Note: The headline is not a verbatim quote from Alina Habba being asked to comment on right wing legal douche Andrew McCarthy’s take on how Trump’s appeal in Manhattan is going to go. It’s just pretty goddamned close to what Habba actually said to Martha McCallum. Arguably just as snappy.

NYPD investigators believe they’ve solved two mysteries in one fell swoop: What happened to the left leg of a man who was struck and killed by a train at the Spring Street subway station in Soho, Manhattan on February 12th, and why the hell workers found a human leg on the tracks near the 167th Street station in the Bronx on Saturday. As ABC 7 explains, it turns out the leg somehow got lodged in the bottom of a passing train – likely separate from the one that struck the man – and then finally fell out on the tracks nine miles north in the Bronx at some point over the following six days.

A new Quinnipiac University national survey finds former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley leading President Joe Biden 46 to 43 percent in a hypothetical matchup. In the not-hypothetical matchup Biden leads fat former President Trump 49 to 45 percent, a slight contraction from the 50 to 44 percent lead for Biden QU found last month, but still enough to cause the fanboys to freak out.

The survey also found, at 21 percent, “preserving democracy” the number one most important issue for respondents, that Joe Biden is seen as more ethical, moral, and empathetic than Trump, and…

Yeah this all sounds like a center-left wet dream of what a normal, not irreparably fucking twisted and misinformed electorate looks like but this is what Quinnipiac found so we’re carrying it.

“Speaker Mike Johnson delivered a presentation at a weekend GOP retreat that – although it was billed as a map to keeping the House majority – took on a surprisingly religious tone, according to two people in the room,” says the lede to a Wednesday Politico report on the Republican shindig at the Oriental Hotel in Miami. And wow, Mike Johnson took a religious tone? Get the fuck out of here.

That silly intro aside, the story includes some comical quotes from “alarmed” attendees, like one attendee saying “I’m not at church,” and that Johnson’s presentation was “horrible.” Another said “I think what he was trying to do, but failed on the execution of it, was try to bring us together. The sermon was so long he couldn’t bring it back to make the point.” Sources described Johnson as whining about declining church attendance in the United States in a speech that was supposed to be about policy and strategy for the House of Representatives’ Republican conference.

For as much as we mocked Kevin McCarthy for the “Sonny Bono speech” that came just weeks before he was removed, at least his stupid metaphor had something to do with legislating. Sort of.

Hunterghazi special counsel David Weiss on Wednesday asked a California federal judge to overrule a Nevada federal magistrate’s grant of bail to James Comer and Jim Jordan’s Russian-paid pal Alex Smirnov, explaining that the asshole has the means, method, and motive to flee prosecution.

“No condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure the appearance of the defendant Alexander Smirnov as required. As discussed in more detail below, the nature and circumstances of the offense, weight of the evidence, and the fact that Smirnov’s ties to the community are weak establish that Smirnov should be detained. But, in addition, there are four indisputable facts related to the characteristics of Smirnov that compel detention. First, he claims to have contacts with multiple foreign intelligence agencies and had plans to leave the United States two days after he was arrested last week for a months-long, multi-country foreign trip. During this trip, the defendant claimed to be meeting with foreign intelligence contacts. Those foreign intelligence agencies could resettle Smirnov outside the United States if he were released,” wrote Weiss, before going on to explain how Smirnov lied about access to a bank account with a $6 million balance and his ability to obtain an Israeli passport so that was really, seriously fucking stupid to grant him bail.

Russ Vought responds to the Politico "Christian nationalism" controversy:

"They're just trying to scare Christians across the country from using the political process. This is part of a 100 year strategy and it's to level accusations…

"We should provide religious liberty for… pic.twitter.com/4VfMKUlEqX

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) February 21, 2024

Former Trump Administration shitweasel Russ Vought on Wednesday was not pleased with Politico’s Tuesday reporting headlined “Trump allies prepare to infuse ‘Christian nationalism’ in second administration,” complaining to Steve Bannon that “If you’re a Christian they want to call you a ‘Christian nationalist,'” and then, not five seconds later, saying “We’re meant to be a Christian nation, we should be a Christian nation, we should provide religious liberty for…” and blah blah blah.

“Western Civilization does not work without the underpinnings of a Judeo-Christian worldview that is the bedrock for all of our laws. So it is not unnatural for Christian to be a part of the political sphere, the public square,” Vought continued without directly addressing his plans for a to implement a fascist theocracy complete with bans on birth control pills, in-vitro fertilization, surrogacy, sex education in schools, and no-fault divorce in a restored Trump Reich.

