Feb. 22, 2024 - GOP erases lying witness from its Biden impeachment bid

Feb 22, 2024

Republicans Stand By Biden Impeachment

House Republicans yesterday stood by their efforts to impeach Pres. Joe Biden, pointing out that Alexander Smirnov, the now-discredited witness against Biden, hasn’t even been a part of the impeachment probe since Republicans realized Smirnov has been discredited.

Specifically, The New Republic reported yesterday that the Republican investigators edited a letter they wrote to the Justice Department — seeking to interview a key witness about exactly what they didn’t witness — to remove the letter’s previous references to Smirnov.

The whole Smirnov affair is proving to be a huge embarrassment to Republicans — except in the news media, where it’s a blip. It’s not just embarrassing because they bought into these lies for years, but also because we learned yesterday that the lies came from Russia. AGAIN!

Ironically, Republicans used to be the party that insisted on manufacturing everything in the U.S. So it’s seen as especially shameful that the party itself is now importing Russian-manufactured lies. When exactly did we start outsourcing simple, dishonest, American disingenuity?

The supply-chain issues alone are a nightmare. We’re importing lies from Moscow? When has Washington ever failed to be self-sustaining when it came to lies? When did D4FRFP Donald Trump1 decide to stop hand-crafting elaborate fictions with his own two delicate hands?

It’s especially galling because there’s no lack of fabrication expertise right here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. And if there’s one thing the party of Trump knows how to make, it’s stuff up!

Hungary Clears NATO Path for Sweden

One of D4FRFP Donald Trump’s favorite autocrats, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, said this weekend that, yeah, sure, Sweden can join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, whatever. Adding, fine, fuck it, jesus already.

Orban’s remaining critics in parliament had accused him of blocking NATO membership for Sweden as a favor to Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin. Sweden for years had no interest in joining NATO but got a lot more interested in light of Putin’s recent wanderlust.

Hungary had been the last holdout blocking NATO membership for Sweden, after Turkey earlier this year decided to let Sweden in, saying, fine, fuck it, jesus already.

Once Hungarian legislators got the memo from Orban this weekend, they quickly dropped their opposition. Members of the parliament have now requested that the Swedish ratification vote be held on Monday, the first day of the spring legislative session.

Pro-Life Party Kills IVF Attempts in the Womb

When it comes to D4FRFP Donald Trump’s Christian voters, reproductive rights are kinda like Lays™ potato chips. Betcha can’t eat just one!

First they said they’d stop with Roe v. Wade. But even with their hands still coated in the flavor dust of Supreme Court victory, now they’re coming for contraception and unholy methods of conception that use instruments of evil like In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and Satan’s turkey basters.

The Supreme Court of Alabama, a state which for some reason is allowed to have a Supreme Court, on Friday ruled that frozen embryos are kids. This, of course, extends to embryos for the first time in U.S. history a whole suite of legal rights typically restricted to children, most notably the right to watch TV.

This has other legal ramifications for frozen embryos, technically known as Dippin’ Dots™.

For one thing, frozen embryos now have the right to get shot by anyone who’s standing their ground. And frozen embryos now have the right to go to prison for using a bathroom that doesn’t match the genitalia of any of their six cells.

Anyway, it took less than a week for the obvious thing to happen. The University of Alabama, a state which for some reason is allowed to have a university, announced it’s getting out of the IVF business and tossing all those unused frozen embryos in the trash I MEAN PUTTING THEM UP FOR ADOPTION.

As writer Hemant Mehta documented with fact things, one of the justices revealed the unbridled theocracy underlying the ruling. “[H]uman life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself,” according to a concurring opinion from Chief Justice Tom Parker, the kind of chief justice you get when you allow Alabama to have a Supreme Court.

THE HALEY, YOU SAY Former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) said yesterday that she agrees with the ruling, especially since she recently made the intensely personal decision to freeze and store her own campaign in hopes that Trump will be convicted before the Republican National Convention. (h/t)

Current Hellscape Falls to Second in Rankings

The current hellscape we’re living in is no longer the world’s worst known hellscape, according to researchers who are still somehow allowed to spend money on something other than dividends and buybacks for their private investors.

The astronomers identified an inconceivably huge quasar that was previously thought to be a star when it was first spotted in the 1980s. Much like D4FRFP Donald Trump, another star that emerged in the 1980s, they believe the quasar, too, has a massive black hole at its heart.

In fact, the black hole at the center of this galactic hurricane is 17 billion times as massive as our sun. And it’s growing at a rate that would warm the massive black hole at the heart of Wall Street.

The quasar — the roiling disc of gas and dust surrounding the black hole — is so volatile that Australian National University researcher Christian Wolf, who helped identify it, called it, “The most violent place that we know in the universe.” Which is great news for the Gaza Board of Tourism.

And the quasar’s rate of growth means it’s consuming solar matter at the rate of the equivalent of approximately one star every single day, or roughly the same rate Wall Street is consuming residential real estate.

Unfortunately, if I’ve got my math rate, even though it’s 12 billion light years away, at its current rate of expansion, it’s expected to enter Kyiv by next winter.

And because the quasar’s light took 12 billion years to get here, Trump administration researchers estimate that it could be as much as 6,000 years old.

Three Quickies

Capitol Hill staffers are mounting a slow-motion, underground rebellion against U.S. complicity in the Israeli devastation of Gaza, Roll call reports.
House Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly tried to rally House Republicans at a weekend retreat by casting the November elections in religious terms, even complaining about falling church attendance. Coincidentally, not all the Republicans enjoyed the sermon, especially when they realized the God that Johnson was referring to wasn’t D4FRFP Donald Trump.
Michigan’s new law mandating safe gun storage went into effect on Feb. 13. One day later, 44-year-old Michael Tolbert’s two-year-old daughter picked up one of his guns and shot herself in the head. She survived but is in critical condition and he now faces an array of criminal charges that could cost him the rest of his life behind bars because he thought he and his family would be better off with guns in the house. (h/t)

TCB

CORRECTION In yesterday’s TFN, I screwed up the Nom de Prosecutions of Pres. Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden, history’s greatest monster. Dad is listed in the prosecution legal filing as Public Official 1 and Hunter is Businessperson 1. Newsfucker 1 regrets the error.

Sorry today’s TFN is so early. And so short. I’m traveling and didn’t wanna risk waking up too late to send you off to work with a good nutritious newsfucking.

Don’t forget to come say hi on Twitter and Facebook. And I’m even on Bluesky and Mastodon. Because why not!

Now, go get ‘em, kids…

D4FRFP = Disgraced, quadicted, fraudster, rapist, former President.