The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
@AJPennyfarthing
Indicted 'Epoch Times' Executive May Be Praying For Trump Pardon

Indicted 'Epoch Times' Executive May Be Praying For Trump Pardon

If you’re unfamiliar with the right-wing conspiracy rag The Epoch Times—well, congratulations! But if you can imagine, for a moment, all your MAGA brother-in-law’s forwarded emails packaged together in one place among a smattering of ads touting horse paste and gently used House speakers’ lecterns, you’ve pretty much got the gist.

It’s essentially the Weekly World News, but with Donald Trump shrieking his guts out on the cover instead of the far less flappable Bat Boy (who is, as of this writing anyway, still a non-felon).

As The Associated Press reports:

Federal prosecutors in New York charged Weidong “Bill” Guan of Secaucus, N.J., chief financial officer of The Epoch Times, of steering at least $67 million in criminal proceeds, much from fraudulently obtained unemployment insurance benefits, to the company, its affiliates and himself. Guan pleaded not guilty but was suspended by The Epoch Times, which agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

The case calls into question the future of a company that was a key online supporter of Trump and spreader of conspiracy theories.

Oh no! A pro-Trump outlet could go under? That’s a lot of extra slack for The New York Times to pick up!

Of course, suspending one guy may not remove suspicion from the paper itself, given the details of the case. The AP notes that, in the past, The Epoch Times was “particularly aggressive” with its Facebook advertising, eventually leading the social media platform, in 2019, to ban the newspaper’s pro-Trump ads over violations of its policies. And it’s still unclear where all that advertising money was coming from.

The indictment doesn’t specifically say that these pro-Trump efforts were funded through the alleged criminal scheme. But it was around this time that money was pouring in. The Epoch Times reported nearly $128 million in revenue for 2021, a stunning increase from $4 million in 2016, according to a federal financial disclosure. The turnaround caught the eye of banks, regulators and, eventually, federal prosecutors.

In other words, something about these Trump-pushers doesn’t smell quite right. Why does that seem so familiar? Well, because the world’s gone mad, hasn’t it? And that’s been made abundantly clear through the paper’s own coverage.

In an October exposé titled “How the conspiracy-fueled Epoch Times went mainstream and made millions,” NBC News explained how the “aggressive online and real-world marketing campaigns and big-money conservative donors” allowed the media company to prosper, “growing its revenue by a staggering 685% in two years, to $122 million in 2021.”

This was before federal regulators discovered the alleged money-laundering hijinks, but there’s no disputing that that money—regardless of how it was obtained—was being used to promote pro-MAGA nonsense.

Its editorial vision — fueled by a right-wing slant and conspiracy theories — is on display in recent reports on how “Jan. 6 Capitol Hill Security Footage Challenges Key Narratives” and “Meteorologists, Scientists Explain Why There Is ‘No Climate Emergency.’” Its video series include a documentary-style film alleging widespread vaccine injury and death and an exposé of an alleged world government agenda to harm farmers, cull the population and force survivors to eat bugs.

While The Epoch Times’ suspended CFO is in hot water now, he could soon be taking bubble baths with convicted felon Trump if the latter wins his bid for a second term in the White House. Because in case you hadn’t noticed, sucking up to the ocher abomination is now widely seen as a viable business strategy.

So what do you suppose happens if Trump wins in November? Will all these scofflaws find new respect for the American justice system, or will we sink further into a swamp of lawlessness and cronyism, where one’s legal and financial fates are decided by one’s demonstrated loyalty to Trump?

Well, we don’t have to speculate all that much, because Trump has already tipped his hand. Despite whining (and lying) about President Joe Biden’s supposed involvement in a state case prosecuted by a New York district attorney and decided by 12 ordinary Americans, Trump himself has hardly been shy about going after his political foes.

In fact, not only did Trump suggest locking up his 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton numerous times, but he also took tentative steps toward making that happen. As The New York Timesreported in 2019, Trump demanded that then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions pursue Clinton’s prosecution. That didn’t happen, of course, because Sessions refused.

Think Trump would stay his hand during a second term while besotted with revenge fantasies and unencumbered by adult supervision?

Of course, if Richard Nixon came back and saw what Trump is currently doing to our republic, he’d vomit his small intestines. Then again, Nixon came from a simpler time, when people thought vaccines were still marginally useful and voting for felons was a bridge too far.

But if being anti-Trump is enough to get you fired or prosecuted, it stands to reason that being a loyal Trump soldier will likely redound to your benefit. Trump is already planning to pardon the violent thugs who stormed our Capitol on his behalf in January 2021, and he’s regularly protected his loyal capos with pardons and commutations.

For instance, in July 2020, Trump commuted crony Roger Stone’s sentence after Stone was convicted of witness tampering, obstructing justice, and lying to Congress—on Trump’s behalf. The move was so outrageous, in fact, Sen. Mitt Romney called it “unprecedented, historic corruption.”

Shortly before leaving office, Trump also pardoned his former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who had refused to rat out his ex-boss during Robert Mueller’s Russia election interference investigation.

The pardon drew a rebuke from several lawmakers, including GOP Sen. Ben Sasse, who called it “rotten to the core,” and Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, who tweeted, “During the Mueller investigation, Trump’s lawyer floated a pardon to Manafort. Manafort withdrew his cooperation with prosecutors, lied, was convicted, and then Trump praised him for not ‘ratting.’ Trump’s pardon now completes the corrupt scheme. Lawless until the bitter end.”

So, as with Putin and the doofuses holding Trump Media stock, perhaps Guan’s best strategy is simply to wait in the hope that Trump returns to the White House. Because if he does, perhaps his little pro-Trump conspiracy rag may very well become one of Trump’s favorite news outlets. After all, if there’s one thing Trump likes almost as much as himself, it’s unsupported conspiracies—the wilder, the better.

And maybe Guan would even get a pardon if he ingratiated himself enough, and kept the fire hose of pro-Trump misinformation flowing.

Luckily for grifters, liars, and lawbreakers everywhere, another Trump term would be a veritable Shangri-La—so long as they all toe the Trumpian line, and their genuflecting knees last just a wee bit longer than their rapidly corroding souls.

So while The Epoch Times may be in big trouble now, like Putin and the J6 rioters, they can certainly hope for relief from Trump if he wins. Hell, they may even become a protected, de facto state media outlet as we slide further and further into corruption and lawlessness. And if that happens, there will be no limit to the amount of sketchy money they can rake in to promote their pro-Trump agenda.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Former President Donald Trump

Drain The Swamp? Bribe-Gorging Trump Embodies The Swamp

Eight short years ago, a Washington outsider and political neophyte was barnstorming the country promising to diligently safeguard our national secrets and “drain the swamp” of corruption and the undue influence of wealthy interests.

Today, that dude awaits trial on 40 felony charges for allegedly stealing, refusing to return, and irresponsibly sharing top secret government documents with a handful of random jabronis he was trying to impress. So let’s see how that other promise is going, shall we?

Of course, there is something superficially appealing about a candidate who can finance their entire campaign, as it would remove at least the appearance of corruption from their administration. Unfortunately, Donald Trump is the rare politician who might agree to put lead back in pipes if he got a late-night call from the Lead Council and they offered to send someone over to explain the abstruse science behind lead safety—and why the display on his VCR won’t stop blinking “12:00.” And if they also promised him $25 million for the right to poison innocent kids’ brains, of course. But that part goes without saying.

A new report from The Washington Postshows the extent to which Trump—who’s strapped for cash and facing mounting legal fees due to, erm, mounting legal troubles—is prepared to betray his 2016 promise to hold himself above the grotesqueries of transactional Washington politics.

The Post relates one incident in which Trump claimed he rebuffed a businessman who offered $1 million to support his reelection, insisting that the price tag for a casual lunch date was far higher.

“I’m not having lunch,” Trump claimed he told the man. “You’ve got to make it $25 million.”

Of course, it’s fair to ask what that businessman thought he was purchasing, considering the “Trump Masticating” OnlyFans account is by far the least popular feed on the platform. But Trump clearly knows the score, as do his donors. The only question is whether enough voters will catch on before the Grand Canyon is transformed overnight into the world’s largest McDonald’s Playland ball pit.

As he closed his pitch at the Pierre Hotel, Trump explained to the group why it was in their interest to cut large checks. If he was not put back in office, taxes would go up for them under President Biden, who vows to let Trump-era tax cuts on the wealthy and corporations expire at the end of 2025.

Seconds after promising the tax cuts, Trump made his pitch explicit. “So whatever you guys can do, I appreciate it,” he said.

