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A 54-year-old Delaware man received a $50,000 judgment with the Delaware State Police for violating his civil rights after state officers cited him for flipping the bird to officers and then standing on the roadsign with a sign warning of an upcoming speed trap.

Per NBC News, three officers stopped as Jonathan Guessford stood on the side of the road holding a hand-written sign that read “Radar Ahead!”  The officers warned Guessford that he could be cited for impeding traffic, but Guessford rebutted that he was on the side of the road.  As a car drove by, Guessford raised his sign to inform the driver, prompting one of the officers to grab the sign and tear it in half.

The officers released Guessford without a citation, but as he drove away, he gave the three troopers the Finger.  The officers stopped him again–one of the patrol cars recorded exceeding 100 m.p.h. in a 55 m.p.h. zone to catch Guessford–citing him for “using an improper turn signal.” The officers are heard laughing on their bodycam audio about hanging the charge on Guessford; that charge was later dropped.  One of the officers that the trio could arrest Guessford for disorderly conduct, confiscate his car, and send his child to a foster home.

With a slow-moving storm crossing the area, dumping water on traditionally arid lands, authorities have told the 73,000 people attending the Burning Man festival that they must shelter in place until the risk of mudslides and washed-out roads passes, USA Today reports.

As of 5:00 a.m. local time, the exit gates to the 4,000 acre festival grounds were closed, and organizers informed attendees to shelter in place as well as to prepare for an extended stay.  “If you are in [Black Rock City], conserve food and water, shelter in a warm space.”  A small airport nearby was also shut down.

The road closure means service contractors cannot reach the festival site, and some trash facilities and port-a-potties have started to fill, leading many attendees to start comparing this year’s Burning Man to the disastrous Fyre Festival.  Scheduled to end Monday, the festival got off to a rocky start when organizers kept the festival grounds closed to early arrivals last week due to the remnants of Hurricane Hilary sweeping through the region.

Hospitalizations for Covid have started to increase in the United States as the nation enters the last holiday weekend of summer, jumping nearly 19% from the previous week, with public health authorities fearing rapid spread of the virus with a new school year starting, CBS News reports.

More than 15,000 people were hospitalized for Covid last week, an 87% increase from the previous month, but still only a third of the number of hospitalizations a year before.  Officials forecast that the spread of the virus will continue through September, with some predicting as many as 9,700 daily hospital admissions by the beginning of October.

“NASA’s LRO – the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter – spacecraft imaged a new crater on the Moon’s surface that is likely the impact site of Russia’s Luna 25 mission. During its descent, Luna 25 experienced an anomaly that caused it to impact the surface of the Moon on Aug 19.”

“Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, published an estimate of the impact point on Aug 21. The LROC (short for LRO Camera) team and the LRO Mission Operations team were able to design and send commands to the LRO spacecraft on Aug 22 to capture images of the site. The sequence began on Aug 24 at 2:15 pm EDT (18:15 UTC) and was completed about four hours later, at 6:12 pm EDT (22:12 UTC). The LROC team compared images taken prior to the impact time and the sequence taken after and found a small new crater… The new crater is about 10 meters in diameter and is located at 57.865 degrees south latitude and 61.360 degrees east longitude at an elevation of about minus 360 meters. The impact point was on the steep (greater than 20-degree grade) inner rim of Pontécoulant G crater, about 400 kilometers short of Luna 25’s intended landing point at 69.545 degrees south, 43.544 degrees east,” says NASA in a statement so detailed it could not be anything other than shade and lots of it for rival Russian space agency Roscosmos, scarcely concealing mockery of last month’s failed landing, which came just days before India’s successful Chandrayaan 3 mission.

