Faced with a highly dysfunctional House, the Senate advanced a bi-partisan budget deal that would fund the federal government for an additional six weeks past the September 30th deadline as well as provide billions in funding for Ukraine, the Washington Post reports.

With the initial procedural measures passing by a 71-18 vote, the continuing resolution would provide a speedy framework to pass the House, if it’s brought to the floor for a vote.  The Senate is likely taking proactive steps to try to stave off the impression that the federal government is in disarray because of Republican stubbornness, as was outlined in the downgrade of US credit rating by Fitch.

With more than $6 billion in aid to Ukraine, including a set aside of more than $1.5 billion to help rebuild the wartorn nation beginning in 2025, if Kyiv prevails, the bill “will continue to fund the government at present levels, while maintaining our commitment to Ukraine’s security and humanitarian needs while also ensuring those impacted by natural disasters across the country begin to get the resources they need,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

Anticipating a major surge in outsider in the comings weeks, leaders of a small town near the border have declared an invasion and closed themselves off from all outsiders, NBC News reports.

Pomfret, Vermont, which sits near the border with New Hampshire, has closed two roads to non-residents until October 15th in anticipation of fall foliage tourists and douchey TikTokers who want an authentic autumn backdrop for their video clips. “Foliage season traffic in this area has steadily increased during the last several years, causing significant safety, environmental, aesthetic, and quality of life issues,” said the Pomfret Select Board’s announcement on the closures.

“House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky) today announced the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed and obtained two bank wires revealing Hunter Biden received payments originating from Chinese nationals, including Jonathan Li, in July and August 2019 when Joe Biden was running for President of the United States. Joe Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware home is listed as the beneficiary address for both wires,” writes the House Oversight Committee in a press release accompanied by the usual “🚨🚨🚨”-loaded tweet.

Missing from the release is any corresponding line item from Joe Biden’s taxes showing income from this wire transfer or what this Jonathan Li character would have gotten in return from Biden for the payment. It’s also not terribly shocking that Hunter Biden would have listed his dad’s home as a “beneficiary address” considering he also did it on a rental application for a luxury apartment in Los Angeles the prior year. That caused a major frenzied circlejerk when the fanboys thought it meant Hunter was laundering $49,910 in monthly “rent” payments to Joe when the reality was that he simply incompetently filled out an already needlessly convoluted rental application.

Presiding over New York State Attorney General Leticia James’s $250 million civil lawsuit against disgraced former President Trump’s corrupt business empire, Manhattan Judge Arthur Engoron on Tuesday ruled that the Orange Defendant had committed fraud, deceived banks and insurers in falsely stating the value of his real estate assets over the years, and ordered the immediate revocation of the Trump Organization LLC’s business license and its dissolution as an entity, effectively the death penalty for all intents and purposes, the Associated Press reports.

The decision, characterized by the AP as a summary judgment, comes just days before the start of the bench trial in James’s case, in which Engoron will have to rule on six other claims made in the attorney general’s complaint. The destruction of the Trump Organization is a major victory for democracy and the rule of law. May this be the first and least of court losses for the fat fuck.

CORRECTION 9/26/2023 5:49 PM EDT: Calling this the “death penalty” is somewhat of an overstatement. It is true that a shit ton of LLCs, including the Trump Organization LLC, will have to dissolve and the Trump Organization Inc‘s operating license has been cancelled. The Trump Organization Inc, for now at least, will remain intact as an entity. We added “LLC” to the headline and the text to reflect this distinction and to maintain the spirit many readers found entertaining. The ruling is still just downright brutal for Trump and likely portends disaster in the upcoming trial.

Apologies for the back-to-back stories on Kevin McCarthy’s utter, abject cowardice but this one’s a keeper with the way he backtracks on calling for indicted Democratic Senator Bob Menendez to resign after getting indicted after being reminded he whipped against expelling indicted Republican Congressman George Santos just a few months ago. On Friday McCarthy told reporters the case against Menendez “seemed pretty black or white,” and responded “yeah” when one of them asked if he thought the DINO asshole New Jersey senator should resign. What a fucking worm.

