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.

A New York City-area congresswoman tells CNN that the House GOP should probably just throw in the towel on their shambolic and evidence-free effort to impeach President Joe Biden, saying Republicans should just “let the American people decide in November if they want to take this country in a different direction,” rather than running into a brick wall in an election year.

The kicker is that this congresswoman isn’t a Democrat, but she’s a Republican – Representative Nicole Malliotakis of Staten Island – saying this, probably one of the best quotes you’re going to get underscoring just how shot this “inquiry” is at this point. It’s not like it wasn’t already obvious between last month’s reporting on how pissed everyone is at James Comer for being such a fucking idiot, to the House GOP again refocusing their impeachment capital to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, but hearing a Republican say pretty much exactly the same shit they said back when Trump walked in his first impeachment trial (almost four years ago to the day exactly) now when it’s a Dem president supposedly guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors says quite a lot.

Also a whole lot of good that “Let the voters decide in November” shit did when Trump attempted to ignore their decision and then got himself impeached again for inciting a violent insurrection.

The FDA actually doesn’t regulate cosmetics

The Messenger investigates the dangerous truth behind beauty regulation. Watch the full video on YouTube:https://t.co/MGQ4h3KEr7 pic.twitter.com/njyO5OMORU

— The Messenger (@TheMessenger) February 3, 2024

Whatever the hell this is had to have been pre-queued or whatever. It’s still probably pretty galling to the people who lost their jobs abruptly on Wednesday, with one telling the Daily Beast that asshole founder Jimmy Finkelstein “made sure the process was deliberately cruel to the staff.”

“I think he’s a sociopath. I don’t know what would possess you to do that? I cannot fathom putting people in a position where they have to learn that they are losing their jobs and their health insurance from a newspaper,” said a former editorial staffer who had found out that the company was shutting down not from their boss, but when the story broke in the New York Times.

Democrats in the New Mexico state House on Friday advanced a bill making it a felony punishable by up to three years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000 for “knowingly or recklessly” submitting a fake certificate to the electoral college, as urged by the state’s attorney general last month when he announced he was declining to prosecute the fake Trump 2020 electors, the AP reports.

The five New Mexico fake Trump 2020 electors – like their buddies in Pennsylvania – had explicitly stated they were submitting the votes “on the understanding that it might later be determined that we are the duly elected and qualified” so AG Raúl Torrez had declined to pursue charges as his fellow Dem AGs in Nevada and Michigan did – as well as Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis who brought indictments against the leaders of the scam. It’s not totally clear from the AP’s article whether that kind of contingency qualifier still would have worked under the new bill, but either way Republicans are not happy about it, with Republican state Representative Bill Rehm of Albuquerque calling the legislation “politically motivated against a different party.”

New Mexico GOP Chair Steve Pearce has accused the state attorney general of trying to criminalize a process “used by both Democrats and Republicans,” of course leaning on that old chestnut about Hawaii in the 1960 election when the state – in the middle of a recount in its very first presidential election – submitted two slates of electors that would not have changed the outcome anyway.

Spending three years freaking out about the economy only to get ostensibly exactly what they wanted, Republican strategists aren’t sure what the best path forward is on selling voters on what exactly they could do better when things are already better, Politico reports.

“I think that is the question of the day,” said former Trump White House economy douche and current campaign advisor Stephen Moore. “You can’t blame the president when policies go wrong, and then say he’s not responsible if things are going right. If this continues, where you see strong job growth and also if you see wages outpacing inflation, as has been for the last nine months or so, that certainly makes the argument less persuasive.” Bad driver and Pennsylvania GOP strategist Charlie Gerow thinks the Orange God Emperor’s “THIS IS THE TRUMP STOCK MARKET BECAUSE MY POLLS AGAINST BIDEN ARE SO GOOD” line is pretty freaking stupid, telling Politico “‘The economy is good because of some future occurrence’ is not typically the best argument.”

“Voters will not forget or forgive all the misery and despair Crooked Joe Biden has cased in just four years. Americans know that they were better off with President Trump in the White House. After almost four years of Biden’s disastrous presidency, we need a return to America First policies that successfully kept our country safe and supercharged the economy for all Americans,” said extremely large-headed Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung in a typically angry statement.

