Kamala Harris Equal Pay Proposal Nanny State Boo Hoo Oh No WAAAH

How's Trump Sh*tting On The Troops This Memorial Day? Get A Load Of THIS!

If You're Going To Go On Fox News, Kick Fox's Ass Like Pete Buttigieg Did

Elections

Justin Amash Says Impeach, And We Always Agree With Justin Amash

Mitt Romney, Jeff Flake certain to tut-tut very seriously now.

On Saturday, Michigan Congressman Justin Amash became the first Republican in Congress to call for impeachment, or at the very least to say Donald Trump had "engaged in impeachable conduct." Amash, a hyperconservative libertarian and occasional Steve Carell impersonator, said in a Twitter thread he came to this conclusion after reading the entire redacted Mueller Report, which he said most members of Congress hadn't because they are lazy and partisan and probably criticize Ayn Rand without even reading her either.

While we aren't about to be sending his reelection campaign any contributions, it was nice to see a Tea Party Republican talking sense for once, at least for a moment.

Amash also came to the astonishing conclusion -- for a Republican, at least -- that ~~Trump defense~~ Attorney General William Barr had deliberately misled the public about the contents of the Mueller Report in the near month between its completion and its release, noting that Barr had fed Americans a load of carefully cultivated bullshit.

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White House

Trump's New ICE Chief Can Spot Future Gang Members With His X-Ray Eyes

Fox News nominates another member to the Trump administration.

Donald Trump has picked yet another talker from Fox News for a top administration job, proving once again that knowing things is not nearly as important as being on TV. On May 5, Trump announced he was nominating Mark Morgan, who briefly served as the head of Border Patrol in the closing months of the Obama administration, to be the new head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Morgan replaced Trump's previous nominee, Ron Vitiello, who was shitcanned for not being "tough" enough. It was a bit of a surprise that Trump didn't go with Matthew Albence, the guy he'd picked to replace Vitiello as acting head of ICE, but perhaps advisors thought Albence might face confirmation trouble over his 2018 statement to Congress that government baby jails were a lot like "summer camps" Thank goodness there's no such public record of insane comments to get Mark Morgan in trouble!

You know, other than in some of the 80 times since January Morgan has been on Fox News to defend Trump's immigration policies as the wisest, smartest ideas ever, including a January 14 visit with Tucker Carlson in which Morgan claimed he could simply look at immigrant kids and predict which ones would become gangbangers (all of them, Tucker).

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Journamalism

Who Crawled Up The New York Times's Ass And Died?

What's with these people?

The New York Times is at it again. The paper ran an article the other day that was almost indistinguishable from a GOP press release.

Twitter

Those claims aren't just "grisly." They are also bald-faced, bare-assed lies. Democrats probably didn't expect Republicans to shamelessly accuse them of murdering children. If it's always too soon to discuss gun violence, there's apparently never a bad time to "politicize" abortion and claim your opponents are soulless monsters.

But why is the Times burying the lede? The GOP's slander -- not just of Democrats but of American women -- is the actual story here, not that Democrats are unprepared to cope with it.

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2020 presidential election

Jay Inslee Has A Climate Plan And It's A DAMN WHOPPER

Green Dreams are made of this. Who are we to disagree?

Washington governor and 2020 presidential candidate Jay Inslee has just published his comprehensive climate policy plan, a whopper of a proposal to restructure the US economy to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2030 and create millions of new jobs in the process. It's a doozy, at 15,000 words, but wow, even if he's not on the 2020 Dem ticket, could the nominee please promise to appoint Inslee as climate czar? The proposal, called the "Evergreen Economy Plan," invokes the New Deal, and is green AF, but doesn't actually use the phrase "Green New Deal," even though it overlaps a whole hell of a lot with the general GND framework. We shall Wonksplain, but first, let's get one thing very clear: Jay Inslee will not outlaw cows.

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Immigrants

Donald Trump Keeps Changing WALL Design, Wants Spikes, Killer Bees

Paint It Black.

