Democratic Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin will call for a committee vote to empower him to subpoena three witnesses with ties to apparent corruption within the Supreme Court–billionaires Harlan Crow and Rob Arkley as bench packer Leonard Leo–as it calls for the Court to adopt ethics standards,

“The Supreme Court is in an ethical crisis of its own making. Thanks to investigative reporting, we now know that for decades, some justices have been joining billionaires with business before the Court on their private planes and yachts or receiving gifts such as private school tuition for a family member,” Durbin said in a statement.  “And it is through this reporting that we learned the justices have not been disclosing these gifts as required by federal laws that expressly apply to them. By accepting these lavish, undisclosed gifts, the justices have enabled their wealthy benefactors and other individuals with business before the Court to gain private access to the justices while preventing public scrutiny of this conduct.”

Crow is one of Justice Clarence Thomas’s benefactors, paying over-market value for Thomas’s mother’s house and allowing her to live there rent-free, as well as paying for vacations and other luxuries for Thomas and his wife, Ginnie; Crow’s largess was disclosed in media reports, not federal financial disclosures.  Arkley has paid for vacations for Justice Samuel Alito which Alito had not previously disclosed.

A heavily-armed man dressed in tactical gear and carrying improvised explosive devices was found, dead of an apparent self-inflicted wound, at the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park outside Denver when staff arrived Saturday. morning, having canceled his apparent plans to undertake a mass shooting at the attraction, USA Today reports.

The unnamed individual, said to be a 20-year-old male, was dressed in black tactical gear adorned with militaristic patches.  He was armed with a semi-automatic rifle and a semi-auto pistol, along with multiple magazines for each weapon.  He also had IEDs with him where he died and in his car, when the police located it.

Officials believed the man broke into the park after it closed on Friday.  Police say that based on the amount and position of the weaponry he had, he could have undertaken an “attack of devastating proportions upon our community, and first responders” after the park opened Saturday.

President Biden’s decision to boycott the New Hampshire primary because state Democratic Party officials intend to schedule it before the DNC-first South Carolina vote has pushed state Party leaders to promote a write-in campaign for the incumbent, the Washington Post reports.

The DNC designated South Carolina to be the first state to hold a Democratic primary to better represent the demographics of the Party, instead of 93% white New Hampshire.  While New Hampshire has not yet set the date for its primary, state Party leaders have vowed they would schedule theirs first.  The Biden campaign intentionally missed last week’s filing deadline to appear on the ballot.

“Supporting our democracy is much more important than party politics or misguided DNC rules. This is about doing what’s right for our country,” the group called “Write-In Biden” formed to spearhead the effort, stated. “We in New Hampshire have said all along that whatever the DNC does, NH will follow its law and have the first presidential primary. Well, we’re having the first in the nation primary — and now it’s up to us to show the nation and world that Joe Biden is the president we need to protect our freedom.”

Alabama Republican Senator and football coach who may be exhibiting the signs of CTE Tommy Tuberville simply decides that every “Middle Eastern” person entering the country is a terrorist because bigotry and fear is all the GOP can run on when it has no policies.  In praising Israel, where pregnant patients can get government-subsidized abortions, something he held up the promotion of hundreds of US military officers for, thereby jeopardizing US national security, Tuberville exposes his prejudice.

There’s over two- or three hundred thousand that’s already crossed that border in the last two-and-a-half years.  We’re in trouble.  This country’s in trouble. We’re gonna have a 9/11 a month if we don’t watch it. But Joe Biden could care less.  His administration’s asleep at the wheel.

Justice Department press release: “Arthur Ray Hanson, II, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Atlanta on charges of transmitting interstate threats to injure Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat because of their connections to the Fulton County, Georgia, investigation of former President Donald Trump. Hanson made his initial appearance in federal court in Huntsville and will be formally arraigned in Atlanta on November 13, 2023.”

“According to US Attorney Buchanan, the indictment, and other information presented in court: On August 6, 2023, Arthur Ray Hanson called the Fulton County Government customer services line twice and left two voicemails – the first for Sheriff Labat and the second for District Attorney Willis.”

“During both calls, Hanson threatened violence against the officials. In his message for the Sheriff, Hanson made statements that included: ‘if you think you gonna take a mugshot of my President Donald Trump and it’s gonna be ok, you gonna find out that after you take that mugshot, some bad shit’s probably gonna happen to you,’ ‘if you take a mugshot of the President and you’re the reason it happened, some bad shit’s gonna happen to you,’ ‘I’m warning you right now before you fuck up your life and get hurt real bad,’ ‘whether you got a fucking badge or not ain’t gonna help you none,’ and ‘you gonna get fucked up you keep fucking with my President.’ In Hanson’s message for the District Attorney, he made statements that included: ‘watch it when you’re going to the car at night, when you’re going into your house, watch everywhere that you’re going,’ ‘I would be very afraid if I were you because you can’t be around people all the time that are going to protect you,’ ‘there’s gonna be moments when you’re gonna be vulnerable,’ ‘when you charge Trump on that fourth indictment, anytime you’re alone, be looking over your shoulder.'”

