Opinion | Democrats went to town in Hur hearing but Republicans missed a major moment https://t.co/kBfbe4BZ9d

— Fox News (@FoxNews) March 13, 2024

The Wisconsin state Senate adjourned for the year on Tuesday and left on its floor an Assembly-passed bill to unfuck the “Red Mirage” by allowing county clerks to start processing mail-in ballots a day prior to Election Day rather than the current morning of, thereby leaving in place the gap that in 2020 allowed the Orange God Emperor to claim the election was rigged simply because the in-person day-of vote totals showed him in the lead before Biden overtook him when the Dem-heavy mail-in ballots were added to the state’s vote totals, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports.

“There’s been a concerted effort by folks in the Assembly and senators to try to get this calendar to the Senate, so we can put to rest complaints from conspiracy theorists,” Dem Mark Spreitzer, told reporters on Tuesday. “But just like in Washington, DC, former President Donald Trump has told Republicans not to fix anything so he can continue to spread his lies and complain when he loses.”

It’s not clear if Spreitzer was talking about actual conversations between Trump and state Senate Republicans or if it was more of an implied thing, as in they know the fat fuck doesn’t want it so they didn’t do it. Complete twat State Senate President Chris Kapenga, whose past prostrations before Trump managed to stick out even in a party of total worms said “It makes sense to sort absentee ballots and verify envelope data on Monday before Election Day, but there aren’t enough controls in place to protect the privacy of votes if opened early. As the rest of the world has figured out, the best way to eliminate irregularities and potential fraud is to just vote and count on the same day.”

Processing ballots means simply taking them out of the mailing envelope and arranging them for tabulators, so Kapenga is – surprise! – full of shit. He also knows what he’s doing with giving Trump space to claim fraud just as Republicans in Michigan and Pennsylvania did in 2020. As for those other two states, Michigan in 2022 killed the Red Mirage and a bill to do the same awaits the Republican-majority Pennsylvania state Senate, its prospects unclear at best.

Less than half of the House GOP are planning on going to the caucus’s “policy retreat” in West Virginia on Wednesday as relations between different factions steadily deteriorates, Axios reports while writing that a Republican “argued that moving their conference discussions from the Capitol to a resort with alcohol could exacerbate infighting between members,” and directly quoting that member as saying “I’d rather sit down with Hannibal Lecter and eat my own liver.”

Not as funny as the alcohol part. Worse yet there might be a shortage of cocaine too as keynote speaker Larry Kudlow backed out at the last minute. The rest of the slate sucks as those who are still going will be stuck listening to Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser, March for Life president Jeanne Mancini, and Israeli Ambassador Michael Herzog.

You’d think she’d be flattered to have Academy Award nominee and wife of the head writer Scarlett Johansson portray her, but no, Katie Britt. Is. Not. Happy.  The Republican Senator, who performed the Republican revue to Joe Biden’s powerful State of the Union, is using the utter indignity of being pilloried by the far-left elites in the media.  [Weep.]

“Following my speech, the far-left media didn’t waste a second flooding the airwaves with despicable, disgusting messages about me,” the email from the community theatre Norma Desmond read according to the Daily Beast. “They attacked my character. They attacked my faith. They attacked my identity as a mother and a wife.”  Well, no, Senator.  They attacked your delivery, your message and your lack of any proposed policy.

Apparently not understanding that losing the popular vote in seven out of the last eight elections is a pattern they should note, the Republican base–a monster of far-right, science-denying, quasi-Christian Trump zealots–have backed a man responsible for two of those losses to be the GOP candidate again in 2024.  Donald Trump won the Washington state primary, according to Decision Desk and the New York Times, sending him over the 1,215 delegate threshold needed to secure the Republican nomination.  This sets Trump up to face the presumptive Democratic nominee and incumbent President Joe Biden in the November election.

“The Hur Report was revealed today! A disaster for Biden, a two tiered standard of justice. Artificial Intelligence was used by them against me in their videos of me. Can’t do that Joe!” posted fat former President Trump on Truth Social after Democrats played a vast multitude of video clips of his addled batshittery during the Hur hearing on Tuesday. They were not AI generated.

