Fake News broke on August 7, 2025!
It also brought us the start of the NCAA's March Madness madness, including anger over who got selected, and misery as brackets were busted by upsets. We also learned this week of a scandal in the circle of baseball's highest-paid player, and of a second cancer diagnosis in the highest echelon of the British royal family.
We'll learn more about all of that in the coming days, I'm sure. In the meantime, let's get to the lists.
But wait - there's more! News is breaking that NBC has hired Ronna 'I'm So MAGA I Changed My Name' McDaniel, the former head of the Trump National Committee, as a political commentator.
McDaniel is expected to contribute to both NBC and MSNBC. Her first appearance will be on Sunday on “Meet the Press,” where she will give her first interview since stepping down from the RNC.
I hope you all laughed as hard as I did at "McDaniel is expected to contribute..." Honestly, I couldn't imagine how they could make Meet the Press worse, but a Kristin Welker/Ronna McDaniel interview is certainly a great way to start. Here's what network bigwig Carrie Budoff Brown had to say about the hire.
It couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team.
And here's Ronna's voice, so you know what you have to look forward to.
Parnas also accused the GOP of doing Russia's bidding, and he named names, including Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Putin); you may remember he once famously spent our nation's birthday in Moscow. And after, of course, other witnesses have gone through some stuff.
But wait - there's more! Rep. Marjorie Taylor Flamethrower Greene (R-You Kidding Me?) has filed a motion to oust Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson (R-ighteous Indignation). She did that as the House passed the remaining bills to avoid a government shutdown by a vote of 286 - 134; 101 Republicans voted for the package, while 112 of them voted against it. It's "more of a warning" to Johnson, she said.
I do not wish to inflict pain on our conference and throw the House in chaos, but this is basically a warning and it’s time for us to go through the process, take our time and find a new speaker of the house that will stand with Republicans and our Republican majority instead of standing with the Democrats.
Green doesn't recognize 47% of her own caucus, and apparently Johnson isn't supposed to recognize them either.
Voters in my neck of the woods had a good week. Now, I know that can be said pretty much any time people can vote, but I'm talking about an unusual situation here. Village officials made a decision that would make it much harder for a local business owner to sell his business and retire. Villagers were highly disappointed in the actions of the officials, enough so that another businessman started a write-in campaign against the mayor - and he won.
This is a big deal for the little village where it happened, but it's a big-picture story, too. It shows the power of engagement, the power of fighting for something you believe in, and yes, the power of voting. Hopefully, this will resonate with people who think no one listens, or who think that one or ten or 302 votes don't matter - because they do.
TGIF, everyone.
What a busy few days we've had! Here are my good week and bad week lists.
Jon Stewart returned to the host's chair on Comedy Central's The Daily Show, and I thought he did fine. Of course, I'm not afraid of pointing out shortcomings on the Dem side of the aisle, just as I'm not afraid of pointing them out on the aisle's other side.
House Speaker Mike Johnson may think he had a good week, but I beg to differ. First, there was the declaration that the Senate's tripartisan border bill would be DOA in the House; then, the House impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in a purely partisan effort (even though he pretended that wasn't the case). And then? Tom Suozzi, a Democrat, won the special election for the NY-3 seat previously held by serial liar George Santos.
About that loss, many House Republicans are venting their frustrations about the decision to expel Santos back in December. Ethically challenged Matt Gaetz is one of course; and so is Texas Rep. Troy Nehls, who declared "...the only way you can win elections, is that you have to get into the slop with the pigs," or at least don't kick them out of the House.
Speaking of pigs, Colorado's Rep. Ken Buck referenced the same hoofed mammal as Nehls did when he explained his 'no' vote on the Mayorkas impeachment.
You can try to put lipstick on this pig, but it's still a pig. And this is a terrible impeachment. It sets a terrible precedent. The first impeachment of Donald Trump was a bad impeachment. And we've got to stop this in this body, or we are going to - further lose our credibility with the American public.
Sir Paul McCartney's week ended on a high note: his missing bass has been found. It was stolen in 1972 from a roadie's van. According to the folks responsible for tracking it down, it'll need some work before it can be played again. You can read more about the instrument, the search, and how it was found at The Lost Bass Project.
And finally, Donald Trump was handed another nine-figure penalty by a judge, and NY AG Letitia James attempted to be funny with a Valentine's Day poem that was neither particularly funny, nor particularly poetic. And yes, I know most folks will say James had a good week, but we'll see what happens on appeal.
Who made your lists this week?
We want to know the visitor logs to the residence. We want to know who had access to the Biden Center for Diplomacy...this is the same type of investigation that the Democrats...launched and demanded happened to President Trump... And we just want equal treatment here with respect to how both former President Trump and current President Biden are being treated with the document issue.
Comer and others, from both sides of the aisle, are concerned by the lack of transparency -and hypocrisy from the administration. Before the election, Biden talked about Trump mishandling documents, apparently knowing he had done the same thing.
So, the hypocrisy here is great. We're very concerned about a lack of transparency. We're very concerned, as I have said many times, about a two-tiered system of justice in America. And we just want equal treatment.
Comer apparently considers any statements from the administration are nothing but a bunch of malarkey.
... It seems political here. It seems hypocritical. It seems like a double standard. And that's our concern... We have asked questions about what went on with Mar-a-Lago. Why was Mar-a-Lago raided, but the president's home not? Why are the president's lawyers still allowed to go rummage through, looking for documents, after a special counsel has been appointed? It doesn't make sense. It's not fair. We just want equal treatment.
Tapper reminded Comer of some key differences between Trump's document-gate and what we know, so far, about Biden's document-gate: the difference in volume, the subpoena, the lawyers saying everything had been turned in when it hadn't been. And then he rolled tape of Comer from last November, talking about the Trump situation.
I don't know much about that. That's not something that -- we have requested information just to see what was going on, because I don't know what documents were at Mar-a-Lago. So, that's something we're just waiting to see what comes out on that. QUESTION: But is it fair to say that investigation won't be a priority? COMER: That will not be a priority.
His response to the question, "Do you only care about classified documents being mishandled when Democrats do the mishandling?"
Absolutely not. Look, we still don't know what type of documents President Trump had. That's one of the questions we have asked the National Archives. Just because Joe Biden's lawyer said they turned over five documents doesn't mean they just turned over five documents. They could have turned over 500 documents. I'm sorry, but I don't have a lot of confidence in President Biden's personal lawyers...
He also apparently hasn't seen a single news report, or any of the excuses widely publicized by the right, or even had a conversation with a colleague since the Mar-a-Lago raid. And that's good, because he doesn't give a rat about mishandled documents.
My concern is how there's such a discrepancy in how former President Trump was treated... vs. Joe Biden... That's not equal treatment. And we're very concerned. And there's a lack of trust here at the Department of Justice by House Republicans. That's the outrage.
There's all kinds of outrage, here, to be sure.