The remarks are just one example of a series of audacious requests by Trump for big-money contributions in recent months, according to 11 donors, advisers and others close to the former president, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe his fundraising. The pleas for millions in donations come as the presumptive Republican nominee seeks to close a cash gap with Biden and to pay for costly legal bills in his four criminal indictments.

In other words … swamp, drained. Congratulations, America!

Of course, among the “audacious requests” the Post mentions is Trump’s offer to oil execs to help destroy the planet for good in exchange for a cool $1 billion. And now he appears to be making explicit what’s always been well understood: The money wealthy Americans funnel to Republican politicians will flow back to them manyfold in the form of corporate welfare, significantly lower tax burdens, and the wholesale gutting of regulations.

Oh, and Trump’s latest overtures may very well be illegal. Then again, so is stealing government secrets and trying to nullify a free and fair election, yet that hardly seems to matter to tens of millions of Americans these days.

The Post spoke with campaign finance lawyer Larry Noble, who said Trump can legally only ask for contributions of $3,300 or less for his campaign but “can appear at events for his super PAC where the price of admission is far higher—as long as he doesn’t ask for the money directly.”

“He can’t say, ‘I want you to give me $1 million,’” Noble asserted.

But wait—didn’t he do exactly that? Well, good luck nailing that down. As The Post notes, even if it’s abundantly clear that Trump stepped over the line in requesting the cash, the Federal Election Commission is currently composed of three Republicans and three Democrats, and those three Republicans might as well be Judge Aileen Cannon’s cats.

Of course, it’s fair to ask whether Trump is already fatally compromised given his personal money troubles, which stem from legal bills related to his four felony cases and the civil judgments connected to his confirmed sexual assaulting and business frauding.

As Vox noted in March, government ethics experts have become increasingly alarmed over Trump’s financial woes, particularly since he’s been so transparently transactional in the past:

“It’s pretty scary from an ethics perspective,” said Virginia Canter, the chief ethics counsel at the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonpartisan watchdog group that has chronicled Trump’s abuses of power and filed lawsuits against him.

You don’t have to look far to find the reasons why. Trump’s first term was riddled with conflicts of interest, and that’s in no small part because of his financial well-being (or lack thereof, depending on how you look at it). At the time that he tried to overturn the 2020 election, he was hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, largely stemming from loans to help rehabilitate his struggling businesses, and most of which would be coming due over the subsequent four years. Throughout his presidency, he refused to divest from his businesses, which made millions of dollars in revenue from taxpayers and continued to do work with other countries while he was in office — a practice he indicated he would repeat in a second term.

Also recall that Trump willingly accepted millions of dollars from foreign governments while cosplaying as president; allowed his daughter and son-in-law to skip town with 34 Chinese trademarks and $2 billion in Saudi money, respectively; tried to force the G-7 to hold its 2020 summit at one of his properties (a move so corrupt even Fox News noticed); and attempted to extort Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into smearing Joe Biden in exchange for badly needed military aid.

And that’s just what we know about—and what I was able to recall off the top of my perpetually swimming drowning head.

Of course, anyone who ever believed Trump was serious about draining the Washington swamp needs to have their own head examined. After all, this is the same guy who once bragged he’d be the only president in history to make money running for president. (He didn't achieve that dubious feat, but he did manage to funnel $12.5 million in campaign cash to his own businesses while running in 2016.)

It’s also the same dude who dishonestly promoted his 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act as a middle-class boon and rich man’s bane, before blithely telling his wealthy friends, in the hours after it was signed into law, “you all just got a lot richer.”

In other words, it’s always been abundantly clear who Trump really works for—and how far he’s willing to go to appease his real base. The fact that anyone still believes he’s a champion for workers and the middle class shows how delinquent much of the media have been in upholding basic democratic traditions and principles—and explaining obvious shit to a country on the brink of repeating one of the worst mistakes it’s ever made.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

RFK Jr. Is Luring MAGA Voters -- And Driving Trump Mad

Just two weeks after Donald Trump urged radical leftists to vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. this November—because “he’s got some nice things about him” and “I happen to like him”—he’s suddenly taking a different tack.

In the wake of new polling suggesting RFK Jr. would siphon more votes away from Trump than President Joe Biden, Trump is stablin’ and geniusin’ up a storm, taking to his perpetual prevarication platform Truth Social to knock the wind out of the independent candidate’s campaign. His latest tirade comes just days after Trump claimed RFK the Lesser could hurt both major party candidates but “he might hurt Biden a little bit more.”

On Friday night, as Trump dithered between wishing his wife a happy birthday or lauding South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem for her new and courageous puppy-murdering stance, he suddenly swung in an entirely different direction: claiming the guy he once praised as “very smart” and a “very good man” is actually a total disaster. And not because RFK Jr. would be forced to attend state dinners in a giant acrylic hamster ball to avoid infecting other world leaders with smallpox. No, it’s because Trump—and Republicans as a whole—are suddenly very nervous that Kennedy will loosen Trump’s once-reliable hold on the demon sperm vote.

As Daily Kos noted Tuesday, new polling from NBC News shows Kennedy support at 13 percent—but notably, he “picks up 15 percent of Trump's support in the head-to-head while attracting only 7 percent of Biden's original voters.” But that’s not all! In the Marist poll, Kennedy gains a point; and “17 percent of Trump voters threw their support behind Kennedy in this poll, compared to 11 percent of Biden voters.”

Which brings us to Friday’s panic.

“RFK Jr. is a Democrat ‘Plant,’ a Radical Left Liberal who’s been put in place in order to help Crooked Joe Biden, the Worst President in the History of the United States, get Re-Elected,” Trump groused, while accidentally acknowledging that Biden won the 2020 election. “A Vote for Junior’ would essentially be a WASTED PROTEST VOTE, that could swing either way, but would only swing against the Democrats if Republicans knew the true story about him. Junior’ is totally Anti-Gun, an Extreme Environmentalist who makes the Green New Scammers look Conservative, a Big Time Taxer and Open Border Advocate, and Anti-Military/Vet…”

Ah, but he wasn’t done. There were more meticulously crafted bons mots to come.

“Page 2: His Radicalized Family will never allow him to be a Republican, and his Chief ‘Funder’ is the V.P. Candidate that nobody ever heard of, except her ex-husband, who’s been stripped of a big chunk of cash. She puts herself down as a businesswoman, or maybe a doctor, and actually, I guess you could say that she’s right. Her business was doing surgery on her husband’s wallet! She’s more Liberal than Junior’ by far, not a serious person, and only a Pot of Cash to help get her No Chance Candidate on the Ballot…”

In other words, “You’re not the bonkers conspiracy candidate—I am!”

Trump wrapped things up by noting a preference for Biden over Kennedy, with the closer “Let the Democrats have RFK Jr. They deserve him!”

Trump’s latest rants represent a stark departure from what he was saying just last year, after it was revealed that former Trump adviser Steve Bannon had spent “months” recruiting RFK Jr. to run against Biden and serve as a “useful chaos agent.” In June of last year, when RFK Jr. was still running as a Democrat, Trump said he was a “very smart guy,” a “good guy,” and a “common sense guy.” He even lauded the Kennedy scion’s allegedly robust poll numbers, saying, “He’s a very good man and his heart is in the right place, and he’s doing really well! I saw a poll, he’s at 22. That’s pretty good.”

But what a difference a year makes.

POLITICO:

[R]ecent polling broadly shows Kennedy drawing evenly from both of the major party candidates’ 2020 supporters. And Kennedy’s significantly higher favorable ratings among Republican voters suggests he has more room to eat into Trump’s vote share than Biden’s.

In addition, a POLITICO analysis of campaign finance data shows far more interest in Kennedy from former Trump donors than people who previously contributed to Biden.

“If the Trump campaign doesn’t see this as a concern, then they’re delusional,” Republican consultant Alice Stewart said. “They should be looking at this from the standpoint that they can’t afford to lose any voters — and certainly not to a third-party candidate that shares some of [Trump’s] policy ideas.”

Meanwhile, according to a POLITICO analysis, RFK Jr. has already poached at least $1.6 million from more than 1,700 donors who gave to Trump’s campaign in 2020.

As we all know, Trump will say—or do—literally anything to get elected and stay out of prison. Actually—who are we kidding?—he’d do literally anything for an extra slice of chocolate cake. After all, this is the guy who put the “lip” in “solipsist.” For instance, he’s been whingeing about the temperature in the courtroom where his hush-money “I-fucked-America” trial is being held. So now, in addition to having an incorrigible deadbeat client, his lawyers have to worry about being cut open like tauntauns and worn for the duration of the trial like one of Liberace’s chinchilla capes.

