Author: Pensito Editors
MAGA NC Senate to State Residents: Wear a Mask, Go to Jail The South Carolina-ification of North Carolina rolls on
During the Covid pandemic, Republican politicians desperately tried to downplay and disparage the crisis in order to protect Pres. Trump from political damage over his dangerously incompetent handling of the crisis. It appears that their political malfeasance backfired, however, because Covid killed many more Republicans – who bought into the GOP’s anti-mask and anti-medical science campaign – than Democrats who followed doctors’ advice and wore masks and took other precautions.
Post-pandemic analyses found that Republicans died in greater numbers across the country, and researchers at Yale University who studied Covid mortality in two ruby red states, Florida and Ohio, found that “the excess death rate among Republican voters was 43 percent higher than the excess death rate among Democratic voters. The gap in excess death rates between Republican and Democratic voters was larger in counties with lower vaccination rates…”
It was puzzling then that the GOP was systematically killing off older party members, it’s most reliable voters. Party leaders addressed this tragic disparity back then, predictably, by first lying about and then by ignoring it.
Now the North Carolina Senate has decided that when the next pandemic comes, no one in the state will survive, irrespective of party. In a ham-fisted and short-sighted attempt to prevent protesters from wearing Covid masks to hide their identities, the Senate has voted to ban wearing masks in public for any reason, from disease prevention to, let’s assume, trick or treating at Halloween. How this law will be enforced in the nation’s ninth largest state remains to be seen. The Hill reports that:
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We Must Remember: Trump Was a BAD President
Jonathan Bernstein in his Good Politics/Bad Politics Substack reminds us of just how bad a president Donald Trump was, and how we have forgotten so much ….
Jonathan Bernstein: “I was one of the political scientists who participated in a ‘rank the presidents’ survey and it was easy to place Trump dead last, given everything. But the truth is that even if Trump had followed and accepted the law, including the Constitutional “emoluments” provision, and even if he didn’t provoke an insurrection in support of his bid to overturn an election he lost, and even if he didn’t have a history of sexual assault, and even if he didn’t regularly make bigoted remarks and encourage bigotry…he was still quite a bit worse at the regular parts of presidenting than any of the modern presidents, at least.”
“It’s hard to know where to begin, and I’m obviously not going to convince anyone in a few short paragraphs or even a full item, but even given how important all that other stuff is his gross incompetency at the job is worth remembering.”
Anti-Vaxxer RFK Jr. Tried to Give His Children Fake COVID Vaccination Cards
The Daily Beast provided this excerpt of an interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the Pushing the Limits podcast with Brian Shapiro on KHSP radio in Las Vegas:
“Listen, I have adult kids. I don’t know how old your kids are … believe me, your ability to influence your kids after a certain age basically approaches zero.”
Kennedy said he raised his kids “to disagree with me, to challenge me, but also to tell the truth.”
Then the story took a twist.
“I offered my kids vaccine cards and said, ‘I don’t want you to take this product,’ because I had read the clinical trial data,” Kennedy added in the interview. “And they said, no, they didn’t want to do it, because they didn’t want to lie. They didn’t want to lie to their friends. So, they made their own decision—that they wanted to go to law school, they wanted to go to school, and that they had to take this risk. And they did it.”
The Daily Beast reported that the Kennedy campaign did not answer a request for comment on how the candidate procured the bogus vaccine cards.
Under federal law, as well as state and some local laws, obtaining and presenting a fake vaccine card is illegal.
Florida CFO Urges Trump to Collect $54k Held by the State
Everyone is talking about how Donald Trump is struggling to pay his enormous legal bills, but one man is actually doing something about it. Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis is urging Trump to claim $54,000 the state is holding in Trump’s name.
That’s the total amount of unclaimed funds that belong to either Donald Trump or his businesses or properties, reported the Orlando Sentinel.
“There are some very, very nasty people coming after you, and every dollar matters in your efforts to fight back against these radical state attorneys who have weaponized the courts,” Patronis wrote in a fawning letter to Trump on official state letterhead bearing the CFO seal.
“In January, [Patronis] promoted a bill to create a ‘Freedom Fighters Fund’ that would provide up to $5 million in ‘financial support to Florida residents running for President who face legal, partisan, political attacks by the Department of Justice or State Attorneys.,'” reported the Sentinel.
Florida Gov. and former Trump Republican primary rival Ron DeSantis threatened to veto the bill if it came to his desk, and it died in committee.
