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Finding that it more likely than not that the Murdochs knew full well their stories about Dominion Voting Systems were false but let them be aired anyway in the aftermath of the 2020 election, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis on Tuesday tossed Fox News’s motion to dismiss the defamation lawsuit the election equipment company brought against the right wing propaganda network, Bloomberg reports. “These allegations support a reasonable inference that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch either knew Dominion had not manipulated the election or at least recklessly disregarded the truth when they allegedly caused Fox News to propagate its claims about Dominion,” wrote Davis in the ruling and damn, that is ice fucking cold to the fanboys.

Davis also noted that Rupert Murdoch – also a defendant in the suit personally, along with his son Lachlan – had directly communicated to Trump that he had in fact lost, and that “newspapers under Rupert Murdoch’s control – including the Wall Street Journal and New York Post – condemned Trump’s claims and urged him to concede defeat.” In ruling that the standard for actual malice had been met (which is pretty freaking high in the United States, relative to other common law jurisdictions), Davis wrote the Murdochs “caused Fox News to broadcast false claims about Dominion even though they did not personally believe Trump’s election fraud narrative.”

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson’s Deputy Chief of Staff Alexa Henning on Tuesday responded to text messages revealing her insufferable asshole boss wanted to hand-deliver the fake electoral votes for his state to Vice President Mike Pence on January 6th by asserting RonAnon had “no involvement in the creation of an alternate slate of electors and had no foreknowledge that it was going to be delivered to our office. This was a staff to staff exchange. His new Chief of Staff contacted the Vice President’s office. The Vice President’s office said not to give it to him and we did not. There was no further action taken. End of story.” That last sentence might’ve been a little bit more of wishful thinking than an actual declaration. It’s the “end of story” when investigators don’t pursue any further line of inquiry into Ron’s attempted act of treason.

I spent Juneteenth all day in the hot sun hoeing and pulling weeds and thinking about what it would have been like to have been a slave. At the end of the day, I thought about what it would be like to be an aborted baby. I got to see the sunrise and the sunset.

— Steve King (@SteveKingIA) June 21, 2022

This is almost as good as Steve saying “What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled those people out that were products of rape and incest? Would there be any population of the world left if we did that? Considering all the wars and all the rapes and pillages taken place and whatever happened to culture after society? I know I can’t certify that I’m not a part of a product of that,” to a crowd in 2019 when asked why he refused to include exceptions for rape and incest in an abortion bill he co-sponsored that didn’t go anywhere because Dems already had the majority. King lost his primary to a marginally less insane Republican the next year.

On Tuesday the House January 6th Select Committee convenes for the fourth of seven planned hearings. Tuesday’s live hearing will center on fat former President Trump’s attempt to pressure state officials and efforts to get legislatures to name alternate electors, featuring testimony from Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, his deputy Gabe Sterling, Georgia election worker Wandrea “Shaye” Moss who, along with her mom Ruby Freeman, endured a campaign of harassment and violent threats from MAGA maniacs after they’d been falsely implicated in an election stealing scheme by video of them counting votes presented out of context to right wing media, and Republican Arizona State House Speaker Rusty Bowers on pressure from Trump and his allies pressuring him to overturn the result of the 2020 election in the state.

Calling the operation to stop a mass shooter at Robb Elementary School “an abject failure,” the top law enforcement officer in the state of Texas acknowledged Tuesday that officers never tried to see if the door to the classroom where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers was locked.

It wasn’t, according to the Associated Press.  The door to the classroom was unlocked for the entire 80-minute ordeal in which the gunman murdered more than a score of people on May 24th

“I have great reasons to believe it was never secured,” Col. Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, testifying during a state Senate hearing, said of the door. ”How about trying the door and seeing if it’s locked?”

The Supreme Court released five decisions Tuesday afternoon, with none of them having to do with Roe v. Wade or Donald Trump.  Roe stands for at least one more day.

• Carson v. Makin:  Court ruled that parents can use school vouchers in Maine to enroll students in religious-based private schools.  It was a 6-3 decision with Bryer, Sotomayer and Kagan in dissent.
• Marietta Memorial Hospital Employee Health Benefit Plan v. DaVita:  In 7-2 ruling with Kagan and Sotomayor dissenting, Court ruled that the self-funded employee benefit plan was not discriminating against patients with end-stage renal disease by paying less for dialysis treatment than they pay for other end-of-life treatments because they pay a consistent percentage for all dialysis patients.
  Read More ▶ “Supreme Court releases five decisions Tuesday, nothing on Roe“

Buzz Lightyear went woke. The movie went broke.

— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) June 21, 2022

“Today, British filmmaker Alex Holder of AJH Films complied with a congressional subpoena to turn over footage captured during his work on a documentary series surrounding the final six weeks of President Trump’s re-election campaign as well as never-before-seen footage of the January 6th attack at the U.S. Capitol. The series includes: unparalleled access and exclusive interviews with President Trump, Ivanka, Eric, and Don Jr, Jared Kushner as well as Vice President Pence; in the White House, Mar-A-Lago, behind-the-scenes on the campaign trail, and before and after the events of Jan 6th. ‘When we began this project in September 2020, we could have never predicted that our work would one day be subpoenaed by Congress,’ said the series director Alex Holder.”

