Gina Swoboda, a former Trump advisor who leads an election conspiracy group, was elected to lead the Arizona Republican Party, the Arizona Republic reports.  Swoboda is the executive director of the Voter Reference Foundation, a group that works to sow distrust in election systems.  The job is unpaid, its biggest responsibility is fundraising, and it was open because the guy who had it resigned after it was revealed he tried to get Kari Lake to stay out of the Arizona Senate seat race.

The vice chair of the Texas Republican Party announced a challenge for the leadership of the state Party after the chair was linked to an organization working with white nationalists, the Texas Tribune reports.

“Recently, our party has strayed from its fundamental mission – growing the Republican Party by reaching new voters and advancing a platform that is grounded in conservative principles,” Texas GOP vice chair Dana Myers said in a statement. “Instead, we find ourselves in a state of disarray, fractured by internal divisions and marred by turmoil. This situation is untenable, and it’s time for a positive change.”

Within the last few weeks, the leaders of the Republican Party in Arizona and Florida have resigned in scandals:  in Arizona, the GOP leader attempted to bribe Kari Lake not to enter the Senate race (she did), and in Florida, the state Party’s First Couple engaged in a hypocritical throuple while leading the charge to protect children from people they considered sexual deviants.

“IF IMMUNITY IS NOT GRANTED TO A PRESIDENT, EVERY PRESIDENT THAT LEAVES OFFICE WILL BE IMMEDIATELY INDICTED BY THE OPPOSING PARTY. WITHOUT COMPLETE IMMUNITY, A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO PROPERLY FUNCTION!”  So posts Donald Trump on his failing social media site, but without connection to exactly which one of his legal cases he’s referring to, and without noting that the only way one gets indicted is if one, in fact, is found to have likely committed a crime.

Former South Carolina Governor Nimrata “Nikki” Haley’s home was targeted in a swatting attack by parties unknown last month, Politico reports. As usual whoever called claimed to be a man who murdered his wife, but cops responded to an empty house as Haley was out on the campaign trail with her son and her husband Mike is deployed overseas in an unspecified country.

All stages of grief except for acceptance played out across the MAGA internet on Friday after a Manhattan federal jury dinged fat former President Trump for $83.3 million for defaming rape victim EJ Carroll on top of the $5 million another jury hit him with last year. Read it and weep with laughter:

“All this judicial lawfare against Trump only serves to make me support him more and more” – Top comment on Townhall’s article. Yeah, we know. This isn’t some kind of unique insight.

“See, this kinda crap is what makes a guy like me who probably would have preferred a RDS stand with DT instead. Because he is truly all of us, when it comes to them. Fight the power!” – Top comment on RedState.com’s article. So this guy’s just outright saying he’s been accused of rape.

“Trump could have been out of state, in an important meeting or any number of places other than Bergdorf on a particular day. But she could not give day date and time. This deprives the defendant of producing evidence to refute her claim. And she produced no evidence of him ever being in that store. I hate to say it but this judge seemed to relish bashing Trump’s minority female attorney above all and ignored the defects in plaintiff’s case. Wonder what he would do if someone accused him of sexual assault in a dept store decades ago on no specific date” – Top comment on the New York Post’s article which very conveniently ignores the first jury’s factual finding of sexual abuse.

“Commie-cRAT LAWFARE” – Top comment on OAN’s article, and about as interesting and insightful as OAN’s television programming. Similar level of effort put into writing it too.

“Let me get this straight. Carroll brought criminal rape charges against OMB that were all but laughed outta court. So, when OMB called her a crazy bitch and vexatious litigator, she sued OMB in civil court for defamation… and won? Is that correct? And if so, WTFF?” – Top comment on an Instapundit post linked to RedState.com’s story about the verdict. Who knows what the fuck “OMB” stands for in their shorthand (Maybe it’s “Orange Man Bad“). It’s obvious he means Trump. Carroll never filed a criminal complaint against “OMB” when she first came forward in 2019 and specifically said she would not because the statute of limitations had expired. Which means no, it is not correct.

I’m told that, in response to my prior tweet, @EliseStefanik deleted her 1/6/21 statement — that those who stormed the Capitol “must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” Here is Elise’s statement again. Feel free to share. #nomorecrackpots pic.twitter.com/ChVaKPdrCg

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) January 27, 2024

“Just 3 years ago we had the strongest and safest Border in US History. Today we have a catastrophe waiting to happen. It is the WORST BORDER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD, an open wound in our once great Country. TERRORISTS ARE POURING IN, UNCHECKED, FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD. There is now a 100% chance that there will be MAJOR TERROR ATTACKS IN THE USA. CLOSE THE BORDER!” writes fat former President Trump in a Truth Social post, before adding in a another post “A BAD BORDER DEAL IS FAR WORSE THAN NO BORDER DEAL!”

