With close to 90% of the vote in for both Parties, Pennsylvania’s primaries ended the way people expected:  incumbent Joe Biden will take about 93% of the Democratic vote, and Donald Trump will win the GOP side, according to the tally from the New York Times.  Trump’s share of the Republican vote is just 84%, with one in six GOP voters–in a closed primary–casting ballots for long-gone candidate Nikki Haley.

The numbers are consistent with what’s happened in other primaries on both sides:  Biden dominates and Trump struggles through in the mid-80s.  And that should trouble the Trump camp.  Nikki Haley has officially out of the race for nearly fifty sleeps–more if you’re Mr. Trump–and the resistance to him within the Party is steady in primaries.

Let’s start in reality:  Donald Trump lost the 2020 election in Pennsylvania.  Trump lost; that’s the truth. While he had heavy turnout of faithful Republicans, it was not enough to overcome the Democratic machine being built in the state that would turn the state house blue and supply a Democratic gubernatorial win in 2022. 

With a 3-2 vote along Party lines, the Federal Trade Commission banned the enforcement of non-compete agreements for rank-and-file employees of private businesses, a rule that will provide millions of workers greater flexibility and power to determine their wages, CBS News reports.

While the law for senior executives will remain in place, all other non-competes will be voided in 120 days when the rule takes effect.  The right-wing US Chamber of Commerce said it would immediately appeal “this unnecessary and unlawful rule and put other agencies on notice that such overreach will not go unchecked,” adding that giving workers greater mobility would “undermine American businesses’ ability to remain competitive.”

For most salaried and hourly employees who are not represented by a union, their ability to quit their job and find another–or to open their own shop–is their only power to negotiate new wages or work conditions.  As the FTC heard through tens of thousands of public comments, non-competes limit and sometimes eliminate opportunities for workers to improve their conditions.

By a 79-18 vote, the Senate passed a bill providing $95 billion in aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan as part of a package that also set a one-year deadline for Chinese government interests to sell the social media platform TikTok or face a ban in the US, the Associated Press reports.

The bill won support of some conservatives after around $10 billion in aid for Ukraine was converted to a form of a loan.  Including the TikTok ban in a companion bill allowed some more conservatives to save face and support a bill they previously vowed to block.  Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio–a senior Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee–voted against the bill, which will now go to the Oval Office for President Biden’s signature.

The Republicans running the Tennesee legislature pushed through both chambers a bill that allows teachers and school staff to carry loaded concealed firearms on school grounds while students are there as protestors chanted “Blood is on your hands,” USA Today reports.

Critics of the bill say that the required training specified in the legislation is inadequate to ensure the safety of students and others at the school.  Opponents also note that the law does not require parents to be notified if a teacher is strapped during class, even when their child is in that teacher’s classroom.  Teachers who want to carry guns will have to complete a safety class, as well as get the approval of the school superintendent, the school principal and the head of local law enforcement.

Speaking out for the first time about some of the claims Donald Trump has made regarding the role of federal law enforcement, FBI Director Christopher Wray, who was appointed to the job by Trump in 2017, told NBC News he would not allow any investigations that does not follow “our rules, our procedures, our best practices, our core values.”

In charge of the agency that searched Trump’s Earth-bound Purgatory in Palm Beach, Florida, Wray was never a favorite of Trump’s but Wray became another target of Trump’s ire after the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago.  He rejected much of Trump’s characterizations of FBI activities relating to the investigation of January 6th Republican-led domestic terrorist attack on Congress.

“I see the defendants in the January 6th cases as criminal defendants who are being charged with federal crimes, and are in front of independent courts as part of our legal system,” Wray said. “In our country, there are all sorts of people who are upset and angry about all sorts of things, about all sorts of people. But there is a right way under the First Amendment to express how upset you are. And violence, violence against law enforcement, destruction of federal property, is not it.”

