The Senate voted unanimously to fill key committee seats left vacant after the death of California Democrat Dianne Feinstein at the end of September, tapping her replacement, Laphonza Butler, to take her seat on the Judiciary Committee.  Arizona’s Mark Kelly will join the Senate Intelligence Committee and his senior colleague, Kyrsten Sinema, an independent, was chosen by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer for the seat on the Appropriations Committee.

Butler’s seating on the Judiciary Committee means the 36 pending nominations will now have timely hearings to get their placements, something that couldn’t happen when the Committee was evenly divided due to Feinstein’s long absence due to illness.  Since taking office, the Biden Administration has seated 145 Article III judges, but there are currently 68 federal judicial openings remaining.  In total, there are 870 federal judges from the Supreme Court to courts of appeals, district courts, and eight Court of International Trade appointees.

Buried in a Politico story about the only man aspiring to be House Speaker who actively attempted to thwart the Constitution Jim Jordan’s pressure tactics to get 217 Republicans to vote for him is a rather mundane line:  Nebraska Republican Congressman Don Bacon “added that his wife even received multiple anonymous emails and texts saying: ‘your husband better support Jim Jordan.'”

Reporter Olivia Beavers’ Twitter post demonstrates the desperation Jordan’s supporters feel in their need to threaten the Congressman’s seat to his wife through an anonymous text messages. One rambling texter told Bacon’s wife that he better vote for Jordan because “you guys take five steps forward and then turn around take 20 steps backward no wonder our party always ends up getting screwed over[.]” Another anonymous texter told her, “Your husband will never hold any political office ever again.  What a disappointment and failure he is.”

“Now what the president should be doing is giving Israel his full support from US soil,” man who never worked in foreign diplomacy or public service Jesse Watters demands.  “But we feel Biden’s narcissism is propelling him to undertake ‘shuttle diplomacy,’ like a Secretary of State who thrives on the so-called ‘peace process.’  This is a dangerous game.”

Yes, Jesse, this is a dangerous game, one for which a former “gotcha” reporter who stalked people for Bill O’Reilly is woefully unprepared.  Of course, this is the Fox “gotcha” again:  had Biden not gone to Israel, they would have whined, “Yeah, but he went to see Zelenskyy.  The Jews shouldn’t vote for him.”  But Biden did the opposite, so Fox must reverse its planned attack.

The US Senate on Tuesday showed the amateurs in the House how it’s done, passing by unanimous consent SR 409, “a resolution authorizing the use of the atrium in the Philip A. Hart Senate Office Building for a Bipawtisan Howl-o-ween Dog Pawrade on October 31, 2023, from 4:00 to 6:00 pm.”

The House can’t even elect a Speaker and here the Senate is just blowing their doors off with bipartisan ultra-efficiency to do the work demanded by the American people who put them there.

LSD-brained billionaire edgelord Elon Musk is planning to start charging new Twitter (or “X” if you’re a douchebag) users $1 a year to tweet, retweet, or like other tweets, Fortune reports.

As far as Musk’s stupid ideas for the platform have gone this is… actually not that bad, contrary to what certain seasoned observers are saying. If you’re already a Twitter user this particular policy does by definition not apply to your account. Unless on one of Musk’s moronic whims that does change, this would take a serious bite out of the bot operations hawking crypto and all sorts of other bullshit on the site. “It’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots,” Musk said as much during a livestream last month. He could do worse. He has and he will.

These Halloween costumes will help you stand out in 2023 https://t.co/ZhT5bo4kKO

— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 17, 2023

Far right Arizona Congresswoman Debbie Lesko, the sick freak who said she would shoot her own grandchildren to protect them, announced on Tuesday she won’t be running again next year.

Spandex-wearing grapple freak Congressman Jim Jordan has pushed back the second planned attempt at getting himself elected Speaker to 11 AM Wednesday, CNN’s Manu Raju reports.

A DC federal court on Thursday sentenced failed Republican Michigan gubernatorial candidate Ryan Kelley to 60 days in prison following his guilty plea to several misdemeanor charges over his participation in the January 6th, 2021 MAGA insurrection at the US Capitol, NBC News reports.

Kelley, who was not one of the five candidates who were disqualified in the 2022 ballot petition forgery scam, had briefly led in the polls of the primary field – even after the arrest, but came in fourth against former B-movie actress Tudor Dixon after fat former President Trump endorsed her. Dixon was then crushed by 10 points against incumbent Dem Governor Gretchen Whitmer in November, so it’s hard to see how Kelley would’ve done much better while facing the charges.

A new Marist College/NPR/PBS Newshour survey of registered voters finds President Biden leading disgraced former President Trump 49 to 47 percent in a two-way race… which drops to Biden 44 – Trump 37 when Robert F Kennedy Jr is added to the question, scoring 16 percent and quite obviously, as expected, hurting the Orange God Emperor far more than Dark Brandon.

It’s just one early poll and it’s only registered voters, but Marist/NPR/PBS is pretty well-regarded and this result certainly tracks with the internal polling Trump’s minions freaked out over.

Lawyers for disgraced former President Trump on Tuesday filed a notice of appeal of the gag order prohibiting the fat bastard from making any statements about DC Circuit Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, her staff, Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith and his staff, and any potential witnesses (except GOP primary “rival” Mike Pence) in the federal criminal conspiracy case against him over his failed post-2020 election coup attempt. The actual appeal itself, which we’re sure will be full of laughs, has not submitted to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals yet.

“The White House has been discussing the possibility of using military force if Hezbollah joins the war in Gaza and attacks Israel with its huge arsenal of rockets, three US officials and one Israeli official with knowledge of the situation” have told Axios, which we copied verbatim from them to not mince words on a potentially serious development in the situation in the Middle East.

