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There’s this game called Skull and Bones that was released around six months ago. Players create a pirate character and then begin sailing around the late 17th century Indian Ocean, raiding merchant vessels and colonial convoys, collecting resources to build bigger, better ships with more powerful cannons. You can battle other players or team up to take down the most fearsome enemies.

Skull and Bones: Into the Dragon’s Wake is out now!

Dive into a fiery adventure where the Dragon’s Claw duels the Phoenix’s Talon, weapons deal electric damage, and a sea dragon rises from the depths.https://t.co/LxptDCvaK4 pic.twitter.com/et3CTLzI0U

— Skull and Bones (@skullnbonesgame) August 22, 2024

Truth be told the game’s pretty goddamned boring once you get to a certain point but of course the publisher is still milking players with new “content” where all they do is just offer new cosmetics on top of a pretty limited model of sail, shoot, collect, repair, and we’re probably already losing a lot of our readers here but this is actually the point: You don’t give a shit about the pirate ship game.

Because it isn’t real life. It’s a niche interest to some people but not anywhere close to most of them (not even most gamers). Similarly, if you’re a heavy Twitter user, you’re probably not going to talk about about goddamned Catturd or Kanekoa The Great or the rest of those freaks when you’re in a bar or at a party or whatever. The old chestnut “Twitter isn’t real life” has probably been around as long as Twitter (fuck “X,” we’re still not calling it that) itself. Largely because it’s true.

“The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index® rose in August to 103.3 (1985=100), from an upwardly revised 101.9 in July. The Present Situation Index—based on consumers’ assessment of current business and labor market conditions – improved to 134.4 from 133.1 in July.”

“The Expectations Index – based on consumers’ short-term outlook for income, business, and labor market conditions – also improved in August to 82.5. As the Expectations Index for July was revised up to 81.1, August marked the second consecutive month of the Index above 80. (A reading below the threshold of 80 usually signals a recession ahead.) The cutoff date for the preliminary results was August 21, 2024,” says a press release from the Consumer Confidence eggheads.

Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign turned down a pitch from an undisclosed tech company to create an AI version of convicted felon former President Trump to use as a stand-in for debate preparations, opting instead to use a good-old fashioned human actor to play Donald, Semafor reports.

A far right conspiracy freak claimed publicly on Tuesday it’s an “obvious fact” that the US military is involved with the ongoing Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, Reuters reports.

“Washington’s escalatory path is becoming more and more challenging,” said the loon, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. “The impression is that [US] colleagues have thrown away the remnants of common sense and believe that everything is permissible for them. Similar approaches are followed by their clientele in Kyiv.” Put another layer of tinfoil on your hat, wacko.

“Zuckerberg admits that the White House pushed to SUPPRESS HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY (& much more!). IN OTHER WORDS, THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION WAS RIGGED. FoxNews, New York Post, Rep Laurel Lee, House Judiciary Committee,” posted convicted felon former President Trump on Tuesday morning, reacting to the Facebook founder admitting to spandex-wearing grapple-freak Jim Jordan on Monday that he had cooperated with the government on limiting the reach of content – mostly COVID-19 misinfo but the legendary “laptop from hell” too.

The laptop story that was supposed to be the “October Surprise” of 2020. When Trump was still in the White House. “IN OTHER WORDS,” Trump is so fucked up he’s saying “THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION WAS RIGGED” by his own administration. And still people want to elect him again, even though he can’t tell the difference between the Biden Administration trying to get Facebook to squash COVID vax conspiracy bullshit in 2021 and the FBI independently telling them a year earlier that Hunter’s laptop was a Russian-backed propaganda op to swing the election to Trump.

On Monday we picked up a report that convicted felon former President Trump’s 2024 campaign have been buying up ad spots in the West Palm Beach media market, a situation we found strikingly similar to the 2020 operation having done so in the DC-Maryland-Virginia market just by the fact that neither region is up for grabs in the electoral college. Back then anonymous sources had confirmed to the Daily Beast they were spending simply because they needed to boost Donald’s confidence when he was worried about losing, making it pretty easy to infer the same reasons apply this year. But we didn’t have any upstream insider reporting, nor did we have a “cover story” like the one then-Trump 2020 comms director Tim Murtaugh told the Beast in an email that year.

“We want members of Congress and our DC-based surrogates to see the ads so they know our strong arguments for President Trump and against Joe Biden,” Murtaugh wrote, evidently trying to shift the very easily perceived feelings of anxiety away from Trump and onto Hill Republicans. Not really a great look to be admitting that they were pissing away money because the rest of the party was nervous, but still better than saying outright it was all for the Orange Tyrant’s emotional needs.

Thanks to the Bulwark we now have the “official” 2024 limited hangout/blame shift: “This is more about keeping the donors happy than the principal. There’s a lot of donors in Palm Beach. If spending $50,000 gets us $5 million, that’s good ROI. If it makes the boss happy, too, then good,” said a person the Bulwark describes as a “campaign insider, who noted that Trump himself would not be in Palm Beach much this week.” Damn… Might as well say “Suck it you lib hyenas! It’s all ROI!”

