Despite claiming the money used to buy the RV was a personal loan he was repaying, Clarence Thomas apparently never made a payment to Anthony Welters for the $267,000 Welters fronted in 1999 for the 40-foot vehicle, the New York Times reports.

The loan, Welters told the Times for a report it ran on the transaction last summer, was “satisfied” in 2003, but the Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee found no evidence Thomas ever paid a cent toward the principle loan amount.  Instead, Welters told the Committee it was more like a balloon payment for a mortgage, where Thomas only paid the 7.5% interest amount, roughly $20,000 per year.  The principle amount was due at the loan maturity date, December 2004, according to paperwork Welters provided.

Welters also provided a handwritten note with Thomas’s signature, presumably written by Thomas, on Supreme Court letterhead in which Thomas specifies the loan agreement reflects their mutual understanding and that Thomas agrees to adhere to the letter of the agreement.  But no records show Thomas made the required balloon payment even though Clarence and Ginni retained ownership of the RV.

Furious over disgraced former President Trump again violating the gag order prohibiting him from mentioning any member of his courtroom staff even indirectly, New York Judge Arthur Engoron on Wednesday forced the fat fuck to take the stand and explain why the hell he screamed about how Engoron “is a very partisan judge with a person who is very partisan sitting alongside him, perhaps even more partisan than he is,” almost certainly referring to the clerk Trump accused of being “Chuck Schumer’s girlfriend” a few weeks ago, Politico’s Erica Orden reports.

Questioned intensely by Engoron, Trump tried to claim he was talking about ex-lawyer Michael Cohen, but the judge said he “As the trier of fact, I find the witness is not credible,” and fined the Orange Loser $10,000, doubling the amount of the last fine imposed just five days ago.

While most readers are not doubt disappointed that Engoron just slapped him on the wrist slightly harder this time and dinging him for at most a few hours’ worth of small dollar donations at his campaign website, the truth is that Trump does have that tiny shred of plausible deniability, as Michael Cohen did in fact publicly “endorse” Joe Biden in the 2020 election out of personal animus toward his former boss. It’s just not a black and white violation of the gag order and was up to Engoron’s discretion. But this is very, very early in what’s going to be a very long year of sitting at the defendants’ table and screaming at news cameras as he steps in and out of courtrooms. Already twice in five days a judge has threatened toss Trump’s fat ass in jail for misbehaving, and this doesn’t happen in a vacuum. With the exception of Aileen Cannon, the three other judges who have to see his stupid orange face and ridiculously long tie in their courtroom are already going to be on alert before the first time they gavel in. Put simply, it’s only a matter of time before shit gets real.

Things got really gory in Palm Bay, Florida last Friday night when 70 year-old Sally Gore had a bit too much to drink before she got behind the wheel of her SUV to search for her lost dog without checking to see if her husband Gregory might’ve been standing in the driveway, Fox News reports.

The trouble started when the couple arrived home from a boozy dinner at a nearby Beef O’Brady’s location to find that their gate was open and the dog was nowhere to be found. The plan was for Sally to drive around and call out the dog’s name while Gregory would search on foot. Sally did her part, as witnesses said they heard her yelling out the window of the Honda Ridgeline. Gregory was indisposed however and only when Sally returned did she see her little alcohol-induced mistake.

Now Sally’s been charged with felony DUI manslaughter and is out on a $5,000 bond. Fox News’s article doesn’t say what happened to the dog, though the sentence “They believed their dog, which has a history of escaping the yard, had gotten out once again, according to the affidavit” carries an implication that the dog might not’ve actually escaped at all and that maybe the sheriff’s department purposely left that particular detail out of the arrest affidavit to not make it worse.

Louisiana MAGA Congressman Mike Johnson, architect of the brief supporting scumbag Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s stupid lawsuit seeking to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, hardcore forced birther, and probably dozens of other boxes that could be checked on his fascist card, was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives on Wednesday, 22 days after cowardly now-former Speaker Kevin McCarthy was removed in a palace coup led by credibly suspected statutory rapist and sex trafficker Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz.

We’ve now run these “House of Anarchy”-headlined live feeds more days in October than we did back in January when the House GOP struggled for four days. This may be the last one, as it appears Louisiana MAGA Congressman Mike Johnson has the wind at his back owing to exhaustion among the GOP conference after more than three weeks of this shitshow. At current attendance the threshold is 215 votes for Johnson to take the gavel, and about six or so Republican naming other candidates to block him. It will be very tight though again it would seem Johnson has it locked down.

Mexico’s Pacific coast is currently getting the absolute shit knocked out of it by Category 5 Hurricane Otis after what had been a normie tropical storm nobody had been worried about hit a warm patch of water and strengthened massively in less than 12 hours’ time, CNN reports.

“There are no hurricanes on record even close to this intensity for this part of Mexico,” said the National Hurricane Center in a statement ahead of the storm’s landfall earlier on Wednesday.