All of which Charlie Kirk calls a “controversy” because, even though they’re openly planning an all-out assault on individual freedoms, independent voters who may not take too kindly to such designs aren’t meant to be clued in on that. It’s a base thing only and the MSM should stick to reporting on Biden being old and how it’s his fault a Big Mac extra value meal costs $18 on Door Dash.

Presidential brother James “Billy Beer” Biden told House GOP investigators his brother Joe “has never had any involvement or any direct or indirect financial interest” in his business scams, according to an opening statement obtained by Axios’s Steve Neukam. Must be Ukrainian disinfo.

Dems in the New York State legislature are poised to go with the second-most brutal gerrymander they proposed over the last few years of back-and-forth over the goddamned maps, sources tell Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman. Last week the state redistricting commission had issued a map that just slightly dinged three Republicans, but the new old proposed map would be significantly more aggressive and put more seats in play, likely netting Dems at least three more.

A new Economist/YouGov survey finds Donald Trump Jr’s utterly trouncing Hunter Biden in favorability ratings, 36 to 24 percent among respondents. Even worse for Hunter is that the numbers are divided into very/somewhat favorable, with Don Jr scoring 16 percent and Hunter only 6.

And that’s about as newsworthy as this poll of 1,562 US Adults gets. If you must know however, Trump leads Biden 43 to 42 percent and Dems lead the GOP 43 to 41 percent on the generic ballot.

Gym Jordan isn’t having a great day after Alex Smirnov, his “informant” against the Bidens admitted he was compromised by Russian intelligence. Even funnier is the Huffington Post reports that a letter sent out by Gym and fellow dipshit James Comer requesting an interview with former State Department official Amos Hochstein sent out last week was resent on Tuesday with a paragraph referencing the “bribery” bullshit removed from it. Freaking assclowns.

The Biden Administration is considering taking executive action on the “border crisis” that Republicans won’t shut up about, making it more difficult to claim asylum and targeting more recently-arrived claimants for deportation, NBC News reports on something that will probably do nothing to stop Republicans from screaming that the border is open every chance they get.

“Make your best assumptions and predictions. The data is false and manipulated. The future is just one big dark cloud, with storms, and lightning. Heading right for us” – Top comment on “Breitbart Business Digest: The Economic Winter That Never Came,” posted Tuesday afternoon.

In it, Breitbart’s John Carney breaks the good bad news to fans with as much levity as he can muster, writing “Winter is no longer coming. The phrase ‘winter is coming’ is the motto of the Stark family in George RR Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series and the Game of Thrones television program it inspired. It is a warning of hard times ahead and the inevitable return of the long winters known in the fictional land of Westeros. Yet, in the realm of the Fed and monetary policy, the anticipated economic chill prompting rate cuts seems to be thawing before our very eyes.”

Which prompted a flurry of pretty pissed off responses in the comments like the one above. “Oops they must’ve forgot the $18 for a Big Mac value meal combo under Biden,” another Breitbarter wrote.

A Russian teenager was arrested on Friday, just hours after news broke of Alexei Navalny’s murder, over a molotov cocktail attack on a local office of dictator Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party the kid recorded on video while yelling “Freedom to Russia” and “It’s my choice” in a digitally altered voice, the Daily Beast reports citing Telegram channels which carried video of the attack.

The fire appears to have done little to no damage as it was confined to the roof of the building’s entrance. The kid has only been charged with “hooliganism” thus far, though that could change as the party itself said it is viewing the arson as an “act of terrorism” in response to Navalny’s murder.

It's official: I'm running for Congress in #NY01 because there's too much at stake for the country & community I love. Long Island families deserve someone who fights for their values, not Trump's. It's time for us all to get off the sidelines. Join Me. https://t.co/fMu8RdLyBL pic.twitter.com/RHWAam8yif

— John Avlon (@JohnAvlon) February 21, 2024

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign spent more money than it took in last month, raising $8.8 million while spending more than $11 million, and his “Save America” PAC raised $8.5 million with $3.9 million in expenditures, nearly $3 million of which went to legal fees, according to the Daily Beast‘s review of FEC records.

A leadership PAC is typically designed to “spread the wealth” around to help underfunded candidates from the deep-pockets of the top-line candidate, but Trump has been using Save America PAC to fund his legal defense in his legal cases.  Save America PAC is now primarily reliant on repayments from Trump’s old MAGA PAC to keep itself funded.  It also gains money by taking 10% of funds raised by Trump’s joint fundraising committee, with the rest of the money going directly to the campaign.  Save America PAC had more than $30 million at the start of 2023.