• I’m shocked–shocked! I say–that the document Donald Trump claimed he had that would completely exonerate him hasn’t leaked yet.  You’d think he’d want to get something like that out in the public domain to erase any doubt of his guilt, right?
• For someone who’s supposed to be too old and too senile to hold the job, Biden’s kickin’ ass.  But what’s most appreciated is the normalcy brought to the White House.  It’s so calming not having afternoon briefings sound like Jerry Springer episodes every single day.  Now we just have Peter Doocy’s idiocy.
• Despite all the Sturm und Drang about the fake “Biden mandates we can only have two beers per week” panic, conservatives know Brett Kavanaugh would’ve stopped it.
• DeSantis bragged about Florida’s fiscal surplus while on the campaign trail.  Let’s see him apply that money to hurricane relief before he gets a single dollar of federal money.  Americans should not automatically be put on the line until the people who chose to live in Florida–and elect DeSantis–exhaust their resources.  Federal aid and tax breaks–for disaster relief or industry support–should only extend so that entities don’t suffer a loss, not so they don’t lose their profits.
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CXXXVI”

Jack Smith’s office filed notice with the court in the Southern District of Florida that it has completed sending the required evidence to Donald Trump’s legal team regarding his prosecution for stealing and retaining government documents.  The Special Counsel’s office also noted that it supplied potentially exculpatory evidence as required by law, plus it added information about any plea deal prosecution witnesses may have secured.

“On September 1, 2023, the Government provided a fifth production of unclassified discovery to counsel for Defendants (“Production 5”). Production 5 includes, inter alia, witness statements made during the investigation conducted in United States v. Donald J. Trump, Case No. 1:23-cr-00257 (D.D.C), by witnesses who also gave statements in this case and copies of certain materials in the fifteen boxes that Defendant Trump provided to National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”) in January 2022.”

Perhaps afraid he’ll “Chris Christie” his already-sinking chances for the GOP nomination, Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced he will not meet with President Joe Biden when Biden visits hurricane-ravaged Florida on Saturday because it would be bad optics, Politico reports.

“We don’t have any plans for the Governor to meet with the President tomorrow,” a statement from the Governor’s office read making an excuse to be an asshole. “In these rural communities, and so soon after impact, the security preparations alone that would go into setting up such a meeting would shut down ongoing recovery efforts.”

On the first day of school in Russia on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin greeted students in five schools–including one in occupied Ukraine–via videoconference, espousing the glory of the old Soviet Union and touting the newly rewritten history books and military prep programs introduced this year, the Washington Post reports.

The new history books, going to students across the Kremlin-occupied territories, continue glorification of the dismantled Soviet Union, which Putin described as “absolutely invincible”; it’s unknown if the books teach the USSR crumbled in 1991.  They also include what Putin described as the “new territories” freed from “neo-Nazis,” the occupied territory of Ukraine, calling the entire country Russia’s “historical land.”

Putin also touted the new, mandatory “Fundamentals of Life Safety” for grades 5 to 11, which is training in weapons, drones, and standard military training and formations.  Next year, the Defense Ministry will introduce the “Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Motherland” course, which will teach military theory.

How bad was Jesse Watters over the line on “The Five” Friday evening? Enough that Grudge Jerline had to take over “because Jesse doesn’t need to talk” after breaching what another panelist called “the third rail” at Fox: intraoffice romances, outside of defamation, the second-highest legal liability at the network.

Exciting stuff, those monthly jobs reports.  A real page-turner it is.  The top-line story–186,000 new jobs created in August, beating pundits’ expectations–is important enough to provide evidence of economic stability after the Trump turmoil and an ensuing recession risk.  But the real picture of the economic forecast may lie in the release’s last paragraph.

Starting in July, the Bureau of Labor Statistics started revising downward the jobs reports going back to April.  Revisions happen every month:  because the reports are based on mid-month reporting from household surveys, the full month’s picture is only available after the completion of the month.  And even then, only two months after the report month are the figures deemed accurate.  So each month’s report includes a revision of the previous two months’ reports.

All that is a necessary prelude to say this:  It’s a good thing for the economy that the revisions have consistently gone downward over the last five months.  Yeah, it sounds weird to say BLS economists overestimating the jobs is a good thing:  you’d think we’d demand accuracy.  But nay, nay.  First, you’ve got to be realistic about how the data are collected; it ain’t never going to be dead-on with the first estimate.  Second, the fact that the economists are overestimating shows that the economy has been slowing down longer than we previously understood and that–again, somewhat perversely–is a good thing.

Ethan Nordean, a leader of the Proud Boys also known as Rufio Panman, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and other felonies, for his actions in the January 6th Republican-led domestic terrorist attack on Congress, Scott MacFarland of CBS News reports.