“‘As a British filmmaker, I had no agenda coming into this. We simply wanted to better understand who the Trumps were and what motivated them to hold onto power so desperately. We have dutifully handed over all the materials the Committee has asked for and we are fully cooperating.’ The series, which has been titled Unprecedented, was purchased last year by a major streaming service and is scheduled to be released in 3-parts this summer. Due to the sale of the footage, Holder did not previously have the legal authority to release the material or publicly discuss the project. Holder maintained full editorial control over the series and was not compensated in any way by the former President, his family, or staff. The Committee will conduct a deposition of Holder this Thursday” says documentary filmmaker Alex Holder in a statement.

Like he’s done to so many other minions and sycophants who destroyed their careers, reputations, and lives doing his bidding, fat former President Trump is happy to let fascist MAGA lawyer John Eastman take the blame in whatever prosecution that could come from their coup attempt following Donald’s defeat in the 2020 election, Rolling Stone reports citing sources close to the Orange Allah who described him as repeatedly asking “Is [John Eastman] going to jail?”.

Trump minions have been advising Donald to keep quiet about Eastman, advice he’s been apparently following as, for all the shit he’s said complaining about the ongoing hearings, Eastman’s name has been absent from his public tirades in speeches, interviews, and on Truth Social. “It has been repeatedly communicated to the [former] president that he should not even bring up Johnny Eastman’s name because he is maybe the most radioactive person when it comes to… any so-called criminal exposure,” a source told Rolling Stone. “Johnny does not have many friends in Trumpworld left, and most people loyal to the [former] president are fine with him being left out on his own, to deal with whatever consequences he may or may not face.”

Then there’s also that Trump doesn’t actually like Eastman, per Rolling Stone, and is annoyed by the paper trail he left of the coup attempt. Eastman’s recently revealed post-Capitol riot request for a presidential pardon was obviously ignored, probably because – like so many of his fellow insurrectionists also left high and dry – he failed in his efforts to keep Trump in power.

In one of the early decisions released Tuesday, the Supreme Court refused to dismiss thousands of lawsuits against Bayer, the German pharmaceutical and chemical company who makes the herbicide Roundup, which has been linked to cancer cases in users, ABC News reports.

The Court left a $25 million judgment for Californian Edwin Hardeman, who used Roundup to kill poison oak, overgrown plants and other weeds on his property and who then developed cancer.  Hardeman’s lawsuit was viewed as a test case against the conglomerate.

The ruling comes on the heels of a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling Friday that threw out a 2020 finding by the Trump Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, was not linked to cancer cases.

Mt Washington, New Hampshire webcam image from Saturday, June 19th, 2022

While typical for June it’s hot and humid as fuck in most of the United States, the upper altitudes of the Presidential Range mountains of New Hampshire were hit with a brutal snowstorm last weekend, claiming the life of Massachusetts hiker Xi Chen late on Saturday, the Concord Monitor reports. Chen had been attempting a solo traversal of the range but texted his wife to say he was screwed while beset by winds on Mt Clay. Mrs Chen then called local authorities who were able to reach Chen and take him to a hospital, but he later succumbed to his injuries.

“It wasn’t like June, it was a winter event. Unless you had winter gear, you were not prepared for the conditions,” said New Hampshire Fish and Game Lt. Bob Mancini. “You were stumbling and staggering, just trying to stay upright in the wind.” Mancini said his agency had to rescue six other stranded hikers Saturday, and was not pleased with their dumbassery. “It was totally avoidable. They forecast 80 mph winds on Mt. Washington a couple days in advance, talked about snow and sleet. It wasn’t a surprise. Do your preparation and planning, and look at the forecast.”

US Attorney General Merrick Garland is in Kyiv for a meeting with Iryna Venediktova to discuss joint efforts to identify and cuff suspected war criminals, USA Today reports. The visit follows a virtual meeting last month in which Garland affirmed American support for bringing Ivan to justice for his brutal treatment of the Ukrainian people. “America, and the world, are watching very closely what is happening in Ukraine,” Garland said during the call “Every day, we see the heartbreaking images and read the horrific accounts of brutality… But there is no hiding place for war criminals.”

Last month Russian Army Sergeant Vadin Shyshimarin pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison in a Ukrainian court over the February 28th murder of an unarmed civilian in the eastern village of Chupakhivka. Shyshimarin’s conviction marked the first of hopefully thousands of prosecutions of Russian war criminals in the bloody, nearly four month old invasion of Ukraine.

Putin Regime spokesworm Dmitry “Pesky” Peskov told press on Monday the two American veteran volunteers for the Ukrainian army, former solider Alexander J. Drueke and former Marine Andy Tai Huynh, are not subject to the Geneva Conventions, a long-standing set of international agreements governing the treatment of prisoners of war dating back to 1949, CNN reports. The two Alabama men are being held in the Russian-backed fake government of the Donetsk People’s Republic. Pesky said both, like British nationals Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, face the death penalty.