• To date, conservative lies have cost them $1.026 billion, from just three court cases (Dominion v. Fox, Freeman/Moss v. Giuliani, Carroll v. Trump).  It will not get better for any of them in the future.
• Texans had no problem listening to the Border Patrol when it was its SWAT team rescuing their school kids from a homicidal gunman after Texas police cowered.  But Greg Abbott doesn’t wanna talk about that, does he?  P.S. Greg, the National Guard isn’t going to follow your orders after the real President activates them.  Their oath is to the Constitution, not you.
• The 2023 GDP growth of 3.1% was better than any year under Donald Trump, and it was the second best under Joe Biden.  And it happened while economic pundits were still quivering about a potential recession. Trump whined throughout the 2016 campaign that Obama failed because he never hit 3% annual GDP growth.  Well, neither did Trump.  
• I think we’ve found Trump’s designated African-American for the 2024 campaign season.
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CLVII”

Vince McMahon has resigned as the executive director of the WWE’s parent company this Friday, Friday, Friday, after a former alleged in a lawsuit that he and another company executive required her to perform sexual acts for them, WDSU NBC-6 in New Orleans reports.

“Out of respect for the WWE Universe, the extraordinary TKO business and its board members and shareholders, partners and constituents, and all of the employees and Superstars who helped make WWE into the global leader it is today, I have decided to resign from my executive chairmanship and the TKO board of directors, effective immediately,” McMahon said in a statement, failing to address the claims of sex trafficking made by Janel Grant that McMahon made her sleep with performers McMahon wanted to recruit to his act.

“This judge is a pure disgrace,” pot AND kettle Rudy Giuliani asserts regarding the judge who presided over the Carroll v. Trump case in which his former client was ordered to pay $83 million for defamation.  “He’s tellin’ a lawyer what questions to ask.  That’s totally ridiculous.  [Note:  Judge Lewis Kaplan limited questions to pertinent information regarding damages.]. He won’t let him defend himself.  [Note:  the case had already been decided, finding Trump liable.]  And how is it inconsistent, let’s say, let’s say he was… first of all, he was, he was found not guilt– or not liable for rape.  It was sexual assault.  Not rape.  And second, you can be, you can be guilty of rape and still, a person can be a whacko.  That’s what he, that’s what, that wasn’t defamation.  You’re allowed to still defend yourself against defamation.”

The Republicans in the Georgia state Senate voted to establish a committee to investigate misconduct allegations against Fulton Co. District Attorney Fani Willis, who just happens to be heading one of the many criminal prosecutions of Donald Trump, NBC News reports.

The resolution asserts the rumor of a relationship between Willis and a special assistant D.A. justifies the opening of an investigation, and not as any reasonable person would assume, the need Republicans feel to cover up Donald Trump’s crimes.  While the resolution itself doesn’t refer to Trump, it does intent to stop Willis from investigating anything having to do with the 2020 elections.

The Pentagon released a statement acknowledging that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin–the man who had a mysterious holiday hospitalization that apparently no one in the highest ranks of government knew about–went back to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland for a short time on Friday, USA Today reports.  Austin was treated for prostate cancer and then for complications from the surgery that led to a hospitalization lasting until January 15th.

Sources in the Senate tell CNN that the new border security bill, that Jesus dork Speaker Mike Johnson declared DOA on Friday morning before he knew any such specifics, includes a kill switch that if more than 8,500 migrants show up to claim asylum on any single day or 4,000 on a rolling one-week average, then Homeland Security would be empowered to simply shut the gates.

Additionally the asylum court system would be required to consider applications within six months while the current process can take up to ten years. Of course this is not at all going to be good enough for fat former President Trump, who wants to center his campaign on immigration since the economy and gas prices aren’t really packing as much punch as they used to for the big baby.

Whoa. Easy there, tiger. Can’t win ’em all. No need to pop the claws out on them newsmen and ladies outside the courthouse. They’re just doing their jobs, like you did. Head on over to DelMonico’s and knock back a few. Or significantly more than a few. Just don’t do anything that stupid. You already almost went to jail once today. American Psycho‘s just a movie, it’s not a how-to-guide on murdering vagrants to vent anger from your day job. And the guy was hallucinating anyway.

“Absolutely ridiculous! I fully disagree with both verdicts, and will be appealing this whole Biden Directed Witch Hunt focused on me and the Republican Party. Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a Political Weapon. They have taken away all First Amendment Rights. THIS IS NOT AMERICA!” writes disgraced former President Trump on Truth Social following the $83.3 million compensatory and punitive damages verdict awarded to rape and defamation victim EJ Carroll.

He probably doesn’t know that he’s going to have to actually put up the $83.3 million as bond if he wants to appeal the verdict. We’re just guessing because we think he’d be angrier if he knew that.

