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New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday told local radio station 1010 WINS the ghosts in Gracie Mansion are “friendly” and haven’t acted menacingly or violently toward him since he’s moved in to the mayoral residence. “I keep telling people they’re ghosts in that house. But they are definitely from the state of Casper, they are friendly ghosts,” said Adams, who did not add if he’s gonna call any eccentric former Columbia University parapsychologists running an innovative Tribeca-based ghost removal startup in to investigate the matter further.

Adams isn’t alone in claiming spectral encounters in the mansion as in 2017 Bill DeBlasio’s wife said she’s seen some strange things and had heard the ghost of a young girl who once lived in the home before it was donated to the city still haunts it. Adams did not say if he saw the same ghost or if it was former Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia appearing at night to advise him on how to run the city.

There’s a point that I’ve wanted to make for a while about the fact that Donald Trump would not have officially, previously-declared the documents he has at Mar-a-Lago because it wasn’t in his best interest to do so, but I couldn’t quite figure out a way to explain it.  Luckily, former FBI Special Agent Asha Rangappa has a way with words.  And a Twitter account.

The fact that Trump never formally declassified anything, and also never raised it to DOJ, but is asserting it (unofficially) now, is actually an incredibly damning admission by Trump. That’s because it means that he wanted these secrets to still have value. As I noted in a previous tweet, had Trump formally declassified these secrets, he would have had to notify all the agencies responsible for the respective intel. They, in turn, would have taken steps to protect methods and sources. Why? Because it would no longer be secret.  If you *really* think something should be public, then you want to take steps to protect the sources of the intel before you release it. But Trump claims he did it secretly. That means he *intentionally* wanted to leave these sources and methods exposed.  Why would you want that? Only if you wanted the secrets to have value to someone. Similarly, if he had asserted declassification to DOJ, they ‘d ask, “Which ones?” He’d have to show what he had. Again, once the USG knows, the secrets get protected, i.e. no value as “secrets.”  Of course, he conveniently trots out the claim that he “declassified” them know — once he is found out. The gig is up, so now he thinks it’s a shield. But you only secretly “declassify” if you want secrets to remain valuable while giving yourself “cover” if you get discovered.

On the “If the election were today, would you want to see the Republican Party or the Democratic Party win control of the United States House of Representatives?” question of the August national Quinnipiac University polling survey, 47 percent said Democrats while 43 preferred MAGA. When asked the same question about the Senate, it was Dems 47 – Republicans 45, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to ask it as two separate questions but whatever.

It’s an improvement over the 45 to 44 statistical tie from July and a complete reversal from May, when Republicans led Democrats on the same question by 47 to 43. Quinnipiac’s generic ballot was right on the mark in 2018 (Dems 49%, GOP 42% in their final survey, final result was Dems 52.9%, GOP 44.3%) so if they show Dems still holding a clear lead in October you should still absolutely freaking vote and tell all your friends and family to do the same goddammit.

Insufferable piece of shit Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson, whose involvement in the fake Trump 2020 electoral college vote scam has recently come under scrutiny, has gone ahead and invited upon himself more of such scrutiny by hiring Pam Travis, one of the 10 fake Wisconsin electors to help run his reelection campaign, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports.

Travis’s name was spotted by Journal-Sentinel reporters in an FEC filing which said RonAnon’s campaign has paid her at least $10,200, plus $3,500 in mileage expenses since she joined the hopefully losing effort against Dem challenger Lt Governor Mandela Barnes in May. “It is really sad that Mandela Barnes supporters are going as low as to levy a baseless attack against a private citizen,” said a Johnson campaign spokesworm in response to a request for comment on why they would hire someone who likely committed a felony by falsely signing an official document.

Legitimately terrified he may actually really face consequences this time around, disgraced former President Trump has apparently decided not to do any more damage to Republicans ahead of the midterms and will hold off on announcing a 2024 comeback attempt until afterward, CNN reports.

“Everyone was operating under the assumption that shortly after Labor Day would be the best possible time to launch, but that has changed and he’s being told to deal with the FBI stuff first,” a Trump minion told CNN, who more or less buried this story on their front page.

Which pretty much underscores the whole situation. We haven’t reported on the whole “Trump 2024 launch timing” in weeks because it pretty much doesn’t matter anymore as the gravity of what happened at Mar-a-Lago this month has sunk in. The timing was important to us and we’d been rooting for it to happen before the midterms to damage Republicans by making it a campaign issue. Now the raid happened, the news since has only gone from bad to worse for MAGA world and it’s wall-to-wall coverage. We get all the damage a Trump announcement would have done but none of the furious circlejerk hype from his fanboys. It’s like a refreshing mini glass bottle of Diet Coke.