You’d think the media would pick up on this pattern and report on it accurately, but they need to pretend the Republican nominee somehow isn’t the worst sentient being in the history of the mulitverse. For instance, they might want to make it crystal clear to the electorate that this exact absurd lie from 2016 has now been proven false, based on former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker’s testimony in court this week:

Of course, even Trump knows better than to claim RFK Jr.’s dad partied with Lee Harvey Oswald, only because it would be too unbelievable, even for MAGAs—not because it would be so gobsmackingly gauche. But we’d be forgiven for thinking he’d do it if he thought it would help his campaign.

Fortunately, Trump may not be able to gaslight his way to the presidency this year—at least if you believe renowned election oracle Allan Lichtman, the American University professor who put us all off our oats in 2016 when he (correctly, it turned out) predicted Trump would defeat Hillary Clinton. Lichtman, who’s correctly predicted the results of nine of the past 10 presidential elections (and would have predicted Bush vs. Gore correctly if Republicans weren’t such big fans of cheating), now says Biden has the inside track on 2024.

While Lichtman hasn’t made his prediction official yet, he now says that based on his model, “a lot would have to go wrong for Biden to lose.”

So there you go. Sanity—and Biden—might just prevail again. Especially if the not-quite-so-sane vote gets split between those other two dudes.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Will North Carolina's Extremist Republicans Drive Away Business -- To Connecticut?

Will North Carolina's Extremist Republicans Drive Away Business -- To Connecticut?

Will all North Carolinians pay the price for Republicans nominating a gubernatorial candidate who favorably quotes Adolf Hitler, compares LGBTQ+ people to “maggots” and “flies,” and thinks a six-week abortion ban is awesome but not quite awesome enough?

In a less benighted time, we might have confidently said, “Hell yes. That’s not the America I know. The America I know overcharges everyone for prescription drugs, regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation.” But MAGA has metastasized to the point where the morally outrageous is now just more of the same.

Of course, there are outrages and then there’s “holy fuck, what did that dude just say?” North Carolina GOP gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson’s public pronouncements fall squarely in the latter category. And at least one blue state looking to boost its tax base has noticed.

As much of America continues to devolve into a “Mad Max”-style dystopia where every character is played by Mel Gibson, Connecticut has decided it’s time to call bullshit and coax some Tar Heel State businesses north.

WRAL-TV, Raleigh, North Carolina:

Democratic Senate leaders in the Nutmeg State wrote to officials in Connecticut’s Department of Economic and Community Development, urging them to “explore opportunities to attract businesses from the state of North Carolina to relocate to Connecticut.” They cited North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s Republican gubernatorial nomination, his history of inflammatory comments about LGBTQ people and women, and his desire to restrict abortion access as the impetus for the effort.

In the letter, Connecticut Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney and other legislators stated, “We are constantly looking for chances to diversify and strengthen our state's economy, and we believe there is a unique opportunity to reach out to businesses in North Carolina.”

To review, current North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, whom the state’s Republicans overwhelming chose earlier this month as their gubernatorial candidate, is a font of feral nonsense. He’s quoted Hitler favorably on Facebook. He’s called women who get abortions—even if they’ve been pregnant for just 24 hours—murderers. And he’s advocated for a complete ban on abortion, with no exceptions for rape or incest.

And that’s not all!

The Washington Post:

There was the time he called school shooting survivors “media prosti-tots” for advocating for gun-control policies. The meme mocking a Harvey Weinstein accuser, and the other meme mocking actresses for wearing “whore dresses to protest sexual harassment.” The prediction that rising acceptance of homosexuality would lead to pedophilia and “the END of civilization as we know it”; the talk of arresting transgender people for their bathroom choice; the use of antisemitic tropes; the Facebook posts calling Hillary Clinton a “heifer” and Michelle Obama a man.

Okay, then!

Of course, Democrats, both in North Carolina and nationwide, naturally see Robinson’s bid as a boon for their own electoral prospects. So it stands to reason that business-minded progressives outside the state would see an opportunity as well.

WRAL-TV:

The LGBTQ community is a frequent target of Robinson’s speeches; he said last year that “God formed me” to fight against the push for LGBTQ rights and visibility. He has also questioned whether women can be leaders, whether the Holocaust was as bad as is commonly accepted, and whether Jewish bankers secretly control much of the world economy.

“These remarks not only undermine the values of inclusivity and tolerance of our nation, but should also raise significant concerns about the business environment and social climate in North Carolina under potential leadership that condones or ignores such divisive rhetoric,” the Connecticut lawmakers’ letter said. “In contrast, Connecticut prides itself on its commitment to diversity, equality, and fostering an environment where businesses can thrive while upholding ethical standards and respect for all.”

And it’s not just Democrats who are noticing the bitterly cold winds of change that could soon force North Carolinians to both winterize and Hitlerize their homes. The far-left North Carolina Chamber of Commerce is alarmed, too, calling the recent primary results a “a startling warning of the looming threats to North Carolina’s business climate.”

In a post-primary newsletter, the Chamber wrote, “While we celebrate the victories of Chamber-backed candidates, many of the races we were watching turned for candidates that do not share our vision for North Carolina.”

And the Chamber has good reason to be alarmed. According to one analysis, before it was repealed, North Carolina’s 2016 anti-trans bathroom bill was poised to cost the state $3.76 billion in business over the span of a little more than a decade. And one recent study found that having more LGBTQ+ people in a state is associated with higher economic growth. Meanwhile, there’s also compelling evidence that diversity within companies leads to improved innovation and market growth.

Of course, Robinson isn’t the NC GOP’s only headache. CNN reporter Shimon Prokupecz recently cornered Republican superintendent of public instruction nominee Michele Morrow, who both hates public schools and has called for the public execution of former President Barack Obama.

Needless to say, outside her skeevy echo chamber, Morrow wasn’t nearly as forthcoming about her outré views on presidential executions:

So Morrow wants to kill a former president and thinks public schools are socialism centers. That’s nitpicking and nothing a newly anointed Robinson couldn’t smooth over with a bit of well-placed promotion.

If he wins, maybe he can try out one of these slogans:

  • Come to North Carolina, Where the Tax Breaks Are Real but the Holocaust Isn’t
  • North Carolina: First in Flight From That Gay Conversion Camp Your Parents Sent You To
  • North Carolina: 120 Years of Regress, From Kitty Hawk to Shitty Talk Radio
  • Kiϟϟ Me, I’m From North Carolina
  • North Carolina: You Will Carry Your Incest Baby to Term, Peasant!

Okay, maybe those need some workshopping.

Meanwhile, Connecticut—and presumably other blue states as well—is ready to jump in and take advantage of the yawning decency gap between its own government and North Carolina’s.

“Connecticut is an open and welcoming community, proud to protect our socially progressive values and boasting an incredible quality of life,” said Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner-designate Dan O’Keefe in a statement. “We invite companies of any size to come to Connecticut and make it here.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

North Carolina GOP's Extremist Nominees Excite Democratic Strategists

North Carolina GOP's Extremist Nominees Excite Democratic Strategists

In 2020, Joe Biden narrowly missed capturing North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes, losing the state by a slim 1.4-percentage-point margin. But that was nearly four years ago. Before the Dobbs decision. Before Donald Trump’s 91 felony indictments. And before last week, when the state’s GOP voters nominated a guy who favorably quotes Hitler, has compared LGBTQ+ people to insects and larvae, and thinks a six-week abortion ban isn’t quite extreme enough for governor. Tar Heel State Republicans also nominated another extremist, Michele Morrow, for superintendent of the state’s schools.

Perhaps 10 years ago people would have been floored by these winners. But now? Why should anyone be shocked that Trump’s Republican Party nominated a Trump Republican?

A better question: How might North Carolina’s lurch rightward benefit Biden and other Democrats running in the state? Before we explore how Dems can benefit from extremists, let’s get to know more about Morrow. Here’s CNN:

Michele Morrow, a conservative activist who last week upset the incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction in North Carolina’s Republican primary, expressed support in 2020 for the televised execution of former President Barack Obama and suggested killing then-President-elect Joe Biden.
In other comments on social media between 2019 and 2021 reviewed by CNN’s KFile, Morrow made disturbing suggestions about executing prominent Democrats for treason, including Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Hillary Clinton, Sen. Chuck Schumer and other prominent people such as Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates.
“I prefer a Pay Per View of him in front of the firing squad,” she wrote in a tweet from May 2020, responding to a user sharing a conspiracy theory who suggested sending Obama to prison at Guantanamo Bay. “I do not want to waste another dime on supporting his life. We could make some money back from televising his death.”

The GOP as a whole should instantly rebuke Morrow for these incendiary takes, but it’s far more likely they’ll become part of the official GOP platform. Assuming they bother to publish one, that is—and assuming it’s not just a four-page list of instructions for sponge-bathing Donald Trump.