A federal jury in Manhattan on Friday ordered disgraced former President Trump to pay $83.3 million in punitive and compensatory damages to rape victim EJ Carroll in the second and final of two trials in a drama that began in the dressing room of a New York City department store circa 1995, picked up again when Carroll first went public with her story of the assault in 2019 and then later that year filed a defamation lawsuit, which dragged on for years in all sorts of different court motions and even the fucking Department of Justice at one point stepped in to defend Trump before he lost the 2020 election and the Biden Administration pulled out of the case, Politico’s Erica Orden reports.

The first trial last year took place in federal court but was conducted under New York State law – specifically one that allowed victims to file claims expired by the statute of limitations – and ended with that jury finding that Trump had defamed Carroll and sexually abused her, dinging the fat fuck for $5 million. Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over both trials, later ruled that Trump had indeed raped Carroll and then prior to the second trial found a default judgment for the plaintiff, setting this now-concluded second trial as one strictly to determine damages. They determined quite a lot.

With that cursory summary out of the way, there are two moments in the saga that stick out:

“I’ve never met her, I understand what the president said, so I know nothing more about the situation. The president said this is not true,” said then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to reporters. “Yes, I believe the president,” McCarthy then added when a reporter asked if he believed Trump’s denials. McCarthy never elaborated on what detail specifically he believed Trump about, whether it was denying that he ever met her or how Trump changed his story to that Carroll wasn’t his “type” when confronted with a photo of them together. During a 2022 deposition in the case, Trump was shown a photo of Carroll in the 1990s and was asked if he recognized her.

“That’s Marla, yeah. That’s my wife,” Trump said, referring to his second ex-wife Marla Maples.

Michigan state Senator Ed McBroom, June 26, 2021: “It’s been very discouraging, and very sad, to have people I know who have supported me, and always said they respected me and found me to be honest, who suddenly don’t trust me because of what some guy told them on the internet. And they’re like, ‘Yeah, but this is a good guy too.’ And I’m like, ‘How do you know that? Have you met him? You’ve met me. So why are you choosing to believe [Trump] instead of me?'” to the Atlantic’s Tim Alberta after McBroom had released a report on his investigation into the 2020 election and found zero evidence of voter fraud, even asking the state Attorney General to prosecute people for lying about it. McBroom, a deeply pious Evangelical Christian dairy farmer from the Upper Peninsula, had faced all manner of death threats and hateful messages and shit on social media after Trump singled him out in a statement and during a MAGA rally in Ohio as Alberta interviewed him.

Michigan state Senator Ed McBroom, January 26, 2024: “It has always been abundantly clear to me that the voters of the Upper Peninsula overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. It is time to stand beside one-another and speak with one united voice. Trump will be our nominee, and it is imperative that we replace President Biden,” McBroom said in his endorsement.

Reporter: The Biden campaign’s taunting of Trump is frustrating him. People close to Trump have said they cannot control him. He's hearing what President Biden is saying, it gets under his skin, and then he lashes back pic.twitter.com/d8o8yy4rC0

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) January 26, 2024

NYPD investigators on Friday told the New York Daily News they were wrapping up their investigation into the whereabouts of missing sex offender Kawsheen Gelzer, saying they found nearly all of the 40 year-old Prospect Heights, Brooklyn pederast in a refrigerator belonging to East Flatbush woman Heather Stines. Gelzer’s head was in the freezer. The 44 year-old Stines is facing charges of concealment of a human corpse and that won’t be the end of it for her as cops believe Gelzer, a known drug dealer, was met his gruesome end in a dispute over money with Stines.

“Today, Rep Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, sent a letter to Chairman James Comer pressing him to launch an immediate investigation into the apparent efforts of Trump’s counsel to deliberately mislead counsel for Mazars, former President Trump’s accounting firm, by falsely claiming the Committee had no interest in requiring Mazars to complete document productions under a court-supervised settlement agreement. The request follows recent public comments in which Chairman Comer explained that he ‘had no involvement’ to cut off the flow of Trump documents from Mazars to the Committee in early 2023. Noting Chairman Comer’s claims, Ranking Member Raskin also urged him to issue a new subpoena to former President Donald Trump’s former accounting firm, Mazars USA, LLP (Mazars), so that the Committee can receive all responsive documents pertaining to payments Trump illegally accepted while in office in violation of the US Constitution,” writes the House Oversight Democrats in a press release.

“The letter follows an Oversight Democrats staff report that found Trump violated the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause by illegally accepting $7.8 million from foreign governments while he was in office. As the report makes clear, the $7.8 million is likely only a small fraction of the total payments President Trump received from foreign governments as this figure is based on incomplete ledgers and receipts from Mazars covering just two years of his presidency and payments from just 20 countries to just three of his more than 500 businesses entities – and a lease payment to Trump Tower recorded in a public document. Unless the Committee obtains records pertaining to all the payments former President Trump received from all foreign governments during the entirety of his presidency, the American people will be denied an accounting of the full extent of Trump’s flagrant violations of the US Constitution while president,” the statement continues, going into how Raskin’s letter details how Trump’s lawyers were caught in a lie and Comer didn’t give a shit about it.