Nordean was also convicted on charges of obstructing an official proceeding, aiding and abetting injury to government property, disorderly conduct and knowingly and violently entering a restricted building.  His sentence matches the longest received by a January 6th felon:  that of Oath Keepers leader Elmer Stewart Rhodes.

Tipped off on the plan, South African police on Friday thwarted an armored car robbery in Makhado, Limpopo province, about 250 miles northeast of Johannesburg, triggering a 90-minute gun battle that left 18 of the robbers dead, Barrons reports.

Officers surrounded the suspects’ house when a gunfight ensued, killing 16 men and two women affiliated with the gang.  One officer was seriously wounded.  Authorities believe during the gun battle, an explosive the gang had intended to use on a cash repository exploded–police do not know if it exploded accidentally or was detonated intentionally–which resulted in many of the fatalities.  A police raid at another of the gang’s safehouses led to four people being arrested without incident.

Armored car robberies are fairly common in South Africa, with 64 attempted in the first quarter of 2023 alone.  In this case, police were investigating, since January, a gang believed to be responsible for a number of them.

One of Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s few non-culture war programs–a socialized insurance program for homeowners who lost their private coverage–will be put to its first major test since dozens of property policy carriers pulled out from the state.

As the Orlando Sentinel reports, Florida Citizens Property Insurance, the state-operated home insurer of last resort, has seen a significant increase in the number of properties in its portfolio since Farmers and more than two dozen other companies canceled homeowners’ policies or announced their plans to phase out coverage in the state due to Floridians’ persistent habit of having homes destroyed by hurricanes, floods, sinkholes and the odd airborne vehicle.  Annoying the insurance companies even more:  Floridians also have a habit of making frequent claims against their property insurance:  79% of homeowner policy lawsuits come from Florida, likely because the state’s loosely-worded insurance regulations allowed for companies to deny claims that should routinely be covered.

Currently, Florida CPI has more than half a trillion dollars of risk with all the properties it covers.  Initial estimates of the damage from Hurricane Idalia runs from $3- to $6 billion in Florida, with total damage across the US running into the $20 billion range.  Should Florida CPI run out of cash to reimburse policy holders, the state will assess a special “hurricane tax” on all insured property owners in the state, not just the homeowners in the pool, thereby making taxpayers pick up the tab for repairs to homes made in a place so dangerous, it’s not conducive to capitalism for private companies to offer mandated insurance.  DeSantis believes average Floridians should be made to repay a multi-millionaire whose house on the Gulf Coast is destroyed, but he wouldn’t dare make that multi-millionaire pay more taxes to cover healthcare costs for those average Floridian.

Weeks after a devastating wildfire, the people living in the area around Lahaina, Hawaii have started to undertake the massive cleanup effort, with encouraging reports that the death and devastation were less catastrophic than initially feared.

With more than 115 people confirmed dead, Hawaiian authorities are expected to announce the number of people unaccounted for will drop into the double digits–possibly as low as 50–after topping 1,000 about a week ago as more people are able to connect with loved ones.  After officials released a list of hundreds of people others had reported missing, nearly two-thirds of the cases were closed after people reported themselves safe.

The residents of hard-hit Lahaina received some good news Friday after a contractor for the state Department of Land and Natural Resources examined the town’s historic 150-year-old banyan tree and noted that the fire damage to the tree appears to be minor.

Timeshare salesman Vivek Ramaswamy’s inexperience and ignorance of US foreign affairs stepped into the spotlight again. As he responded to a straightforward question from John Roberts, the Fox propaganda outlet personality, not the Supreme Court Chief Justice.  Asked about US support for Taiwan, Ramaswamy declared the US should abandon its support for Taiwan once the US increases its computer chip and processor manufacturing, something for which the US and the world rely on Taiwan, which makes about 90% of the world’s high-end processors. 

After his wife testified, “He’s a fucking idiot,” Dominic Pezzola, an upstate New York man who joined the Proud Boys in the summer of 2020 as he became more radicalized by the group’s far-right nationalistic message and Donald Trump’s promotion of anti-government paranoia, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in the January 6th Republican-led domestic terrorist attack on Congress.