It gets worse, believe it or not. In December 2020, Morrow implied that then-President-elect Biden should be killed for suggesting that people might want to wear masks for 100 days to stop a deadly virus from spreading further out of control.

Morrow’s also a homeschooler trying to take the reins of the state’s public school system after having disparaged public schools as “socialism centers” that parents should avoid sending their kids to. Which, come to think of it, is a little like running for president of the world’s foremost liberal democracy in hopes of turning it into an autocratic oligarchy.

Morrow also appears to be a QAnon adherent who once claimed that tens of thousands of Chinese troops were massed at the Canadian and Mexican borders, awaiting the order to invade and install Joe Biden as president.

So the first question—after “Why is this bad news for Joe Biden?” of course—is “Will North Carolina voters notice that the GOP as a whole is now barely distinguishable from Adolf Eichmann Bobblehead Night at the monthly Patriot Front Cockfight and Pancake Breakfast?”

The answer? Well, voters aren’t noticing much of anything this early in the election cycle, but they just might notice this frothy fuckery. Seriously, how can they not?

Indeed, in a recent New York Times story about Biden’s prospects in both Georgia and North Carolina, Democrats appeared sanguine about their chances of flipping the latter from red bonkers to blue.

Prominent Democratic groups are planning to target North Carolina, particularly because of the involvement of Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor. His inflammatory comments and politically toxic positions stand out even in a party that has put forward many flawed nominees for top offices in recent years.

Among other things, Mr. Robinson has quoted Hitler on Facebook, flirted with Holocaust denial and referred to “transgenderism” and “homosexuality” as “filth.” He has also expressed support for a six-week abortion ban, a stance Democrats have already seized on.

Pat Dennis, the president of American Bridge 21st Century, a liberal group that digs into the histories of Republican candidates, said Mr. Robinson was a “dream” for opposition researchers, adding that candidates like him who hold right-wing views on abortion “really help define the race in the suburbs, which I think is where North Carolina will be won or lost.”

Unfortunately for Republicans, they appear to have learned nothing from their recent stumbles. Extreme MAGA-aligned candidates—notably Herschel Walker in Georgia, Kari Lake in Arizona, and Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania—clearly hurt Republicans’ chances in 2022. And unless six-week abortion bans, QAnon conspiracy theories, extrajudicial executions of political rivals, blind hatred of public schools, and the wit and wisdom of Adolf Hitler suddenly start trending on Cosmopolitan magazine’s 2024 Hot List, Republicans should face an uphill climb with suburban North Carolina moms in November.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

New Poll: Most Republicans Identify As 'Christian Nationalists'

New Poll: Most Republicans Identify As 'Christian Nationalists'

A new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute reveals that more than half of Republicans don’t understand America and would like either Jesus Christ or Donald Trump to lead us to a God-ordained promised land flowing with milk, honey, unchecked grift, and bottomless cheese fries.

According to PRRI, 55 percent of Republicans qualify as Christian nationalists, per the survey’s criteria, as opposed to just 25 percent of independents and 16 percent of Democrats. At the same time, 83 percent of Democrats can be considered “skeptics” or “rejecters” of Christian nationalism, compared with just 43 percent of Republicans who feel the same way.

Meanwhile, those Christian nationalist views are, as you might have guessed, strongly predictive of support for Donald Trump.

According to PRRI, “Among those who hold favorable views of Trump, 55 percent qualify as Christian nationalists (21 percent Adherents and 34 percent Sympathizers). Only 15 percent of those who hold favorable views of President Joe Biden qualify as Christian nationalists (four percent Adherents and 11 percent Sympathizers).”

In other words, there’s a good reason the current House Speaker Mike Johnson thinks he’s Moses and the Alabama Supreme Court thinks eight-celled frozen embryos are human beings. Republicans are all hunkered down in a hermetically sealed room sniffing the same glue.

PRRI based its survey results on a five-point definition of Christian nationalism. Respondents were asked if they agreed or disagreed—either “mostly” or “completely”—with the following statements:

  • The U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation.
  • U.S. laws should be based on Christian values.
  • If the U.S. moves away from our Christian foundations, we will not have a country anymore.
  • Being Christian is an important part of being truly American.
  • God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society.

The fact that so many Americans agree with even one of these statements means Thomas Jefferson must be rolling over in whatever golf course shed Trump stashed him in after stealing his corpse and wrapping it in top secret nuclear documents like a day-old order of fish and chips.

The fact that a majority of the U.S. population still identifies as Christian does not make America a Christian nation, and it never has—any more than, say, the overwhelming prevalence of white hockey players makes the NHL the KKK.

Nope! We are a religiously diverse country with a Constitution that—in theory, at least—protects the rights of all citizens regardless of creed, and explicitly prohibits religious tests for public office.

But even though U.S. Christian nationalists have a completely (M)ass-backward view of religion’s proper place in a pluralistic liberal democracy, they nevertheless wield outsized influence. And consider the current makeup of the Supreme Court, and the ascent of Speaker Mike Johnson—who’s called the principle of church-state separation a “misnomer”: That influence only continues to grow.

Ja'han Jones, writing for MSNBC’s The ReidOut Blog, noted this out-of-whack power dynamic:

PRRI found “three in ten Americans qualify as Christian nationalism Adherents (10%) or Sympathizers (20%), compared with two-thirds who qualify as Skeptics (37%) or Rejecters (30%).”

So adherents and sympathizers of Christian nationalism make up about 30% of the American population — and evidently about 66% of the Supreme Court bench, if the Dobbs ruling is any indicator.

In other words, because two presidents who were originally elected by a minority of voters have appointed five of our current SCOTUS justices, the majority of Americans—who would prefer to keep the country as Jefferson and James Madison envisioned—are already living under a quasi-theocracy. And Christian nationalism’s enduring popularity only promises to make this tyranny of the minority worse.

That a movement so antithetical to clearly defined and long-held American values has overtaken one of our two major parties is truly disturbing. But as this same survey makes clear, we are still the majority. Which means there’s still plenty we can do to push back, even if the game is rigged against us, thanks to the same Constitution that’s supposed to confer inalienable religious freedoms.

It starts with this November’s elections—but hopefully doesn’t end with them. After all, our own little MAGA Moses remains determined to lead us into a promised land that very few of us ever signed up for.

Needless to say, we can’t let him.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Nine Super-Weird (And Heavily Garbled) Remarks Trump Made At CPAC

Nine Super-Weird (And Heavily Garbled) Remarks Trump Made At CPAC

Ah, CPAC. The 2024 conference has been, as Jimmy Kimmel put it, “a who’s who of who won’t accept the results of the election.” But that doesn’t mean Donald Trump didn’t go there to shine like a lazy diamond, and shine he did—for more than an hour on Saturday. And we were here for it. Because Hibernol is not a real thing. Yet. But ask us again in November. The FDA may give it an emergency use authorization if the world suddenly goes catawampus.

Trump has been in rare form lately. No, he isn’t showing up to rallies sporting goat horns, a forked tongue, and cadaverous, inky-black eyes whose baleful gaze compels men to madness and drives herds of pigs into the sea. That’s his usual form. Call it his resting Beelzebub face.

(Just kidding! Trump’s not a supernatural entity, evil or otherwise. He’s a divinely created human being with infinite worth, just like you, me, Scott “Chachi” Baio, Vladimir Putin, and Jared from Subway.)But he has been particularly … let’s just say … weird lately. Even for Donald Trump. On Thursday night, he melted down into a frothy puddle of incoherent nonsense that had to be seen to be believed. And on Friday, he assured members of the Black Conservative Federation that they prefer “the white president” to “the Black president,” and that Black people love him now because he’s been arrested a lot. Sure, it’s a weird strategy, but he has been struggling mightily to reclaim the Black vote … that he lost when Herman Cain died.Off we go!

1. In CPAC-land, crime is rampant across the country. It’s possible they believe this because even former presidents are getting indicted left and right, but Americans can rest assured that the crime wave is pretty much contained to the Trump family.

In fact, crime was way down in 2023, asThe New York Times recently reported.

But the data over the past year has offered a much more optimistic picture. The number of murders in U.S. cities fell by more than 12 percent — which would be the biggest national decline on record. The spike that started in 2020 now looks more like a blip, and the murder rate is lower than it was during the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s. The recent data also suggests that the violent-crime rate in 2023 was near its lowest level in more than 50 years, as Jeff Asher, a crime analyst, wrote for his newsletter.

Hmm, 2020. Who was president in 2020 again?

