“Political strategists say Democrats running in competitive races in this year’s midterm elections for the House and Senate should steer clear of making President Trump the centerpiece of their campaigns. While Trump’s approval ratings are low and Americans have been frustrated by his job performance in the first year of his second term, the strategists say the key to winning is to home in on economic issues – particularly affordability,” says The Hill in the lede to their Wednesday morning article headlined “Democrats advised not to center midterm campaigns on attacking Trump” and no, this story isn’t predicated on any sort of new internal memo or slide presentation the Hill obtained.

Their reporter Amie Parnes appears to have simply started with the conclusion that Dems should not make Trump’s corruption and malevolence a campaign theme and then got four strategists to help her work backward by supplying quotes that sort of kind of support her hypothesis, thus making the verb “advised” in the headline an entirely self-generated “consensus framing” to drive the plot (And yeah, THIS National Zero headline kind of oversold the strategic effort involved here. Guilty).

“The core focus of any candidate running in 2026 has to be focused on the reality that these affordability concerns, even one year later, still exist. The results of the 2025 races in select states underscored just how prominent those concerns are with swing voters right now,” said either GOP strategist Kevin Madden or ChatGPT when asked to generate a quote and then Madden tersely replied with a “👍🏻” when Parnes emailed to ask if the anodyne quote could be attributed to him.

Russian-flagged oil tanker “Bella-1,” a sanctioned vessel that has been under pursuit for weeks, was boarded and seized by US Coast Guard and Nevy personnel on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

The successful interdiction operation, staged in the waters off of Iceland, happened in the presence of at least one Russian submarine and other vessels in Vlad’s navy that had been escorting the ship and how the hell this did not turn into an immediate shooting war right then and there is unknown.

Tennessee MAGA Congressman Andy Ogles was frank about the Republican party’s psycho-sexual sadist proclivities on Wednesday when telling Maria Bartiromo his fantasies for Greenland.

Losing track of how many times WarnerDiscovery has told ParamountSkydance to fuck off, this has to be the third or fourth since the media conglomerate put itself up for sale and convicted felon President Trump commanded his minions Larry and David Ellison to seize it and MAGAfy CNN. This time Axios reports that even with Ellison Sr’s “irrevocable personal guarantee of $40.4 billion of the equity financing,” WB rejected the $30/share bid due to the “extraordinary amount of incremental debt” that Paramount would incur and that Netflix’s $27.75 cash/stock bid was simply better.

“This aggressive transaction structure poses materially more risk for WBD and its shareholders when compared to the [conventional structure of the] Netflix merger,” the board wrote. Keep in mind that even though Trump talked a lot of shit about blocking Netflix from taking over Warner Bros’s entertainment assets (CNN is not part of the deal and would be spun off along with other cable networks, including TNT, TBS, Discovery Channel, etc) there’s really no legal standing for the regime to get in the way since it does not involve any assets within the FCC’s jurisdiction. The most he can do really is just slow it down in court and the fact that he opened his fat fucking mouth about the merger simply makes Netflix’s legal team’s job getting a judge to toss a DOJ antitrust lawsuit easier.

Officials loyal to Burkina Faso junta leader Captain Ibrahim Traore announced Wednesday that they had foiled a plot by his predecessor, former Burkina Faso junta leader Lt Colonel Paul Henri Damiba, who was ousted in a 2022 coup by Traore’s faction, the BBC reports on more Burkinian wackiness.

“Our intelligence services intercepted this operation in the final hours. They had planned to assassinate the head of state and then strike other key institutions, including civilian personalities,” said spokesman Mahamadou Sana, adding that Damiba is backed by neighboring Cote D’Ivore.

“I am pleased to announce that the Interim Authorities in Venezuela will be turning over between 30 and 50 MILLION Barrels of High Quality, Sanctioned Oil, to the United States of America. This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States! I have asked Energy Secretary Chris Wright to execute this plan, immediately. It will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States. Thank you for your attention to this matter,” posted convicted felon President Trump on Tuesday evening.

The “that money will be controlled by me” part was a fuck you aimed at you, Republicans in Congress. None of it is going to your districts. It’s for Trump to do whatever he wants with it.

Taxpayer money was spent attacking Venezuela and the oil revenue will be disbursed to one non-taxpayer. You are excluded from this because Caesar, correctly, assumes you will not conduct any oversight whatsoever. Thank you for your attention to this matter, no further attention required.

Developing: Lt. Michael Byrd Who Shot Ashli Babbitt Dead on Jan. 6, 2021 in Cold Blood, Runs an ‘Unaccredited’ Day-Care Center in Maryland at His Home and Has Pocketed $190 Million in HHS Funds https://t.co/yYVS2gjPln

— The Gateway Pundit (@gatewaypundit) January 6, 2026

As MAGA Twitter-er @amuse points out in a reply, the fucking idiots conflated the entire $190 million annual federal daycare funding for Maryland to make it look like Byrd got that much.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told members of Congress on Monday that there’s no serious threat of the use of military force to seize Greenland and that the goal is to simply buy the vast frozen island from Denmark in an amicable transaction with a NATO ally, the Wall Street Journal reports.

