With a proud sergeant shown front and center, a Montana Army National Guard recruitment poster heralding the “spirit of tradition” features a unit of actual World War II Nazis as the selected background shot, KTVQ in Billings reports.  Distributed everywhere from VFW halls to schools, the poster says of service in the Guard, “It’s more than college money….It’s the spirit of tradition.”

While featuring Nazis in posters sent to schools is bad enough, what may be worse is that these were distributed last fall and no one noticed it until February 2024.  “Montana National Guard leadership is aware of a Montana Army National Guard recruiting poster that appears to show members of the World War II German Army in the background,” a statement from the unit reads, admitting that the Montana Guard created the poster.  “This poster does not represent our history or values and has been removed from further distribution. We sincerely apologize for this serious mistake.”

Saying without an iota of self-awareness the late-night talk show host defrauded him, former Brazilian Carnaval dancer and Republican New York Congressman George Santos filed a lawsuit against Jimmy Kimmel for using Cameo videos Santos created based on requests Kimmel’s staff submitted using aliases, NBC News reports.  Santos seeks an easy payday $750,000.

After being booted from Congress for multiple lies and acts of fraud and a small matter of a criminal indictment, Santos found a new income stream by selling custom videos on the Cameo platform, where has-beens and never-wases prostitute their little remaining fame to make personalized custom videos requested by patrons.  In a sketch on his show two months ago, Kimmel features videos Santos filmed congratulating a fictional “beef eating contest” winner or imploring a non-existent woman to forgive her fake spouse for burning their shed down.

Santos has an uphill battle.  While Cameo’s terms of service bar patrons from the “commercial” use, it specifically encourages patrons to distribute and publicize Cameo and the custom video, granting the person who pays the celebrity to make the video “a non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully paid, worldwide, sublicensable, revocable license to use, reproduce, distribute, and publicly display that CAMEO Video, in any and all media (for example, on social media platforms), whether now known or hereafter invented or devised.”

Days after useful idiot Tucker Carlson fanboy’ed all over Russian President Vladimir Putin, proving once again conservatives cater to the propagandistic needs of authoritarian leaders, Putin’s key nemesis was assassinated in a far-off prison colony in Siberia.  Though Carlson himself didn’t push the plunger of polonium (or whatever method was used), he gave Putin an indication that Carlson’s American conservative followers would dismiss such an action if Putin wanted to knock off his opponent.

Speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai this week after his interview with Putin, Carlson was downright giddy over the power of autocrats to kill opponents, equating it to orders from Western leaders like President Joe Biden who order individuals who threaten the safety of their country and their people killed.

“In laying the foundation for his sweeping decision against former President Donald Trump, Judge Arthur Engoron observed that ‘this is a venial sin, not a mortal sin.’ Yet, at $355 million, one would think that Engoron had found Trump to be the source of Original Sin. The judgment against Trump (and his family and associates) was met with a level of unrestrained celebration by many in New York that bordered on the indecent. Attorney General Letitia James declared not only that Trump would be barred from doing business in New York for three years, but that the damages would come to roughly $460 million once interest was included,” writes right wing “legal expert” Jonathan Turley in a Saturday op-ed posted at TheHill.com, whose terrible reputation stems largely from its employ of jackasses like Turley, though amazingly he’s among the least offensive in the site’s sordid history.

“That makes the damages against Trump greater than the gross national product of some countries, including Micronesia. Yet the court admitted that not a single dollar was lost by the banks from these dealings” and blah blah blah, Turley continues in the piece. Really the only value here to National Zero in this jeremiad is to highlight one of the softer wails of pain over the costly verdict.

Minnesota gelato entrepreneur and Dem Congressman Dean Phillip’s presidential primary challenge to incumbent Joe Biden is now leaner and meaner as the longshot candidate on Friday confirmed he had laid off most of his staffers after coming in third after New Age weirdo Marianne Williamson in the South Carolina Democratic primary election earlier this month, CBS News reports.

“I found it almost impossible to raise enough to do this campaign the way I want,” Phillips said in a video. “And today, sadly, I had to announce layoffs to a lot of my staff members.” Get em Dean!

