• Hamas:Palestinians :: MAGA:Republicans
• In a closed-door secret ballot within the House GOP conference, Trump did not get a single vote for Speaker–not one–proving their hero worship is nothing but performative bluster.  
• RFK Jr. was literally a Democrat in name only.
• Steve Scalise’s chance for the gavel went up in smoke in less than a Scaramucci.  That’s got to sting after he spent years at the #2 in the caucus working his butt off to get support for Party goals to little acclaim.  Republicans have no loyalty to anyone but Trump.
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CXLII”

The Internal Revenue Service estimates Americans paid $688 billion less than they owned during the 2021 tax year, the largest “tax gap” calculated and a jump of more than $110 billion from 2017, CBS News reports.  The “tax gap” describes the amount of money that should have been paid based on the tax formulations versus the amount actually paid.

The tax gap stems from a number of reasons, the main one being wealthy Americans using tax shelters and other means–from technically legal to absolutely illegal–to hide money from federal audit.  Others come from people who did not file but should have (cough, cough Hunter Biden) and people who filed but did not submit their tax payment.

“This increase in the tax gap underscores the importance of increased IRS compliance efforts on key areas,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said. “These steps are urgent in many ways, including adding more fairness to the tax system, protecting those who pay their taxes and working to combat the tax gap.”

The White House says it has confirmed its suspicions that North Korea has been arming Russian forces in Ukraine, with intelligence photographs showing hundreds of containers of munitions from the regime of Kim Jong-un, the Washington Post reports.  This comes after a meeting between Putin and Kim promised closer relations between the two nations that find themselves on the periphery of civil society.

The Ukrainian revelation comes on the same day the North Korean government denied arming the Hamas terrorists who attacked Israeli civilians.  According to Reuters, reports coming from Israel show Hamas fighters using the North Korean-made F-7 rocket-propelled grenades, something known in intelligence circles for years, but the source of the weapons is unspecified.  The North Korean regime, however, denied the report through its state-owned media, calling it “a groundless and false rumour” and adding, “It is nothing but a bid to shift the blame for the Middle East crisis caused by (the United States’) wrong hegemonic policy onto a third country and thus evade the international criticism focused on the empire of evil,” it said.

With Republican Congressional leaders like Byron Donalds and Marjorie Taylor Greene railing on Twitter about a world falling apart because something something Hunter Biden and Hamas, the giant among the Keebler elves, House Speaker pro tempore Patrick McHenry, gavels closed the Friday session of the chamber–granted, with less vigor than when he first took control–announcing the House will not meet until Monday.  And that means the seasonal special, “Havoc House, Day 10: Republicans in Chaos,” will carry on for at least three more days as Jim Jordan tries to pin down members’ votes to get past the 217 threshold.

Weird-looking 2004 presidential Dem hopeful Dennis Kucinich has quit his post running anti-vax conspiracy freak Bobby Jr’s independent presidential campaign, the New York Times reports.

Spandex-wearing grapple-freak Jim Jordan has defeated “moderate” Georgia Congressman Austin Scott for the Republican nomination for Speaker of the House, CBS News’s Robert Costa reports, adding that Jordan fell well short of the 217 needed to win outright in the full House.

This guy. Seriously. It’s hard to capture with words how much he truly embodies the true ethos of the Republican Party in 21st Century America. We are so privileged to see him in action.

Principled ✅
Conservative ✅
Unifier ✅
Democrats Fear ✅
100% @CPAC Rating ✅@Jim_Jordan pic.twitter.com/3uJcfGvZSX

— Matt Schlapp (@mschlapp) October 13, 2023

“I have always been impressed by the skill and determination of the Israeli Defence Forces. As they defend their Nation against ruthless terrorists, I want to wish every soldier the best of luck. May you return home safely to your families, and may God bless you all!” writes probably one of fat former President Trump’s aides in a Truth Social post, careful to misspell “defense” and randomly capitalize “Nation” to make it seem authentic. The one before it where he screamed in all-caps “THE ATTACK ON ISRAEL WOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED, ZERO CHANCE, IF THE ELECTION OF 2020 WAS NOT RIGGED AND STOLLEN. IT SHOWS THE WORLD HOW IMPORTANT ELECTIONS ARE,” was definitely written by him though. Like his handlers said “Okay sir, you can write whatever you want in all capital letters but then you have to give the account to Jason Miller to write the next one.”