“President Trump has made it well known that acquiring Greenland is a national security priority of the United States, and it’s vital to deter our adversaries in the Arctic region. The President and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilizing the US Military is always an option at the Commander in Chief’s disposal,” said Karoline Leavitt in a statement to the Journal on Tuesday, immediately undercutting Rubio’s assurances, lol.

Not that it matters but fun fact: The most recent still-extant and peaceable American territorial acquisition was with none other than Denmark, who sold the then-Danish Virgin Islands to the US for $25 million in 1917, equivalent to $722 million in 2026. The most recent still-extant non-peaceable American territorial acquisition was the seizure of the Northern Mariana Islands from the Empire of Japan in 1945. The Japanese got $0 for it and Prime Minister Hideki Tojo was hanged in 1948.

“One in four Big Game watchers experience occasional heartburn from their favorite foods – and 75 percent of those fans are unprepared, without relief on hand*. This year, ahead of football’s biggest showdown, TUMS is debuting the first-ever Burn Ball – a limited-edition, custom-designed football, specifically engineered to pass the TUMS and deliver fast-acting heartburn relief on game day! The most aerodynamic TUMS case ever created, the Burn Ball is made to be passed, thrown and cracked open when heartburn strikes, revealing a bottle of TUMS Chewy Bites inside. Available for purchase in a limited run exclusively on TUMSshop.com, the Burn Ball is a must-have for any Big Game watch party,” says a press release headlined “TUMS Unveils Sweepstakes and Limited-Edition Burn Ball to Help Fans ‘Pass the TUMS’ Ahead of Football’s Big Game,” touting the new merch drop.

Yeah, you should totally spend $30.00 plus shipping for a novelty football with America’s top antacid brand’s logo on it like right now, while supplies last and… Alright the design’s kind of cool. Maybe worth springing for two bottles of Tums in like a special promo pack or something, but not for $30.

Anyway they’re also taking the “Big Game” game up to the next level too with this social media sweepstakes thing where a grand prize winner will get $5,000 and second prizers a $50 Uber Eats gift card if they post a #PassTheTUMSSweepstakes video of them passing the Tums around creatively and God freaking dammit that is so sad that this is how they do their marketing on social media. What’s funny though is the terms, specifically one extremely overlawyered yet vague section:

Blink twice if your cuck husband made you post this. https://t.co/6d9SBpK2PW

— Steven Cheung (@StevenCheung47) January 6, 2026

“Since January 6, 2021, Nancy Pelosi spent over 3 years and nearly $20 million in taxpayer funds on her partisan Select Committee, producing a scripted TV spectacle to fabricate an ‘insurrection’ narrative and pin all blame on President Trump. Video and audio recordings, including unaired HBO footage from her own daughter, show Nancy Pelosi repeatedly acknowledging responsibility for the catastrophic security failures – admitting ‘We have totally failed’ and ‘I take full responsibility’ for not having the National Guard pre-deployed, despite intelligence warnings and President Trump’s offers of troops that were ignored under her leadership as Speaker. The Democrats masterfully reversed reality after January 6, branding peaceful patriotic protesters as ‘insurrectionists’ and framing the event as a violent coup attempt orchestrated by Trump – despite no evidence of armed rebellion or intent to overthrow the government. In truth, it was the Democrats who staged the real insurrection by certifying a fraud-ridden election, ignoring widespread irregularities, and weaponizing federal agencies to hunt down dissenters, all while Pelosi’s own security lapses invited the chaos they later exploited to seize and consolidate power. This gaslighting narrative allowed them to persecute innocent Americans, silence opposition, and distract from their own role in undermining democracy”

That’s part of the actual text of the White House’s new official whitehouse.gov/j6/ site, none which explains why, if Nancy Pelosi’s in charge of the DC National Guard, then why she hasn’t ordered them to the White House to arrest Trump for his various crimes against American democracy.

In yet another very solid recruiting win for Chuck Schumer, former Congresswoman Mary Peltola is readying a bid to take on incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan in Alaska, Axios reports.

Maybe if I spent more time at shady parties with monied insiders I would’ve won. I heard you’d know a bit about that. You’ve always been a dick by the way. Grifting off your daddy like a suckling little doggie. When I first met you in the panhandle I knew you were a piece of…

— Dan Bongino (@dbongino) January 6, 2026

“When I first met you in the panhandle I knew you were a piece of shit. It’s written all over that phony face of yours,” the reply from Dan Bongino continued after the cutoff.

