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Gilbert Gottfried Dead At 67 'After A Long Illness' Gottfried's family said they wanted everyone to "keep laughing as loud as possible" in the comedian's honor.

And the Donner party didn't even have Hamburger Helper.

Not sure- it was sent to me.

'This is incredibly dangerous': white nationalism is poisoning the military 'to break the chain of command' . I don’t follow what every Democrat says. No one can. There’s no way for me to know whether the tenor and tone of their collective rhetoric changed last week. But it felt like it got stronger, sharper and angrier. Consider Brian Schatz. The Hawaii Senator took to the Senate floor to scorch his colleague Josh Hawley of Missouri, who’s been holding up appointments to the Department of Defense that are necessary to America’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Before he signs off, he said, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin must resign for his “failures” in Afghanistan. Schatz said that’s rich coming from a guy who raised his fist in solidarity with the J6 insurrectionists and who voted to acquit the former president for the high crime of extorting Ukraine’s president. “This comes from a guy who before the Russian invasion suggested that maybe it would be wise for [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy to make a few concessions about Ukraine and their willingness to join NATO.” He added: “They withheld lethal aid until, unless Zelenskyy released false smears against Joe Biden's son. Then [Hawley] voted to exonerate President Trump for this. So spare me the new solidarity with the Ukrainians and with the free world, because this man's record is exactly the opposite.” His tirade amazed those of us longing for the Democrats to take a strong stand against the Republican Party’s lies and bad faith. Perhaps we’ll see more now that Greg Sargent put a brighter light on it. The Post columnist interviewed Brian Schatz on Friday. “Democrats need to make more noise,” the Senator conceded. “We have to scream from the rooftops because this is a battle for the free world now.” Let’s not forget what Schatz said, however. He said Hawley is “doing a very specific thing. He is damaging the Department of Defense.” So far, Schatz is the only Democrat seeing what needs seeing. Though he says he’s outraged by the US pullout from Afghanistan, Josh Hawley is also attacking, directly, the military leadership itself. (He won’t move on appointments until the secretary of defense resigns.) Demanding Austin’s resignation is not a “reasonable request,” Schatz said. It can’t be. The point is sabotaging civilian control of the military. You read that right. The point is cleaving the ranks. The point is to create conditions in which military personnel feel inspired to take action that’s favorable to the Republicans’ (perhaps the former president’s) return to power. They are picking up where the J6 insurrection left off. But next time, it won’t be a mob of schlubs. It will be an army of highly-trained insurgents bent on restoring whiteness to the center of the republic. At gunpoint. Everyone should see what Schatz sees. https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/white-nationalism-poisoning-military-command/

FIFY

He was pretty much a flop in the CFL. Those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach.

Extremists have a long history of saying or doing really stupid things, so all the Liberals need do is bide their time.

Big crowds turning out for Poilievre suggest a very different kind of Conservative leadership race In the last two Conservative leadership races, the supposed front-runners stumbled before reaching the finish line. This time, however, the front-runner is only showing signs of gaining ground. Swelling crowd counts and MP endorsements aren't ironclad guarantees of success, but they certainly don't hurt. And Pierre Poilievre — with his populist appeals to frustration with government "gatekeepers" and calls to make Canada "the freest country on earth" — is doing well on both those measures. Poilievre has tweeted photos of rallies in British Columbia and Ontario attended by hundreds of people. His visits to Calgary on Tuesday and Edmonton on Thursday are expected to draw more big crowds. "They're unprecedented in a leadership [race]," said Melanie Paradis, a veteran of the two previous Conservative leadership races who served as former leader Erin O'Toole's deputy campaign director. "He has a compelling narrative. It's important to credit that." The theme of Poilievre's campaign is freedom. His rallies target government policies that he argues restrict those freedoms — everything from vaccine mandates to carbon taxes to government policy on inflation. Poilievre promises that if he becomes prime minister, he'll put a stop to all of it. His supporters praise Poilievre for being an unapologetic conservative. Many like his willingness to bluntly criticize and even mock the Liberals. Detractors worry he'll deepen divisions within the party and the country. Some have gone as far as to warn of the "Trumpification" of the Conservative Party if Poilievre wins. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poilievre-conservative-leadership-1.6416183