If we were a conservative, we’d be offended at how stupid Jesse Watters is.  The Tucker Carlson replacement can’t seem to raise his intellectual level above that of a fifth grader, and his complaints about his perceived injustice toward Donald Trump dumbs-down his objects to below “Idiot” on the scale.  While he tries to claim the gag order on Trump is absolute, Watters finally states an absolute truth in Fox world:  “People will say anything for a paycheck.”  Yes, we know:  we learned that in the Fox $787.5 million defamation settlement.

A new rule introduced by the Department of Labor extends overtime pay coverage to four million additional salaried workers, a move that is expected to transfer $1.5 billion from employers to employees who worked extra hours without compensation, CNN reports.

The rule extends overtime work regulations to salaried workers who make $43,888 annually, or around $840 per week, on July 1st, 2024, and increases the minimum salary range covered to $58,656 annually, or around $1,130 per week.  The current level is $35,568 a year, or $684 per week.

After recent FEC filings showed he raised exactly zero dollars in the last quarter, expelled New York conman and Carnival dancer George Santos has ended his attempt to reenter Congress as a representative for New York’s 1st Congressional District, CNN reports.

“Although [his Republican opponent] and I don’t have the same voting record and I remain critical of his abysmal record, I don’t want to split the ticket and be responsible for handing the house to Dems,” Santos posted online without noting that he’s facing nearly two dozen felony counts including for defrauding donors in his last campaign.  Running as an independent, Santos overestimated his impact in the race adding, “Staying in this race all but guarantees a victory for the Dems in the race.”

Quality control checks of consumer products by the Food and Drug Administration found traces of the bird flu virus in milk supplies going to grocery stores, but the agency says the milk supply remains safe, the Washington Post reports.  Bird flu had previously been found in 26 dairy herds in eight states, so the presence of genetic material in milk is not unusual.  The problem, officials say, is that evidence of the virus is being found in more samples at more points of the production cycle, indicating the virus is far more widespread than currently reported.  Officials, however, say the homogenization process used for dairy milk renders the flu inactive.

Trump attorney and SuperPAC spokesliar Alina Habba seems to be taking a page from her mentor Rudy Giuliani’s playbook, using her social media account (not on the Trump Media platform) to promote her own Cameo-esque on-demand videos. Not known for her legal acumen, Habba exhibits that she’s not paid for her kitchen skills, either.  And maybe she’s putting out softcore kitchen fetish vids on Twitter as a soft market intro for a future OnlyFans page for her legal commentary.

“Thousands of people were turned away from the Courthouse in Lower Manhattan by steel stanchions and police, literally blocks from the tiny side door from where I enter and leave. It is an armed camp to keep people away. Maggot Hagerman of The Failing New York Times, falsely reported that I was disappointed with the crowds. No, I’m disappointed with Maggot, and her lack of writing skill, and that some of these many police aren’t being sent to Columbia and NYU to keep the schools open and the students safe. The Legal Scholars call the case a Scam that should never have been brought. I call it Election Interference and a personal hit job by a conflicted and corrupt Judge who shouldn’t be allowed to preside over this Political Hoax. New York Justice is being reduced to ashes, and the World is breathlessly watching. Hopefully, Appellate Courts can save it, and all of the companies that are fleeing to other jurisdictions. They can no longer take a chance on New York Justice!” posted fat former President Trump on Truth Social on Tuesday, seething over just one MAGA protestor showing up for him in the park across the street as of 9:30 EDT that morning.

No need to source others’ reporting here to demonstrate that Trump is full of shit on the claim of an “armed camp” when we have our own: There’s no screening required to get in the park. As of last week, the layout of the demonstration pens is exactly the same as it was a year ago when the fat bastard was first arraigned. Now MAYBE if “thousands” of fanboys tried to show up they would be turned away given the space constraints. But since that never happened this is the first you’re hearing about it, in a social media post by a demented and angry old man who makes shit up.

The actual governor of the Bizzaro state of Anozira, the Republican nominee for the Arizona Senate seat Kari Lake hasn’t decided on what her public position on abortion access in the state should be, telling an Idaho newspaper on Saturday that Arizona’s Democrat governor should implement the 1864 ban on abortion, NBC News reports.