In a clip of a prerecorded interview set to air on Sunday, former Wisconsin Republican Party Chair Andrew Hitt tells 60 Minutes that in December 2020 he signed one of the 10 fake electoral college vote certificates for fat former President Trump out of fear, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

“If I didn’t do that, and the court did throw out those votes, it would have been solely my fault that Trump wouldn’t have won Wisconsin, can you imagine the repercussions on myself, my family if it was me, Andrew Hitt, who prevented Donald Trump from winning Wisconsin?” Hitt said in the interview with Andersen Cooper. “It was not a safe time,” Hitt said specifically when asked if he was afraid of Trump fanboys. “If my lawyer is right, and the whole reason Trump loses Wisconsin is because of me, I would be scared to death.” The meeting came just minutes after the state Supreme Court had voted 4-3 to uphold the fat bastard’s 21,000-vote defeat in the Cheesehead State.

• Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha … breathe… ha ha ha ha …. ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha … they think he can run the country when he’s barred from running a company… ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…
• We didn’t care how much our NATO allies spent on defense when they aided us after 9/11.  Now Donald Trump says if Canada–which spends just 1.4% of its GDP on defense, below the 2% goal–gets attacked, the US will sit by and let it happen. That says more about Donald Trump than Canada.
• I give it a week before Marge compares the jailed insurrectionists to Navalny.
• To put it bluntly, a former President claiming NATO nations do not merit America’s support is nothing short of an absolute insult to the men and women of the Greatest Generation, many of whom gave their lives to secure the freedom of our European allies, and later generations who battled through the Cold War to expand them and defeat the Soviet Union.
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CLX”

“So why is the Biden Administration arresting this FBI informant now?” says Jesse Watters, the one Fox keeps around to make Greg Gutfeld feel smart.  “The FBI’s had this four years ago.  And then the Republicans find out it’s been covered up so Biden’s locking up the source to discredit it?  This is the second informant Biden’s arrested for blowing the whistle about his bribes.  An Israeli American citizen told the FBI about the Chinese money going to the Bidens in 2019, even before they had the laptop.  He’s been arrested.”

Yeah, the second whistleblower is Gal Luft.  He was indicted for arms dealing with Iran and lying to federal agents.  Jesse doesn’t mention they were both lying and there were, in fact, no bribes.

Noted creep and Republican Florida Man Matt Gaetz might have an awkward run-in with an ex in the halls of the House office building when his ex-girlfriend, a former Capitol Hill staffer, appears before the House Ethics Committee to testify about what she knows relating to Gaetz’s alleged sex trafficking and drug use, CNN reports.

The woman, who is not being identified by news outlets out of concerns for her safety and to prevent intimidation attempts, had previously testified before a federal grand jury about Gaetz’s activities, but federal prosecutors opted not to charge the Congressman.

The day a New York civil court levied a $450 million judgment against the Trump Organization, his father and others including himself, Eric Trump continues to play the victim even though prosecutors proved the Trumps knowingly and illegally manipulated the stated values of their properties to defraud lenders and get lower interest rates, netting them more than $350 million.

In the first of what is sure to be many crowdfunding efforts to pay Donald Trump’s $355 million judgment, Elena Cardone, the wife of wealth fund manager Grant Cardone–himself worth a reported $700 million who runs a website called 10xGrowthCon (c’mon people, the word “con” is right in the name)–wants everyday people to pay for Trump’s malfeasance by setting up a site on GoFundMe.

“In standing with Trump, we’re not just supporting an individual; we’re upholding the cause of every patriot who believes in the fight against a system that increasingly seeks to penalize dissent and curb our freedoms,” Cardone asserts defiantly.  “This is more than a legal fund; it’s a clarion call to all patriots to rally in defense of a man who has never hesitated to stand in defense of us.”  It’s also a way to generate a fantastic mailing list of people who want to experience 10xGrowth.

.@realdonaldtrump and his family should come do business in South Dakota.

🇺🇸We have the best tax climate in America
🇺🇸We don’t prosecute anyone for their political beliefs
🇺🇸And our judges won’t presume you guilty before the trial even starts pic.twitter.com/Z81TAegmeW

— Kristi Noem (@KristiNoem) February 16, 2024

You can almost smell Kristi Noem’s desperation.  Her cries for attention from Donald Trump rival Eric’s, and she’s counting on her sycophancy to secure the VP slot on a potential GOP ticket… because she’s not going to get out of South Dakota any way else.