Obviously if Hezbollah attacks en masse there wouldn’t be much choice and the US military probably should intervene but that also risks an escalation from Iran and other players.

In very related and horrific news, the New York Times reports the Israelis bombed a hospital in Gaza killing at least 500 people. That’s a fucking war crime and whoever ordered it should be tried at the Hague. Great timing too, right before our president is about to visit the country to show support and solidarity for the mission after more than a thousand innocent Israelis were murdered.

Digital World Acquisition Corporation, the scam company that had been set up to merge with Truth Social parent Trump Media and Technology Group so it could be publicly traded on the stock market and is probably about to dissolve, on Tuesday informed the SEC that its 2021 financial statement “should no longer be relied upon,” Forbes reports. Sounds a lot like Trump’s own statements.

National Zero’s special live coverage of the House GOP’s inability to elect a speaker picks up once again from where we left off just two weeks ago when Kevin McCarthy was ousted. Right now it appears Jim Jordan is going to try to wrestle the holdouts into submission and win the gavel.

A day after having made her verbal ruling on the matter, DC Circuit Court Judge Tanya Chutkan on Tuesday formally entered her gag order against disgraced former President Trump prohibiting the fat bastard from making any statements about herself, her staff, Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith and his staff, and any potential witnesses (except GOP primary “rival” Mike Pence) in the federal criminal conspiracy case against him over his failed post-2020 election coup attempt.

“In order to safeguard the integrity of these proceedings, it is necessary to impose certain restrictions on public statements by interested parties. Undisputed testimony cited by the government demonstrates that when Defendant has publicly attacked individuals, including on matters related to this case, those individuals are consequently threatened and harassed. Since his indictment, and even after the government filed the instant motion, Defendant has continued to make similar statements attacking individuals involved in the judicial process, including potential witnesses, prosecutors, and court staff. Defendant has made those statements to national audiences using language communicating not merely that he believes the process to be illegitimate, but also that particular individuals involved in it are liars, or ‘thugs,’ or deserve death.”

“The court finds that such statements pose a significant and immediate risk that (1) witnesses will be intimidated or otherwise unduly influenced by the prospect of being themselves targeted for harassment or threats; and (2) attorneys, public servants, and other court staff will themselves become targets for threats and harassment. And that risk is largely irreversible in the age of the Internet; once an individual is publicly targeted, even revoking the offending statement may not abate the subsequent threats, harassment, or other intimidating effects during the pretrial as well as trial stages of this case,” Chutkan wrote in the order punishing the fat fuck for his misbehavior.

Senator Bro from MO Josh Hawley on Tuesday became the first Republican member of the chamber to publicly call for DINO scumbag Bob Menendez to resign, telling Politico’s Burgess Everett “We’re getting into the ‘T word’ territory here. You know, where we heard [of] trading secrets on behalf of a foreign nation. I mean, that’s pretty serious stuff,” with the “T word” we guess meaning “treason.”

A little overdramatic seeing as how Egypt is not an enemy nor is it a particularly hostile nation compared to say Russia, China, or Saudi Arabia. Hawley added he’s “not aware of senators having gold bars in their offices and their staff getting payments in cash. That’s not been my experience.”

Hawley said he’s not going to push for any expulsion vote and it’s up to Dems to do it. All his bullshitting aside this is fairly significant as Joshy becomes the first Senate Republican to clearly call for Big Bob to pack it in. He might not realize what he just did and of course Politico’s guy didn’t then ask him why Menendez should quit the Senate after getting hit with a four count indictment while Trump should stay in the 2024 race after 91 counts and four indictments. Hopefully another MSM Congress reporter will follow up soon and get Senator Chicken Legs to square that circle.

“Hold on a second: did that judge really say that the first amendment doesn’t apply to you after you’re accused of a crime??? This judge should be removed for cause and never allowed near another courthouse” – The current top comment on the Daily Wire’s article. Jesus Christ, lol.

“Trump should announce that the gag order is a direct interference with political speech guaranteed by the Constitution and that he will not be obeying such an order as it’s manifestly illegal” – Top comment on the Gateway Pundit article. Yes, he totally should. We would love to see him do that.

“GAG orders are blatantly Unconstitutional….INNOCENT until proven GUILTY….JUdge just proved her BIAS….” – The top comment on the Breitbart article by some instant expert on constitutional law.

“Every American citizen should be jumping up and down protesting this order. The Left is counting on numb skulls to look at this ruling as fair because its Trump. People have to take a generic look at this order and see if they would like to be held to it if they were in Trump’s place. Get a grip people, this is Stalinist!” – The top comment on TownHall.com’s article. Everyone jump up and down!

“The left has been calling the Trump a Nazi, homophobe, racist, sexist, bigot, and xenophobe for going on 7 years… But Trump calls a judge a hack and it’s an incitement to violence? Sounds to me like the judge knows she’s doing things that might could cause some people to get violent” – Top comment on The Right Scoop’s article. He forgot “rapist.” The “left” calls Trump that too.

The final results of Sunday’s general election in Poland have confirmed what the ruling right wing “Law and Justice” party led by President Andrzej Duda had feared: They’re fucked and the opposition Civic Coalition have won a majority of seats in the Sejm, the New York Times reports.

“These are absolutely historic moments,” Civic Coalition leader Donald Tusk said to fans in Warsaw on Tuesday. “The weather has changed.” Duda will remain in office until 2025, but this is a serious freaking kick in the dick to him and his party, who had held a pretty tight grip and were more than a little authoritarian-curious in their years of right wing rule over the country.

Hamas on Tuesday announced Ayman Nofal, one of their top militant commanders, had been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a refugee camp in southern Gaza, along with dozens, possibly hundreds of innocent people bombed in an area where they had been told to flee to, the AP reports.