Gaetz wrote that in response to the now-former Deputy FBI Director’s little pep talk of “We’ve got midterms coming up, and there’s no time for bullshit. This administration is cooking and REAL change simmers. If you’re spending your entire day bitching and whining with 3/4ths of the term still to go, then please find the exits. There’s no time for it. It’s not ‘infighting’ when you excise a cancer killing the host. It’s ‘outfighting’ because you’re not part of any movement I’m familiar with.”

Chinese state food collective Sinograin on Tuesday bought up 10 million tons of American-grown soybeans, getting close to the 12 million tons Treasury Suckretary/soybean farmer Scott Bessent had pledged to offload to the ChiComs by the end of February, Reuters reports on a belated win.

This of course still is less than half of the 26.8 million tons sold to China in 2024, back before the vast majority of the farmers voted to return their Orange Mao to the White House.

After probably quietly realizing that it might not go over so well with the general public – and/or that some retailers might, not entirely unreasonably, believe they’re fake – the US Mint evidently have quietly scrapped plans to feature convicted felon President Trump’s face on this year’s line of special 250th anniversary coins, the Washington Examiner reports with a full display of the coin designs.

As billed, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is chairing a pseudo-hearing marking the fifth anniversary of convicted felon President Trump’s violent coup attempt to remain in power.

Former federal prosecutor and Politico columnist Ankush Khardori argues in a Tuesday piece that January 6 pipe bomber Brian Cole – technically a “suspect” but the dude already confessed – that the text of convicted felon President Trump’s January 20, 2025 proclamation granting “a full, complete and unconditional pardon to all other individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021,” makes it all but ceratin Cole’s lawyers can get the case tossed pretty quickly given the amnesty’s stupidly broad scope.

“Last week, the Justice Department went out of its way during the court hearing to avoid using any phrases that might immediately connect Cole’s alleged crimes to Jan 6, but prosecutors’ efforts were so obvious, that they had the effect of drawing more attention to it. The government’s pre-hearing brief also appears designed to skirt this issue and put the most Trump-friendly spin on Cole’s motive for his alleged crimes – though ultimately not very convincingly,” Khardori writes.

Northern California MAGA Congressman Doug LaMalfa, who was all but certain to retire or just lose after Prop 50 blued up his district, has died suddenly at the age of 65, Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman reports on the reaper working against Mike Johnson after coming through for him thrice last year.

The House is now 218 Republican to 213 Democratic, soon to be 218 R – 215 D and it’s definitely worth questioning whether the GOP will be able to recruit a candidate to serve like what, six months at most, before the district gets nuked and if the seat might just flip D early anyway.

The upshot is that Dems taking the House before 2027 cannot be ruled out. The next special is in Texas on the 31st and that’s a guaranteed Dem hold. After that Mikie Sherrill’s seat, which brings it to 218 – 215 D/R. GA-14 is guaranteed red so then it’s 219 – 215. Flipping CA-1 would bring us to 219 R – 216 D. Sherman adds that 80 year-old Indiana Republican Jim Baird has been hospitalized after a car accident, who knows how bad it is. In any case Johnson’s hanging on by an ever-thinning thread.

When you think of it, when he’s asked by CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin if he supports “the pardon of Hernandez, the former president of Honduras for what effectively looks like the same thing as Maduro,” Republican House Intel Committee chair Rick Crawford is saying here, “I don’t have the information the president had. I don’t get to weigh in on those particular things,” is like Sorkin might as well be asking Robert F Kennedy Jr or Corey Lewandowski the same question and getting the same response because, as officials who serve at convicted felon President Trump’s pleasure, they don’t get to “weigh in” on those kinds of decisions. Crawford however is a duly elected member of a co-equal branch of the government and he not only “gets to” have opinions on such matters, it’s actually his responsibility to do so and yeah no shit Republicans in Congress have abandoned even the thinnest pretenses of acting to uphold that sacred duty to the American people and so on.

Still you’d think they would at least lie about it and say they’re dedicated to conducting rigorous oversight of presidential actions. Even just saying he agrees with Trump that Hernandez was a victim of Biden lawfare would arguably be in a way less nakedly embarrassing and disgraceful.

“California, under Gov Gavin Newscum, is more corrupt than Minnesota, if that’s possible??? The Fraud Investigation of California has begun. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” posted convicted felon President Trump on Tuesday, likely notifying Attorney General Pam Bondi that she’s now investigating the “fraud” in California and expects her to tweet that the probe is underway.

The post followed a personification of his tariff policy with “The USA markets just hit another ALL TIME HIGH – ALL OF THEM!!! THANK YOU YOU MISTER TARIFF!!! PRAY THAT THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT ALLOWS OUR COUNTRY TO CONTINUE ITS UNPRECEDENTED MARCH TOWARD UNPARALLELED GREATNESS! BOTH OUR NATIONAL AND FINANCIAL SECURITY HAVE NEVER BEEN STRONGER!” Or maybe Trump was speaking in the third person and he’s “MISTER TARIFF.”