But don’t worry about actual crime rates! Donald Trump wants you frightened enough about crime that you’ll see fit to elect a literal (alleged!) criminal as president. Thus he must pretend crime is getting worse under Biden and will continue to spiral out of control.“Ruthless gangs will explode even more into the suburbs, and when they talk about suburban women, they’re going to love me so much. They’re going to say, ‘Oh, I wish we had that guy back.’ The gangs will be invading your territory, I can tell you that.”

As long as we’re making up crime statistics, how about this little-known fact? According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report 100% of 2024 presidential candidates found liable for sexual abuse are Republican. And named Donald Trump.

But what a novel approach to winning back suburban women!2. Hey, did you know that in 2020, Trump got more votes than any sitting president in history? You may not know that, because literally no one but Trump cares. And it’s a super weird thing to brag about. It’s kind of like Buzz Aldrin boasting that he was the first New Jersey resident to walk on the moon. Sure, Trump lost the election, but he kicked Herbert Hoover’s ass!


“You know, I got more votes than any sitting president in history, at almost 75 million votes. Substantially more than any other sitting president has gotten.”

Wait, did he just admit the vote count was correct? I thought everything was completely rigged. I bet the media will ask him about this ASAP!

3. It’s been well established that crime is rapidly decreasing under President Joe Biden, and that immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans, but that doesn’t stop Trump from comparing migrants to Hannibal Lecter. Literally.Apparently, the only thing Trump knows about crime is how to commit it. And incompetently, I might add.


“So we just call it migrant crime. We have a new category: migrant crime. And it’s going to be more severe than violent crime and crime as we knew it. Because we have millions and millions of people, and they came from prisons and jails. They came from mental institutions and insane asylums. No, they’re not the same thing. An insane asylum is a mental institution on steroids. It’s Silence of the Lambs, okay? Hannibal Lecter! They’re all being deposited into our country.”

Well, if they are being deposited into our country, it’s worked like a charm. Because crime keeps plummeting. Thanks, Biden!

4. It’s weird to think that everything was perfect under the consensus worst president in history but has somehow speedily gone to shit in just over three years under the 14th-ranked commander in chief. But hey, what do historians know that dudes with chronically infected MAGA neck tattoos can’t see with their own bloodshot eyes?


“While weaponized law enforcement hunts for conservatives and people of faith, religious, Hamas and antifa will terrorize our streets while their brutal ideology—and it is brutal indeed, it is brutal and horrible like nobody’s ever seen before—takes over our schools. China will dominate us, not just economically but militarily, and that’s what they want and that’s where they’re heading, but they weren’t heading there with me.”

For some reason I’m not terribly concerned about getting murdered by Hamas in the Pacific Northwest. But what do I know? I chickened out on my “Let’s Go Brandon” ink session.

5. Have you heard? The only difference between Donald Trump and the recently murdered Alexei Navalny is that Trump is technically still alive. And Putin will poison Trump if he doesn’t try to become president.


“I stand before you not only as your past and hopefully future president, but as a proud political dissident. I am a dissident.”

There’s simply not enough vomit in the multiverse to appropriately respond to that. So let’s move on.

6. Hey, did you know there are countries and languages that no one in this country Donald Trump has never heard of? There are! At least according to Trump—who never, ever lies.



“We’re equal opportunity; we have every country. We have countries that honestly nobody has ever heard of. We have languages coming into our country—we don’t have one instructor in our entire nation that can speak that language. These are languages, it’s the craziest thing, they have languages that nobody in this country has ever heard of. It’s a very horrible thing. I said to the president of Mexico, you’re going to have to give us 28,000 soldiers free of charge. [Mocking Mexican president’s accent]: ‘No, no, no Donald, I will not do that. I will not do that, I cannot do that.’ And I said, ‘No, no, you will. You will, I promise.’ ‘No, no, no, I will not do that.’ I said, ‘Listen, you and I are friends.’ I really like him a lot, so. I said, ‘Let’s not you and I, give me a negotiator, because I don’t want to do this with you.’”

Needless to say, I’m skeptical that immigrants are pouring over the border speaking languages no one has ever heard of. Unless we’re suddenly getting a flood of refugees from North Sentinel Island. But that seems super unlikely.And the guy who once promised Mexico would pay for his border wall (it didn’t) was certain Mexico would provide 28,000 troops because Trump insisted on it (it didn’t)And he loves mocking foreigners’ accents—but that part you knew already.But here’s something you might not know. The famously antiwar Trump wants to stop supporting Ukraine’s fight for liberty and democracy and invade Mexico instead! Because Hannibal Lecter!

7. Honestly, could anyone not deeply embedded in the MAGA movement feel safe if he wins? Just listen to this venomous nonsense. I know I’d personally feel threatened if he won, and not just because I once called him an off-brand butt plug.




“At the ballot box this November, it’s you and the people you have to be, and we’ll deliver a reckoning like they haven’t even imagined before. We’re going to straighten out our country. We’re going to bring our country back. For hardworking Americans, Nov. 5 will be our new liberation day, but for the liars and cheaters and fraudsters and censors and imposters who have commandeered our government, it will be their judgment day. Their judgment day. When we win the curtain closes on their corrupt reign and the sun rises on a bright new future for America. That’s what we have to have. I believe it’s our last chance.”


Of course, it’s always possible this is just overheated rhetoric and Trump will treat every citizen fairly, while respecting our Constitution, the federal government’s separation of powers, and enduring liberal democratic principles like the rule of law. It’s also possible he’ll map the beluga whale genome on the back of his Denny’s placemat.

But I’m not holding my breath.

8. Well, this aged badly.

Wait, he just said this on Saturday—at CPAC? Did the audience jeer, hiss, and point out that he singlehandedly scuttled the bipartisan border deal for cynical political reasons? Of course not. They’re all drunk on Keystone Light and/or spray-tan fumes.

“And then we had the rigged election, and they said, ‘We don’t want to build the wall, we don’t want to build it.’ And I said, ‘You know, they really do want open walls.’ I figured it was just talk.”

I read this story recently and thought, “You know, they really do want chaos at the border so they can campaign on it until November.”

9. Finally, it looks like Trump is particularly sensitive about people claiming his brain is like an egg frying on the sidewalk, but with marginally more gooey yellow stuff seeping out of it.

He has no cognitive issues! If he did, he’d tell you about it! Because that’s what people with dementia famously do. They always let you know just as soon as they start showing symptoms.

[Discussing what others have said about his speeches]: “’He rambled on endlessly, telling these horrible and very boring surries [sic].’ No, they’re very informative stories, they’re very important stories, actually. But no, there’s no cognitive problem. If there was, I’d know about it. In fact, if there was, you’ll be the first to know, because I will tell you. I will tell you.”

Donald Trump has a great memory! He remembers every surry he’s ever heard! In fact, he literally never forgets that an elephant is not a camel. Just like he never forgets to mention that he can spot the difference between literally tens of zoo animals.

Which clearly means he should be president again—even though it’s glaringly obvious to anyone paying attention that he was the worst president ever. But hey, if you vote for him again, he can really lock down that spot. And how fun would that be, fellow patriots?

GOP Judge Sends Capitol Rioters 'Zip-Tie Guy' And His Mom To Prison

GOP Judge Sends Capitol Rioters 'Zip-Tie Guy' And His Mom To Prison

There are some instantly recognizable J6 insurrectionists who aren’t Proud Boys or Oath Keepers—think that jabroni in the viking hat, or the Confederate Flag toter, or the lectern-purloining weirdo with the gormless grin.

Then there’s the so-called “Zip-Tie Guy” and his mother. A photo of them—chilling in its brazenness, and surprising because, well, dude brought his mom to an insurrection—was widely circulated in the immediate aftermath of the January 6 Capitol riot.

I’m reminded of that old saying: The family that zip-ties Chuck Schumer’s hands and feet together and hauls him out to the gallows in a chloroform-soaked gunnysack to pay the ultimate price for betraying Dear Leader ... um, stays together. Possibly in the same prison cell, assuming the younger member of this rugged individualist crime duo is still breastfeeding.

Alas, Zip-Tie Guy and his tactical vest-clad mère failed to capture anyone, but got captured themselves. And found guilty of felonies.

And now they’re off to (separate) cells.

Nashville bartender Eric Munchel, 32, was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison on Friday. His nurse mom, 59-year-old Lisa Eisenhart, will have long been freed when her son gets out—she got 30 months. After serving their respective stints in prison, both will also face 36 months of supervised release; both have also been ordered to cough up $2,000 (each) in restitution.