Former special counsel Robert Hur’s hearing before the House Judiciary Committee–where Republicans gave him a positive performance review while Democrats underlined his conclusion that Joe Biden didn’t do any wrong while Donald Trump did–brought out the debunked GOP talking point that Biden is a doddering old man with a bad memory, a description helped along by Hur’s editorializing.

But that characterization doesn’t make sense when you look at the transcripts of Hur’s interview with the President, who sat for sessions with the Special Counsel in the days after the Hamas attack on Israel.  In the transcript of the five-hour interview done over two days, Biden responded “I don’t remember” or “I don’t recall” a total of 51 times in the 251 pages.  About ten of those “memory lapses” were when Biden was asked to identify specific people who may have moved boxes that contained documents in the previous four decades, or when asked the last time he may have been in proximity to the documents prior to their discovery.

But is that a lot?  Are Biden’s memory gaps–on average, once every five pages of transcript–excessive?  Here’s where we can look at similar evidence to see how well Biden worked.  Because federal interview transcripts are fairly well standardized–25 lines per page in the same font size–we can see how well others performed in similar circumstances.

“Hillary had top secret classified information, 33,000 deleted emails, bleach-bit, hammers devices, everything we learned.” It’s March 2024, but Fox propagandist Sean Hannity rants like he’s still in 2016 as he tries to make Oversight Committee Chair Jamie Comer feel okay about himself for not being able to do anything effective in his pursuit of an impeachment hearing for someone.

The chief of staff for the recently-murdered opposition leader Alexei Navalny was attacked with tear gas and a hammer as he was getting into his car in Vilnius, Lithuania, Politico reports, signaling another wave of violent retribution for people who oppose Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Leonid Volkov reportedly just got seated in his car outside his home when someone approached the car and smashed out the window with a hammer.  The attacker sprayed the tear gas into the vehicle and started attacking Volkov with the hammer.  Volkov was taken to a hospital by ambulance and is being treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

“You need to understand that these gains were won primarily by Democrats who are willing to vote for them,” John Palmer, a Teamsters Vice President, says.  “I know we get accused of supporting only Democrats, honestly the reason is, the Republicans haven’t supported us.  I mean, they’ve– they’re pushin’ ‘right to work.’  Right to work doesn’t benefit anybody.  It benefits corporations.”  Though the Teamsters have not yet made an endorsement, Palmer strongly hinted to supporting Biden.

President Joe Biden has secured enough delegates for the 2024 Democratic Party presidential nomination with his victory in the Georgia primary where he will pick up at least 100 delegates to put him over the 1,968 threshold, CNN reports.

A massive ransomware attack on Change Healthcare of Tennessee, a part of UnitedHealthcare’s portfolio, is costing providers in the company’s network up to $100 million per day in payments, reimbursements and other compensation because of ongoing system issues, CBS News reports.

With the cyberattack starting in February, Change Healthcare’s system was impacted on all levels.  Along with provider payments, pharmacy orders have been difficult to place and fulfill reliably.  Patient portals, including scheduling appointments and surgeries.  The federal Department of Health and Human Services is working with local providers to ensure continuation of services for those practices, clinics and hospitals impacted.

House Oversight Chairbilly James Comer and his boss, fat former President Trump, met in Florida recently to discuss a way of salvaging their utterly failed effort to vindicate Donald’s two impeachments by hitting Joe Biden with at least one, ABC News reports. The idea of a “criminal referral” for Biden came up as a way of saving face and to give a future Trump Reich some sort of political justification for prosecuting Biden should the fat fuck steal a second term.

A Comer spokesperson wouldn’t comment to ABC on the content of the conversation or exactly where it occurred, saying only that “While having lunch with Vernon Hill in Florida, Congressman Comer unexpectedly ran into President Trump and they had a brief 10-minute conversation.”

Hardcore anti-vax and anti-semitic third party presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr has approached red-pilled asshole New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers and former pro wrestler-turned Predator laser weapon victim-turned-Minnesota Governor Jesse “The Body” Ventura to see if either would be interested in joining his ticket as his running mate, the New York Times reports.

An influential committee that determines policies governing the case management and administration for all the courts in the United States–except, of course, the Supreme Court–has proposed a new policy that would minimize the ability of litigants to “judge shop” for specific jurists by filing in divisions where a single judge with a known political philosophy sits.