“The Arizona Supreme Court said this is the law of Arizona. But unfortunately, the people running our state have said we’re not going to enforce it,” Lake told the Idaho Dispatch on Saturday prior to speaking at an Idaho county GOP event.  This contradicts Lake’s April 11th social media video post in which she said, “This total ban on abortion that the Arizona Supreme Court has ruled on is out of line with where the people of this state are.”

And that April 11th post contradicted a July 2022 statement in which Lake expressed support for reinstating the 1864 law, and demanded prison sentences of two- to four years for anyone who performed an abortion, though in October 2023, she declared she was against a national abortion ban.  Tune in again tomorrow for the vacillations of the Vaseline-smeared lens queen.

“He bragged at how proud he was to get rid of Roe v. Wade, he took credit for it,” President Joe Biden says of his presumptive GOP opponent for the November election, adjudicated rapist and perpetual denizen of the defendant’s table Donald Trump.  “He said there has to be punishment for women exercising their reproductive freedom.  His words, not mine.  He described the Dobbs decision as a miracle.  Maybe it’s coming from that bible he’s trying to sell.  Whoa.  I almost want to buy one just to see what the hell’s in it.”

Returned to circulation after repairs by Animatronics engineers at the Magic Kingdom, outgoing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell hurriedly (for him) blames the former Fox network resident Russian propagandist Tucker Carlson for the delay in getting Republican Senators to support aid to Ukraine.

“Well, that’s a good question.  You already know the answer.  I think the demonization of Ukraine began by Tucker Carlson who in my opinion ended where he should have been all along, which is interviewing Vladimir Putin.  And so he had an enormous audience which convinced a lot of rank-and-file Republicans that maybe this was a mistake.”

The US Senate on Tuesday passed the House’s bill resuming American military aid to Ukraine and Israel, defeating last minute fuckery by Mike Lee to try to jam the bill up with amendments.

Fat-headed former Hunter Biden pal turned MAGA shitbag Tony Bobulinski on Monday filed a federal defamation lawsuit against Maryland Dem Congressman Jamie Raskin for having deliberately and maliciously demolished Bobulinski’s non-existent credibility “outside the scope of his employment, in an attempt to discredit Mr Bobulinski’s testimony and to besmirch Mr Bobulinski’s character. It was a mistake for defendant to believe he was cloaked with immunity for his defamatory statements,” far-right Chinese anti-communist cult rag the Epoch Times reports in a press release dressed up as a news article. The sub-headline says “Bobulinski has paid for his own legal fees and is not affiliated with President Trump’s campaign,” because they needed to get that out of the way before the text.

Bobulinski obviously faces a bit of an uphill battle in this lawsuit and the one he filed earlier this month against other Oversight Dem Dan Goldman given the Speech and Debate clause.

“Best thing for Trump with all these fake indictments by all corrupt players, coordinated by Biden, taking away Trump’s freedom of speech is to be jailed. Then we Americans will take go the streets and burn the whole country down. Democrats are allowed to burn cities down with no repercussions, now it is our turn as Republicans. Trump will be the next President guaranteed” – The current top comment on the Breitbart article “Gag Order Hearing: Judge Merchan Could Send Trump to Jail for up to 30 Days,” written as if we hadn’t already seen plenty of the same empty threats and shitposting for the last almost two years, starting with the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago in August 2022.

There was a single MAGA protestor in Collect Pond Park across the street from the courthouse at 9:30 EDT on Tuesday morning, 24 hours after Trump had put out the call to his fanboys to show up.

Fat former President Trump faces a contempt hearing over multiple violations of the gag order imposed by Judge Juan Merchan before the testimony by former supermarket tabloid hustler David Pecker, the fake news scumbag who brokered the Stormy Daniels hush money payoff, resumes.

Four years ago today, Dr. Birx reacted in horror as Trump told Americans to inject bleach on national television pic.twitter.com/1dwgmxMpEK

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) April 23, 2024