Vic Berger makes CPAC 2019 even weirder, with edits that reveal the hidden darkness we missed while watching it unfold live last weekend. Read the rest

64 percent of American voters think President Trump committed crimes before becoming President, according to a Quinnipac poll.

"When two-thirds of voters think you have committed a crime in your past life, and almost half of voters say it's a toss-up over whether you committed a crime while in the Oval Office, confidence in your overall integrity is very shaky," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. "Add to that, Michael Cohen, a known liar headed to the big house, has more credibility than the leader of the free world."

Yet at least 40% of American voters would vote for him again over any Democratic opponent.

We talk a lot about Trump, but media types can't really bring themselves to accept how committed most conservatives are to destroying the country as it is. We can conceive of the idea of Trump's presidency as a device to this end, but our thoughts are forced away, like magnets being repelled, as soon as we start taking it seriously. The implications are just too horrible to deal with. Read the rest

Joe Biden's 2020 message pic.twitter.com/TNNox2kvGz

— Thomas! (@Thomasurlatoile) March 4, 2019

The last time you saw former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, he was perhaps delivering the Democrats' response to President Trump's 2017 state of the union address. But the chances are you forgot it, as he wasted it trying to appeal to Trump voters, because the only way mainstream Democrats can imagine electoral victory is by winning over white men suffering from "economic anxiety" and other euphemisms.

Anyway, here he was boiling all that down to its depressing yet hypnotizing essential, as posted on Twitter by Thomasurlatoile to remind us of what a Biden presential run is going to entail.

P.S. One of the interesting things about Beshear's career is that when you search the text of articles about it, the word "position" only ever refers to the various jobs he has held. Read the rest

Science writer Leigh Phillips's 2016 book Austerity Ecology and the Collapse-Porn Addicts was one of the most important, angry and inspiring books I read that year, a passionate argument for a high-tech just and sustainable world that celebrated materialism and comfort, rather than calling for a return to a world of three billion people scratching potatoes in the dirt; so when Phillips sent me a manuscript for his new book, The People's Republic of Walmart: How the World's Biggest Corporations are Laying the Foundation for Socialism last year, I dropped everything and read it, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since. Read the rest

Special counsel Robert Mueller today notified a federal judge that yet another Instagram post by Donald Trump's longtime friend Roger Stone may have violated Stone's gag order. If Judge Amy Berman Jackson agrees, Stone is going to jail. Read the rest

An energy firm linked to uranium mining interests around Bears Ears National Monument in Utah met with a senior Department of Interior official just one month President Donald Trump issued a surprise request to review the monument's boundaries. When the review concluded, Trump shrank the monument by 85%. Some 100 uranium claims that were previously *inside* the monument's protected boundary were suddenly on the outside. Read the rest

“It appears as though their effort to partially pay people screwed things up and they are still getting their act together.” — Anonymous TSA official who spoke to CNN

The GOP-led U.S. Senate today confirmed ex-coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler to run Environmental Protection Agency, in a 52-47 vote mostly along party lines. Read the rest

Witness tampering conviction? Lose your bar license? Why not both!

Politicians love introducing tax-cuts, because they're reliable vote-getters, even if they're structured to blow up later by giving massive breaks to the super-rich and more modest breaks to middle-class voters, resulting in mounting deficits and eventual service cuts. Read the rest

Former Trump campaign staffer Alva Johnson alleges in a lawsuit that Donald Trump her forcibly kissed her without her consent before a Florida presidential campaign rally in 2016, the Washington Post reports. Read the rest

Ahead of a summit between Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, authorities in Vietnam have kicked out Kim impersonator Howard X. Howard is on his way back to Hong Kong, reports the Beeb.

Howard X says officials have since told him his visa is "invalid", but says he has received no further explanation.

"Satire is a powerful weapon against any dictatorship. They are scared of a couple of guys that look like the real thing," Howard X, who was wearing a black suit and thick black glasses in the style of Kim Jong-un, told reporters.

Read the rest

Special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Trump will not be delivered next week as CNN and other news organizations previously reported, said a senior Justice Department official on Friday. Read the rest

Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) on Friday ordered two New York state agencies to investigate reports that Facebook could have access to a lot more of your personal data, if you're a smartphone user, than anyone realized before. Read the rest

What's worse than the salad and the comb thing? Klobuchar’s office reportedly required staff to stay on after taking family leave for a newborn.

In an epic blog post, writer and law expert @emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler) dissects Thursday's hearing in court for Trump ratfucker and reckless Instagrammer Roger Stone. Read the rest

“No, Mr. Stone, I’m not giving you another chance,” Judge Amy Berman Jackson said. "I have serious doubt whether you learned any lesson at all."