The proposal from the Judicial Conference’s Committee on Court Administration and Case Management would apply only to cases where a party sought injunctions or immediate relief involving state or federal laws, rules, regulations, policies, or executive branch orders.

These situations–where a plaintiff files a case in small jurisdictions where only one judge may hear a case in federal court–are increasingly being exploited by conservatives in north Texas, a district Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said is notorious for judge shopping because it’s comprised primarily of one-judge divisions.  In Northern Texas, ten of the eleven sitting judges were appointed by Republicans, including six by Donald Trump.  One Trump appointee, 47-year-old Matthew Kacsmaryk, is the sole judge in the Amarillo division, and he’s responsible for a number of controversial decisions including one that jeopardizes patients’ access to birth control medication. 

Lawyers for disgraced former President Trump on Tuesday notified Judge Juan Merchan that they intend to assert an advice of counsel defense in the upcoming Stormy Daniels hush money payoff trial, except that it’s not “formal” in that he doesn’t want to waive attorney-client privilege between himself and whichever lawyer he claims gave him the bad advice that led to the indictment.

“While President Trump intends to elicit evidence concerning the presence, involvement and advice of lawyers in relevant events giving rise to the charges in the Indictment, he does not intend to assert a formal advice-of-counsel defense that would require him to prove at trial that he ‘(1) made a complete disclosure to counsel [concerning the matter at issue], (2) sought advice as to the legality of his conduct, (3) received advice that his conduct was legal, and (4) relied on that advice in good faith,'” the lawyers wrote, whatever the hell that means.

Sounds like Trump just wants to blame Michael Cohen without having to waive whatever privilege that may or may not still exist with him and/or avoid testifying taking the stand during the trial.

It’s not 100 percent clear but it sounds like Ken Buck was set off by Tuesday’s shitshow of a House Judiciary Committee hearing starring former Biden docs fuckup special counsel Robert K Hur as the final straw in his decision to resign about ten months before he was going to retire.

Politico’s Olivia Beavers reported at 2:17 PM EDT that Jesus dork Speaker Mike Johnson told her that Buck had not given him the heads-up on his resignation and that Johnson looks forward to chatting with him. Beavers then followed up with Buck’s office and a spokesperson told her that Buck did in fact leave a voicemail with the Speaker. So who knows what would’ve happened had Johnson actually picked up the phone when one of his members was calling him. Maybe not the above interview – or the resignation at all. Maybe Johnson could’ve talked him off the ledge. Oh well.

“I think we speak for the VAST majority of human beings on planet Earth when we say that Adolf Hitler did not in fact – do ‘good things.’ Donald Trump’s praise for Hitler is disgraceful but wholly unsurprising from the man who has parroted Nazi rhetoric on the campaign trail, called his political opponents ‘vermin,’ and sucked up to dictators and authoritarians like Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, Kim Jong Un, and the rest of the gang. When Donald Trump talks like a dictator, praises dictators, and says he wants to be a dictator, we should probably believe him,” says a statement from the Biden Campaign attributed to the president referring to CNN’s Monday report that former Trump White House Chief of Staff John Kelly told others Donald had praised Hitler.

“It has been an honor to serve the people of Colorado’s 4th District in Congress for the past 9 years. I want to thank them for their support and encouragement throughout the years. Today, I am announcing that I will depart Congress at the end of next week. I look forward to staying involved in our political process, as well as spending more time in Colorado and with my family,” wrote Colorado Congressman Ken Buck in a statement Tuesday, not even waiting until the end of the term to leave town and screwing over House Speaker Mike Johnson’s tiny GOP majority even further.

The timing may be pretty bad for current 3rd District Congressidiot turned 4th District primary candidate Lauren Boebert too, as the primary isn’t until June 25th and – we’ll be upfront that we don’t know shit about how Colorado election law is supposed to handle this, but it’s possible that the Secretary of State could set the primary and/or general to finish out Buck’s term on the same day which would mean that Boebert could possibly need to switch seats mid-Congress, thereby screwing her out of the seat or handing Johnson yet another vacancy if she wins.