Asked by CNN’s Manu Raju if he agreed with Trump’s demented command to shut down the government unless they can defund federal law enforcement, titular House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said “the president is always out there negotiating” and is a pro at the “art of negotiation.”

Earlier NBC reported McCarthy is begging for a meeting with the actual president amid the weakling Speaker’s completely self-inflicted clusterfuck and all but certain government shutdown.

Liberal Canadian Speaker of the House of Commons Anthony Rota on Tuesday announced he’ll resign from the post after the dumbass accidentally invited 98 year-old Ukrainian Nazi Wehrmacht veteran Yaroslav Hunka to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s address to Parliament and called on everyone in the room to salute the old bastard as a “Canadian hero” last week, the CBC reports.

Just hours before President Biden arrived in the Motor City on Tuesday, fat former President Trump continued melting down over it on Truth Social, writing “Joe Biden’s draconian and indefensible Electric Vehicle mandate will annihilate the US auto industry and cost countless thousands of autoworkers their jobs. The only thing Biden could say today that would help the striking autoworkers is to announce the immediate termination of his ridiculous mandate. Anything else is just a feeble and insulting attempt to distract American labor from this vicious Biden betrayal,” and all sorts of other bullshit ahead of his planned visit to a non-union machine shop outside Detroit.

QAnon fans who thought that “Luciferase” in the COVID vaccines activated by 5G signals in January 2022 would mutate people into mindless cybernetic zombies have their eyes set on a new date, government-sanctioned broadcast, and ominous-sounding chemical compound that also isn’t actually an ingredient in the vaccines as an AP fact check says the freaks have pegged the October 4th FEMA alert test as the signal that will prompt the “graphene oxide” to start doing its thing.

The robo-zombies part is the same though. They tinfoilers are consistent about that. “The emergency broadcasting system under FEMA is going to be activated,” some asshole QAnon streamer claimed “It’s not a test. It’s going to be sending these high frequency signals into cell phones, radios, TVs. The intention of activating nanoparticles, including graphene oxide.”

“You can’t ‘activate’ graphene oxide,” actual expert CalTech Materials Science Professor Julia Greer told the AP in an email on Monday. “What does that even mean?” Jeez lady. Trust the plan.

Senator Menendez has a right to test the government’s evidence in court, just like any other citizen. He should be judged by jurors and New Jersey’s voters, not by Democratic politicians who now view him as inconvenient to their hold on power.

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) September 26, 2023

You have to especially love the “troubling record of failure and corruption in cases against public figures, from Ted Stevens to Bob McDonnell to Donald Trump to Bob Menendez the last time around” part where names three politicians who eventually walked one way or the other after facing trial… and Donald Trump. Really slick how he stuck Trump in the middle there as an example of “failure” by the DOJ to prosecute him when he hasn’t actually faced trial yet. Very wishful thinky.

Not sure what the longer game is supposed to be here though. Tom Cotton’s an asshole but he also isn’t dumb. The obvious hope is for Menendez to stick around as a drag on Dems politically and maybe he thinks he’s blunting momentum for an expulsion vote that’s probably coming soon. But this shitposting is cheap and we don’t care how safe Cotton is in Arkansas, he’s never going to want to have to answer a primary challenger on why he voted against expelling an extremely corrupt Dem.

If the answer to that is “Far right MAGA Patriot Tom Cotton wants to protest how the Biden Regime’s Injustice Department unfairly prosecutes both sides” then well how the hell is that supposed to politically hurt all the Senate Dems who will eventually end up voting to toss Menendez?

At least 11 Senate Democrats have now called for DINO scumbag New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez to resign, eight of of them coming within the last few hours as Liz Warren, Bob Casey, Jon Tester, Martin Heinrich, and others – including just now fellow New Jersey Dem Cory Booker.

“The allegations against Senator Menendez are of such a nature that the faith and trust of New Jerseyans as well as those he must work with in order to be effective have been shaken to the core” wrote Booker in a statement. It’s past time for Goldbrick Dick to get the fuck out of the Senate.

JP Morgan Chase on Tuesday agreed to pay a $75 million to the government of the US Virgin Islands to settle a lawsuit brought accusing them of complicity in Jeffrey Epstein’s pimping out teenage girls to his scumbag friends on his island within the territory’s borders, the Daily Beast reports.