It’s fun to put these words up against those of a deranged criminal who screams “TURN YOUR BACK ON THIS CORRUPT AND HIGHLY INCOMPETENT PRESIDENT, BY FAR THE WORST IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, AND SHOUT OUT TO YOUR UNION LEADERSHIP TO ENDORSE DONALD J TRUMP. I WILL KEEP YOUR JOBS AND MAKE YOU RICH!!!” the day before he goes and rallies “union members” at a non-union machine shop. But you know, Biden is old and voters are blah blah blah.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes’s office has opened a criminal investigation into and subpoenaed Cochise County Supervisors Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd to testify to a grand jury about why the fuck they refused to certify the results of the 2022 midterm elections after Democrats swept all the most important statewide races, VoteBeat reports.

It’s not clear yet what charges the two far right chodes might end up facing, but the county has long been on the Secretary of State’s office’s shitlist for illegally trying to ditch electronic vote tabulators and switch to a suicidally-stupid hand count system, as well as other election denial-related scams.

VoteBeat’s report points however to a possible felony violation of the laws prohibiting an elections official from knowingly refusing to perform a duty prescribed to them under state law. Both the certification protest and the hand count scams were the subjects of civil actions which saw judges swiftly and decisively ordering the assclowns to cut the bullshit and do their jobs last November.

Incompetent dipshits James Comer and Jim Jordan on Monday sent a letter to DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb with the usual stupid song-and-dance trying to interfere with a local law enforcement investigation, this time over Schwalb’s ongoing investigation into a suspected contribution laundering scam by far right Federal Society co-chair Leonard Leo, the Messenger reports.

“It appears that your office does not have jurisdiction over this matter because Mr Leo and the organizations with which he is affiliated are, according to publicly available information, based outside of Washington DC,” Comer and Jordan wrote, as if a cult of far right lawyers and jurists wouldn’t be able to fight on those grounds. “Worse yet, the committees are troubled that your investigation could infringe upon the fundamental rights of Donor privacy and free association.”

Republican former North Dakota state Senator Ray Holmberg, who resigned last year after he was caught texting an imprisoned child pornographer, has been indicted on a federal felony charges of receiving porn from said fellow scumbag and for traveling with the intent to rape a minor for a series of trips he took to the Czech Republic between 2011 and 2016, the Associated Press reports.

Holmberg had served 45 years in the state Senate and chaired the appropriations committee at the time he was exposed as a pedophile. He may have appropriated himself the scratch needed to cover his vile sex vacations in eastern Europe as the AP found he spent at least $126,000 in state funds for travel over the last decade. Oh and he was a school counselor at his day job until he retired.

MAGA insurrectionist Vitali Gossjankowski, already convicted in March of obstructing an official proceeding and assaulting cops during the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot had been out still awaiting a sentencing hearing as of this morning, but things went south and fast after a judge revoked Gossjankowski’s bail for doxxing and threatening federal prosecutors, leading to a screaming meltdown in which the defense table was toppled and the dedicated Trump fanboy wrestled out of the room by court officers, CBS’s Scott MacFarlane reports from the scene.

Screenshots of text messages sent from Gossjankowksi to federal law enforcement officers used in support of the motion to revoke the asshole’s bail further confirmed his status as a top-tier America First MAGA patriot. Per MacFarlane, Gossjankowski’s defense lawyer tried to characterize this and deranged posts urging his Instagram followers to call the prosecutors and argue his First Amendment rights as a “release of steam” and that their client “just has a strong beef with how he was treated” by federal law enforcement since he was arrested for assaulting law enforcement.

Judge Paul Friedman didn’t care and ordered Gossjankowksi jailed immediately while awaiting his sentencing, causing the insurrectionist to react violently as court officers attempted to take him into custody. “Marshals order courtroom cleared as GossJankowski is physically resisting agents who are trying to cuff him. He makes gutteral screams and fights off agents… A computer plunges off defense table in the scrum. Other agents from elsewhere in courthouse run into Judge Friedman’s courtroom to corral Gossjankowski, who is huge and strong… Seven to eight agents finally get Gossjankowski under control. He’s going straight to DC jail,” MacFarlane wrote.

Striking members of the United Auto Workers have reached a tentative agreement with General Motors to return to the job on terms yet to be announced, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Deeply corrupt Picasso-faced Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will go on trial on state-level charges of securities fraud in Houston on April 15, 2024, two elections, one impeachment and nearly nine years after he was first indicted, the Texas Tribune’s Patrick Svitek reports.

“Unlike the impeachment, this is going to be a fair trial,” special prosecutor Kent Schaffer told reporters after the Monday pre-trial scheduling hearing. “The judge is not corrupt,” Schaffer added.