UPDATE 10/13/2023 3:05 PM EDT: Trump later posted “#IStandWithIsrael #IStandWithBibi.” Holy shit, lol. That second one is so freaking pathetic. Good Lord, what a simpering weasel.

Chatham County, Georgia man Connor Cato tells WSAV he thought it was a mistake when a cop issued him a ticket for doing 90 in a 55 mph zone with a $1.4 million fine on the bottom line. That is until he called the clerk’s office and an employee told him no that’s really the fine amount.

“I said, ‘This might be a typo’ and she said, ‘No sir, you either pay the amount on the ticket or you come to court on December 21 at 1:30 pm,'” Cato explained. Turns out that’s really the practice in Savannah. Cato won’t actually owe that much provided he shows up, per WSAV, but the insane fine amounts are specifically meant to make sure a judge gives him hell for excessive speeding.

Reuters cameraman Issam Abdullah was killed Friday by Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon, where the IDF are exchanging fire with Hezbollah, MSNBC’s Matt Bradley reports from the scene.

Bradley’s tweet came shortly after one from Reuters which said, ominously, “We have removed a live feed of the Lebanon-Israel border due to graphic content.” Rest in peace to a braver newsman who gave his life to bring the truth to the rest of the world. May Valhalla celebrate your arrival.

Hey Republican Congressguys and gals, think you got what it takes to be the next SPEAKER of the House? Well sign up for the big TRYOUT this afternoon to show your leadership skills to the caucus!

There’s only one candidate right now, and it’s big Jimmy Jordan who talks tough and is even tougher in the locker rooms! Who knows? Maybe YOU can knock him down if he doesn’t do it himself!

This is BIG! Sign up now, because there’s only an hour left. YOU could be the next SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE if you got the game. See Conference Chair Elise Stefanik for details. Don’t worry about her, hehe! She’s only a total b-word on TV and Twitter. She’s nice to other Republicans IRL. We swear.

EXCLUSIVE: Meghan McCain doesn't watch ‘The View’ "at all" after leaving the show: It's "like looking at an ex-boyfriend's Instagram" https://t.co/bKg2XWh9im

— The Messenger (@TheMessenger) October 13, 2023

WOW. Holy shit. Somebody’s about to get fucking fired for getting beaten to this one. This is like Mediaite’s own 9/11 times Hiroshima. They need to put a png of a black ribbon on the logo after this.

It looks like Truth Social won’t be getting the significant cash injection from its planned merger with a so-called “special purpose acquisition company” formed to raise money to fund and merge with the Trump Media & Technology Group:  Digital World Acquisition Corp. will return $533 million to investors as the proposed merger that was originally scheduled for September 2022 apparently peters out, Reuters reports.

The refund means the “private investment in public equity,” or PIPE, transaction is canceled after DWAC raised more than $1 billion to invest in TMTG as a way to boost Truth Social, Trump’s competition to Twitter that never attracted a broad audience and has become a conservative echo chamber where Trump posts rambling announcements.

What this means for Truth Social is unknown.  The platform has been running at a significant loss for Trump, and with the 91-times indicted felon set to sit for three criminal cases and multiple civil cases, including a quarter billion financial fraud case in New York State, cash will be at a premium for the alleged criminal family.  Of course, Trump World tried to claim the loss of a half billion dollars was a benefit:  In a statement, Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes said ending the agreement is “in the best interest of TMTG’s equity holders and completing our merger with DWAC as soon as possible.”

President Joe Biden will speak with the families of the Americans believed to be currently held captive of the Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip on Friday, a White House official tells NBC News.

“I think they have to know that the president of the United States of America cares deeply about them, deeply. We have to communicate to the world this is critical. This is not even human behavior. It’s pure barbarism, and we’re going to do everything in our power to get them home – if we can find them,” Biden told CBS’s Scott Pelley in a 60 Minutes interview recorded this week.

“1200 Israelis died to protect Hunter Biden” – The current top comment on the Thursday night TownHall.com article titled “Hunter Biden Just Got Off Easy,” which opens with “With all of the overwhelming brutal attacks on Israel plaguing the media and everyone’s minds, let us not forget Hunter Biden’s criminal history that the Democratic Party wants us to pay no heed to.”