The non-union Clinton Township, Michigan auto parts company hosting disgraced former President Trump’s Wednesday speech is hyping the event with some pretty dystopian shit, writing in a Tuesday Facebook post that they “are excited to announce that Drake Enterprises, Inc will be hosting former President Donald Trump tomorrow. In 2019, we rolled out an employee engagement program centered on patriotism and support for America. This program has sought to encourage our work force to embody the American Dream, whatever that may be for each employee.”

“With that said, we value this opportunity and are honored to provide a platform to one of America’s former leaders,” they continued and LOL at the explicit uses of “former” in the post. “Politics aside, this is a tremendous opportunity to expand name recognition for Drake Enterprises and help us to continue living our American Dream of growing our company and expanding our product lines. We want to recognize our ✨ staff ✨as they are a huge reason we were asked to host this event. We hope all of our followers are Living their American Dream!!” followed by an American flag meme.

So to recap, eight days ago the New York Times reported with the literal headline: “Trump to Woo Striking Union Members in Detroit, Skipping 2nd GOP Debate,” which ended up being accurate when you remove the words “Striking Union Members” and “Detroit” because Clinton Township is about 18 miles north and the workers in the audience will not be on strike nor will they be union members.

The whole situation has a very “Four Seasons” vibe to it, like the Orange Warlord demanded that his minions immediately find a “Blue Collar” setting for Trump to capitalize on the strike politically, and, without working the phones first to find a union shop or meeting hall or some place germane to the strike they went and told the Times’s Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman that he was definitely going to “Woo Striking Union Members in Detroit.” Then came the “Oh fuck” moment when they realized they couldn’t actually get Trump in front of any real, genuine UAW members.

Dem Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin joined the chorus of DINO Bob Menendez’s colleagues urging him to resign, writing “The indictment spells out deeply troubling allegations against Senator Menendez that breach the American people’s trust and compromise his ability to effectively represent his constituents. While Senator Menendez enjoys the presumption of innocence until proven guilty and will have his day in court to defend himself, I believe it’s best for his constituents, the American people, and our national security for the Senator to step down,” in a statement.

Baldwin follows Vermont Senator Pete Welch, Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, and Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman in calling for Menendez to get the fuck out. Noteworthy is that Brown and Baldwin are up for reelection next year. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has also said it’s time to go.

First son Hunter Biden on Tuesday filed a federal civil complaint against alcoholic shitbrain Rudy Giuliani for committing computer fraud and violating his privacy with the famous laptop the gropey former New York City mayor obtained under murky circumstances, CNBC reports. Also named as a defendant is Rudy’s (now former?) attorney Robert Costello, who is also suing Captain 9/11 over $1.36 million in unpaid fees accrued during multiple civil cases and federal investigations.

A CNN rundown of former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s book Enough contains some pretty dark and not all that unbelievable shit, including her boss, Mark Meadows admitting that the administration and campaign did kind of kill one-time GOP presidential primary candidate Herman Cain by exposing him to COVID-19 at the infamous failed Tulsa rally in June 2020.

The best part is that a spokesperson for Meadows doesn’t deny to CNN that the disgraced former Chief of Staff literally said “We killed Herman Cain” in the aftermath, but that it was out of some sort of twisted sarcasm. “In the days after he was expressing exasperation that the media would blame the President for Mr Cain’s death. Very different,” the Meadows spokesworm said. Other lowlights:

Trump complaining to Meadows after the Supreme Court rejected the Texas lawsuit to overturn the election in December 2020. “Why didn’t we make more calls? We needed to do more… We can’t let this stand,” and “I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out,” the Orange Tyrant told Meadows after days of being fed false promises that they would win the case.

The Meadows spokesperson denying to CNN that Meadows had burned documents in his fireplace with “Mrs Meadows was referencing how the wood fireplace made the office smell smoky – and we often started it using old newspaper. It had nothing to do with documents,” in response to Hutchinson writing that Meadows’s wife had complained his suits stank of smoke from burning incriminating documents during that last month or so as the White House collapsed into anarchy.