On Monday a Denver, Colorado court will hear the opening arguments in the trial to determine whether disgraced former President Trump will be permitted to appear on the 2024 primary and general election ballot in the Centennial State. This sketchy “CNN-NEWS18” channel may not be legally rebroadcasting this. If they get cut off abruptly you can listen and watch via the WebEx meeting link here, just click on “Join from browser” to skip all the WebEx app download bullshit.

German police on Monday cuffed newly-elected 22 year-old Bavaria state legislator and “Alternative for Germany” member Daniel Halemba on several hate-related charges house after his frat house’s neighbors heard the assholes yelling “Seig Heil!” last month and called the cops, leading to a raid which turned up a shit ton of Nazi memorabilia in the undergrad party pad, Reuters reports.

Per usual for right wingers, Halemba was defiant over the charges in a statement posted to Telegram by his lawyers saying “They want to arrest me, an elected state parliament member, three days before I take my seat, using a totally lawless arrest warrant.” Sounds like someone we know.

Melting down again after the gag order in the DC case against him was reinstated on Sunday night, disgraced former President Trump in a Truth Social post divined the spirits of the long-dead signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as a reason his upcoming criminal and civil trials should be delayed until 2025, writing “These highly political (All started by Crooked Joe Biden!) Lawsuits and Indictments shouldn’t be allowed to start until AFTER THE ELECTION IS OVER! Our Founding Fathers are looking down at Biden with scorn!” It’s not clear if Trump used an Ouija board or some other method of communicating with the hereafter to get a feel for how Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and the rest of them see his legal troubles.

Trump also screamed about DC Circuit Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, writing “The Obama appointed Federal Judge in DC, a TRUE TRUMP HATER, is incapable of giving me a fair trial. Her Hatred of President DONALD J TRUMP is so great that she has been diagnosed with a major, and incurable, case of TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME!!!” which may or may not have been a violation of the gag order as it’s not clear if its proscription on attacks on “any of this court’s staff or other supporting personnel” encompasses Chutkan herself. Here’s hoping it does.

“In mid-October 2023, Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science reportedly instructed universities to avoid open discussion of any ‘negative political, economic and social trends’ in Russia during academic activities. This constitutes a further restriction of the information space in wartime Russia, making it more difficult to openly discuss policy issues. In the longer term, this will likely further the trend of Russian policy-making taking place in an echo-chamber of politically acceptable, pro-Kremlin perspectives. It is highly likely that the Kremlin wishes to further suppress negative perspectives on the ‘special military operation’ in the run up to President Vladimir Putin’s anticipated bid for re-election in March 2024,” says a UK Ministry of Defence intel update on the war in Ukraine.

In related news, Politico reports Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will host Ukrainian Ambassador Oksana Markarova in Louisville, Kentucky on Monday as part of a bid to pressure House Speaker Mike Johnson not to fuck around with defending Kyiv, all the more urgent after Johnson on Sunday said he would move forward on an Israel-only foreign military aid bill while the White House and Senate work to combine help for both allies together in one bipartisan package.

A new Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa survey finds that 65 percent of likely Republican caucusgoers say disgraced former President Trump can win against Joe Biden regardless of his grave legal troubles while another 32 percent agreed that the upcoming trials “will make it nearly impossible for him to win an election against Joe Biden.”

Michigan state Representative Rachel Whit last week conferred some type of certificates of achievement onto two of the men deemed either too stupid or incompetent by juries to be culpable in the trials of those involved in the 2020 plot to kidnap Gov Gretchen Whitmer, WOOD-TV reports.

“We’re here to recognize Bill and Mike Null for their unfortunate involvement in this scandal, if you will, and that’s what I’m going to call it,” Smit said at an event in Allegan. “If you would just accept these tributes on behalf of the state of Michigan and our office as your representative in the 43rd District.” The Null brothers were among the five who walked in the plot.

DC Judge Tanya Chutkan reinstated it on Sunday night after considering and rejecting the fat bastard’s whiny appeal claiming “Never in American history has any Court censored the speech of a political candidate least of all in the extraordinarily broad and vague terms” and blah blah blah.

A 43-year-old Manhasset, Long Island man faces two charges after he pointed a gun at the head of a 5-year-old boy trying to retrieve of gift bag of candy he and his older sister had left at the wrong house, WABC 7 in New York reports.

As their mother drove them around Saturday evening, the boy and his 10-year-old sister would run bags of candy to the porches of friends and ring the doorbell before leaving.  After one such delivery, as the mother was driving away, the daughter said she believed the kids dropped the last bag at the wrong house, so the mother send her son to retrieve it.

As the boy grabbed the bag, Michael Yifan Wen opened the front door of the home and pointed a gun at the boy’s head.  The family reported the incident to police who arrested Wen and charged him with menacing and endangering the welfare of a child.