A Russian convict who was conscripted out of prison to fight in Ukraine for the Wagner Group, then murdered an 85 year-old grandmother while home on leave and imprisoned again, has been re-conscripted to go fight for Vlad’s armies once again, the victim’s granddaughter tells the BBC.

“Grandma’s killer has escaped punishment for his crime, again, and has gone to fight in the war,” said Anna Pekareva, the granddaughter of Yulia Byuskikh, who was raped and murdered in 2022 by Ivan Rossomakhin, who was convicted in April and sentenced to 23 years in a high-security prison, with the court noted that the killing “involved extreme brutality.” Pekareva said the warden informed her family this week that Rossomakhin had been conscripted again, just days into his sentence.

“My first reaction was terror. I read the forensic reports and I know what this person did to my grandmother. It’s monstrous that he has been released again,” said Pekareva, adding “The fact that this is happening in the 21st Century… there are no words that can describe what’s happening!”

TOMORROW: President @realDonaldTrump says that the main stream media is not accurately portraying his recent comments about voting in the next election cycle. What are your thoughts?#Trump2024 #Trump #DrPhil #Primetime #MeritStreetMedia pic.twitter.com/fRHDhYGDaO

— Dr. Phil (@DrPhil) August 26, 2024

Sources within the House GOP tell Axios they’re worried one of the many obnoxious assholes in their conference – such as white nationalist conspiracy freaks Andy Biggs, Marjorie Taylor Greene, or Anna Paulina Luna – could end up forcing them into a vote on the long-dormant articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden, the last thing the need when they’re trying to hang on to their now-legitimately imperiled majority. The issue is – as it always was from the very beginning of this farce – that it will in all likelihood fail and end up making them look fucking stupid.

The “only thing we should be focused on is the issues that people talk about around their dinner table and keep them up at night,” one swing district member said. “That’s not a Biden impeachment.”

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer revealed to reporters that the 14 years of Conservative maladministration that just ended last month were worse for the country’s finances than anyone knew, with a “£22 billion black hole” that the Office for Budget Responsibility was unaware of having just been revealed to him, Sky News reports.

“I said change would not happen overnight. When there is a deep rot at the heart of a structure, you can’t just cover it up… you have to overhaul the entire thing, tackle it at root. Even if it’s hard work or takes more time,” the Labour Party’s first Prime Minister since 2010 said. Starmer also got a little Trump-ish, saying “we’ve done more in seven weeks than the last government did in seven years.”

The US Army private who spent two months in North Korea last summer after running across the border at the demilitarized zone will plead guilty in his court martial to five counts including desertion, a charge that can lead to a three-year prison term, Politico reports.

In exchange for Travis King’s plea, prosecutors will drop nine other charges, including possession of child porn.  King’s story is odd:  After spending two months in a South Korea prison on an assault charge while he was stationed there, King was escorted to a civilian airport from which he was going to start a journey to Fort Bliss, Texas where he would face military charges for the incident.

After his escort left him at customs, King fled the airport as part of a group of tourists who went to the border town of Pyongyang.  From there, King broke off from a group of tourists passing by the ceremonial border crossing and ran into North Korea, becoming the first American detained in five years.

After convicted felon Donald Trump shoved the president of the union off stage as the man was presenting the group’s endorsement of him, the Arizona Police Association announced it endorsed Democrat Ruben Gallego over Republican Arizona alternative governor Kari Lake, AZCentral reports.

“As a Marine combat veteran, we know Congressman Gallego understands the complexities of modern policing in American society today, while at the same time recognizing the public’s expectations,” the president of the APA said in a statement.

It also comes after the typically combative Lake, who claims she’s the elected governor of Arizona though she actually lost the election, called one of her opponents in the Republican primary, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, a “coward” during a debate, a comment that drew criticism from across the political spectrum.

Emboldened by Republicans’ nearly unchallenged rule in the state, Texas’s Republican funhouse mirror Attorney General Ken Paxton launched a series of police raids on leaders of a leading Latino voting rights organization in the state, claiming he was looking of evidence of voter registration fraud, NBC News reports.

The raids targeted the chair of the Tejano Democrats, several members of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), a state House candidate, and a local area mayor.  All those targeted are US citizens of Mexican descent.

One warrant targeted 87-year-old LULAC volunteer Lidia Martinez allowing police to seize all electronic devices at her home, to open documents that were business-, organization- or election-related, and to swab for DNA.  According to the warrant, the alleged crimes were evidence of violations of the Texas election laws regarding vote harvesting and identity fraud.

The Georgia Democratic Party filed a motion in state court seeking to overturn two rules put in place by the MAGA-majority state election commission that would empower county election officials to hold up certification of election results for frivolous reasons, the Associated Press reports.

