I’ve been feeling a bit stale recently — kind of like a piece of bread found hiding out behind the toaster. I guess you could throw me in the microwave with a little bit of water and hope for the best.
When I write these introductory essays, I usually start with some phrase that came to me while sleeping (and that I managed to wake up and scribble down on the pad I keep next to the bed). Something like:
The addlepated collection of dullards, dotards, dufi*, dorks and despicables doing duty as the republican brain trust.
*The plural of dufus.
Then I build it into something between a full on diatribe and a history lesson, and follow that up with a call to arms. It’s become very formulaic. So has the rest of my roundups. If you have an opinion on what should definitely stay and what should go please share it in the comments.
While I think through how to make these GNRs feel fresher, I’m just going to get straight to the good news and skip over everything else, except The Lighter Side and some more Ukrainian music.
Slava Ukraini!
Da Newz
Empty Greene Got Spanked in Court
If the plaintiffs in this suit have further success, there will be a lot of (R) treasonweasels looking over their shoulders. I think an investment in Pepto Bismol might be advised.
Huffington Post: Mary Papenfuss: Marjorie Taylor Greene Loses Bid To Block Reelection Challenge Over U.S. Capitol Riot
U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg of the Northern District of Georgia denied Greene’s request for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order in the dramatic legal battle.
That means a group of Georgia voters and the nonpartisan voters rights organization Free Speech for People can presents their arguments in court that Greene should not be allowed to run for reelection because of the so-called insurrection disqualification clause of the 14th Amendment.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars lawmakers who, after previously taking an oath to “support the Constitution,” then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same” or gave “aid or comfort to the enemies.” The section was added after the Civil War to prohibit lawmakers from representing a government they had wanted to toppled.
Does Vlad Haz a Sad?
I suspect there’s been an uptick in vodka consumption inside the Kremlin as Russia’s economy continues to unravel. Putin’s government has run past its expiration date and is rotting quickly. I hope we can send along some more enzymes to speed it on its way.
Salon: Michael A. Allen & Matthew Digiuseppe: Russia faces first foreign default in a century – which could complicate Putin's war in Ukraine
Russia may be on the cusp of its first default on its foreign debt since the Bolsheviks ousted Czar Nicholas II a century ago.
On April 14, 2022, Moody's Investors Service warned the country's decision to make payments on dollar-issued debt in rubles would constitute a default because it violates the terms of the contract. A 30-day grace period allows Russia until May 4 to convert the payments to dollars to avoid default.✂️
Whether because of higher interest costs or an inability to borrow, this forces a country to cut spending. Less government spending reduces economic activity, increases unemployment and slows growth. While some of these effects, like weaker economic growth, are often short-lived, other consequences can haunt a country for years. Trade with other countries remains below normal for an average of 15 years after a default, while full exclusion from capital markets typically lasts just over eight years.
From the Finnish Front
Living Up to His Hypocritic Oath
J D Vance has been giving tfg a lot of tongue baths recently. It wasn’t always part of his schtick. I wonder if anyone is going to tell tfg about this?
Raw Story: Travis Gettys: ‘America’s Hitler’: Trump-backed candidate sent shocking texts about the former president – according to his roommate
Senate hopeful J.D. Vance won Donald Trump's endorsement in a tight Ohio Republican primary, but six years ago he compared the former reality TV star to Adolf Hitler.
The venture capitalist and "Hillbilly Elegy" author deleted his Trump criticism from his Twitter feed before announcing his Senate campaign, but his former Yale Law School roommate revealed that Vance worried about Trump's rise during the 2016 presidential campaign.
"But I'm not surprised by Trump's rise, and I think the entire party has only itself to blame," Vance texted, according to his former roommate, state Rep. Josh McLaurin (D-Georgia). "We are, whether we like it or not, the party of lower-income, lower-education white people, and I have been saying for a long time that we need to offer those people SOMETHING (and hell, maybe even expand our appeal to working class black people) or a demagogue would. We are now at that point."
"Trump is the fruit of the party's collective neglect," Vance said, according to McLaurin. "I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler. How's that for discouraging?"
It Couldn’t Happen to a Sleazier Scumbag
Looks like the moral bankruptcy has overflowed into the fiscal side. May all his remaining days begin with news like this.
Wonkette: Robin Pennacchia: Alex Jones Now Slightly More Bankrupt Than Usual
Alex Jones's InfoWars has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, along with two of his other companies, IWHealth and Prison Planet TV, in the wake of several defamation lawsuits related to his Sandy Hook rhetoric, which he lost after refusing to turn over documents and financial information to the court.
For years, Jones has insisted that the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, that took the lives of 20 children was a "false flag," that the families who lost their children were "crisis actors," and that this was all a hoax organized by people in the "deep state" as an excuse to take everyone's guns away so that they can't exercise their pretend constitutional right to overthrow the government.
Since then, 285 people have died in school shootings, almost no gun control laws have been passed, and some of the kinds of people who listen to Alex Jones (though to be fair, some think he is "controlled opposition") did in fact try to overthrow the government. However, because that is not so much a constitutional right as it is "definitely illegal," most of those people are now in prison or awaiting trial.
It's almost as if the US government has ways of preventing people from overthrowing it other than faking school shootings.
