It seems indicted Republican “informant” and Russian asset Alex Smirnov and disgraced former President Trump have some friends in common, as the Guardian reports Smirnov was paid $600,000 by Texas company Economic Transformation Technologies in 2020 – the same year he filed his false report to the FBI – and ETT’s UK branch is co-owned by Pakistani-American investor Shahal Khan who has partnered with Trump on a number of projects. Also listed as an adviser on ETT’s American website is Farooq Arjomand, a former chairman and current board member of Damac Properties in Dubai, the company holding the license for the Trump International Gold Club in the gilded emirate.

It’s not clear what the hell ETT does, as its website makes it sound like NXIVM or some shit. “ETT set up the chess board to bring in top notch executives from those sectors to help implement its vision of love and social impact to improve the quality of human existence through the application of ‘new age’ technologies,” whatever the fuck that means. Surely we can look forward to the Senate Judiciary Committee hauling Condon and his buddies in to explain themselves.

Something to be said about these new Biden 2024 signs spotted in Brooklyn recently. One is that Brooklyn is not a swing county and the only place you’ll ever see a Trump sign is in the hardcore Hasidic neighborhoods like Borough Park and East Williamsburg, so it might be a little to early to hope to see these dot lawns and highways across the swing states. But it sure is pretty distinctive and in a good way compared to simply “BIDEN HARRIS 2024” in generic block letters.

House Republicans invited fat former President Trump to speak to them at their annual retreat in West Virginia this week, only for the twice-impeached loser to turn them down, CNN’s Melanie Zanona reports, adding that their Orange God Emperor would rather be in federal court in Florida to sit in on some tedious evidentiary hearing that he did not at all have to be present for.

A Thursday piece by the Daily Beast doesn’t add much to what’s already known about the schedule for disgraced former President Trump’s upcoming trial over the last-minute interference in the 2016 election by paying Stormy Daniels to stay quiet over their 45-second sexual encounter from 2006: Trump will have to be in court four days a week, 9:30 AM to 4:30 PM with Wednesdays off so Judge Juan Merchan can handle other cases, prosecutors say they the’ll need 15 to 17 days for testimony and presentation – which isn’t accounting for cross-examinations, and that it’s expected to last until mid-to-late May – or longer if Trump’s team can score a week off for Passover but that’s TBD.

It’s just that it’s kind of hard to appreciate before seeing it all laid out the way the Beast did, estimating the impact on his campaign during a crucial stretch when money’s supposed to be pouring in – and they didn’t even get too deep into what it would mean for the fat fuck himself. The time, energy, and focus required to sit there quietly while Joe Biden is less tethered is probably beyond Trump’s capacities, especially the way he’s been lately. To show up on time on a Monday after hitting the swing states both weekend days and trying to squeeze in another on Wednesday for nine or 10 weeks straight is going to be an immense strain on him physically and mentally.

The Beast writes that the irony is that it might incentivize Trump to act out during the trial and prompt Merchan to order him removed from the courtroom. Except if he pushes the judge’s buttons too hard it could end up with Donald getting tossed in a jail cell for a few days which, all bullshit about how much “sympathy” that would stir up aside, would on balance not be a good look and further the Orange God Emperor’s spiral into utter madness while he’s running for his life.

Exclusive — Donald Trump: ‘I Will Never Do Anything that Will Jeopardize or Hurt Social Security or Medicare’ https://t.co/pRIgs8mWrH

— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) March 14, 2024

The DNC are taking the threat posed by third party presidential candidate assclowns like RFK Jr, Jill Stein, and Cornel West very seriously this cycle and for the first time are putting together a team aimed specifically at crushing them on messaging and ballot access, NBC News reports.

Leading the communications side of the effort is veteran Dem operative Lis Smith, who led Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 campaign to victory in Iowa, while DNC insiders Mary Beth Cahill and Ramsey Reid will work on the oppo and legal sides, all working to keep the scrubs’ vote share closer to the 1.5 percent they took in 2020 than the 5 percent they were able to scrounge up in 2016.

“We’re facing an unprecedented election and we know the GOP is already working to prop up third-party candidates like RFK Jr to make them stalking horses for Donald Trump,” said Smith’s deputy Matt Corridoni. “With so much on the line, we’re not taking anything for granted. We’re going to make sure voters are educated and we’re going to make sure all candidates are playing by the rules.”