The three Republicans recently appointed to the commission were spotlighted and cheered by Donald Trump at an event in early August, raising concerns that their obvious bias will impact the upcoming elections.  Republicans claim the rules are needed to ensure local commissions do not violate their oath to provide “true and perfect” results.

However, the plaintiffs argue, Georgia law does not empower local commissioners to question the results reported by local precincts; their only duty is certify the results as reported.  “According to their drafters, these rules rest on the assumption that certification of election results by a county board is discretionary and subject to free-ranging inquiry that may delay certification or foreclose it entirely. But that is not the law in Georgia,” the lawsuit argues.

“In this case, 16 States challenge a final rule recently issued by the Department of Homeland Security that creates a process for granting ‘parole in place’ under immigration laws to a certain subset of aliens who are unlawfully present in the country. Familiarity with that rule is presumed.”

“Plaintiffs move for a temporary restraining order, a preliminary injunction, and a stay of the rule’s implementation. Defendants move for jurisdictional discovery, a stay of briefing, and a scheduling order. Lastly, 12 parties move to intervene as defendants, two of them pseudonymously. The court now enters (1) temporary, equitable relief for 14 days, renewable for good cause or upon consent, and (2) a case schedule ordering expedited proceedings on preliminary and permanent relief.”

“Defendants’ motion for discovery and a case schedule is granted to the extent specified here and otherwise denied. Plaintiffs’ motion (Doc 2) to expand page limits is granted to the extent specified below. All other motions remain pending,” says an order from Texas MAGA Judge J Campbell Barker in response to Picasso-faced Attorney General Ken Paxton and pals’ lawsuit against the Biden Administration for offering a path to citizenship for the undocumented spouses of US citizens.

At a campaign press event last Thursday at the southern border in Montezuma Pass, Arizona, convicted felon and GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump praised a section of wall standing tall behind him, proudly labeling it as “Trump Wall”–which he described as “the Rolls-Royce of walls”–while unused steel beams and sheets were dubbed “Kamala Wall.”

The likelihood of it being a well-built wall increased when the Washington Post reported the section of wall Trump touted was built by his predecessor, President Barack Obama, a fact that was well known to locals and should have been discovered by Trump’s advance team.

Parts of the wall further down the line were built during the Trump Administration, including a section up a steep hill, where the wall abruptly stopped.  Construction ended during the Trump administration and–you guessed it–the leftover parts he called “Kamala Wall” were left there by Trump’s team.

EUREKA! A crew of telecom workers digging for line repairs made it big on Monday, striking into a massive new source of fresh clean water, sending a geyser dramatically up 50 feet into the air!

“YEEHAW! I dun tell ya there was water here, Colton! WE’RE H2O RICH NAW BOYS!” the crew would have said while hugging each other and waving their hats jubilantly if it was some kind of thrilling new discovery and not them fucking up a job. Specifically the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that the crew with an unnamed “major telecommunications company” had put in a request to the city water department asking them for the maps of where the pipes were so they didn’t accidentally strike them while working on the fiber optic cables or whatever they were trying to get to.

The city had responded by telling them to hold off on the work but they went ahead and started the job anyway, leading to the massive jet of high pressure water soaking nearby homes and cutting off the service to at least 20 of them. Officials expect service to be restored by this evening.

Not even sure we want to describe what Fox Newsbro Jesse Watters alluded to sexually about Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday’s stupid roundtable show. It wasn’t anything based in reality about her past (eg Willie Brown), nor was the hypothetical he posed a mistake. Like yes it’s Fox and they let him get away with shit all the time but this just might possibly have crossed a line.

“A Colorado man will make his initial appearance at the federal courthouse in Durango, Colorado, today on federal charges in connection with a series of online threats he made toward election officials in Colorado and Arizona, a Colorado state judge, and federal law enforcement agents. Teak Brockbank, 45, of Cortez, was arrested on Friday in Cortez. ‘As alleged, Teak Brockbank threatened the lives of multiple public servants on social media. Among other threats, he allegedly claimed that it was ‘time’ to put two state election officials to death and that he was obligated to ‘put a bullet’ in the head of a Colorado state judge,’ said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. ‘Public servants must be able to do their jobs without fear. The Criminal Division will continue to aggressively investigate and prosecute those who target public officials with threats of violence,'” says a Justice Department press release.

“According to court documents, between September 2021 and August 2022, Brockbank allegedly used two social media accounts to post messages threatening Colorado and Arizona election officials. For example, on Aug 4, 2022, Brockbank allegedly posted a message referring to separate election officials in Arizona and Colorado and then stated: ‘Once those people start getting put to death then the rest will melt like snowflakes and turn on each other… This is the only way. So those of us that have the stomach for what has to be done should prepare our minds for what we all [a]re going to do!!!!!! It is time.’ Brockbank allegedly threatened federal law enforcement on July 20, 2022, posting: ‘ATF CIA FBI show up to my house I am shooting them peace’s of shit first No Warning!! Then I will call the sheriff!!! With everything that these piece of shit agencies have done I am completely justified to just start dropping them as soon as they step on my property! justified.'”