The latest Economist/YouGov survey’s generic congressional ballot question finds that the party of high gas prices leads the party of lower gas prices 46 percent to 38 percent. Also on the Politico-Morning Consult survey the high gas prices party leads the lower gas prices party 47 percent to 42 percent. Aside from the low gas price party fanboy pollsters like Rasmussen and Trafalgar, so far this week only the CBS News/YouGov survey showed respondents using their common sense and preferring lower gas prices over the higher gas prices party, 47% to 45%.

The lower gas price party should probably think about putting more effort to get the message out to voters that gas will be basically free the minute they win control of Congress. Focusing on other campaign pledges like causing fentanyl to magically disappear forever, drowning Anthony Fauci in the Potomac River, bringing Ray Epps to justice, and banning woke movies from Disney+ are just distractions, even if they are also 100% guaranteed to happen as soon as the lower gas prices party takes over. Every minute the lower gas prices party spends talking about their plan to reinstate lower gas price President Trump immediately the higher gas price party gains ground with voters who don’t really feel that strongly either way about gas prices and that’s a problem.

Dem Florida Gov candidate Charlie Crist on Wednesday tendered his resignation letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, leaving Democrats with now a two seat operating majority, which could change either one or three by next week, depending on the outcome of the Alaska special election.

After doing a surprising competent job of outlining an abbreviated list of Donald Trump’s malfeasance in hiding classified documents at his bachelor pad and wedding venue in Florida, Fox host Steve Doocy asks Republican South Dakota Governor and woman who schedules a daily blowout Kristi Noem why Trump had so much classified information at Mar-a-Lago when he was no longer president.

“Well, that’s why I think it’s important that this is transparent and that we do have someone who is outside the DOJ looking at this and talking to people,” Noem replies, carefully avoiding any resemblance of an answer to the question about why Trump possessed the documents.  “What, what is this information?  We don’t know what was in there.  We don’t know– real– I think President Trump declassified all this information. Let’s find out, really, what the process is, what is right, what is precedent that other, other presidents have followed and make sure this is done correctly.”

Two Russian soldiers drinking in a Ukrainian bar didn’t take well to officers of the Russian FSB intelligence service berating them for imbibing while in uniform, so they shot them with their military-issued weapons, killing three, Yahoo News reports.

Two contracted Russian military members–meaning they aren’t conscripts–Sgt. Sergei Obukhov and Junior Sgt. Igor Sudin of the 8th Artillery Regiment of the Russian Black Sea Fleet were drinking in their uniforms in a bar in Kherson when four members of the FSB’s Military Task Force No. 9 saw them and chided them for drinking idly.

Fed up with being browbeaten by the Russian Secret Police, Obukhov removed his firearm and fired a few rounds into the floor.  As one of the FSB officers, Sergei Privalov, tried to wrest the gun away, Sudin grabbed his AK-47 assault rifle–because just like in many Red states, you can carry a weapon into a bar in a war-torn Ukraine city ’cause nothing at all can go wrong combining alcohol and guns–and started spraying the room with bullets.  Privalov and his colleague, Igor Yakubinsky, returned fire.

“If Trump asserts that he has declassified everything, which he does, exactly how does the FBI and DOJ prove he did not? As President, he doesn’t need to inform the peon librarians of the national archives or every keystone cop FBI agent. Just like in the Flynn setup, the FBI is again inverting the chain of command. These coup makers must be put down”

– The current top comment on the Gateway Pundit article “Biden Justice Department’s Response to Trump’s Demand for Special Master Includes Staged Photo of ‘Classified’ Documents on Carpet at Mar-a-Lago,” posted early Wednesday. The “inverting the chain of command” is an especially nice touch and it would be interesting to find out which Tom Clancy video game this Gateway Pundit reader, who goes by “Militia.US.com” and has a Captain America shield as his avatar, got it from.

An eccentric wacko’s largely random cold calls to “voters” who he “serves” have been raising eyebrows across the state of Georgia, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. The weirdo, Jon Ossoff, who “represents” the Peach State while he’s in Washington, DC reportedly carves out a few hours a week to dial up farmers, mayors, and other constituents selected more or less randomly to ask if there’s anything he can do for them. Even more bizarrely, he doesn’t avoid speaking with those who did not donate to his campaign or even vote for him.

“One of the things I said in my victory speech was whether you were for me, or you were against me, I’ll be for you in the Senate,” said Ossoff, whose strange behavior is likely at least partially attributable to his being a member of the “millennial” generation, an aberrant cohort known to prefer “unique experiences” and avocado toast over “politics as usual” and traditional breakfast foods such as corn flakes and blueberry muffins. “I almost always ask people when I talk to them, who else should I call? Would you be willing to make an introduction?” Ossoff added, likely knowing full well those he is referred to did not vote for him either. What an odd duck.