Donald Trump is not a man who thinks a lot about most matters of state. He doesn't know or care about the stupid details of little things like health care, diplomacy, or how tariffs actually work -- he keeps insisting that China pays them, not US importers. But the Washington Post reports there's one thing he really loves thinking about, in great detail: his big beautiful WALL, which he obsesses over like a creepy version of a little boy planning out his dream model train set. (Maybe a train to Dachau!) Trump keeps calling in officials tasked with building his dream and haranguing them about all sorts of details that he hopes will make WALL as cruel as possible -- as a deterrent to illegal border crossers, you know.

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Culture

Fox News Still Stupidest, The Worst: Awful New Abortion Laws Edition!

They all suck.

America is slouching further toward Gilead after a recent flood of forced-birth laws. Even televangelist and renowned hurricane slayer Pat Robertson is concerned. He's afraid Alabama's crazy new law goes "too far." Robertson doesn't give a crap about women, but it concerns him that a doctor who "commits abortion" could wind up in jail for 99 years. That's almost longer than you sit around in the waiting room before a physical appointment. He also (perhaps pessimistically) believes the case isn't the right one to challenge Roe v. Wade because it's so extreme it'll get slapped down by the Supreme Court. This will tragically doom women to the tyranny of bodily autonomy.

But while cranky old Pat is picking lemons, Fox News's usual gang of idiots -- that's a Mad Magazine reference, Pete -- are making lemonade. Tucker Carlson thinks we're focusing too much on women giving birth against their will. Why isn't anyone pointing out that they're also becoming parents against their will? Why, even an 11-year-old rape victim is eligible for the blue ribbon parenthood prize! Abortion supporters are apparently monsters who can't see the upside in anything.

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Healthcare

Do You LOVE THE LITTLE BABIES? How About The Moms? Lauren Underwood Forms Black Maternal Health Caucus

Looks like we've got a frontrunner for Legislative Badass of the Year!

In another prong of what's clearly a bid to win Wonkette's coveted Legislative Badass of the Year award, Rep. Lauren Underwood, the freshman Democratic congresswoman from Illinois, has taken a major step toward addressing what might be America's most horrifying public health crisis. Deaths from pregnancy complications for black women occur at four times the rate among white mothers, which is why, in April, Underwood launched a new congressional group, the Black Maternal Health Caucus, to focus attention and legislative action on the problem. Her co-chair in the caucus is Rep. Alma Adams (D-North Carolina); the two also introduced a resolution to declare a second annual Black Maternal Health Week.

The issue is a personal one for Underwood. In 2017, she lost a close friend, Dr. Shalon Irving, who died just three weeks after giving birth, at the age of 36. Irving was an epidemiologist for the Centers for Disease Control whose death was featured in a major ProPublica/NPR report. She had studied the Third-World level of healthcare faced by many women right here in America; her death proved that the culprits you might assume -- poverty and lack of access to care -- didn't matter. It could happen to the woman whose profession it was to study it. It's damned unhealthy just to exist as a black woman in the Greatest Nation On Earth.

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Courts

Anti-Abortion, Right-Wing Hack Wendy Vitter Ready To Judge You PROFESSIONALLY

Because everything is terrible.

There's no real suspense over whether the Senate will confirm Louisiana district court nominee Wendy Vitter. Republicans have the votes and the federal courts will soon have another partisan hack. Vitter's kinda light on actual federal law experience -- serving as co-counsel on a single case 25 years ago. No biggie, she'll have the rest of her life to get up to speed. She can also fall back on her private sector experience, where she focused on maritime law (no, really).

Vitter has the full support of Louisiana's two Republican senators, Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy. Cassidy swept into office during the 2014 red wave of terrible. He defeated Mary Landrieu, who had a 100 percent rating from the NARAL. Here's Cassidy's LinkedIn recommendation:

CASSIDY: Wendy Vitter is extremely qualified and I look forward to voting for her. It's a shame the liberal left is using fabricated political smears to suppress the voice of a strong conservative woman.