President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign will soon begin an all-out blitzkrieg on housing policy messaging, a clusterfuck of an issue with few obvious or easy solutions, particularly when it comes to rental costs these days, Politico reports on the kind of shit that Trump is just going to respond to with “I know housing. I’m in real estate. I used to build housing for the Blacks in New York City.”

“A Massachusetts man was sentenced today to three years and six months in prison for sending a communication containing a bomb threat to an election official in the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office. According to court documents, on or about Feb 14, 2021, James W Clark, 40, of Falmouth, sent a message via the Arizona Secretary of State’s website through ‘Contact Elections,’ addressing the election official by her first name and warning her that she needed to ‘resign by Tuesday February 16th by 9 am or the explosive device impacted in her personal space will be detonated.'”

“Shortly after transmitting the message, Clark conducted online searches that included the full name of the election official in conjunction with the words ‘how to kill’ and ‘address.’ Additionally, on or about Feb 18, 2021, Clark conducted online searches involving the Boston Marathon bombing.”

“In response to Clark ‘s message, law enforcement conducted partial evacuations and bomb sweeps of the building in which the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office was located, including an evacuation of the floor of the Office of the Arizona Governor located in the same building. Law enforcement also conducted bomb sweeps of the election official’s personal residence and of the official’s car. Clark pleaded guilty in August 2023 to one count of making a threatening interstate communication… This case is part of the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force. Announced by Attorney General Merrick B Garland and launched by Deputy Attorney General Lisa O Monaco in June 2021, the task force has led the Department’s efforts to address threats of violence against election workers, and to ensure that all election workers – whether elected, appointed, or volunteer – are able to do their jobs free from threats and intimidation” says a Justice Department press release.

Dutch white nationalist MP Geert Wilders, who for months tried and failed to bang together a coalition and take the premiership after his very Islamophobic and Reich-y Party for Freedom placed first in Tulipland’s November elections, has given up on the prime minister’s office for now at least, tweeting on Thursday that he “can only become premier if ALL parties in the coalition support that. That wasn’t the case,” though vowing to try again after the next election, the AP reports.

Thus ends lesson #4,905 in “Actually governing is harder than it looks” for right wingers and their asshole voters. See also lesson #4,587: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s nine months in power.

Kamala Harris will become the first president or vice president to visit a reproductive health clinic that provides abortions during a trip to Minnesota Planned Parenthood clinic on Thursday, USA Today reports.  The messaging from the visit will be clear:  Republicans want to take away women’s reproductive freedom and endanger their lives.

The messaging is so focused, the stop is actually the sixth on Harris’s “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms” tour, where the VP is discussing the availability of care in Minnesota, where liberal abortion laws have brought in patients from more conservative states where access is either limited or denied.  Harris has also brought attention to the lack of reproductive care providers in some states because practitioners fear for their safety.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee and presumptive future federal detainee Trump sat down with Newsmax’s Greg Kelly and he whined like it was 2016:  he still can’t get over Hillary.  One fun nugget:  Trump thinks Bleachbit–the opensource app that clears hard drives–is an actual liquid that can ooze out to a 10-mile radius.  No, really.  He said that.

Sixteen members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department were treated for injuries, including at least one who will require surgery, after a blast during a training exercise at an FBI training site in California left participants bleeding, concussed and disoriented, CBS News reports.

Fifteen participants were taken to local hospitals for various injuries including two with serious leg wounds; one is expected to require surgery.  One reported a back injury, and thirteen reported problems with their hearing.

The Sheriff’s Office Bomb Squad and SWAT teams were using the site for a training exercise when an explosion went off in a small building on site, signaling the thunderous failure of that bomb squad crew in the test.

Asked by MSNBC host and proud geek Chris Hayes about the status of the House GOP’s continuing effort to find something, anything they can glom on to so they can justify an impeachment vote against Biden, California Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell was blunt:

A coroner would pronounce it dead.  They didn’t prove anything.  They don’t have anything. They just don’t accept Joe Biden as President.  But the cul-de-sac they’re in is so interesting, right, because the Marjorie Taylor Greenes, the Matt Gaetzes have promised that an impeachment vote was coming.  Now they’re saying they’re going to make a criminal referral, not do impeachment.  How would you criminally refer somebody you’re not going to impeach?  The whole point of impeachment is that they committed a crime, so they’re stuck and it’s because they don’t have anything.

