More than 32 million people tuned in to President Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday night, an 18% increase from last year, but lower than Biden’s 2022 address, according to Forbes.  But don’t worry, MAGA:  it’s not close to the viewership of Donald Trump’s annual Congressional addresses, the lowest of which, 2020, attracted 37 million while the others topped 40 million.

FBI agents arrested January 6th insurrectionist John Emanuel Banuelo on Friday on charges related to firing a handgun at least twice during the Republican-led domestic terrorist attack on Congress, blowing a hole into the MAGA talking point that the crowd was comprised of a bunch of unarmed tourists peacefully demonstrating to undermine the Constitution.

Banuelo, who lives in Illinois, had been identified by online sleuths who had previously identified him in other locations.  Last week, though, Republican West Virginia House candidate Derrick Evans released cell phone footage of the attack showing someone firing a gun; the “sedition hunters” pounced on the video and matched Banuelo.

As a sidenote:  Banuelo was arrested in July 2021 after he fatally stabbed a 19-year-old man at a park in Utah, but he charges were dropped after he claimed he acted in self-defense.

Far right election denier and abusive husband Arizona state Senator Sonny Borrelli responded Thursday to Dem Governor Katie Hobbs’s call for the state legislature to pass a law protecting the right to birth control by telling the Arizona Mirror that “Bayer Company invented aspirin.”

No, he’s not that stupid to think taking aspirin works as a contraceptive. He is however the kind of piece of shit who would say – apparently to a female reporter no less – to “Put it between your knees,” as in “keep your legs closed,” adding Dems are “creating a controversy that doesn’t exist because nobody’s opposing – nobody has any kind of plan to ban any contraceptives,” and “Not in this legislature, not this term, not this session,” would any Republicans try to ban them.

Which means that as long as there’s a Dem governor and the Republicans are short of a supermajority, which they are currently, they won’t ban birth control. Which is why he doesn’t want to move to protect it now because they may get the chance to ban them in the future.

WATCH: Illegal migrant at southern border explains why he's wearing a Biden-Harris shirt https://t.co/Dn9iHHAnvF

— GOP (@GOP) March 8, 2024

Following weeks of back and forth over his 2024 campaign plans, Montana Freedom Caucasian Matt Rosendale on Friday announced he was no longer running for the House or Senate in November.

Rosendale cited some shit about threats to his family and “false and defamatory rumors,” as in that story about him supposedly having impregnated a 20 year-old staffer which is, uh… Why the fuck would he even be bringing that up if his retirement has nothing to do with it?

“Delegates” to pro-Trump scam operation – not an actual party – No Labels on Friday voted to move forward with their plan to put a presidential ticket on the 2024 ballot, Politico reports.

They don’t actually have a candidate yet and, per Politico, they “may not find one.” Too bad Joe Manchin, Larry Hogan, Mitt Romney, Kyrsten Sinema, and all the other “centrists” turned them down.

Whoever the hell this woman is officially nominating Lara Trump for RNC co-chair appears to have simply made up some kind of biblical justification for installing a former part-time Fox News contributor to be the second in command of one of the two largest American political parties.

Her last formal act of declaring the actual leader of her party to be its paramount, feckless figurehead Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna Not-Romney McDaniel, forced out eight months before an absolute do-or-die election for the crime of having pretended there was a real primary and holding debates instead of focusing on “election integrity,” gave an emotional farewell speech to the party’s 168 delegates assembled at some hotel in Houston.

“It is a little bit bittersweet to be with all of you here today as I step down as chair after seven years of working with you all… I’m stepping aside today because I have long promised to put the nominee and their plans for the RNC first. Winning the White House back is just too important for me to do otherwise. President Trump deserves to have the team he wants in place at the RNC,” said the woman who literally changed her name to mollify the obese rapist former president.

Then, in a scene reminiscent of the highly choreographed functions of the Chinese Communist Party, the new appointed leadership team of Mike Whatley and co-chair Lara Trump were installed to enforce the Dear Leader’s iron rule of all of conservative politics with no challengers.