These "fabricated political smears" are Vitter's actual words and deeds. Let's refresh our memories and then clean our brains with turpentine. Vitter has accused Planned Parenthood of killing "over 150,000 females a year." It does not. During her hearings last month, Vitter refused to say whether she was just stupid or willfully lying. She led a panel at a 2013 anti-abortion conference, during which she seemed to endorse the junk science of Angela Lanfranchi, arguing that abortions cause breast cancer. There is no such link. Vitter also pushed Lanfranchi's brochure "The Pill Kills," which contained all the intellectual rigor of the old movie Reefer Madness. Vitter thought it'd be swell if doctors littered their waiting rooms with that garbage.

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2020 presidential election

A Nice Letter To Steve Bullock From Wonkette That Isn't At All A Trick

Come in, Steve Bullock, read this, we are nice!

Hi Steve Bullock! I know you are busy "running" around, making terrible amateur wind-whistled youtubes and going on Maddow. (I even watched! It wasn't very exciting.) You might not read this. It's cool. Wonkette's already written about your run for president twice: once much nicer than I would have been, and one probably about the right amount of mean. But we hadn't written to you personally, as your constituent. Here's how a Wonkette reader put it in a note to me:

I'm not happy that your governor is running for president, since too many people are doing that. Please tell him to stop. If he won't listen to you, to whom will he listen? You're a small business owner, a farmer's wife, and you have a growing army of bees at your disposal. In Montana, that seems like the trifecta, as a small businesswoman with a husband who farms beeeeeeeees!

That's right, Steve Bullock: beeeeeeeeees!

It's quite possible your advisors might not have pointed out to you that every time you tweet, every response is making witty replies that 100 percent of the time tell you you should be "running" for Senate instead. It's kind of late now, but here's the thing:

YOU SELFISH EGOMANIAC SON OF A BITCH. STOP IT. STOP IT. STOP IT FUCKING SOON ALTHOUGH TO SAVE FACE IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE RIGHT NOW. MEN ARE VERY FRAGILE I GET IT I KNOW.

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Immigrants

President Taco Bowls Wants To Give Mexicans A Civics Test To Enter America

The best Mexicans are from Norway.

Donald Trump is expected to unveil his son-in-law's beautiful new plan to remake legal immigration in a speech this afternoon. The "merit based" immigration proposal isn't expected to actually get passed by Congress, but is more of a thing Republicans can point to and say, "See? We are common Elizabeth Warrens!" But Jared worked very hard on it, with lots of help from that nice Stephen Miller, and Trump told Jared he loves it. So it's a very good, very serious plan that Rs can rally around and accuse Democrats of refusing to support, which is the only thing that matters. And that is what counts for serious governance these days.

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News

UH OH, BILL BARR GOT #JOKES

'Madam Speaker ... DID YOU BRING YOUR HANDCUFFS?'

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, Attorney General CoverUp McJokes got some jokes!

Attorney General William Barr tried out a little contempt humor on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with interesting results.

He's been working on it, for his stand-up set.

The setting was the National Peace Officers Memorial Day service Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol. Barr and Pelosi were in the crowd waiting for President Donald Trump to arrive.

Barr approached Pelosi, shook her hand and said loud enough to be overheard, "Madam Speaker, did you bring your handcuffs?"

Who knew he was into that kind of thing? Oh well, even attorneys general who do cover-ups for criminal presidents gotta get their rocks off, and who are we to judge!

That's a reference to Barr's refusal to comply with congressional subpoenas related to special counsel Robert Mueller's report.

Yes, Associated Press, we got it.

A smiling Pelosi let Barr know the House Sergeant at Arms was present at the ceremony, should any arrest be necessary, according to a person who witnessed the exchange and described it on the condition of anonymity.

DAMN.

We think Pelosi won that round, don't you think?

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2020 presidential election

Miss Warren And Miss Harris, If You're Nasty!

Hello LADIES.

Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren just keep making us love them more and more, what with being terrible mean nasty women, the way all good Americans should be. Yr Wonkette is ready for a Warren/Harris or Harris/Warren ticket RIGHT GODDAMN NOW, please and thank you!