Well, so says the response by indicted melon Donald Trump’s attorneys to the Special Counsel’s motion for a proposed gag order that would block the disgraced real estate developer from issuing “disparaging and inflammatory or intimidating statements about any party, witness, attorney, court personnel, or potential jurors. The defendant is also prohibited from causing surrogates to make such statements on his behalf.”

But Trump argues “no witness has suggested that he or she will not testify because of anything President Trump has said. To the contrary, witnesses appear eager to share their expected testimony with the media and will undoubtedly testify at a potential trial, if called to do so.”  Nah, of course not!  That’s why Jack Smith has a security team in court and Trump supporters are sending death threats to a federal judge.

The arguments against the proposed terms are just a better-spelled and marginally more coherent version of the garbage Trump posts on Truth Social, bewailing that the gag order “lacks any semblance of narrow tailoring, sweeping in, for instance, all ‘disparaging’ statements about any ‘potential witness,’ regardless of subject, and including individuals who are actively waging political campaigns against President Trump” and would prevent “President Trump from defending himself in the political arena, while giving President Biden and his surrogates (including those in the corporate media) free reign to say whatever they want” as if any of that is somehow supposed to be the court and the prosecution’s problem. Maybe he should just drop out of the race if it’s all too burdensome.

Speaking to Rachel Maddow in her first live televised interview, former aide to Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows Cassidy Hutchinson addressed a passage in her book where she alleges Congress’s Eddie Haskell, Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz, attempted to slide his way into her cabin during a Republican retreat.  Asked by Maddow’s staff for a comment, the man credibly accused of child sex trafficking and current subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation responded, “I don’t remember either of those events and based on Cassidy’s prior false statements, I doubt they occurred. I did date Cassidy for a few weeks while we were both single a few years ago.”  Note, however, Gaetz did not deny the accusations.

Asked for her response, Hutchinson stated after offering some niceties, “Matt Gaetz, in my opinion, is somebody I personally do not hold in high regards in terms of trust, and I do not think Matt Gaetz has the best track record for relationships and condoning, condoning his relationships, how he thinks they might be defined.  I will say on behalf of myself, I never dated Matt Gaetz.  I have much higher standards in men and Matt, frankly, is a very unserious politician.”

A new Pew Research survey on Americans’ feelings toward the Electoral College finds a nearly two thirds of overall respondents, 65 percent, in favor of ditching the antiquated and flawed system of electing the president, while only 33 percent want to hang on to it. Even 47 percent of self-identified Republican respondents said they want to switch to a national popular vote system.

The part that you will not at all be surprised to learn is the Republican respondents describing themselves as “highly politically engaged” were the group most in favor of keeping the GOP’s presidential head start program in place, at 72 percent support. Which might just kind of indicate a whole lot of Republican voters don’t really know shit and what sounds good and fair to them on paper would actually be game over for their chances of ever winning the White House again.

Pew’s 2023 finding on the question is consistent with last year’s 63 percent against the Electoral College versus 35 percent in favor. Funny enough the last time a pollster saw support for switching to the popular vote at near parity with keeping the unpopular vote was in December 2016, when Gallup found 47 percent favoring the Electoral College and 49 percent against, a switch from their June 2013 finding of 63 percent against and 29 percent for, very consistent with Pew in 2023.

Weird how that was the month so many Americans suddenly remembered how awesome the Electoral College is and then that awareness ebbed over the next half-decade-plus, right?

“Here’s what I predict, and this is something I said last week on my podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz,” shameless self-promoting podcaster Ted Cruz says, using his characteristic weasel words on the GOP cable propaganda network.  “I think the odds are very significant that next summer at the Democrat National Convention that the Democrat Party will jetison Joe Biden, they will throw him off the ticket and they will parachute in instead Michelle Obama to be their candidate.  I think they’re gonna look to Michelle Obama a-a-as the savior to come in a-and I think if that happens that would be very, very dangerous.”

First, any Obama, even Sunny, would be a better candidate than Trump.  But more realistically, Michelle Obama has stated repeatedly she will not pursue a political career and that she has no interest in entering the political arena.  And in reality, Ted is just jealous Marge is getting all the “craziest member of Congress” airtime.