That TIME Magazine cover was huge threat to national security. 🙄 https://t.co/yy0AOmxMEh

— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) August 31, 2022

Barry County, Michigan Sheriff Dar Leaf, already kind of famous for his douchebaggery when he suggested that the MAGA terrorist kidnappers who tried to kill Dem Gov Gretchen Whitmer were actually performing a citizen’s arrest, and a target of a sweeping state law enforcement investigation for his involvement in a plot to tamper with voting equipment, this summer tried to get a judge to sign off on a search warrant of voting machines, Reuters reports.

A French administrative court had declared that robots run by increasingly capable artificial intelligence systems will never become smarter than humans and will not overtake humanity as the dominant beings on Earth, Politico reports, and the robots are already celebrating the victory of the stealth campaign.

The Conseil d’État, the highest administrative court in France that acts as a legal advisor the country’s president as well as provides the highest level of justice in administrative cases, undertook a study in June 2021 to determine the risk of a “singularity” where robots become smarter than humans.

“There are two ways of thinking. One of which is mostly from across the Atlantic, where science fiction takes control, another which is much more realistic, dealing with possible usages which remain tied to reality,” State Counsel Thierry Tuot said.  “All the scientists that we talked to think that [singularity] is a fantasy, pure and simple, and it amounts to mere marketing.

Tuot continued:  “We can confirm the revelation that none of us are, in fact, robots.”  Which is exactly what the robots want you to think.

The Department of Justice dropped its 36-page response to Donald Trump’s demand for a special master to review the boxes of documents recovered from his Florida crash pad and supper club, and the prosecutors did not miss the opportunity to lay out their case.  After an admittedly cursory speed-read of the document, these portions stand out, where the DOJ lawyers essentially say, “He can’t make any claim on the documents because they’re not his.”

[Page 2] Plaintiff’s motion to appoint a special master, enjoin further review of seized materials, and require the return of seized items fails for multiple, independent reasons. As an initial matter, the former President lacks standing to seek judicial relief or oversight as to Presidential records because those records do not belong to him. The Presidential Records Act makes clear that “[t]he United States” has “complete ownership, possession, and control” of them. 44 U.S.C. § 2202. Furthermore, this Court lacks jurisdiction to adjudicate Plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment challenges to the validity of the search warrant and his arguments for returning or suppressing the materials seized. For those reasons and others, Plaintiff has shown no basis for the Court to grant injunctive relief. Plaintiff is not likely to succeed on the merits; he will suffer no injury absent an injunction—let alone an irreparable injury; and the harms to the government and the public would far outweigh any benefit to Plaintiff.

“I think that’s true.  I think with Lindsey Graham you see some fleeting signs of conscience flair up from time to time that are quickly extinguished,” Democratic California Congressman, and man who’s not afraid to tell it like it is, Adam Schiff states.  “Ah, others, and I would put Marjorie Taylor Greene in this category, are just kind of negative, vile-filled performance artists, ah, and happily at the moment those are small in number in Congress, but there are a lot more where she came from who are running, who won Republican primaries in very red districts who appear to be poised to join the Congress.”

New Jersey carpetbagger and former television pitchman Mehmet Oz, nominated to the US Senate by Republicans, is now backing away from a comment his campaign spokesperson made about Democratic Pennsylvania Senate nominee John Fetterman’s health, ABC News reports.

After his campaign communications advisor, Rachel Tripp, told the media if Fetterman “had ever eaten a vegetable in his life, then maybe he wouldn’t have had a major stroke and wouldn’t be in the position of having to lie about it constantly.”  Tripp isn’t a medical professional; Oz is nominally a doctor, having once treated patients, but now pitches dubious health treatments.

Speaking on a Pittsburgh radio station, Oz claimed that although he is the candidate and ostensibly leading the campaign, he cannot take responsibility for a statement put out by his campaign–he is a Republican after all, so he can’t take responsibility for anything.   “The campaign has been saying lots of things,” Oz said. “My position — and I can only speak to what I’m saying — is that John Fetterman should be allowed to recover fully and I will support his ability, as someone who’s gone through a difficult time, to get ready.”

Understanding @tedcruz isn’t difficult. He lacks principle and has always been a chameleon who will say anything, anytime. He thinks he’s so smart no one can see through him. Ted, we can. All of us can.

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) August 30, 2022

How will the Republican Senator from Quintana Roo react to this disclosure by his Congressional colleague, Wyoming Republican Representative Liz Cheney?  If he handles it like he did a winter storm in Texas, he’ll be vacationing in the south of France by Friday.

The personification of Beavis (or is it Butthead?), Fox host Brian Kilmeade attempts to mock White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, but he can’t stop tripping over his own lips:  “… reminds me of Joe’s notecards.  And also, just like her boss, K Gee Pay–K.J.P.–doesn’t have the best way with words.