Almost through the week, Wonk peeps. We made it to Friday, so let’s TABS on through it!
The Intercept was first to report that Secret Service Agents deleted relevant text messages after the January 6 Select Committee asked for them. CNN got the letter to the House and Senate Homeland Security Committees in which the DHS Inspector General said the messages from January 5 and 6, 2021 were “erased as part of a device-replacement program.” Sorry, guys, they really wanted to turn over those message saying, “OMFG POTUS just tried to strangle me in the limo,” but they just can’t find ’em.
Marvel Studios Reaction GIF by Disney+Giphy
Ivana Trump, former wife of the former president and mother to Ivanka and Don Jr (plus that little Dunning Kruger weirdo), was found dead at the bottom of the stairs in her Manhattan Apartment yesterday. In entirely unrelated news, her ex-husband and her two eldest children will presumably be excused from testifying today in the New York Attorney General’s longstanding probe of their family business.
And before you start finger-wagging about not snarking on people in their time of bereavement …
(Yes, we know what you are thinking right now. Please do not say it and make Dok banhammer you, we are very busy today.)
Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman trolled his Republican opponent Mehmet Oz with a Cameo by Snooki from The Jersey Shore assuring Oz that he’d be back home in the Garden State in no time. In an ideal world, we would run campaigns based on substance and policy. But this world is far from ideal, and if social media dunks are what it takes to win, bring it.
And speaking of the Senate, there were a couple of weird polls out yesterday. Trafalgar, a Republican-leaning pollster, has Trump anointee Ted Budd running just 2.5 percent ahead of Democrat Cheri Beasley in the North Carolina Senate race. And Trump’s pollster Tony Fabrizio has Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp beating Stacey Abrams 52-45, but puts Sen. Raphael Warnock over that weirdo Herschel Walker 50-47. HUH.
But don’t despair, because Stacey Abrams has a really big ATM card. [Axios]
Every day, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton finds new and interesting ways to be THE DEVIL. Now he’s suing the Biden administration over guidance from the Department of Health and Human Services saying that abortion is legal to save the life of the pregnant person. “The Biden Administration seeks to transform every emergency room in the country into a walk-in abortion clinic,” said THE DEVIL. [WaPo]
But in slightly funnier news from Trumplandia, Rolling Stone says there’s muttering at Mar a Lago that Mark Meadows is going to be “the” fall guy for this whole election coup thing. Betcha can’t eat just one!
Plus Rudy Giuliani is trying to hang onto his license to practice law in DC, where there’s a pending complaint to make a temporary suspension permanent thanks to his post-election antics in Pennsylvania federal courts. Rudy defends his claims of fraud by citing Dinesh D’Souza’s ri-DONK-u-lous2000 Mules movie. Aaaaand scene. [Above the Law]
Up for a podcast this weekend? Take a break from politics with a discussion of “The F-word” — that would be fat, of course — with WNYC’s On the Media. Would that the old bastard hadn’t taken the thumbs up sign from us, because it would totally come in handy here.
Elon Musk’s father Errol, 76, fathered a second child with his step-daughter Jana, 35. BRB, throwing up forever. [NYPost]
And a Colorado judge has issued revoked bail for Tina Peters, the wackadoo election clerk who became a sensation with the My Pillow puffers after sneaking an election truther into her office to copy the hard drives of Dominion voting machines, according to the indictment. The judge was apparently unpersuaded that she only accidentally traveled out of state without permission of the court due to an error by her lawyer. [CBS]
Will we use any excuse to re-post this video of Peters kicking a cop in a bagel shop? Hell. Yes.
Okay, friends. It’s Friday, get after it!
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