Pushing Back Against the Profit at the Expense of Humanity Crowd
French owned home improvement chain, Leroy Merlin, has refused to stop doing business in Russia. That’s not sitting well with at least one person in Poland. I wonder what old Charlie would do if this happened to some Koch consumer products?
Notes from Poland: “Corpse containers” and brushes for “sweeping away guilt”: Polish artist puts fake labels in Leroy Merlin
Customers visiting branches of Leroy Merlin home improvement and gardening superstores in Poland have been greeted with fake price labels designed by a Polish artist to highlight the French-owned company’s refusal to stop operations in Russia.
One of them marks a 90-litre bin as a “container for a corpse”, before adding that “Leroy Merlin supports the Russian invasion”. Another, which can be placed on dustpans and brushes, says they are for “sweeping away feelings of guilt”.
The labels are the work of Warsaw-based artist Bartek Kiełbowicz, who invites visitors to his website to “do it yourself” by downloading them and sticking them on products in their nearest store.✂️
The artist’s designs also include a Leroy Merlin logo doctored to spell “Leroy Putlin”, and an image of Vladimir Putin behind bars. Kiełbowicz has also painted an image of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that has featured prominently at anti-war protests in Poland.
And Leroy Merlin is still doing business in Russia, even though this happened to one of their stores back in March. Blind pursuit of rubles does not strike me as a rational business plan.
New York Times: Liz Alderman: One of Europe’s Largest Retailers, Still in Russia, Angers Its Ukraine Workers
PARIS — Shortly after a Russian rocket obliterated one of the largest shopping malls in Kyiv on Monday, Ukrainian employees of Leroy Merlin, a home improvement store that was destroyed in the blast, commandeered the company’s Ukraine Instagram page.
“Stop Sales in Russia,” they wrote, posting a picture of the shattered remains of the site, where a security guard for the company was killed, one of eight fatalities in the predawn strike.
Leroy Merlin shut its six stores in Ukraine after the war started, and paid employees the equivalent of three months’ salary. It has even helped workers and their families cross the border to Poland and Romania for safety.
But in Russia, the company operates 112 stores, and has given no public signs that it plans to leave. Just the opposite: It is working to expand its Russian inventory to adjust to sanctions and the departure of rival Western chains, according to an internal message provided by employees.
In This Week’s Episode of How Low Can They Go?
Tuckem’s has truly jumped the shark that was jumping the alligator that was jumping the soccer ball that Ted Cruz stole from Tom Hanks. You know it’s bad when Kid Rock is the sensible person in the room.
Daily Beast: William Vaillancourt: Tucker Carlson and Kid Rock Talk About ‘Testicle Tanning’
Tucker Carlson and good pal Kid Rock had another friendly conversation on Fox News on Friday, with one topic of discussion being “testicle tanning.” The subject had been raised earlier in Carlson’s show by Andrew McGovern, an Ohio-based fitness professional who was brought on to help answer Carlson’s question, “How do you reverse the effects of falling testosterone?” One of the solutions McGovern offered was red light therapy, which, when Carlson asked, he said includes “testicle tanning.”
Rock had apparently been listening along, because when Carlson addressed him minutes later, the first thing the musician said was, “Dude, stop! Testicle tanning? Come on. I haven’t heard anything like that in a long time.” The Fox News host replied, “Open your mind, Bobby!” He then asked, more seriously, “Don’t you think at this point when so many of the therapies, the paths they’ve told us to take, have turned out to be dead ends that really hurt people, why wouldn’t open minded people seek new solutions?” Rock demurred: “I don’t know what the hell is going on in this world. I’m not even sure if I understood that question. But some days you just want to stop this planet and let me off.”
Andy, Andy, Andy
Ok, so I still feel compelled to include some Andy Borowitz.
The New Yorker: Satire from the Borowitz Report: DeSantis Warns That Math Makes Children Gay
TALLAHASSEE (The Borowitz Report)—Proposing a sweeping ban on math in Florida’s classrooms, Governor Ron DeSantis asserted that “the latest research” indicates that “math makes children gay.”
“For years, liberals in the education mafia have brainwashed Americans into thinking that our children should learn to add, subtract, multiply, and divide,” he told reporters. “We now know that numbers are a portal into a so-called alternative life style.”
“Children who learn how to count are more likely to pursue careers in fashion and Broadway musicals,” the Governor claimed. “Even worse, some of these musicals will be produced by Disney.”
Pot & Shrooms, Together Again
There’s quite the hippie vibe to this story.
Good News Network: Cannabis And Pancreatic Cancer: Botanical Drug Kills 100% Of Cancer Cells
A botanical drug based on an extract of Cyathus striatus fungus and a cannabinoid extract from the cannabis plant has eliminated 100% of pancreatic cancer cells—relatively selectively and without damaging normal cells—in experiments conducted on a cell model.
The fungus has been the subject of research to test its anti-cancer efficacy in Professor Fuad Fares’ laboratory at the University of Haifa for about eight years.
It was selected as the preferred candidate for the development of a drug for pancreatic and colon cancer after showing better anti-cancer results than a variety of other fungi tested.
Musical Interlude
DakhaBrakha recorded this appeal a few weeks ago in late March.
On the Lighter Side
h/t theghostofjohndewey