ones you might not have expected like that Indiana senator. Affirmatively endorsing Biden is certainly going much further and it’s too bad Duncan called it quits (when by all appearances he didn’t even actually have to) and handed his job over to a guy literally under criminal investigation for attempting to overturn the 2020 election. Still definitely at least a medium deal that Duncan would step up like this – especially in a swing state – and hopefully he’s not the highest ranking current or former elected Republican to do the same before November comes.

During a ceremony at Tampa Bay City Hall on Monday, Mayor Jane Castor presented Department of Solid Waste truck driver David Llanos with the “Life Changer Award” for his help finding a toddler that had been lost on March 19th, the city said in a statement. Happily, the toddler was and presumably is still alive and well as he had simply wandered away from his home. Llanos was driving his route that morning when he noticed the boy’s mother distraught on the sidewalk and stopped to help out. The driver found the boy about a block away and brought him back to his mom.

Suffice to say this is not the usual way sanitation personnel find missing people, which raises questions over whether Llanos’s coworkers might resent him for being recognized by the city government and handed a nice certificate when they’re subjected to lengthy interviews with homicide detectives every time a mob informant or greedy drug dealer turns up in a dumpster. When are those guys going to get their due for having to find body parts tossed by some Ted Bundy fanboy? They should at least get hazard pay or something to have to deal with that kind of shit.

🚨🚨🚨

ELECTION INTERFERENCE!

“Ex-top Biden DOJ official now prosecuting Trump was once paid by DNC for 'political consulting”https://t.co/6BNTSZRoWy

— House Republicans (@HouseGOP) May 6, 2024

This entire site basically wouldn’t exist without the hypocrisies, large and small, of MAGA Republicans, as well as the absolutely shambolic stupidity of the ways they try to justify or paper over them… when they actually bother. They never bother when it comes to the constant allegations of incestuousness like the above. Maybe it’s because they do it just so goddamned often that nobody else notices anymore. How else would a “Deep State” and a “uniparty” work if you can’t rely on the most tenuous of connections to establish the existence of such shadowy cabals?

It’s how we live in a world where Republican voters think Loren Merchan is Satan herself while Ginni Thomas was just a concerned Karen who was doing what any patriotic American would do.