The Department of Justice:

Munchel and Eisenhart were both convicted of conspiracy to commit obstruction and obstruction of an official proceeding, both felonies, as well as entering and remaining in a gallery of Congress, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a Capitol building, and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building on April 19, 2023, following a stipulated bench trial before Judge Lamberth.
Munchel alone was also found guilty of two additional felonies: disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon (a Taser), and unauthorized possession of a deadly or dangerous weapon on Capitol grounds.
Munchel and Eisenhart observed police wearing body armor and using chemical irritants and gas to repel rioters like themselves but were not deterred. Instead, even though they were aware their actions were unlawful, they pushed forward, past police lines, and entered the Capitol building. Once inside, Munchel and Eisenhart made their way through the building to the Senate Gallery. Photos and video captured Munchel and Eisenhart carrying flexi-cuffs—plastic zip tie-style handcuffs—that they stole from a closet inside the Capitol.
[...]
Later, both Munchel and Eisenhart gave statements to a reporter in which they acknowledged that their actions were intended to intimidate Congress.

Prosecutors say that the two saw the zip-ties outside the Senate gallery, and Munchel remarked, “Zip-ties! I need to get me some of them motherfuckers.” Wait, who says “motherfuckers” in front of their own mom? Some of us were raised differently, it seems.

When I was a kid, moms weren’t really into mother-son activities that required matching tactical vests.

Per the DOJ, Lamberth noted that Mommie and Clyde “stole the flexi-cuffs and carried them into the Senate gallery because they intended to take senators hostage, if possible. Luckily, all of the senators and their staffs had already evacuated.” According to prosecutors, once he and Eisenhart forced their way into the Senate Gallery, Munchel shouted, “I want that fucking gavel!”

The pair also had some serious firepower when the FBI came to visit just after the failed coup, as reported by Nashville’s Fox 17. And they also kept some of “them motherfuckers” as souvenirs of their “beautiful day.”

Four days after the Capitol siege, FBI agents executed a search warrant at a home in Nashville where both Munchel and Eisenhart live.
There, agents seized more than a dozen guns, a second tactical vest and items Munchel was seen to be wearing at the Capitol riots, including five pairs of white plastic handcuffs.
In Munchel’s bedroom, agents found a Stack-On safe with 15 firearms, including assault rifles, a sniper rifle with a tripod, other rifles, shotguns, and pistols and hundreds of rounds of ammunition was found. Agents also located a drumstyle magazine in the home.

Notably, officials also found indications that the two brought some of those guns to the nation’s Capital with them, as well as “evidence that suggests the suspects knew of the legal ramifications and stashed weapons on Capitol grounds before entering the building.”

Mug shots of Eric Munchel and mother Lisa Eisenhart, after their January 2021 arrests for crimes at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Meh. Lamberth, a Reagan-appointed judge, described the defendants as “basically good people” (i.e., white people who did criminal things they never would have done if they hadn’t been nudged into it by a feral, cartoonishly evil racist they somehow assumed was the messiah).

The Associated Press notes that the family of two came ready to rock, donning those tactical vests while still at their hotel. “Eisenhart shouted, ‘Treason!’ and ‘Cowards!’ while she and her son stood in the Senate gallery, about 30 minutes after lawmakers fled the chamber,” the AP reports. Because shouting at people who aren’t there always helps.

Prosecutors also alleged that Munchel was “ready to take hostages” and “the logical inference is that Munchel and Eisenhart wanted to use the zip-tie handcuffs to capture their enemies: the members of Congress voting to certify the election.”

Do we really need to infer it? As the DOJ press release reminds us above, they boasted about it to the media!

One more time:

Later, both Munchel and Eisenhart gave statements to a reporter in which they acknowledged that their actions were intended to intimidate Congress.

Prosecutors also “cited their use of tactical gear as evidence they were ‘prepared for violence on January 6 and projected their willingness to engage in it.’” (Munchel’s attorney insisted that the tactical vests were just demonstrative of “a certain fashion taste.’”)

Because hey, they’re “basically good people.” And even good people falter on occasion. They might cheat just a little on their taxes. Or throw clearly labeled recyclables in the garbage. Or hog-tie Nancy Pelosi in her own office and waterboard her with Evian until she confesses. You know—white people crimes.

Of course, it’s been a great week for Jan. 6-related comeuppances. On Tuesday, ex-Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in prison for his role in the Capitol insurrection. And on Friday, Leo Brent Bozell IV, son of influential right-wing activist Brent Bozell III, who founded the conservative Media Research Center and Parents Television Council, was convicted on 10 charges, including five felonies, after he “bashed in a window, chased a police officer, invaded the Senate floor and helped a mob disrupt the certification of Democrat Joe Biden's presidential election victory” during Trump’s bumbling coup.

These “basically good people” will now have plenty of time to think about their very basic treason against the legitimate government of the U.S. Hopefully, they learn the right lessons.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Lauren Boebert

After Voting 'No,' Boebert Asks Why We Don't Spend More On Infrastructure

We know Rep. Lauren Boebert has a brain. The drool patterns on her blouse are prima facie evidence of intelligent design, rather than random chance. They were analyzed by the same Oxford University forensics team that declared the Shroud of Turin a modern-day forgery after finding an uneaten Toblerone in one of its inside coat pockets. So we know that’s legit.

The problem with Lauren is she rarely consults that brain before sharing her opinions. Perhaps no one taught her how to use it. Or maybe it’s still using the bulk of its available RAM to run Flying Toasters. We simply don’t know.

What we do know is that Boebert’s understanding of her job is tenuous at best. She appears to think it’s a steppingstone to a prime-time slot on Fox News, whereas we all know she’d be lucky to score a bimonthly pet-grooming column on Stormfront.org.

But while Boebert is benighted all the time, there are moments when she really excels. And last week she was in rare form.

Seriously, check out this effervescent fuckery, and then let’s meet up after the jump.

For the nontweeters:

An AMTRAK passenger train just derailed in California.Two weeks ago a highway collapsed in Philadelphia.

Stuff like this is going on constantly in America.

We’re sending our money all over the world but our own country is falling down around us.

Okay, so who wants to tell Lauren what’s wrong with this tweet? Oh, I see everyone’s hand is up. Of course, we can’t hear from all of you, but here’s a nice, tidy heap of snark:


Okay, you get the gist. Boebert vehemently criticized, and ultimately voted against, the very same kinds of infrastructure investments that are currently solving the problems she cites. (By the way, the Amtrak train she referenced derailed because someone left a water truck on the tracks. Thanks, Biden!)

These are the very kinds of investments her ocher overlord failed to secure during his four years in office, even though he’s universally acknowledged as the bestest negotiator in the wide world and everyone from Nancy Pelosi to Mitch McConnell desperately wanted to pass a long-overdue infrastructure spending package.

But Lauren wasn’t going to take those rebukes lying down. She promptly issued this statement:

1 Hour of Flying Toasters - The Classic After Dark Screensaveryoutu.be

Of course, this isn’t the first time Boebert’s hypocrisy has been on lurid display. Last year, she requested $33.1 million in infrastructure funds from the very same administration she excoriated over its spending plans.

The Durango Herald:

Boebert wants $33.1 million for the South Bridge in Glenwood Springs, according to a newsletter from her office. She also sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg advocating construction of the Glenwood Springs bridge.
...
The city is requesting $33.1 million in Rural Surface Transportation grant money to complete the project, which would create a second point of access between Colorado State Highway 82 and the western side of the Roaring Fork River in the south Glenwood Springs area.

Boebert voted against President Joe Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, calling the legislation “wasteful” and “garbage” on Twitter.

Pretty brazen, huh? Sadly, she’s not alone. If there’s one thing Republicans like more than harassing LGBTQ+ people in exchange for votes, it’s taking credit for infrastructure projects they voted against.

For instance, you have Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), who up until recently thought rural broadband referred to an all-female Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute group. Nevertheless, he tried to take credit for President Joe Biden’s robust broadband initiative.

NBC News:

The funds are from the $555 billion infrastructure bill Biden campaigned for and signed into law in November 2021. Tuberville was one of 30 Republican senators to vote against the legislation, but he praised the arrival of the funds on social media this week.

"Broadband is vital for the success of our rural communities and for our entire economy. Great to see Alabama receive crucial funds to boost ongoing broadband efforts," Tuberville tweeted Tuesday.

The tweet was quickly tagged with a "context" note from Twitter users. "Important context to know here: while Sen Tuberville is celebrating this grant now, he voted against it when it came up in the Senate, and never expressed support for it, until now," the note said.


Ah, these fuckers. While Republican hypocrisy and chutzpah have been with us longer than cosmic microwave background radiation, this shit is still pretty maddening.

The only question is, will we get mad enough to really do something about it?