Talk about timing:  Just yesterday, Digital World Acquisition Corp., the “blank check” company formed to merge with Trump Media to fund Truth Social, received approval from SEC to pursue the merger.  Now that Trump and his sons are barred from serving as an owner/operator of a business in New York due to fraud, the SEC may want to give its approval a second look.  The deal, according to reports, could put as much as $4 billion to Trump’s bottom line.  …

According to New York law, Trump will need to put up 120% of the judgment–$450 million dollars including pre-judgment interest accrued from the time of the fraud, plus 20%–if he files an appeal. Who the hell is going to fund an appeal of a fraud case to the tune of nearly half a billion dollars?  …

By the way, that “pre-judgment interest” continues to accrue at a 9% rate until Trump cuts the check to the state treasury.  As he fights, he racks up roughly $3.5 million in interest per month. …

Perpetually losing attorney Alina Habba is not happy with her latest losing judgment relating to her representation of Donald Trump, with her latest defeat costing her client more than one-third of a billion dollars.  And she’s continuing her habit of misinformation as she screams via text in frustration for her floundering career and announcing their intent to appeal.

“This verdict is a manifest injustice – plain and simple. It is the culmination of a multi-year, politically fueled witch hunt that was designed to ‘take down Donald Trump,’ before Letitia James ever stepped foot into the Attorney General’s office,” she posted on social media adding to our schadenfreude.  “Countless hours of testimony proved that there was no wrongdoing, no crime and no victim.”

It should be noted that Trump and his co-defendants had already been found liable for defrauding the government, and the investigation found that the lies Trump et al told cost the lenders more than $160 million.

It was at 3:14 PM EDT he posted this, approximately 14 minutes after Judge Engoron dropped a $354 million anvil on his head. Shouldn’t be much longer before the orange volcano fully erupts.

In a 90+ page ruling, New York Judge Arthur Engoron levied fines and renumeration in excess of $364 million against Donald Trump, his two adult sons, the Trump Organization and other corporate officers for falsifying financial statements.

It is not a death sentence for the Trump Organization, however, as Engoron had previously ordered court-appointed oversight for the company through independent monitors and compliance officers, which will continue as long as the company operates in New York. Donald Trump, Allen Weisselberg, and Jeffrey McConney have been barred from operating as an officer in any New York corporation for three years.  Trump’s sons Eric and Don Jr. are barred for two years from similar positions.

Should Trump choose to appeal the ruling, he will have to front at least some significant portion of the assessment.  Trump was personally ordered to pay $354 million, with fines of $4 million to each Junior and Eric and $1 million to Weisselberg.  Trump’s total real estate holdings in New York City were estimated at a total value of around $600 million, with only Trump Tower, valued at $160 million, the only property totally owned by Trump.

The US Supreme Court on Friday posted its April argument schedule which Politico’s Josh Gerstein noticed lists the Capitol riot obstruction charge case brought by a MAGA insurrectionist slated for the 16th and a major abortion case out of Idaho on the 24th, but nothing for disgraced former President Trump’s petition for immunity from the DC coup attempt conspiracy case.

“Big [question]: Is that it for the year or will justices add a late breaking Trump criminal immunity argument?” Gerstein writes and, considering this is the guy who broke the story about the Dobbs decision, we would tend to believe he knows what the hell he’s talking about here. So if he’s noting US v Trump’s absence from the schedule then it could mean something not good for Donald.

Former top Fox News propagandist Tucker Carlson plainly waited until he was outside of Russia and headed home from a stopover in Dubai to respond to the news of the murder of dissident Alexei Navalny at the hands of dictator Vladimir Putin – who Tuck of course interviewed last week.

“It’s horrifying what happened to Navalny. The whole thing is barbaric and awful. No decent person would defend it. I didn’t even know it happened till I saw the Daily Mail story,” Tucker told the Daily Mail, plugging their coverage for some fucking reason. The response comes just days after Tucker excused his love for Vladdy Daddy by saying “every leader kills people, leadership requires killing people” during a forum interview at a summit in Dubai, not mention the video of him walking around Moscow saying the town is “so much cleaner, and safer and prettier, aesthetically” than he thought, and “Its architecture, food, and services than in any city in the US. And this is not ideological.”

“I think you could even venture to wonder if Alexei Navalny would have died – been treated like he was – if there was a different president in office today,” said Carley Shimkus, naturally skipping over the fact that Trump was still in office when Navalny was poisoned in August 2020 and when he was imprisoned in January 2021 (though to be fair Putin knew it was over for his Donald then).

A Houston judge on Friday told Picasso-faced Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton tough shit, deal with it, rejecting the impeached scumbag’s motion to dismiss the nearly decade-old securities fraud case against him and sticking to the trial start date of April 15, the Associated Press reports.

Paxton faces up to 99 years in prison if convicted and that would be so freaking awesome if that sick son of a bitch really did go down for that long… except Greg Abbott would probably pardon him.