House Ethics Draft Report on Trump's withdrawn AG candidate Matt Gaetz concludes Gaetz was a very bad boy despite his denials

 The House Ethics Committee gathered evidence that former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida paid multiple women for sex, including a 17-year-old high school junior, used illegal drugs like cocaine and ecstasy and obstructed efforts by Congress to investigate his conduct, according to a draft of its findings obtained by Just the News.

“The Committee determined there is substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress," stated the draft of the report slated to be released  this week.

The draft report also said it did not find evidence that Gaetz had engaged in sex trafficking as some had alleged, concluding that all the women who traveled with Gaetz out of their home states did so voluntarily even if they accepted payments for sex. ...

More. 

"Tens of thousands of dollars" were involved 2017-2020.

Joe Biden commutes federal death sentences to life in prison without parole but not for Robert Bowers, Dylaan Roof, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

 President Biden used his clemency authority Monday to commute the sentences of 37 of the 40 men on federal death row to life without parole, in one of the most significant moves taken against capital punishment in recent presidential history. ...

Biden's actions come shortly after he pardoned 39 individuals who were convicted of nonviolent crimes, and commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 others who were placed on home confinement during the COVID pandemic.

Monday's announcement also follows controversy over Biden's pardon of his own son, Hunter Biden, for gun and tax charges.

More.

Hakeem Jeffries repays GOP for pulling original continuing spending resolution last week: Mike Johnson's House speakership won't be saved by Democrat votes in January

 

Jeffries: There Will Be No Democratic Votes To Save Speaker Johnson Or MAGA Republicans From Themselves

 

. . . there will be no Democrats available to save him or the extreme MAGA Republicans from themselves based on the breaching of a bipartisan agreement that reflected priorities good for the American people.

Bill Hagerty 2024 is a pathetic excuse for a senator, can't show up for critical votes, might as well be 2010 Nancy Pelosi saying we have to pass Obamacare to find out what's in it

 

Sen. Hagerty: "Thank God Elon Musk Bought Twitter, That's The Only Way We'd Even Know What's In This Bill"

Donald Trump is the president of the UniParty

Change my mind.

 

Fox News dipshit says Trump gave a masterclass lol

 DAVID MARCUS: De facto President Trump's handling of shutdown threat was a masterclass

The piece of legislation which the boss said at 4:00 PM on the 19th was very important and even vital to making America great again was defeated 235-174 not three hours later at 6:54 PM lol.

 

Maybe the dumbest line though was this:

 

. . . having slayed the dragon of out-of-control spending . . ..

David is too dumb to understand that a continuing spending resolution simply continues the spending which already put fiscal 2024 $1.9 trillion in the hole.

The extra $100 billion for the tent people of Western North Carolina is just the insult added to the injury.

I seem to recall that throughout the aftermath of the hurricanes there was vigorous protestation from the right about FEMA still having plenty of money and they didn't need any more. But here we are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do you think these guys even once sat down together to discuss the continuing spending resolution before this week's fiasco?

 Maybe James Braid, new Director of the Office of Legislative Affairs, knows lol.

 

Is this James Braid?

Congress is god, not Donald Trump

 Homo proponit sed Deus disponit.

 

 

Luigi's mom: I could see him doing something like that

 

When detectives reached out to accused CEO killer Luigi Mangione’s mother after the first photos of the suspect emerged, she said she wasn’t certain it was him – but told investigators the shooting “might be something that she could see him doing,” a New York Police Department official said Tuesday.

Here.

Every political party should have one of these

 

Paper Tiger Joe

Paper Tiger Don

House GOP to Donald Trump

 

The US House passed a continuing spending resolution through March 14, 2025 at 5:59PM yesterday, the US Senate passed it this morning at 12:23AM, averting a federal government shutdown

 

 The House roll call vote (366-34-1-29nv) is here. 34 Republicans voted Nay.

The Senate roll call vote (85-11-4nv) is here. 10 Republicans voted Nay, as did pinko commie Bernie Sanders.

The continuing spending resolution includes NO extension of the suspended debt ceiling time limit demanded by president-elect Trump, who now gets to waste his precious time trying to primary all 170 Republicans in 2026 who just voted for this

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL,

something he had threatened on Wednesday.

170 House GOP just told Donald J. Trump Nay Nay by voting Yea, proving once again that he is just a paper tiger.

Meanwhile the debt ceiling and the income tax remain chief among the failed gimmicks of the Progressive Era, dating to 1917 and 1913. The one hasn't stopped the debt from exploding to $36 trillion, and the other hasn't paid that bill. 

The continued existence of these gimmicks serves to remind us, but only periodically, of the lies we tell ourselves, which is why we have to keep them.

Stock market cheerleaders say inflation data is encouraging, lower than expected, but it's up lol

 Dow bounces 800 points Friday on encouraging inflation data after rough week: Live updates

 Key Fed inflation measure shows 2.4% rate in November, lower than expected

These people are incorrigible liars.

Headline pce inflation ticked up from 2.30% year over year in October to 2.44% in November. 

Core pce inflation ticked up from 2.79% year over year in October to 2.81% in November.

"We expected worse! Buy stonks!"

And so they did.

 

 

 

S&P 500 Equal Weight Index down 7.25% in December to date, US Treasury yields up a net 2.13% in the aggregate since the end of November

Both stocks and fixed income down at the same time is a real bummer, you know, like in 2022.

UST yields in the aggregate tonight are at 4.45 vs 4.356 at the end of November.

UST yields have risen 375 basis points net in the aggregate in the three months since the Fed started cutting the Fed Funds Rate on September 18. That's +6.93%, which is hilarious.

 

Trump's first defeat lol: You might say the two billionaires were shown who's boss

 Second continuing spending resolution goes down in flames, after Elon Musk and Donald Trump said Nay to the first one, which never even came to a vote. Speaker Johnson and the Democrats had worked on that compromise deal for three months.

The roll call vote is here.

CNBC story here.

Extremely amusing.

 

The Republicans Who Said Nay

I'm gonna call my credit card company and extend my own line of credit to make me great again

 

US Treasury yields tonight 12/19/24

 UST yield averages tonight:

Bills 4.351

Notes 4.436

Bonds 4.780

Exhibit A that Trump's a Democrat now

 

Go ahead you fools, get rid of the debt ceiling . . . Make my day

 

Trump's a Democrat now lol

 

Making chumps of us all.

President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday that Congress should get rid of the debt ceiling, a day after he came out against a deal reached by congressional lawmakers to fund the government before a shutdown occurs.

In a phone interview with NBC News, Trump said getting rid of the debt ceiling entirely would be the “smartest thing it [Congress] could do. I would support that entirely.”

“The Democrats have said they want to get rid of it. If they want to get rid of it, I would lead the charge,” Trump added. 

Trump suggested that the debt ceiling is a meaningless concept — and that no one knows for sure what would happen if it were to someday be breached — “a catastrophe, or meaningless” — and no one should want to find out. 

“It doesn’t mean anything, except psychologically,” he said. ...

In his call Wednesday for Republicans to ditch the negotiated bipartisan short-term spending bill, Trump also demanded that lawmakers increase the debt ceiling — something that hadn’t been on the table at all.

More. 

I can't wait for Moody's to downgrade the USA from Aaa to Aa, to make it a Trinity of lost AAA.

And why not? It's only pSyChOlOgIcAl.