President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign on Friday opened up a blitzkrieg with a $30 million ad spend, hiring 350 new staffers, and opening 100 swing state field offices to capitalize on momentum coming off a solid performance at Thursday’s State of The Union address – as well as disgraced former President Trump’s self-created legal clusterfucks and money issues, Politico reports.

“I think Joe Biden might have changed SOTU into the Start Of The Uplift with last night’s speech. Democrats needed him to lay out the playbook for this election, in particular on the economy and immigration. We got the vision and contrast we need as the campaign season starts,” said Dem consultant Dan Sena on the first shots of the Second Battle of the Soul of the Nation.

Disgraced former President Trump on Friday put up the $91.63 million bond required to appeal the verdict against him in writer EJ Carroll’s federal defamation lawsuit. Saturday would have been the deadline before Carroll could start moving to collect from the fat fuck as Judge Lewis Kaplan on Thursday had denied Donald’s motion for a stay of execution of the $83.3 million judgment which was bumped up by $8 million and change for the bond due to fees.

Maria Bartiromo and pals were not having a great time with another solid monthly jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday, with a panel of seven yapping “financial professionals” simply resorting to conspiracy theories to explain why things are going so well for the US economy.

The embarrassment kept going with one panelist begging the Fed not to lower interest rates (which would help Joe Biden’s reelection effort) and then one Karen saying she’s “no expert on the Labor Department, but I would like to have a conversation with someone over there about these numbers”

Incoming Republican National Committee chairman Mike Whatley’s reception among the hardest core and most influential of the 2020 election conspiracy theory crowd is expected to be icy at best given his history of calling Biden’s win legitimate and that he only gained the Orange God Emperor’s favor by virtue of Donald’s extremely narrow win in North Carolina, where Whatley currently chairs the state GOP before his expected ascension to top national post, the New York Times reports.

Whatley has told allies that Trump said “That’s great. Why the hell didn’t they do that in Arizona and Georgia?” in response to Whatley explaining all his “election integrity” efforts in the Tar Heel State, like it wasn’t simply 74,483 votes making the difference between him now replacing Ronna and facing indictment or actually indicted for signing fake electoral college votes like former Arizona and Georgia GOP chairs Kelly “Chemtrails” Ward and David Shafer, respectively.

“Biden’s speech last night is getting ‘panned’ all over the World. Only the Radical Left lunatics are trying to make the best of it. It took him 41 minutes to talk, briefly, about Immigration and the Border, on the topic of which he was very weak. No talk of weaponization against his very calm and nice opponent. Angry as hell, this guy is a PSYCHO!” posted fat former President Trump on Friday morning after his personal social media platform shit out during what was hyped as a “rapid response” to his rival’s big election year State of The Union address, evidently upset that Biden did not do what he had demanded and announce a pardon or something for Trump’s crimes.

“Katie Britt was a GREAT contrast to an Angry, and obviously very Disturbed, ‘President.’ She was compassionate and caring, especially concerning Women and Women’s Issues. Her conversation on Migrant Crime was powerful and insightful. Great job Katie!” Trump also wrote Thursday night because of course he’s demented enough to think that was normal. Before that he posted “If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business. I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!” thereby endorsing continued Chinese Communist ownership of the platform, one that he tried and failed to destroy as revenge for TikTokers ratfucking his infamous June 2020 “comeback” rally in Tulsa.

Lefty Substacker Matt Yglesias writes the about-face was spurred by Trump getting “a bunch of money from formerly critical GOP mega-donor Jeff Yass, an investor in [TikTok owner] ByteDance.”

Contrast what President Biden said in his State of The Union address Thursday night that Capitol riot-adjacent Wisconsin MAGA Congressman Derrick Van Orden was specifically reacting to when he screamed “LIES!” and then what he said to CNN’s Manu Raju in an interview after the speech:

“My predecessor, failed the most basic presidential duty that he owes to the American people, the duty to care. I think that’s unforgivable,” Biden said of Trump’s abysmal, shambolic response to the virus hitting the country, which spurred Van Orden’s outburst. Yet afterward, having composed himself a bit, the bald asshole at first didn’t own up to it, then tried to make it more of a general complaint about Biden’s policies on the border and immigration, blah blah blah.

