Idiocracy

The Daily Beast reports: Blackwater founder Erik Prince arranged for political activist James O’Keefe’s conservative group Project Veritas to receive more than one round of “training in intelligence and elicitation techniques,” The Intercept reports. In 2016, the self-styled “guerrilla journalist” group reportedly got lessons from a retired military intelligence operative. The training lasted several weeks and ended with the operative, …

Yahoo News reports: Conservative YouTubers Diamond & Silk, who are also “Fox Nation personalities,” were brought on Fox & Friends to talk about why Cohen stepped out of line by bringing a range of poultry-themed visual gags to the hearing to ridicule the attorney general’s cowardice. “He’s racially insensitive, that’s what I think,” said Lynette Hardaway, with no further explanation. …

The New York Times reports: President Trump said he would not nominate Stephen Moore for a seat on the Federal Reserve board after several Republican lawmakers raised concerns about the conservative economist’s previous comments denigrating women. Mr. Moore, who continued to insist as recently as Thursday that he retained Mr. Trump’s support, appeared unlikely to win Senate confirmation after Republican …

Mediaite reports: Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) brought props to the House Judiciary Committee hearing that Attorney General William Barr cancelled on: a ceramic chicken and a jumbo bucket of KFC. The spin House Democrats want to convey is clear: that Barr is too scared to appear for questioning on his handling of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and report. Rep. …

Reuters reports: Florida’s legislature on Wednesday passed a bill allowing teachers to carry guns in the classroom, expanding a program launched after the deadly high school shooting in Parkland with the aim of preventing another such massacre. Florida’s House of Representatives voted 65 to 47 to pass the bill after hours of debate over two days in which the Republican …

The Daily Beast reports: Donald Trump went on a wild retweet frenzy Wednesday morning, sharing 60 apparently supportive messages from firefighters after a prominent union announced its endorsement of former Vice President Joe Biden. The retweet rampage was unusual in itself, but the twist came when one of his supposed supporters changed their username to “Fuck Donald Trump.” The username …

The New York Daily News reports: Kimberly Guilfoyle — a former Fox News host and girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr. — has joined President Trump’s reelection campaign as a senior adviser, the campaign said on Monday. Guilfoyle, who had been serving as the vice chairwoman of a pro-Trump super PAC, was selected for the position as a crowded field of …

Josh Israel reports at Think Progress: The International Association of Fire Fighters, a labor union representing more than 300,000 firefighters and emergency medical service providers, endorsed Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign on Monday. Fox and Friends host Brian Kilmeade apparently found this very concerning. In a Monday morning interview with the union’s general president, Harold Schaitberger, Kilmeade repeatedly demanded …

The Washington Post reports: It took President Trump 601 days to top 5,000 false and misleading claims in The Fact Checker’s database, an average of eight claims a day. But on April 26, just 226 days later, the president crossed the 10,000 mark — an average of nearly 23 claims a day in this seven-month period, which included the many …

The Hill reports: President Trump tweeted late Saturday that Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano met with him and urged the president to nominate Napolitano to the Supreme Court, as well as grant a pardon to one of the judge’s friends. Napolitano, a former superior court judge in New Jersey, currently works as a legal analyst for Fox News. The White …

“Last month alone, 100,000 illegal immigrants arrived at our borders, placing a massive strain on communities and schools and hospitals and public resources like nobody’s ever seen before. Now we’re sending many of them to sanctuary cities, thank you very much. They’re not too happy about it. I’m proud to tell you that was actually my sick idea. Hey, hey, …

The Louisville Courier reports: Republican Gov. Matt Bevin reopened political wounds with Kentucky teachers on Thursday when he blamed their sickouts for the shooting of a 7-year-old. “One thing you almost didn’t hear anything about while we had people pretending to be sick when they weren’t sick and leaving kids unattended to or in situations that they should not have …

ABC News reports: President Trump speaking to the National Rifle Association, a group that made a multimillion investment in his campaign, declared his administration will not ratify the UN Arms Trade Treaty – an Obama-era measure aimed at regulating the arms industry and that was intended to help keep such weapons away from human rights violators. The treaty was not …

The Independent reports: Donald Trump has responded to Joe Biden’s announcement he will run for the Democratic presidential nomination by mocking the veteran politician’s intelligence and claiming he will compete against “very sick” rivals with “demented ideas”. “Welcome to the race Sleepy Joe. I only hope you have the intelligence, long in doubt, to wage a successful primary campaign,” Mr …

The Hill reports: George Conway, an attorney and husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, unveiled a new nickname for President Trump early Thursday, going after “Deranged Donald” on Twitter. Conway was responding to a Wednesday report from The Washington Post about Trump’s suggestion that the United Kingdom had helped the Obama administration spy on his 2016 presidential campaign. Trump’s …

The Washington Post reports: A significant portion of the meeting focused on Trump’s concerns that Twitter quietly, and deliberately, has limited or removed some of his followers, according to a person with direct knowledge of the conversation who requested anonymity because it was private. Trump said he had heard from fellow conservatives who had lost followers for unclear reasons as …

Politico reports: The White House on Tuesday ordered administration officials to boycott the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, an annual fundraising gala attended by the White House press corps and scheduled for this Saturday. The message was conveyed to agency chiefs of staff on Tuesday morning by White House Cabinet Secretary Bill McGinley, who indicated that the order was coming from …

The Jerusalem Post reports: If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has his way, alongside Katzrin, Ramot and Ramat Magshimim on the Golan Heights, there may someday soon be a community named Kiryat Trump. Netanyahu, who on Tuesday toured the Golan with his wife and sons, said a community or neighborhood on the Golan Heights should be named after US President Donald …

The Washington Examiner reports: President Trump spent early Tuesday morning tweeting his grievances against the media. He targeted The New York Times, referring to the outlet as the enemy of the people and saying the publication will “have to get down on their knees [and] beg for forgiveness” from him, inaccurately claiming the paper apologized to him in 2016 for …

Politico reports: President Donald Trump on Monday insisted that “nobody disobeys my orders,” apparently disputing that his former White House counsel twice refused to follow through on the president’s order to dismiss special counsel Robert Mueller. Trump issued the declaration about his staff’s willingness to follow through on his commands during a brief exchange with reporters at the White House …