• Yes, Fani Willis had a relationship with a member of her team.  Okay.  So how does that negate anything put forth in the indictment against Trump and the other co-conspirators?  Oh, right:  it doesn’t.
• This round of Donald Trump lawyer interviews will put Orly Taitz and Carl Lazlo at the defense team.
• No way in hell Nikki Haley should concede at any point prior to the convention.  Make Donald spend money to beat back her campaign purely out of anger and spite.  Haley staying in the race enrages Trump, which can only lead to good things.  
• I have a great deal of enthusiasm for scientific advancements through groundbreaking experimentation, particularly within the medical field, but if that step for science means chips manufactured by Elon Musk get implanted in people’s brains, I get worried.  The man is a supervillain in the making and yes, I think he would fuck with people just because he could.
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CLVIII”

One of Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Florida federal documents trial, Waltine Nauta, had his access to classified documentation restricted when he was a Navy staffer at the White House because of several questionable activities including accusations of sexual harassment and revenge porn, the Daily Beast reports.

Nauta was escorted from his previous duties and given lower level responsibilities at the White House weeks before taking a job with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.  People familiar with the issue said Nauta faced accusations from females he served with of fraternization, adultery, harassment, and other inappropriate sexual conduct including posting “revenge porn” of a former lover.

Nauta’s reduced classification raises questions about his access to the information Donald Trump had illegally taken to Mar-a-Lago, given that Trump reportedly tasked Nauta to move boxes of classified material around the geriatric supper club and cult headquarters.

Chucklely brownshirt Stephen Miller can hardly believe that Republican Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw called it a “dereliction of duty” to not vote to pass a bipartisan-supported bill that has a significant chance of reducing border crossings–legislation being put forth but Republicans refuse to vote on because they don’t want to give Joe Biden a “win” before the election and they want to be able to campaign on the issue.  Perhaps Miller thinks the duty of a government official is simply to inflict pain and suffering on struggling populations he dislikes, like he happily did.  (Editor’s note:  It’s not.)

Given that Hakeem Jeffries needs only a handful of Republicans to defect and work with Democrats to pass the legislation, it would appear that Jeffries is actually the one in control of the House.

The Trump campaign rented out a non-union Michigan auto parts factory to stage a rally where Donald Trump pretended to support workers’ rights, even printing signs that read “Union Members for Trump” being held by the non-union company employees.

A local journalist spotlighted the FEC filing paying Drake Enterprises $20,000 to rent its facility (and apparently its employees) in Clinton Township for the September media event during which Trump tried to downplay the historic agreement UAW members had just secured with the major US automakers–made possible by a strike which President Joe Biden himself participated in.  “Your current negotiations don’t mean as much as you think,” Trump said of the union efforts.

Refusing to act on an emergency motion by a conservative defacto white rights organization, the Supreme Court upheld race-based admissions policies used by the US Military Academy at West Point, the top education facility for US Army officers, the Washington Post reports.  The Court refused to take action on the emergency request from the group Students for Fair Admissions, which purports to support “merit-based” admissions that have no consideration of race or other non-academic considerations.

Noting it should not be seen as a ruling on the Constitutional argument, the unsigned order said the record before the court is “underdeveloped.” The order stands in opposition to a SCOTUS ruling in June 2023 that rejected race-based admissions at colleges and universities, ordering schools to immediately adjust their admissions criteria.

Carl Weathers will always be a legend. An extraordinary athlete, a fantastic actor, and a great person. We couldn’t have made Predator without him. And we certainly wouldn’t have had such a wonderful time making it. pic.twitter.com/q4CWVVeyTK

— Arnold (@Schwarzenegger) February 2, 2024

Operation Fuck You Terrorists got underway Friday as American pilots blew up a bunch of shit in Syria and Iraq and sent the bearded little bastards to hell, the Associated Press reports.

DC federal Judge Tanya Chutkan on Friday put a halt to the jury selection process in disgraced former President Trump’s upcoming trial on conspiracy charges stemming from his post-2020 election coup attempt while the DC Circuit Court of Appeals takes its sweet fucking time ruling against the fat bastard on his bullshit “presidential immunity” claim. New start date: TBA.