BREAKING new RU law; leader of RU companies go to jail if they declare bankruptcy / insolvency, since state-owned RU Railways was declared in default of a bond obligation: Great news, RU soldiers: it's strictly forbidden to die in Ukraine!! Chances low though ;I

Stunning New Report Reveals Trump Administration Used DHS to Conduct Cyber-Audit of Arizona at Request of One State Rep. There is an old saying that an important difference between a nation of laws and fascism is that the police in democracies following the law only investigate reports of a crime. Fascist dictatorships harness the police to investigate people to find something to justify a pre-determined outcome. According to a blockbuster report in Politico, the Trump administration’s DHS Cyber Security Agency (the police) investigated Arizona and its voting machines, a problematic “person,” who voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 election. In late December of 2020, Arizona State Rep. Mark Finchem (almost surely on behalf of the White House as a long-time Trump ally) made a unique request to Homeland Security’s little known department, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, requesting “a full spectrum forensic examination” of Arizona’s voting machines. As typical of the corrupt Trump administration, the request from a state representative was on the desk of the director of the department the next day, the morning of Christmas Eve of 2020. Brandon Wales, the “acting-director” of the little-known agency, received the request as a top priority at 7:59 a.m. All of eight minutes later, Wales wrote, “We need to do a call on this today,” in a message to several people, including the agency’s then-deputy chief external affairs officer. In other words, an unknown state representative called up a highly-specialized and sophisticated federal agency to report a person (Arizona) and requested that the specialized unit find a crime – or mistake – within the Arizona computer vote tabulators. This is new reporting and if one appreciates the utter insanity of it, jaw-dropping. https://www.politicususa.com/2022/04/12/stunning-new-report-reveals-trump-administration-used-dhs-to-conduct-cyber-audit-of-arizona-at-request-of-one-state-rep.html Eastman is an attorney, and what he is apparently trying to do is conspiracy to commit election fraud, and he would have to know that. Either his obsession have devolved into mania or he feels confident that he has some sort of immunity from prosecution. The intransigence (so far) of the American DOJ to have indicted any of Trump's inner circle or Trump himself could reasonably interpreted to give give that impression.

“The coup attempt is ongoing”: Ex-Trump lawyer John Eastman still trying to overturn 2020 election Former Trump lawyer John Eastman is still trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election amid a legal battle with the House Jan. 6 committee over his role in the former president's failed effort to reverse his loss. Eastman played a key role as a top adviser in Trump's scheme to block the certification of President Joe Biden's win and wrote a plan claiming that then-Vice President Mike Pence could reject legitimate electors from states Trump lost. Eastman's efforts came under the scrutiny of the Jan. 6 committee, which subpoenaed his records related to the scheme. Eastman fought the subpoena before a judge last month ordered him to turn over documents after finding that he and Trump "more likely than not" committed federal crimes when they "corruptly attempted to obstruct" Congress. But Eastman is not done trying to undo Trump's loss. He was one of several Trump allies who last month secured a two-hour private meeting with Republican Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to pressure him to "nullify" the 2020 election and "reclaim the electors awarded to Biden," which legal experts say is not possible, according to ABC News. Eastman urged Vos to "decertify the election," according to the report. Jefferson Davis, a Wisconsin activist who also attended the meeting, told ABC that Eastman pushed Vos to start "reclaiming the electors" and move forward with "either a do over or having a new slate of electors seated that would declare someone else the winner." https://www.salon.com/2022/04/12/the-coup-attempt-is-ongoing-ex-lawyer-john-eastman-still-trying-to-overturn-2020/

Just another day in the US of A.