A Hat Trick — Margorie Taylor Greene Style
It was meant to be a comeuppance for her Republican congressional colleagues who voted for aid to Ukraine. But as with so many things touched by Moscow Marge, it didn’t work out as she intended.
Instead, her “MUGA” hats (“Make Ukraine Great Again”) are being sold to actually generate aid for Ukraine.
“In her honor, we are now selling the hat with 100% of profits going to two groups who do incredible work in Ukraine,” announced the pro-democracy gadfly site MeidasTouch.
The yellow-on-blue hats are on sale here for $45, will start shipping May 13, and will be offered until May 31. All profits will go to United Help Ukraine and World Central Kitchen.
Fantasy Commencement Address Delivered by Donald Trump at Barron’s H.S. Graduation
Now that Judge Juan Merchan has allowed Father of the Year Donald Trump to skip his daily court nap to attend his son Barron’s high school graduation, The Daily Beast‘s Michael Ian Black has proposed the following commencement address for the 45th president of the United States:
To the wonderful students of this very expensive private school whose name I do not know, congratulations. Today is the day all of your hard work pays off as we celebrate your incredible achievement. Not as incredible as being elected President of the United States twice, the way I was, but incredible nonetheless.
Your incredible administrators came to me with tears in their eyes to ask if I would deliver a few words of advice as you begin the next chapter of your lives. Perhaps you will attend one of our corrupt universities or join the military to serve this great country of ours, although I have to tell you, some of the dumbest people I ever met in my life were generals. John Kelly, what a disaster. That’s why we need tough generals like the great Mike Flynn who was treated so unfairly by the failing New York Times.
My first piece of advice would be to have me as your father. (Hold for laughter and applause.) Barron knows that better than anybody. Stand up, Barron. Look at the size of that kid. Tallest presidential son in history, they tell me. Even Honest Abe didn’t have kids that tall. Taller even than James Comey, who I had to fire like a dog.
You’ve got to be loyal, kids. Loyalty is everything, isn’t that right, darling? (Turn to Melania.) Our beautiful First Lady is here. No other First Lady in our nation’s history has a figure like hers.
Stand up, Melania. Spin around. Look at that figure, just gorgeous. Can you imagine Ted Cruz’s ugly wife doing that? Not a chance. Sit down, darling, and try to put a smile on your face. Thank you darling. Be best.
Back to the advice. Find yourself a good lawyer. I mean a killer. Preferably Jewish, but not like Michael Cohen even though I did more for his people than just about anybody in history, except Moses. And some very smart people think I did even more than him.
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Moscow Marge Is Popular on Putin’s State TV Network But she hates being called 'Moscow Marge'
DailyBeast.com [Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s] Tweets that labeled NATO as a useless organization and demanded the U.S. withdraw from the alliance it is currently leading were featured on state TV and described as “sensational.” Greene’s rhetoric has been interpreted by state TV host Evgeny Popov to mean that “She believes that Americans should help Putin win. Yes, you heard that right. To help him win in Ukraine.” Greene’s baseless claims that the U.S. is “supporting Nazis in Ukraine” were likewise lauded by state TV propagandists and showcased on multiple channels. Previous mockery did not deter the state-controlled media from gladly using Greene’s misleading statements to their advantage. The U.S. congresswoman was starting to become a long-distance darling for the Moscow crowd, prominently featured on state television and adored to the point that the Kremlin’s favorite propagandist Vladimir Solovyov proclaimed, “Thank goodness she exists.”
Kennedy Family Members to Endorse Biden A message to Bobby Jr.
Boston Globe: In their sharpest rebuke yet of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., several prominent members of the Kennedy political dynasty are endorsing President Biden for reelection on Thursday, standing with the Democratic incumbent even as their relative seeks the White House this fall in a campaign that has traded on the family name. A black sheep of the powerful family for years, RFK Jr. has drawn even more explicit criticism from his relatives in the year since he launched his campaign for president, running first as a “Kennedy Democrat,” and now as a third-party candidate fighting for ballot access across the country.
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The family members who are endorsing Biden include: Rory Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Joe Kennedy II, Beth Kennedy, Joe Kennedy III, Christopher Kennedy, Maxwell Taylor Kennedy, Vicki Strauss Kennedy, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Kerry Kennedy Meltzer, Max Meltzer, Ted Kennedy Jr., Stephen Kennedy Smith, Peter McKelvy, and Rebeca McKelvy. Endorsements are likely to come from Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and Maria Shriver.