“Fani Willis, the DA of Fulton County, just admitted to having a sexual relationship with the Prosecutor she, in consultation with the White House and DOJ, appointed to ‘GET PRESIDENT DONALD J TRUMP.’ By going after the most high level person, and the Republican Nominee, she was able to get her ‘lover’ much more money, almost a Million Dollars, than she would be able to get for the prosecution of any other person or individual. THAT MEANS THAT THIS SCAM IS TOTALLY DISCREDITED AND OVER!” writes fat former President Trump in a Friday Truth Social post, predictably declaring victory just like he did when the special grand jury Willis impaneled put out a heavily redacted “final” report last February. Remember how that worked out for him?

Asked to comment on the conspiracy theories that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s relationship is an elaborate psy-op to elevate her profile ahead of an expected endorsement of Joe Biden in the 2024 election thereby dooming fat former President Trump, a senior Defense Department official tells Politico that “The absurdity of it all boggles the mind. It feels like one of those ‘tell me you are a MAGA conspiracy theorist, without telling me you are a MAGA conspiracy theorist’ memes.”

Another unnamed Pentagon official wondered aloud if it was “Team Trump’s new Comet Ping-Pong pizzagate.” It’s not clear if this person is a career official or a Biden appointee, but it’s still pretty impressive that this is how they talk about MAGA when granted anonymity.

“District Attorney Willis has no financial conflict of interest that constitutes a legal basis for disqualification; District Attorney Willis has no personal conflict of interest that justifies her disqualification personally or that of the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office; The attacks on Special Prosecutor Wade’s qualifications are factually inaccurate, unsupported, and malicious, in addition to providing no basis whatsoever to dismiss the indictment or disqualify Special Prosecutor Wade,” writes Fulton DA Fani Willis in her first legal response to fat former President Trump and his minions alleging that she had an improper relationship with her deputy Nathan Wade.

“District Attorney Willis has made no public statements that warrant disqualification or judicial inquiry; and criticism of the process utilized to appoint and compensate the special prosecutors in this case demonstrates basic misunderstandings of rudimentary county and state regulations, and provides no legal basis for dismissal of the indictment or disqualification of any member of the prosecution,” Willis continued in the filing. Note how she doesn’t deny having any relationship with Wade – that was pretty obvious early on – but she’s also putting her cards down.

It was fucking stupid and it does ding her politically, but the fact that Team Orange’s best hope for taking her down lies in claiming that her office’s payments to Wade – which he then spent on vacations they took together is some kind of self-dealing – should tell you that they don’t really have shit and this was just a political maneuver to try to discredit Willis and Wade ahead of the trial. Also important is Wade’s assertion that their relationship didn’t begin until after Willis had hired him in 2022 which, if true, undercuts the appearance of impropriety the MAGA clowns are trying to play up.

NYC Mayor Eric Adams at K5’s swearing-in ceremony.

Decorated NYPD Robo-Officer K5 was laid to rest in a vacant storefront in the city’s Times Square subway station on Friday after six months of brave service to Gotham, 1010 WINS reports. Some New Yorkers were happy to see the robot put into possibly permanent stasis. “I said this was a trash can on wheels, but it looks like the wheels aren’t even working at this point,” said Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of some lefty group. “With major crimes down and the mayor mandating budget cuts across city agencies, why are we spending so much money on these gadgets?”

Mustachioed Minnesota pillow entrepreneur Mike Lindell is headed to neighboring Wisconsin on Sunday to raise awareness for a very important cause: Gathering signatures to force a recall election against Republican state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos for, among other sins, refusing to impeach Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe, the Wisconsin Examiner reports.

Vos, who somewhat narrowly survived a primary challenge in 2022 backed by fat former President Trump over Vos’s refusal to “decertify” the 2020 election in the state, may or may not be in serious trouble depending on the timing of the recall vote should the organizers get the 7,000 petition signatures needed. If it’s a special election with no other races going on the same day then he might be seriously fucked since, unlike the primary, Dems would be able to vote to take him down.