Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s regime is pretty mum on why former top Fox News propagandist and fierce ideological ally Tucker Carlson has been spotted hanging out in Moscow in recent days amid speculation of an interview with Putin, with spokesworm Dmitry Peskov saying they “can hardly be expected to provide information on the movement of foreign journalists,” the Guardian reports.

“Many foreign journalists come to Russia every day, many continue to work here, and we welcome this. We have nothing to announce in terms of the president’s interviews to foreign media,” Peskov added, which is complete bullshit considering last year the Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich was arrested on fake espionage charges just hours after he filed a story titled “Russia’s Economy Is Starting to Come Undone.” Gershkovich has been held for the past 312 days and at the time of his arrest he was technically a colleague of Carlson’s as both were on the Murdochs’ payroll.

Mitch McConnell and James Lankford are selling out America with their Mass Amnesty/Ukraine Bailout deal.

Pass it on.

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) February 5, 2024

A survey by ultra plugged-in Beltway insider tip sheet Punchbowl News finds that just 38 percent of Republicans on K Street – the lobbying firm neighborhood of Washington, DC – think Mike Johnson is an “effective” Speaker of the House, another 25 percent saying he’s “ineffective,” and the remaining 36 percent answering “neither/don’t know.” They also polled Dem lobbyists and found just 21 percent calling Johnson effective to 56 percent ineffective and 23 percent don’t know.

We think this is significant because it appears under a section of Monday’s edition titled “K Street Republicans doubt Johnson’s abilities as speaker,” but unhelpfully Punchbowl doesn’t mention any past surveys about Kevin McCarthy or Nancy Pelosi as a baseline for comparison (they launched in January 2021). It’s also not clear how much it actually matters in the real world if lobbyists think Johnson sucks at the job, though we do have to give them some credit for framing the question properly. If it was “Is Mike Johnson making your job easier?” then that would be a “I’m not beholden to corporate shills” badge of honor for the Jesus dork to fundraise off of. Just an up or down vote on his effectiveness as Speaker from informed observers – many of them former members or high-level aides themselves – is noteworthy and not in a good way even for want of a little more context.

Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos told his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte to cut out the secession bullshit on Monday as the far right former president used Marcos’s call for constitutional reform as an opportunity to call for the southern Mindanao region to secede, Reuters reports.

“The national government will not hesitate to use its authority and forces to quell and stop any and all attempts to dismember the Republic,” Marcos said, without naming names.

Travis Kelce’s “girlfriend” Taylor Swift took home her fourth Grammy Award for record-breaking fourth Album of the Year on Sunday night, and bypassed the opportunity to endorse President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign in her acceptance speech, obviously opting for the bigger stage of the Super Bowl.

According to NBC News, Swift’s Album of the Year victory for “Midnights” broke a four-way tie with three other music legends:  Frank Sinatra, Paul Simon and Stevie Wonder, who had all won the award three times.  Instead of endorsing Biden in her two acceptance speeches–she also won for best pop album–Swift announced a new album upcoming.

The plan to energize the army of Swifties would not have been as effective if Swift had announced her love of Joe this Sunday because (1) nobody–not even the most ardent Taylor Swift fan–watches the Grammys and (2) the harmonic alignment of her aura with Travis’s while raising a trophy seemingly named for a region of Italy will strengthen the signal radiated through the liberal media satellites around the globe, encouraging Swifties to turn gay and vote Democrat, thwarting the best romantic attempts of Jesse Watters fans.

First, there was an assault at the Oscars, and now this: Michael Santiago Render, known professionally as Killer Mike, was taken out of the Grammy Award celebration in handcuffs after winning three Grammys during the night.  Killer Mike was filmed being escorted out of Crypto Arena in Los Angeles, reportedly for a misdemeanor unrelated to the ceremony, after winning Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance for “Scientists & Engineers,” Best Rap Album for Michael.

With a theatrically exasperated Mark Levine asking how Biden’s border policy is “not an impeachable office,” former official Trump Administration fibber Kayleigh McEneny responds immediately, “It is!  I mean, Mark, look, I-I guess the Biden Administration doesn’t get the Constitution.  I’ll explain it for them,” the spokesperson for the man who attempted to undermine the Constitution on January 6th smugly says.  And let’s not get started on Trump’s claims that he has Constitutional immunity, Barbs.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe, the largest Sioux tribe in South Dakota, banned Republican Governor Kristi Noem from the Pine Ridge Reservation in the southwest portion of the state after Noem told the state legislature she intended to send National Guard troops and razor wire to the southern border in Texas, the Washington Post reports.

It’s the second time in five years the tribe’s leaders have taken such action against Noem, who’s thought to be on the shortlist for the potential vice presidential slot on the GOP ticket with Donald Trump, who has a habit of appointing people based on how they think they’ll play in front of cameras, not for actual experience and capability.

Noem has repeatedly used the term “invasion” to describe the influx of migrants on the southern border, but the tribe noted that the responsibility for protecting the tribe against any such an invasion falls to the federal government, not the state of South Dakota.

The Senate on Sunday finally revealed the 370-page text and summary of the “Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2024,” the bill that disgraced former President Trump and his loyal fanatics in the House GOP caucus have already declared to be “dead on arrival.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday will be the first procedural vote on the bill.

MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey will host the championship game of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup tournament, which will be played at locations in the US, Canada and Mexico, ESPN reports.  While the tourney will have its first game in Mexico on June 11th, the US men’s national team will open its tournament at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on June 12th.

The American team will also has a travel advantage over the competition:  all of its games will be played in the US West Coast cities of Seattle and Los Angeles.  While MetLife in New Jersey’s Meadowlands will host the final, the semifinals games will be held in Atlanta and Dallas.

President Joe Biden absolutely squashed New Age weirdo Marianne Williamson and assclown Dem Congressman Dean Phillips in South Carolina on Saturday, winning 96 percent of the vote with Williamson even beating the more “serious” challenger Phillips for second. The only polling in the contest came early last month, when Diet Trafalgar – aka Emerson College – found Biden leading with 69 percent support to Phillips at 5 percent and Williamson in third at 3 percent.

This comes after Biden outperformed their final New Hampshire Dem primary poll by 15 percent.

Jesus dork Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Sunday insisted he’s still in charge of the United States House of Representatives, in contrast to all available evidence that disgraced former President Trump is telling him what to do, specifically with regard to the southern border.

Later in this interview with idiot Maria Bartiromo the fat bastard claimed Biden is a “Manchurian Candidate” because he takes money for China, even though Trump actually got millions from the ChiComs. Donald also rambled some bullshit about that stupid balloon from a year ago.

Donald also hinted that there will “probably be some changes made” at the RNC after Bartiromo reminded him how badly Ronna Not-Romney has done with raising money for the party.

The National Weather Service in San Francisco issued its first-ever hurricane wind warning and the Los Angeles area prepares for possibly receiving a month’s worth of rainfall in a day as the state readies itself for the effect of an “atmospheric river” that will linger over the state, CNN reports.

Central and Southern California counties are preparing for three to six inches of rainfall in as the weather system hits on Sunday.  Communities in  Santa Barbara, San Jose and Ventura County were evacuated because of fears of flash flooding.  Drivers were also warned to stay out of California’s mountains because the storm is expected to bring hazardous driving conditions and significant snowfall.

Nikki Haley is making her own effort to require a cognitive test for denying reality herself.  Asked if famed thrice-married confirmed rapist and serial misogynist Donald Trump who has questioned her eligibility for office based on her family heritage has a problem with women, former South Carolina Republican Governor and GOP president candidate Nikki Haley responded, “I challenged him a lot and he actually handled it very well and was very, um, respectful,” before going on an ageist rant. Trump, in fact, repeatedly insults her and denies she has a legitimate right to the presidency, questioning her nationality.

Acting with its allies in the region, US military conducted airstrikes for the second consecutive day, but this time it was striking Iranian-armed Houthi rebels in Yemen who are responsible for harassing shipping around the Red Sea, not attacking the Iranian-backed groups operating in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere, CBS News reports.

In the third such attack in the last three weeks, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and New Zealand military services provided support as US and British forces struck 36 Houthi targets located at 13 sites in Yemen.  US officials say that these attacks are a separate operation from Friday’s attacks on 85 sites of Iranian support groups in Syria and Iraq, but c’mon, they’re all designed to wipe out Iranian-supported groups to send a signal to Teheran to stop proving arms to these groups.

Preacher of the House Mike Johnson said in a Saturday letter to colleagues that he will bring a stand-alone bill for aid for Israel to the floor for a vote next week, CBS News reports, blaming Democrats for his apparent 180-degree pivot from his previously supported legislation which attached cuts to the IRS to the aid legislation.

Having passed a bill in November to provide funding for Israel while cutting IRS overhaul funding, Johnson said Democrats were at fault for his apparent political loss because they would not consider the going-nowhere bill. “Given the Senate’s failure to move appropriate legislation in a timely fashion, and the perilous circumstances currently facing Israel, the House will continue to lead,” he wrote.

Incumbent Joe Biden took the South Carolina primary, with the Associated Press calling the race with just a handful of precincts reporting and nobody thinking either Dean Phillips or Marianne Williamson pose any serious threat to Biden.  Unlike in the GOP primaries, it’s unlikely either will get into double digits in the percentage of overall vote.

Accused of shooting at the homes of elections officials and others a defeated Republican candidate told him to target, Demetrio Trujillo pleaded guilty to a variety of charges in a plea bargain relating to a series of drive-by shootings ordered by defeated Republican New Mexico state house candidate Solomon Peña who referred to himself as the “MAGA king,” the Daily Beast reports.

Trujillo admitted to doing drive-bys at two homes:  a December 4th at Bernalillo County Commissioner Adriann Barboa’s, and a December 8th shooting at then-state house speaker-elect Javier Martinez.  He also said he and Peña participated in a January 3rd shooting at the house of state senator Linda Lopez while Lopez’s 10-year-old daughter was inside.  No one was injured in any of the shootings.  Peña and one other defendant, Trujillo’s son, are facing state and federal charges; Peña’s trial is slated for June 2024.

Moms for Liberty’s not as (publicly) sexually hypocritical cousin astroturf group Moms for America is planning for their clan gathering in Dallas, they’ve made a notable booking:  Lindsey Graham, who’s shown bottom center.  But this Lindsey Graham is a conservative social media influencer who shares the name with the South Carolina Republican Senator and not the Senator himself…. although it would be an awful sneaky drag name for him to adopt.