However it is very plain from the video that Van Orden actually lost his shit over the notion that his Orange God Emperor had failed to protect the nation from a deadly virus and that far more Americans died than needed to in 2020 as a direct result of Trump’s incompetence. It was as if Van Orden is an Islamic fundamentalist and Biden had just cursed the name of Allah. He simply could not tolerate the filthy infidel tyrant’s blasphemy against the sacred rule of the Holy Pornstar Fucker.

Ohio GOP Senate primary candidates Bernie Moreno and Matt Dolan are giving their mutual rival Frank LaRose hell over the No Labels scam operation promoting a public Zoom meeting featuring LaRose and with “longtime friend” who would be a better choice as an “independent senator” than the Trump-endorsed frontrunner Moreno, who would be a “Trump senator,” Fox News reports.

“On any given day, it’s unclear which version of Frank LaRose is actually going to show up in this primary. Ohioans clearly see Frank for who he really is, a political chameleon willing to change his stripes and undermine the will of Republican voters for financial support,” Dolan spokesman Chris Maloney told Fox. “No real conservative would be caught dead begging pro-amnesty and pro-gun control No Labels to fund their Senate campaign. They only support Democrats and anti-Trump RINOs like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. This is who the real Frank LaRose is,” Moreno tweeted on Tuesday. LaRose ultimately caved to the pressure and skipped out on the Zoom call.

What Moreno and Dolan forget is that LaRose is the current Secretary of State of Ohio and the whole point of his participation in a No Labels virtual event was almost certainly to lend “legitimacy” to their effort to help reelect fat former President Trump by splitting off moderate Republicans and “centrists” from Biden. Of course it was fucking stupid for them to take LaRose’s side in the primary, but those two dipshits probably should have let No Labels’ amateurish bullshit go and seen the longer game: That this was almost certainly way more about LaRose’s day job than his Senate bid.

President Biden’s campaign tells Politico Playbook the hour before and the hour during his Thursday night State of The Union speech were the two best fundraising hours ever so far in his 2024 reelection bid, with small dollar donations pouring in online. Actual numbers were not provided.

'BLESS YOUR HEART': Rising Republican star Katie Britt shreds Biden on border, rising costs in SOTU rebuttal https://t.co/wHICOfAIeK

— Fox News (@FoxNews) March 8, 2024

Alabama Senator Katie Britt’s horrifying rebuttal is the lead story on the Daily Beast, quoting from a Republican who says “Everyone’s fucking losing it. It’s one of our biggest disasters ever.”

Is it robbing the cradle when your fiance, 25 years younger than you, is already eligible for Social Security?  No matter:  Rupert Murdoch, 92, announced his engagement to 67-year-old Elena Zhukova, a retired molecular biologist who can likely explain to him how vaccines work.

Per the Guardian, Murdoch met the sixth woman he’s been engaged to–his last engagement to conservative radio host Ann Lesley Smith lasted just two weeks and ended in early 2023–at a family gathering held by his third wife, Chinese national Wendi Deng.  Zhukova’s daughter was once married to a Russian oligarch who had previously owned the Chelsea football club in the English Premier League.

In immediate post-State of the Union polls, CNN found the number of people who thought President Biden’s programs would help the nation move in the right direction, the numbers literally flipped, from 45% before the speech thinking Biden’s policies are good for Americans to 62% after.

Joe Biden spoke with power and authority–and sometimes his brain got ahead of his lips, leading to characteristic slurring–demonstrating a command of the issues that sometimes put the Republicans into a corner by pointing out their inability to get anything done.

Coming out with strength on facing our nation’s enemies both domestic and foreign, Biden presented himself as a strong leader in a democracy, pointing out how Republicans act one way but tell their followers something else.  “You’re sayin’ no.  Look at the facts,” Biden told Republicans who claimed he was lying about support for the bipartisan immigration bill passed by the Senate.

Biden pushed programs to help home buyers hit by higher interest rates, and continued to hit how the GOP has attacked reproductive rights.  In an off-script moment, Biden looked at the members of the Supreme Court in the audience and told them that they’ll soon learn about the political power of women.