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene

Greene Wonders Why Cancer Never Caused Schools Or Companies To Shut Down

Reprinted with permission from DailyKos

Oh, what fresh hell is this? The last I checked, this aimless tangle of glitching neurons held a seat in the U.S. Congress. If we can’t actually administer IQ tests as a prerequisite for serving in the House of Representatives, can we at least biopsy their brains to check for nougat? Seems like the least we can do to protect the public against whatever this is.

Apparently, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) missed a few days of school—including the day all Peach State schools are required to set aside once a year to teach something other than creation science. Marge Simp thinks cancer is somehow analogous to COVID-19, a communicable disease that continues to spread, evolve, and kill innocent people across the globe.

Check out this latest bit of research from the M.T. Greene BatshitWerks factory:


And here’s a screen shot, in case someone in her inner circle who prefers the reduced-lead paint chips has a free 48 hours or so to explain this to her and convince her to take the tweet down.

ScreenShot2021-12-04at9.21.56AM.png

It’s a tragedy that so many people still die of cancer each year. But what we haven’t done in the face of this ongoing crisis is demonize effective treatments, politicize basic precautionary measures, or relentlessly attack one of the world’s foremost experts on the problem.

Of course, there’s a fairly significant difference between cancer and COVID-19. Let me see if I can puzzle this one out. Hmm. No luck. Guess I’m just too obtuse.

Anyone?




Former President Trump

Poll: Nearly One-Third Of Republicans Believe Trump Will Be ‘Reinstated’

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

I'll never understand why anyone listens to Donald Trump on any subject. He wanted to nuke hurricanes. He wanted to put alligator-filled moats along the southern border. He thinks windmills cause cancer, asbestos is swell, and exercise is bad for you. He seriously suggested pumping our bodies full of UV light and disinfectant. He thinks we have planes that are literally invisible, for God's sake!

Nevertheless, millions of Trump fans have bent their brains into pretzels trying to make his doofus proclamations sound presidential—or even marginally nonsimian (see also: hydroxychloroquine).

We've pretty well established that Trump's brain is, at best, masticated circus peanut and, at worst, Lucifer's molten boom-booms, and yet when he dry-heaves utter batshit nonsense, plenty of his fans seem all too ready to lick it up like feral purse poodles.

Case in point: Fully 29 percent of Republicans think Donald Trump is returning before the year is out—possibly riding in on a cloud or a flaming chariot or (more likely) a golf cart with a cupholder and custom-installed deep fryer.

A new Politico/Morning Consult poll asked survey respondents this straightforward question: "How likely do you think it is that former President Donald Trump will be reinstated as U.S. President this year, if at all?" The question was no doubt included in the poll because Trump himself has been telling insiders that he thinks he'll be back in office by August. (Narrator: He won't.)

The results? (You still have time to bail if you've had your yearly quota of frothing insanity. You're still here? Okay, gird your loins.)

Among Republicans surveyed, 17 percent think it's "very likely" that Trump will return to the White House this year, 12 percent think it's "somewhat likely," and ten percent don't know or have no opinion. Taken together, this shows that two-fifths of Republicans have not yet accepted that Joe Biden won the presidency.

Of course, that wasn't the only eye-opening result. Asked whether things are going in the right direction in the U.S. or on the wrong track, only 15 percent of Republicans thought things were going in a positive direction, while 85 percent said we're veering off course. Guess 85 percent of Republicans prefer raging pandemics and collapsing economies to Democratic presidents.

Is this what it's like to lick hallucinogenic toads for breakfast in lieu of frosted Pop-Tarts? At some point, do you just surrender to the unreality of your environment?

Over at Civiqs, even more Republicans report they're worried; a stunning 93 percent of card-carrying GOPers think we're all gonna die.

If you enjoy watching Donald Trump eat the Republican Party from within, like a genetically modified tropical eyeball worm, you'll be happy to know that the Politico/Morning Consult poll found that 80 percent of Republicans want to stick around so they can see him play either a major role (59 percent) or a minor role (21 percent) in the party going forward. If you'd prefer he stay in Florida chucking oyster shells at flamingos from his balcony, you'll likely be disappointed by the 13 percent of Republicans who want him to slink away.

There's also some good news, of course. President Biden's approval rating is at 53 percent among all registered voters, with 28 percent of respondents "strongly" approving of the job he's doing, 25 percent "somewhat" approving, 43 percent disapproving, and the rest offering no opinion.

Meanwhile, 66 percent of registered voters want Congress to pass an infrastructure bill—so maybe we should get that done, huh?

There's still some sanity left in the world, so long as you look in the right place. And that right place is clearly nowhere in the vicinity of the right wing. I invite Republicans to hurry on back to planet Earth. The water's fine. At least it is for now—unfortunately, only 12 percent of Republicans consider passing a bill to address climate change a "top priority."

Go figure.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene

Greene Demands Biden Respond On Wuhan Lab Questions…By June 31!

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

A couple of days ago, alleged congressperson Marjorie Taylor Greene sent a letter to Joe Biden. I read it; you don't have to. Unless you read at a third grade level or worse, it might be hard for you to follow. It essentially boils down to "Wuhan lab … Chinese-made virus … fire Fauci or we'll impeach him … but his EMAILS, derpity-derpity-derp."

After reading the letter, which feels a little like getting virtually peed on by one of Peter Jackson's more egregious CGI orcs, it's hard not to notice this line jumping out at you: "We urge your administration to act to provide us with these answers by June 31, 2021."

Yup. Much like Jewish space lasers and a hearty portion of Marjorie Taylor Greene's prefrontal lobe, that date simply does not exist.

I used to have trouble remembering how many days are in each month—until I was 8 years old, that is, and my uncle taught me this poem:

30 days has September, April, June, and November

The rest have 31, except poor February, which has 28

And on leap year it has 29!

I've never forgotten that poem, and even if I had, there are always calendars. In fact, they installed a Google calendar update in the latest vaccine chip. Didn't you get the vaccine, Marge? Come on!

Maybe someone can help MTG out with this. And maybe they can write "L" and "R" on her shoes while they're at it. And somehow get her to stop eating glue.

Also, how fucking weird is it that an entire major U.S. political party has attempted to turn the world's leading infectious disease expert into a cartoon villain? "It's Science Man, Commissioner Gordon, and he wants us all to avoid easily preventable deaths! There's no time to lose!"

Oh, well. President Biden didn't really need another reason not to respond to this tripe, but now he's got an easy excuse. MTG's request is literally impossible.

But then, hey, so is starting fires with Jewish space lasers. Everyone knows all the best space lasers are made in China.

Proud Boy Ethan Nordean near the Capitol on January 6, 2021

Proud Boys Defendant Blasts Trump: ‘You Left Us On The Battlefield Bloody And Alone’

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Pat yourself on the back if you sized Donald Trump up in two minutes, like a normal person. You could have instead been Ethan Nordean, who wasted years of his life and squandered his precious freedom for a guy who'd likely feed him to alligators—or a marginally more reptilian creature such as Roger Stone—if he ever showed up at one of his golf courses.

Nordean is a "sergeant-at-arms" (FYI: All of these military titles are pretend) of the Proud Boys Seattle chapter, and he's had it with his supreme golden clod. Nordean has been charged with conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, and aiding and abetting in connection with his alleged assault on the Capitol on January 6, and he's none too happy with his Amazing Disappearing Messiah.

Take a look, and try not to laugh too hard:

For the non-tweeters:

"Alright I'm gonna say it. FUCK TRUMP! Fuck him more than Biden. I've followed this guy for 4 years and given everything and lost it all. Yes he woke us up, but he led us to believe some great justice was upon us...and it never happened, now I've got some of my good friends and myself facing jail time cuz we followed this guys [sic] lead and never questioned it. We are now and always have been on our own. So glad he was able to pardon a bunch of degenerates as his last move and shit on us on the way out. Fuck you trump you left us on [t]he battle field bloody and alone."

Ouch.

But wait! I thought Trump was going to join the insurrectionists at the Capitol building on January. 6. That's what he said, anyway. And as every true Proud Boy knows, Donald Trump is always true to his word.

Of course, as Nordean suggests, Trump could have pardoned Nordean and his confederates, and he probably would have if there had been anything in it for him—like if Nordean had a relative who worked at KFC and could slip him a few bonus pieces of Extra Crispy in his buckets. But, alas. This is just some fool who sacrificed everything important in his life for what he saw as a righteous cause. Trump hates suckers like that.

From USA Today:

Prosecutors say Nordean, along with other Proud Boys members, planned to push through police barricades and force themselves inside the building that day.
[...]
In a court filing Thursday, prosecutors detailed communications sent through the instant messaging app Telegram that they say show additional evidence that Nordean and other Proud Boys members conspired to breach the Capitol. Prosecutors included the anti-Trump diatribe in which Nordean seemed to acknowledge he and others are facing criminal charges because they followed Trump's lead.