Courts in two states are restoring sanity and the rule of law with recent moves to reverse partisan decisions putting state election laws in the hands of conservatives.  Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court announced it will review a July 2022 decision that limited voters’ flexibility to vote.  That decision dictated that the only place ballot drop boxes could be located could be county election offices and the only person allowed to drop off a ballot is the voter named on it.

In North Carolina, a three-judge panel consisting of two Republicans and a Democrat declared unconstitutional a law passed by the Republican legislature’s supermajority last year stripping Democratic Governor Roy Cooper of his appointment power to county election boards, saying the law “infringes upon” the Governor’s constitutional duties and constitutes “the most stark and blatant removal of appointment power” in recent state history.

The ruling means the governor will continue to have three appointees on each county election board, versus just two for Republicans.  Republicans passed a law that would have expanded county boards to six members split evenly between the two Parties; critics called the move a blatant attempt to cause deadlocks on election results at a county level, throwing the system in chaos.  Republicans plan to appeal the ruling.

In another sign of chaos on the right–or in this case, Reich–wing, Fox Hausmutter and demoted hostess Laura Ingraham widens the crack by mocking the Catherine the Great of north Georgia, Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who argued on the floor of the House that America should be as concerned about Chinese purchases of farmland as it is about TikTok.  “Ok… farmland?  I-I-I’m losin’ that caboose of thought there, God bless her.”

If it were professionally allowed, Jack Smith’s response to the America First Legal amicus brief in Donald Trump’s Florida federal documents case should read as a very succinct, “LOL.”  Former Trump White House staffer and balding Bantu Stephen Miller’s attempt to set up a far-right version of the ACLU, AFL made three distinct claims as to why the federal prosecution of Donald Trump for holding a multitude of classified documents without authorization is unconstitutional, and Smith’s team easily knocked down each one.  It took the Special Counsel’s Office just five pages to dismantle the claims.

To summarize:  AFL claims the National Archives didn’t have authority to make a criminal referral; a different version of the prior argument; and finally, because the National Archives doesn’t have the necessary statutory authority to make a criminal referral, all proceedings stemming from said referral are void.

And to summarize the Special Counsel’s response:  Anyone can make a referral to the Justice Department if they believe a federal crime has been committed; no one needs any “statutory authority.”  BUT if such fictional “statutory authority” was required within a federal agency, NARA’s Inspector General’s office would by its mission have the necessary authority to make such a referral.  So there, pfffffffft.

In an article titled “RFK Jr’s VP prospect Aaron Rodgers has shared false Sandy Hook conspiracy theories in private conversations,” CNN anchor Pamela Brown writes, verbatim with a staff writer, “Brown was covering the Kentucky Derby for CNN in 2013 when she was introduced to Rodgers, then with the Green Bay Packers, at a post-Derby party. Hearing that she was a journalist with CNN, Rodgers immediately began attacking the news media for covering up important stories. Rodgers brought up the tragic killing of 20 children and 6 adults by a gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School, claiming it was actually a government inside job and the media was intentionally ignoring it. When Brown questioned him on the evidence to show this very real shooting was staged, Rodgers began sharing various theories that have been disproven numerous times.”

Which is fucked up of course but also weird that Brown waited more than 10 years and after RFK Jr was supposedly drafting Rodgers as a VP pick did they publish this story. Like it needed just a small, tiny sliver of political salience to be printed about a guy who was already pretty famous?

We’d love it if some Trump fans would weigh in here on the question of whether or not they’re better off than they were four years ago. And not like in the political sense of not having the president they worship in the White House or the fake sense that Venezuelan migrants are hiding in their basement, but in the real sense of having a leader who knows what the fuck he’s doing during a massive global emergency and not feeling a sense of dread over his incompetence. Like this fat bastard said right above, in not so many words, that the buck stops elsewhere. What kind of cunt wants this guy back in the White House? You don’t have to like Joe Biden. You do need to be medicated or lobotomized if you want Donald Trump back though, as you have something deeply wrong with you.

You’re of course welcome to explain how inflation would not have happened if not for Biden, provided you include at least three links to peer-reviewed academic analyses arguing as such.

After publicly rejecting House Oversight Chairbilly James Comer’s invitation to testify publicly next week, a source close to Hunter Biden’s legal team tells ABC News their client will happily show up if Comer can get Jared Kushner to come and answer similar questions. The hearing will still feature former Hunter pals Tony Bobulinksi, Devon Archer, and Jason Gallanis, the last of whom is currently in federal prison in Alabama. Not sure if he’s going to testify via Zoom or what.