Oh, we suppose you want to know what they did, huh? Well, fine, though really if you all just paid closer attention we wouldn't have to spell it out for you. But then we wouldn't be paid to write political fart noises, either, so you just keep not having already heard stuff, OK?

For starters, Kamala Harris had this perfect reply to Daily Mail reporter Emily Goodin, when Goodin asked whether Harris was tired of being talked about as a great VP choice:

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News

Yes, Children, Trump's Legal Strategy Really IS That Stupid

Knock you over with a feather!

No sooner had we published our second-to-last piece, on Adam Schiff's House Intelligence Committee requesting documents from Trump lawyers and lawyers representing Trump's fucked up family, than the White House had fired off yet another letter, this time to House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler, telling him to take all his investigations and fuck right off.

Not only does White House Counsel Pat Cipollone -- yet another real lawyer who's decided his own professional reputation can fuck right off, because everything Donald Trump touches turns into a gaping hole of sadness and failure -- write that Judiciary doesn't have the right to investigate Trump's crimes, because its investigation is "duplicative" of what Robert Mueller investigated, and laughably assert that Mueller's investigation cleared Trump of all Russian and obstruction crimes based on the legal standard of "Because Bill Barr Said So," Cipollone also asserts something we've heard approximately 1,000 times in the last 24 hours. (Emphasis ours in all forthcoming block quotes.)

Lost in the Committee's legally indefensible rush to recommend a contempt citation is the reality that the Committee has not articulated any proper legislative purpose for pursuing inquiries that duplicate matters that were the subject of the Special Counsel's inquiry. Congressional investigations are intended to obtain information to aid in evaluating potential legislation, not to harass political opponents or to pursue an unauthorized "do-over" of exhaustive law enforcement investigations conducted by the Department of Justice.

Under the circumstances, the appropriate course is for the Committee to discontinue the inquiry discussed in the March 4 letter.

LOLOLOLOLOL, what lawyerly bluster for a letter full of such dogshit! (Worth noting that Jerry Nadler's reaction was approximately the same, though he said it nicer.)

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Guns

How Is Awful Kid In Alaska Different From Coast Guard Terrorist Guy?

No, really, please let us know.

A federal judge in Anchorage, Alaska, has decided to keep a 19-year-old in detention after prosecutors presented evidence that the lad may have been intending to commit an act of mass murder. Michael Graves is charged with buying and building illegal weapons, and an FBI agent testified Graves had posted numerous comments to social media calling for violence against minorities and referring to stockpiling guns and ammunition. But wait, how is this all that difference from Christopher Hasson, that Coast Guard Nazi guy who stockpiled weapons, and beyond that, wrote about wanting to commit mass violence to bring about a white homeland, and even had a target list of enemies he wanted to shoot? Another federal judge said that was disturbing and all, but planned to let Hasson out on bail because federal prosecutors never charged him with anything more serious than drug and gun possession crimes, never mind a court document asserting he was a domestic terrorist. (Domestic terrorism is not a "crime.") Fortunately, a higher court ruled Monday that Hasson will remain in jail until his trial, too.

No, we're not arguing Michael Graves should be released. Just that there seems to be a hell of a lot more evidence that Hasson had violent intentions and how the hell could any judge have even considered freeing him?

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Russia

Adam Schiff Just Saying Trump's Lawyers Better GET A LAWYER

Oh, they have them already? Ahead of the game!

Over the course of the Trump administration, a running theme has been that it's very hard to find real lawyers willing to represent America's Shittiest Client. He lies to them, he doesn't pay them, he doesn't do what they say, and as we saw yesterday in the courtroom of DC District Court Judge Amit Mehta, they have to make the silliest arguments, the kind that would have gotten them laughed out of their law school classrooms. But a few real lawyers have signed up for the task, and pretty much every one of those real lawyers has ended up doing untold damage to their professional reputations in the process.

We'd feel sorry for them, but that's not how our heart works.

On that note, some of those lawyers might just get to be the latest invitees to the House Democrats' subpoena party, because some of those lawyers may have, knowingly or not, helped Trump commit crimes just a tiny, as anybody in his orbit is apparently expected to do.

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