Philadelphia Restores Indoor Mask Mandate Amid New Wave Of COVID-19 Cases Philadelphia is restoring its indoor mask mandate as the number of COVID-19 cases rise across the region. The Philadelphia Department of Public Health announced the reinstatement of the mandate on Monday, giving residents and businesses a “one-week educational period” to prepare for the change. COVID-19 rates are rising in Philadelphia, with an average of 142 cases per day within the last two weeks and a 4.5% increase in positive COVID tests, according to the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. Since the pandemic started, over 275,000 city residents have tested positive for COVID-19, and over 5,000 have died because of the virus. Currently, 76.9% of Philadelphia adults are fully vaccinated, while nearly 94.7% have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Philadelphia has four COVID-19 response levels. The city is currently at a Level 2, which indicates that the average number of new cases per day are less than 225, hospitalization numbers are less than 100, and cases have increased by more than 50% in the previous ten days. At Level 2, masks must be worn indoors, but there are no vaccine or testing requirements for places that serve food and beverages. In the press release, Philadelphia mayor Jim Kenney said the city’s response levels “allow us to be clear, transparent and predictable in our response to local COVID-19 conditions.” “Given the recent rise in cases, we are moving to Level 2 in hopes of preventing higher case rates and stricter measures,” Kenney stated. “Our city remains open; we can still go about our daily lives and visit the people and places we love while masking in indoor public spaces. I’m optimistic that this step will help us control the case rate.”

Maybe just to piss off the Rider fans.

And the law and order Cons are not falling all over each other to bring the miscreant to justice?

The goal of the GOP's QAnon-influenced "groomer" troll: More political violence Republicans don't really think liberals are "grooming" children — but they know saying so is permission to violence Here is the most important thing to remember about the word "groomer": Exactly zero percent of the people flinging the word at progressives care one bit about child abuse. This is all just pure, uncut trolling. It's never meant as a sincere concern or accusation. Indeed, the deep unfairness of the word "groomer" is the point. What right-wing trolls want more desperately than anything else is to "trigger" liberals. Falsely accusing someone of heinous crimes, while unimaginative, is a crude-but-effective way to bully people. So in the past month, there's been a rapid escalation of conspiracy theories falsely accusing Democrats of being somehow pro-pedophilia. The proximate twin causes are the confirmation hearings of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court and Florida passing a "don't say gay" bill clearly meant to force LGBTQ teachers and students back into the closet. In the former, Republicans led by slime monster Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri spent the hearing falsely accusing Jackson of going light on sentences for child molesters. In the latter, Republicans defending the law have taken to suggesting that anyone who opposes it is a pedophile. Soon, a generalized accusation that Democrats and even companies that are mildly pro-LGBTQ want to "groom" children spread across Fox News. Falsely accusing someone of heinous crimes, while unimaginative, is a crude-but-effective way to bully people. Much digital ink has been spilled, for good reason, on how this nonsense is both about pandering to the QAnon cult and encouraging more Republican voters to be Q-curious. After all, QAnon espouses a conspiracy theory that Democrats secretly run a blood-drinking pedophilia cult that worships Satan. So any Republican leaders and pundits chattering about "grooming" and other false allegations around the subject of child abuse are clearly nodding in the direction of QAnon. https://www.salon.com/2022/04/11/the-goal-of-the-gops-qanon-influenced-groomer-troll-more-political-violence/

All the sane non-fascist Americans can hope for is that Garland is getting all of his ducks in a row before a mushroom-shaped cloud appears over Mar-A-Lago.

'Criminal conspiratorial intent': Legal experts stunned Trump Jr. claimed 'operational control' over election results Two days before the 2020 election was called for Joe Biden the President’s son, Donald Trump, Jr. sent a text to the White House Chief of Staff that said “we have operational control” to ensure a second Trump term, according to a just-published CNN bombshell report. “It’s very simple,” Trump Jr. added in the November 5 text. “We have multiple paths We control them all.” The damning text to Mark Meadows did not end there. “We have operational control Total leverage,” Trump Jr’s text continued. “Moral High Ground POTUS must start 2nd term now.” Legal experts are weighing in. U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA), an attorney who obtained the rank of Colonel in the Air Force Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps made sure to stress the President’s son’s remarks seem to reveal illegality: Former federal prosecutor of 30 years, Glenn Kirschner, wrote: “The ‘Subject’ line of Don Jr.’s email might as well have been, ‘I’m a member of my father’s criminal conspiracy to overturn the election.’ ” And he asks, “How long do we have to endure this open, treasonous criminality by Trump and company before someone gets indicted?” Election law expert Rick Hasen, a law and political science professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law says “Mark Meadows election subversion texts are the gift that keep on giving. It’s amazing he didn’t fight against turning them over.” Former US Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal served up a one-word response: “Premeditated.”

I don't need more snow to be miserable.

Is this a gay reference?

And celebrate it.

Rape is a military tactic of the Russian army, but if they were planning to rape, they would not have brought condoms.