Like do they even need to mention it and make excuses for Trump? Why even acknowledge their Orange Allah struggled to walk down a ramp with a very slight incline? They should all be banished from the MAGA Reich for inviting questions about why Donald has never been seen riding a bike or really any other similar mild-to-moderately strenuous physical activity for that matter.

“Dear Mr. Holder: Pursuant to the authorities set forth in House Resolution 503 and the rules of the House of Representatives, the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (‘Select Committee’) hereby transmits a subpoena that compels you to produce the documents set forth in the accompanying schedule by June 16, 2022. The Select Committee is investigating the facts, circumstances, and causes of the January 6th attack and issues relating to the peaceful transfer of power, in order to identify and evaluate lessons learned and to recommend to the House and its relevant committees corrective laws, policies, procedures, rules, or regulations. The inquiry includes examination of how various individuals and entities coordinated their activities leading up to the events of January 6, 2021.”

“We understand you have raw footage depicting the January 6th attack and of President Trump and others discussing the November 2020 presidential election results. Accordingly, the Select Committee seeks through the attached subpoena raw footage and a deposition regarding these and other matters that are within the scope of the Select Committee’s inquiry. A copy Of the rules governing Select Committee depositions, and document production definitions and instructions are attached. Please contact staff for the Select Committee to arrange for the production of documents and to discuss the location of the deposition. As indicated on the subpoena, the deposition will be held in person on the U.S. Capitol grounds or via videoconference” says the subpoena from the House January 6th Select Committee to filmmaker Alex Holder.

The State Department on Monday confirmed a second American veteran volunteer had been killed in action on the ground last month in Ukraine. Stephen Zabielski, 52, died on May 15 “while fighting the war”, according to an obituary published in the Recorder, a newspaper in Montgomery County, New York. Zabielski is the second American killed in action since the invasion began in February, after 22-year-old Marine veteran Willy Cancel. “We once again reiterate U.S. citizens should not travel to Ukraine due to the active armed conflict and the singling out of U.S. citizens in Ukraine by Russian government security officials,” said a State Department spokesperson.

A full two months after the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on Congress, a group led by Supreme Spouse Ginni Thomas held an event in Orlando featuring a speaker who declared Donald Trump was still the “legitimate president,” a statement greeted with a roar of applause from the audience, the Washington Post reports.

The meeting of the Frontliners for Liberty heard pastor and conservative radio host C.L. Bryant declare, “There is a robbery that is going on in this country right now.   In fact, I say it to you and I’ll say it loud and clear, and I’m not ashamed to say it. I won’t bite my tongue. I do believe that Donald John Trump is the only legitimate president.”

Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was disclosed to be a leader of the group in a court filing that included letters in which she invited Trump election lawyer John Eastman to address the group in December 2020.

New reporting on the conduct of police at the start of the Uvalde school shooting, in which 19 students and two teachers were killed, throws into further doubt the accounts of officials, who claimed the officers moved quickly to neutralize the threat.

As KVUE ABC-33 in Austin reports, photos from interior security cameras show some of the first officers on the scene had rifles, not just handguns, as well as ballistic shields, 19 minutes after the gunman entered the school.  This conflicts with the accounts given by officials after the shooting, that police were largely outgunned.

The Texas Tribune reports that those first officers on the scene did have more equipment than previously reported, but they lacked clear orders.  Though they were in position to approach the classroom door, none did.  None of the officers tried to see if the classroom door was locked.  While the doors in that school are designed to lock when the door closes, many of the mechanisms in the school fail to either completely close the door or to lock.

The 2021 Nobel Peace Prize Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov won for his efforts to keep freedom of expression active in Russia, under the thumb of President Vladimir Putin, was sold at auction Monday for $103.5 million, all of which Muratov vowed to help Ukrainian child refugees, the Associated Press reports.

The auction house would not identify the winning bidder, other than to say it was placed by proxy.  The amount bid equals $100 million Swiss francs, which may lead to a clue.

Muratov’s Novaya Gazeta newspaper has been at the forefront of opposing Putin’s duplicity, including exposing Russian slaughters in Chechnya and other territories, as well as political corruption.  A vocal opponent of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Muratov had to suspend operations of the newspaper after Putin issued a dictate barring media outlets from saying negative things about the military.

Four witnesses will appear live at the Tuesday hearing of the House Select Committee on the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on Congress, and none of them are really household names.  (Be sure to watch the hearing here on National Zero!). It’s important to know who’s on the schedule, so here’s short primer:

Rusty Bowers, the speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, is a unique Republican:  in early December 2020, Bowers issued a press release detailing the pressure he and other Arizona Republicans were getting from Trump, Trump campaign officials and GOP officials to overturn the results of the election. Bowers stood fast to the Constitution, stating “the law does not authorize the Legislature to reverse the results of an election.”

Brad Raffensperger, the Republican Secretary of State for Georgia, who was on the receiving end of a call–which he wisely recorded–in which Trump pleaded, “I just want to find 11,780 votes.”

Gabriel Sterling, the Republican chief operating officer for the Georgia Secretary of State, who also received pressure from Trump campaign officials and outside groups to change the official, accurate count of the vote.