Trump is also splintering his fundraising efforts by now pulling his campaign donors to buy other products like sneaker, perfume and NFTs that will ultimately become worthless.  Plus, as many of Trump 2020 team head to court dates, their teams will be hitting up the same donor pool–both individuals and larger–to fund their defenses.

Hey!  Look!  A Trump lawyer finally won one… sorta.  “Just For Men” dispenser and continually disgraced human Rudy Giuliani can appeal the $146 million judgment against him awarded to Fulton County election workers Rudy Moss and Shaye Freeman, a federal bankruptcy judge ruled Tuesday, but he can’t use any of his personal money, so he must find donors who meet court approval to fund the effort, NBC News reports.

The December defamation judgment in DC federal court led Giuliani to declare bankruptcy about a week later, putting all his major financial decisions under a court-ordered review.  “Any fees and expenses incurred by the Debtor and his advisors in the Freeman Litigation in connection with any Post-Trial Filings and the Notice of Appeal shall not be paid by, and shall not result in a claim against, the Debtor or his estate,” U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane wrote in his order.  Should Giuliani’s effort fail, he would be responsible for paying Moss and Freeman because such damages do not discharge in bankruptcy.

“Take a look at this photo right here,” Trump advisor and former radio deejay Sean Hannity demands.  “Look at that photo from his phone that the government, prosecutors claim show lines of cocaine.  That’s what the government prosecutors are saying.  They’re saying that’s sawdust.  Take a good look at sawdust lined up in perfect little lines.  Take a close look.  Does that look like sawdust to you.”

Yes.  Yes, Sean, it looks exactly like sawdust.  And yes, people can put little things in line that *look* like cocaine–as any teenager with a sugar dispenser after watching too much Miami Vice in the 1980s could tell you–but that doesn’t make that big tan clumps lined up or scattered on a table saw in a home shop enough cocaine to power Tony Montana.  (What I really love, though, is the obvious hesitation in Hannity’s voice when he looks down at the monitor and his little brain tells him, “Yo, doofus, that *does* look like sawdust.”)

A 30-year-old satellite called one of the granddaddies in the study of climate change will plummet to Earth at some point overnight… somewhere on the planet, the BBC reports, with the exact time and site of entry into the atmosphere unknown because it’s an unplanned, uncontrolled entry.

The European Remote-Sensing Satellite-2 was the second of a pair of instrument platforms launched by the European Space Agency in the early 1990s;  ERS-2 launched in 1995.  The two satellites were some of the first to do large-scale recording of sea and cloud temperatures that signaled changes to the climate.

ERS-2 stopped functioning in 2001 when its gyroscopes stopped working, and at that time, program directors decided to use the last bit of fuel in the satellite to start it on a spiralling orbit that would ultimately lead to tonight’s re-entry.  ESA officials say they expect most of the satellite to burn up on reentry, but pieces of debris have a small possibility of hitting land.  “The odds of a piece of satellite falling on someone’s head is estimated at one in a billion,” an ESA space junk engineer said.  Given that Earth’s population is around 7.8 billion, eight of you better watch out.

An easterly jetstream that reached more than 250 m.p.h. propelled a commercial airliner that left Washington, DC late Saturday night to reach London nearly 45 minutes early after it reached speeds nearing 840 m.p.h. during the flight, CBS News reports, one of a number of eastbound flights to top 800 m.p.h. this weekend.  For comparison, the now-retired Concorde would reach top speeds of 1,300 m.p.h.

While the quicker flights were advantageous for scheduling, pilots reported more turbulence for the flights.  And while the jetstream is an aid to those planes going to Europe, the planes flying to North America from Europe run into greater headwinds even if they are outside the most powerful band of winds.  (For the record, the planes technically did not break the sound barrier at around 767 m.p.h. because the planes did not surpass that speed in comparison to the air current around them.)

The lowlight reel from fat former President Trump’s Tuesday night Fox News town hall with Frau Ingraham would be almost as long as the show itself minus commercial breaks, but sticking out with insane bullshit such as saying he’s now an expert on law from being indicted and sued so much, saying mail-in ballots are automatic fraud, acting like some non-existent trucker protest is going have some influence over the New York State court system, and of course calling the civil fraud verdict against him a “form of Navalny.” That’s the one we’re running with because it’s the worst.

Although Trump telling Ingraham that he didn’t have to hand over the classified documents he stole from the White House might’ve been a good pick too, but we’re sticking with this one.