Screaming outside the courtroom again Wednesday during a break in his trial in the New York Attorney General’s $250 million lawsuit against his corrupt business empire, disgraced former President Trump again probably violated the gag order imposed by Judge Arthur Engoron proscribing any mention of his staff, bitching that “This judge is a very partisan judge with a person who is very partisan sitting alongside him, perhaps even more partisan than he is.”

Indeed Engoron began ripping into Trump immediately upon reconvening, accusing him of violating the gag order while lawyer Chris Kise tried to argue Donald was talking about Michael Cohen.

A self-professed Christian Congressman on Wednesday cited a biblical justification for his political position during a House Oversight Committee hearing titled “Faith Under Fire: An Examination of Global Religious Persecution.” The Congressman specifically referred to the Book of Paul to assert a… Ah fuck that could only go so far. Listen to what Max Frost days here. This kid is good.

Russian fossil fuel giant Lukoil on Tuesday announced “with deep regret the sudden passing of” company chairman Vladimir Ivanovich Nekrasov, adding that “according to the preliminary conclusion of doctors, death occurred as a result of acute heart failure,” raising the intriguing possibility that maybe the 66 year-old Nekrasov did in fact die of heart failure under largely normal circumstances given his age and with it the likelihood of underlying health conditions.

Like we definitely can’t rule out that a guy who apparently worked in the industry since he was a teenager – per Lukoil’s statement – and as such likely spent a good portion of his career inhaling all sorts of awful shit while toiling in a Soviet refinery before landing a desk job wouldn’t be in great shape at 66. It’s also completely within the realm of imagination that Nekrasov liked to kick back and enjoy a little vodka after a hard day’s work that was only made tolerable by being constantly drunk on vodka. Heart failure is an unfortunately realistic outcome for such a lifestyle.

Now of course it’s reasonable to speculate that maybe the heart failure was precipitated by some external vector like ricin or polonium or novichuk. Or that it wasn’t heart failure at all since Nekrasov had only been at the top job since the last guy fell out of a hospital window which some bonehead at Lukoil mistakenly said was “a severe illness.” We get it. We’re just saying that Nekrasov might’ve just simply died on his own without any help. It’s not that wacky or paranoid to raise that possibility.

“A federal jury convicted the final defendant involved in an online romance scheme that cost dozens of victims more than $6 million. On Oct 19, 2023, a Utah County woman, was found guilty of one count of money laundering conspiracy and two counts of money laundering. According to court documents and the evidence presented at trial, Nelly Idowu, 39, of Provo, Utah, participated in an online romance scheme from 2017 to 2019 that involved creating fake online dating profiles to befriend and romance victims. These victims were primarily single women over 65-years-old who were led to believe the fake persona they were engaging with had an urgent financial need. Some of the bogus financial needs included helping family members with emergency medical costs, helping a United States military member stranded overseas, or claims of unique investment opportunities.”

“None of these financial needs were legitimate. Victims sent money to Idowu and her codefendants for these false purposes. Idowu and her codefendants then sent a significant amount of the victim funds to overseas accounts in China and Nigeria. At trial, the United States presented evidence that Idowu’s personal and business accounts received more than $1 million from 2017 to 2019, and that additional amounts were received by Idowu’s coconspirators. Victims testified they were victims of scams involving fictitious online romance partners. They testified they sent the money to Idowu or her coconspirators as a result of the scam involving fictitious online romance partners,” says a Justice Department press release that just needs a prince to bring it all together.

Asked by CNN congress reporter Lauren Fox on how she’ll work with Louisiana MAGA Congressman Mike Johnson on spending issues if he’s elected Speaker this week, Maine Senator Susan Collins said she doesn’t know him but will Google his name this morning so she can learn more.

We’ll follow up if and when Collins gets back to Fox and says Johnson’s record is very concerning.

Apologies if we’re oversaturating this site with the Trump bullshit, but this morning the fat fuck posted “I will soon be leaving for Crooked Joe Biden’s ‘Political Opponent Court’ in Lower Manhattan” and we’ll skip ahead to “This is a RIGGED TRIAL, right out of a Banana Republic, but sadly, it gives the Republicans the right to do the same thing when we assume office… And remember, Crooked Joe Biden is the most CORRUPT (and Incompetent!) President in the history of the US, VERY FERTILE GROUND THERE, but very bad for our Country!” and more whining follows.

It’s a pretty clean snapshot of how the Orange Allah’s self-created disinformation ecosystem operates in how he blames Biden for New York Attorney General Letitia James’s $250 million lawsuit against his corrupt business empire. Like you have to be pretty fucking stupid to believe that, aside from the fact that Biden is no doubt enjoying a fellow Democrat inflicting such misery on Donald, he’s in any way directing a state-level civil case that started with an investigation that no doubt began months before Joe had even declared he was running for president in April 2019.

But that’s all he needs to create his own future hypothetical permission structure for he and his minions to weaponize federal law enforcement against Democrats with the “sadly, it gives the Republicans the right to do the same thing when we assume office.” The insincere regret is a nice touch, as if he would actually be “sad” to take on the burden of leading an actual persecution of political opponents. This is where the Republican Party is at right now, that their grievances against the legal system’s abuses – none real, all imagined – are not being identified as merely the subject of reforms to ensure they never happen again but to be turned around in a campaign of “retribution” against a man who had nothing to do with it. It’s hard to appreciate how fucked up this is in the day-to-day cacophony of madness from the MAGA Reich, yet here it is in black and white.

The Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institute dropped their “14th Annual American Values survey” survey on Wednesday and this year’s joint titled “Threats to American Democracy Ahead of an Unprecedented Presidential Election,” has all the fun and dark quantifications of a populace riven with the insanity wrought by the deeply malevolence of the MAGA GOP information sphere. Most salient of these is the sentiment “true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country” finding agreement among 23 percent of respondents overall – the first time ever that it’s gotten above 20 percent. By affiliation, 33 percent of GOP voters agree (shocker) compared to 22 percent of independents and 13 percent of Dems.

Broken down by the clearer metric of 2020 election trutherism, the split comes to 46 percent of those who think the election was stolen from Trump vs 13 percent of those who live in reality saying violence is the answer. We guess you might call that the “Antifa voter” demographic.

Other sundry findings: 23 percent of respondents believe the QAnon prophecy that “a storm is coming that will sweep away elites in power,” up from 14 percent in 2021. 48 percent overall and 72 percent of Republican voters think “society as a whole has become too soft and feminine.” The same share of GOP voters think “the growing number of newcomers from other countries” represent a threat to “traditional American customs and values,” vs 44 percent overall. 57 percent of respondents agree that Trump getting reelected in 2024 poses a threat to American democracy.

The survey findings are massive and we’re just barely scratching the surface here, so give it a read.

More than three weeks after he was ousted by a motion to vacate, weak and feckless former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy’s name has been removed from outside the office suite in the Capitol housing the staff of the lower chamber’s presiding officer, CBS’s Scott MacFarlane reports.

Whether or not this means that someone decided that the now-fourth “Speaker-designate” MAGA Congressman Mike Johnson has the “momentum” needed to actually wield the gavel after a full House vote is unclear, but the Orange Pharaoh is on board this time, writing on Wednesday his “strong SUGGESTION is to go with the leading candidate, Mike Johnson, and GET IT DONE, FAST!”

Secretary of State Tony Blinken this week told a gathering of Jewish leaders that he asked the Qatari government to “turn down the volume on Al Jazeera’s coverage because it is full of anti-Israel incitement” during a meeting with the Emirs earlier this month, Axios reports, explaining that this much more about the state-owned outlet’s Arabic-language programming than the English side of it.

The sources told Axios that Blinken didn’t mention any specific examples of Hamas-sympathetic coverage. Such details are almost beside the point when you look at it alongside the American right wing’s multi-year meltdown over the US government contacting social media companies with content moderation requests about election and COVID disinformation, especially with that demented fucking lawsuit from Missouri and Louisiana now on the Supreme Court’s docket.

Call us cynical, but we don’t expect Jim Jordan to subpoena Blinken demanding answers on why he “censored the free speech” of an outlet that certainly counts American citizens among its audience.

“I don’t think Mark Meadows would lie about the Rigged and Stollen 2020 Presidential Election merely for getting IMMUNITY against Prosecution (PERSECUTION!) by Deranged Prosecutor, Jack Smith. BUT, when you really think about it, after being hounded like a dog for three years, told you’ll be going to jail for the rest of your life, your money and your family will be forever gone, and we’re not at all interested in exposing those that did the RIGGING – If you say BAD THINGS about that terrible ‘MONSTER,’ DONALD TRUMP, we won’t put you in prison, you can keep your family and your wealth, and, perhaps, if you can make up some really horrible ‘STUFF’ a out him, we may very well erect a statue of you in the middle of our decaying and now very violent Capital, Washington, DC.”

“Some people would make that deal, but they are weaklings and cowards, and so bad for the future our Failing Nation. I don’t think that Mark Meadows is one of them, but who really knows? MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!” wrote fat former President Trump early on Wednesday before following up with apparent outright panic with “Mark Meadows NEVER told me that allegations of significant fraud (about the RIGGED Election!) were baseless. He certainly didn’t say that in his book!”

Gabrielle Hanson, the Republican candidate for mayor of Franklin, Tennessee who openly associated with white nationalists and neo-Nazis and defended racist beliefs thankfully lost the election to incumbent mayor Ken Moore, who was leading with more than 70% of the vote when the race was called by the Tennessean.

A white male with a name so generic it’s used to check in to motels that charge by the hour, Mike Johnson of Louisiana secured 128 votes, a majority within the GOP conference, to secure the honor of being the next person not to be named Speaker of the House.

UPDATE 10:10 p.m. ET:  A roll call vote has been called within the Republican conference to see if Johnson had enough support to get the requisite 217 votes on the floor of the House.  Results pending.

UPDATE 10:24 p.m. ET:  Johnson received a handful of “present” votes from the members, and more than 20 were absent from the vote.  Johnson told members that he plans to reach out to the absent members Tuesday night and wants to get a vote on the floor of the House at noon Wednesday.