Pezzola is probably best known for taking a police shield he obtained after charging onto Capitol grounds and using it to smash a window, allowing insurrectionists to get into the building.  Pezzola said in the days leading up to the attack and on January 6th that he would kill Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence if he got his hands on them.

Saying, “I never should have crossed the barrier at the Capitol that day,” Pezzola apologized to the police officer he is accused of assaulting during the attack.  He also apologized to his family, saying he’s sorry he missed his crimes caused him to miss his daughter’s high school graduation.  His wife also testified that since January 6th, the family has been harassed because of Pezzola’s action, although she admitted that that was not a reason to go easy on Pezzola.

Denying a motion by the Justice Department, a panel from the DC Circuit Court ruled that disgraced former president Donald Trump must sit for a deposition for the attorneys for Peter Strzok, the former FBI agent who was forced out of his job after he investigated Trump’s connections to Russia.

The ruling is a minor setback for the Justice Department, which had an obligation to challenge the ruling made by a lower court about a President sitting for a deposition regarding an Executive Branch personnel decision.

In a 2-1 decision, with Biden and Obama appointees voting for accountability and a GW Bush nominee in dissent, the panel determined the unique nature of Strzok’s case required the normal deference to Oval Office decisions be set aside in the interest of justice.  “Before authorizing the deposition, however, the district court held multiple hearings on the relevant issues, considered several rounds of additional briefing, and required respondents to exhaust other means of obtaining the information they sought. The district court limited the deposition to two hours, and to a narrow set of topics it identified. Having employed particular “deference and restraint” considering the separation-of-powers concerns at issue, see Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 731, 753 (1982), the district court ultimately concluded that “extraordinary circumstances” warranted the deposition of the former President.”

As his begging has raked in tens of millions of dollars from gullible dupes who want to fund a self-proclaimed billionaire’s legal bills, Donald Trump has basically disowned his co-defendants in the Fulton County racketeering case, forcing them to scramble to fund their legal defenses, CNN reports.

While Trump has lamented the fact that his 18 co-defendants are being “persecuted” for their roles in his plot to remain in power after he lost the 2020 presidential election, he’s left them to fend for themselves even though his Super PAC has picked up the legal fees for various other members of his cabal charged in other cases.  Trump’s gone so far to distance himself from his co-conspirators that he told Newsmax he didn’t know “a lot of these people.”

While the situation may be financially untenable for the defendants, it may turn into a boon for prosecutors who may be able to flip defendants whose attorneys are not paid for by Trump and who face significant criminal penalties if they were to be found guilty.

Expecting an especially weak and pointless impeachment effort from the House GOP just because the Orange Pharaoh has commanded them to do so, the Biden Administration are taking no chances and preparing a vigorous communications defense to discredit the circlejerk, NBC News reports.

“Comparing this to past impeachments isn’t apples to apples or even apples to oranges, it’s apples to elephants,” a White House source told NBC. “Never in modern history has an impeachment been based on no evidence whatsoever.” The team already has more than two dozen lawyers and other staff ready to savage the limp-wristed takedown attempt over Hunter Biden something something.

Continuing the smoke-and-mirrors saga of the Daily Beast’s investigation into the deeply strange story of disgraced former President Trump – or a deep fake script trained to sound like him – sounding decidedly off during an interview with Real America’s Voice host and discredited propagandist John Solomon, the Beast on Friday updated their article on it with the following:

“This story has been updated to remove quotes attributed to the owner of Real America’s Voice, Robert Sigg, saying he is investigating whether the call was a prank and criticizing network staffers. A Daily Beast reporter had a conversation by text with a person who identified themselves as Sigg, on a number public records show was once associated with Sigg – but a spokesperson for Real America’s Voice said that it was not Sigg and is not his current number.”

We regard the Daily Beast as the gold standard of what National Zero aspires to be and commend their integrity and commitment to journalistic ethics. That said, how the Christ did whoever who has Sigg’s old number react so snappily as to know exactly what they were asking about to trick them into quoting them? The person with Sigg’s old number responded with “an internal investigation will be needed” and that the “Trump” in the interview sounded like ChatGPT. How does some random asshole simply come up with that on the fly and convince trained investigators of their sincerity?