Come to think of it it’s actually kind of surprising we hadn’t seen this usual line of solipsistic bullshit this week like we did when the Titan submersible imploded to distract people from Hunter something and when Russia invaded Ukraine to crowd out the EXPLOSIVE allegations that Hillary Clinton had spied on Trump when he was in the Oval Office. Would’ve thought Maria Bartiromo would be right on it like she was with the Ukraine-Hillary one, but last we saw of her she was legitimately fucking pissed over the House GOP shitshow. Almost like she’s distracted or something.

Document obtained by the CBC reveal Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) have been warning Inuit leaders to watch out for ChiCom and Kremlin agents offering their communities infrastructure investment to exploit access to natural resources like minerals or even military targets.

“Foreign interference is a significant threat, primarily from China and then Russia. Both desire access to natural resources in the Arctic, like minerals,” the CSIS report reads, concluding that the agency’s “presence in Canada’s North and Arctic has been limited” and they need to step it up.

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami President Natan Obed says the problem, beyond the one of the CSIS not sharing with him any classified intel on the Xi-Putin Regimes’ efforts to infiltrate the communities he answers to, is that the demand for infrastructure is very much there and leaders may not give a shit as long as the money is green. “There’s still incredible infrastructure deficits in the Canadian Arctic, whether it be for airports, for marine facilities, or for just a network for shipping,” Obed said, also mentioning a lack of housing and roads. “If the Canadian government is not investing in infrastructure development in the Arctic, then it pushes our pursuit for partners in investment into other places,” he continued, while stressing he doesn’t actually want the goons to be lording over his people. “If we are, without our knowledge, entering into spaces where there may be considerations from the federal government for foreign interference, we don’t want to ever get caught up into that.”

A new Washington Post analysis of how much disgraced former President Trump’s 91 felony charges have increased his lead in the GOP primary includes the usual insane quotes from focus group participants telling Never Trumper organization Republican Accountability Project how deeply they love and worship the Holy Orange Messiah now that he’s being persecuted by the socialists:

“Most of us are just so sick to death and have become deaf because of the constant crucifixion of Trump and this has gone on now for so many years that we just don’t even hear it anymore. They’ve just got him under a microscope. They’re just following him around waiting for the next thing they can pin on him,” said a South Carolina woman identified only as “Cheyenne.” Age unknown.

“A jury could very well find him guilty and he may very well be guilty, but why are they going after him and not everybody else?” another Palmetto stater named Larry said in a June focus group. “If they’re going to go after him, I want to see him go after the Clintons and I want to see him go after Biden. The fact that they’re just going after Trump, I don’t believe that this should be happening.”

“I would have preferred DeSantis,” New Jersey Republican voter Joey Marino said. “But I have to support Trump because we have to gain back our country. I only switched over to support Trump because indicting him is an outrage and threatens democracy.” Yes, irony is still dead.

“The closer a person is to God, and the more that they’re trying to do to fulfill God’s plans, and do the right thing, the more Satan attacks him,” said Iowa man John Nish, who is considering supporting DeSantis but says he gets more “energized” for Trump every time he thinks about him.

Dumbass Republican South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace thinks she could be disgraced former President Trump’s running mate in 2024, sources tell the Daily Beast of the ridiculous pipe dream from the idiot who once filmed herself begging for forgiveness in front of the Trump Tower after the Orange Warlord endorsed a (ultimately failed) MAGA primary challenger in 2022.

Trump minions mocked the House GOP edgelord’s aspirations. “I would see Trump pick Pence before he picks Mace,” one said, adding Donald “absolutely hates” and “never really trusted her.”

All this being said, there is one advantage that Mace could theoretically bring in that she is probably by far the most vocally pro-choice House Republican. Emphasis on “vocally” because her actual voting record does not always reflect that abortion-friendly vibe. If Mace were more MAGA and more competent that “vibe” would probably actually make her a favorite. We would still rate Marjorie Taylor Greene the most likely pick for Trump’s numero dos, because it would be the kind of extremely stupid and self-destructive choice the fat bastard has made core to his brand of politics.

Trump calls for Tlaib's impeachment over silence on Hamas terrorism questions https://t.co/Y4mAbk2bZE

— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 13, 2023