OK, get this through your cartilaginous skulls, Trumpers: Donald Trump doesn't care about you. He never did. Do you still check your bank account every 30 minutes to see if the Nigerian prince has deposited your money? It's over, y'all. You've been scammed, and that's all there is to it.

This does give me some hope, though. Trump lost the 2020 election by seven million votes, and it doesn't look like he's picked up a single voter since then. On the other hand, people like Nordean are slowly waking up.

Let's hope they're all out of their comas by the 2022 midterms, at least.


MyPillow Guy's 'Free Speech' Website Is A Hilarious, Disastrous Dumpster Fire

MyPillow Guy's 'Free Speech' Website Is A Hilarious, Disastrous Dumpster Fire

Reprinted with permission from DailyKos

I can't stop watching the MyPillow Guy, Mike Lindell, and his "Frank-a-thon" to launch his stupid new Arby's dumpster of a website. The guy has been jabbering for the better part of two days. This morning, I tuned in to see him interviewing someone, but I never got the dude's name because Lindell wouldn't let him get a word in. Lindell won't stop talking. It's a case of logorrhea the likes of which I've never seen before. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he's on 100 CCs of Jesus and not overstuffed Hefty bags full of cocaine cut with meth. But, damn, he's a dynamo of disinformation.

While I was watching, Lindell claimed he'd gotten confirmation from Jimmy Kimmel Live! that he will be a guest on the show. Kimmel, who appears to be even more obsessed with Albino Grimace than I am, has previously joked that he'd interview Lindell under two conditions:

"Number one, he has to actually come into our studio—I need to see him in person. I want to smell the knackwurst in his mustache. And number two, I would like to conduct our interview in a bed, surrounded by pillows. Just me and Mike snuggled up side by side in a California king surrounded by sacks of goose feathers."

Judging by Mike's reaction, he almost certainly thinks he's about to break this whole election fraud thing wide open on late-night TV while nuzzling a guy who can't stop making fun of him. Speaking of Lindell's gullibility, the guy who called in to Lindell's show on Monday pretending to be Donald Trump spoke with the Daily Beast, and revealed his diabolical methods.

Actually, he was responsible for multiple prank calls to Lindell's show.

The prankster, Ron Blackman, is apparently an old hand at this. He has a podcast called The Macron Show, and he typically uses "social engineering and caller-ID spoofing" in order to soften up a target and make them more susceptible to skullduggery.

According to Blackman, Frank Speech and Lindell were easy marks.

Blackman prepared for pranking the MyPillow boss for weeks, he said, and the initial plan was to register a bunch of new user names on Frank Speech and use them to mock the pro-Trump pillow salesman during his 48-hour kickoff event, titled "Frank-a-thon." Despite the hotly anticipated launch, the site struggled right off the bat on Monday, with many users unable to log on and set up their profiles.
Not only was Lindell easy to dupe, Blackman said, but the prank calls were made especially easier thanks to the MyPillow CEO's co-host Brannon Howse, a fellow election conspiracist and right-wing talker.
"That dude is dumber than a bag of rocks," Blackman said of Howse. "He's the reason I got to Lindell so easily yesterday."

Blackman says he got Howse's personal cellphone number off his public Facebook page, which made it kind of easy to call in to the show. Blackman first got on-air by pretending to be a Wall Street Journal reporter. "I just told her [the assistant] to give me Mike's number, and she did it without thinking," Blackman told the Daily Beast. "And it proves 100% that he didn't even have a plan for his big live stream. He was totally winging it. Sitting there with his iPhone on his desk praying that someone good would call in to support him."

As for the Trump call, Blackman says he spoofed a number from Mar-a-Lago. "I knew for certain that I'd have about one second to say what I wanted before Lindell panicked and hung up. I used a soundboard of Donald Trump saying 'Hello everyone' to reel him in and then I yelled out my website name, so that at least everyone hearing it would know where to find me, so that we got to hijack all his effort and time and use it to promote a prank call show instead of his website."

And here's Blackman's handiwork:


Kimmel also had some (more) fun at Lindell and Frank's expense Tuesday night.


Meanwhile—and pardon me if this is burying the lede—nothing on Frankspeech.com appears to work at the time of this writing, other than the live feed from the baby monitor we're all using to make sure Lindell doesn't choke to death on a Lego.

Here's what the page looked like as of 10:15 AM PT, on April 21:


ScreenShot2021-04-21at10.14.52AM.png

Considering that Lindell had planned to launch his site on Monday to everyone and to VIPs last Thursday, that can only be seen as unfortunate. (For Lindell, that is. For democracy and comedy, it's a boon.)


Gee, it's almost as if this dude has no relevant experience whatsoever in television production or social media platform launches.

People who are dumb enough to believe Lindell but not quite dumb enough to believe that he meant to launch his big free speech site this way are, you know, complaining.



And for a while earlier Wednesday, the site was completely offline.

Because that's what you want to show people when you launch a new product that you've been hyping for weeks: a page claiming the site is undergoing "scheduled maintenance."

There's always FrankSocialMedia.com, courtesy of the folks over at The Good Liars.


Is it too much of a stretch to say I'm now more addicted to Mike Lindell than Mike Lindell was previously addicted to crack? Maybe not, but I should probably limit my exposure. I'm beginning to see that majestic gleaming mustache dancing in the wind whenever I close my eyes.

"This guy is a natural. Sometimes I laugh so hard I cry." — Bette Midler on author Aldous J. Pennyfarthing via Twitter. Need a thorough Trump cleanse? Thanks toGoodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, Dear F*cking Lunatic, Dear Pr*sident A**clown and Dear F*cking Moron,you can purge the Trump years from your soul sans the existential dread. Only laughs from here on out. Click those links, yo!

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell

WATCH: MyPillow Guy Visits Newsmax To Talk ‘Cancel Culture’ — And Gets His Lies Canceled

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Looks like Mike Lindell is at the end of his bedsheet.

Newsmax—which not that long ago would have eagerly touted a conspiracy theory about a race of Jewish-funded reptilian overlords stealing the election from Donald Trump (assuming the network could have somehow dug up a stock photo of George Soros posing with an iguana)—is now apparently scared shitless about potentially being sued by Dominion Election Systems. As well it should be.

Yesterday the network invited MyPillow guy Mike Lindell on air to talk about cancel culture, but we didn't get to hear much of what he had to say about that because anchor Bob Sellers spent most of the segment loudly reading cover-your-ass disclaimers over Lindell's conspiratorial blather.

After Lindell claimed he had "100 percent proof" that the election was stolen by Dominion election machines, Sellers shut him down … but Lindell just kept talking.

It was HIIII-larious:

Watch:

After Sellers reads a detailed disclaimer noting that Newsmax has been unable to verify any of Lindell's claims about Dominion Voting Systems allegedly stealing the election, Lindell claims Twitter shut him down because he's "revealing all the evidence on Friday of all the election fraud with these machines."

At that point, Sellers begs his producers to "get out of here, please."

And then, because I hadn't laughed quite hard enough yet to literally piss myself, Sellers gets up and FUCKING LEAVES!

I'm thinking now might be a great time to start a new politics podcast, because I can almost guarantee you'd be able to book Mike Lindell. And I doubt there'd be any time limit. You could call it MyPodcast and make him your first guest—and then just sit back and watch the fireworks fizzle!

And as long as you have $1.3 billion burning a hole in your back pocket, well, it should all go swimmingly, now shouldn't it?


George Floyd, Philonese Floyd

Video: Floyd’s Brother Describes Trump’s Flubbed ‘Condolence' Call

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Since Donald Trump is about as soothing as a ghost pepper enema, this is no surprise. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be outraged.

The Rev. Al Sharpton interviewed George Floyd's brother Philonise on MSNBC, and guess what? Trump flubbed his condolence call, coming off as neither empathetic nor particularly interested.

Read NowShow less
Former Kushner Employee Pours Scorn On Jared’s Covid-19 Response

Former Kushner Employee Pours Scorn On Jared’s Covid-19 Response

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Elizabeth Spiers, who now serves as chief executive of the Insurrection, a progressive digital messaging firm, once worked for Jared Kushner as editor-in-chief of the New York Observer, a newspaper Boy Kush purchased when he was a callow 25-year-old — much younger, though equally as naive and gormless, as the callow 39-year-old he is today.

Well, she just wrote a savage op-ed about Little Lord Fauntleroy's response to the coronavirus crisis, and it's well worth reading in full.

Read NowShow less