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As I made clear about Kenosha immediately, the @TheJusticeDept should drop all charges against all January 6th defendants. If you do not, I will destroy your careers and any remaining institutional legitimacy you may have. You have been warned. https://t.co/E79BDisQyf

— John M. Pierce (@CaliKidJMP) July 27, 2023

MAGA lawyer John Pierce, famous for his failed representation of fat kid vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse, psychotic far right influencer Laura Loomer, and Jacob “QAnon Shaman” Chansley as well as dozens of other Capitol riot defendants – many of whose court proceedings were delayed while the vocally anti-vax Pierce was indisposed and nearly killed by a COVID-19 infection in late Summer 2021, might be in some trouble with a DC federal judge as the District’s US Attorney on Friday submitted a motion flagging several tweets by Pierce as “apparent threats” against DOJ personnel.

Thomas Sibeck, the 37-year-old Buffalo, New York man who was one of the people who attacked DC Metropolitan Police officer Michael Fanone and stole his radio, was sentenced to 50 months in prison and ordered to pay a $7,500 fine, according to the Associated Press.

While Sibeck didn’t physically assault Fanone, he stole the officers radio and badge.  Sibeck buried Fanone’s badge in his backyard; the radio, valued at $5,000, was not recovered.  After spending months in the DC jail, he was released to home confinement at his parents’ home in Buffalo.  (While in home confinement, he asked the court to allow him to use dating apps on his phone.)

Other members of the mob got much harsher sentences:  Daniel Rodriguez, who attacked Fanone with the stun gun, was sentenced to 12½ years in prison last month. Kyle Young was sentenced to over 7 years in prison. Albuquerque Head–that is his actual name–was sentenced to 7½ years.

“We want education in this country not indoctrination in this country.  We got it done in Florida and we got it done nationally,” Republican Florida governor, presidential candidate and guy who won’t let YOU pay a lot for a muffler Ron DeSantis says to a crowd in Iowa to an audience of people who likely have never been to anywhere in Florida not run by The Mouse.  “And I got Kamala Harris comin’ down to Florida trying to create a phony narrative because she understands Florida has stood up to the left’s agenda.  We have beat the left’s agenda in the state of Florida and so thinks she can come down and lie about what we’re doing in the state of Florida.  I’m not budgin’ an inch.  We are going to fight back against these people and we are not letting them take over our schools.”

Note:  DeSantis is obviously removing the use of the word “woke” from his speeches.  In the 120+ words spoken above, he didn’t use it once, substituting “the left” for “woke.”  This is a major change from the days when he was clocked saying “woke” seven times in 20 seconds just a month ago.

Having already launched an undersea adventure tour company with a near-perfect safety record, Argentinian-born entrepreneur Guillermo Söhnlein tells Insider he’s thinking even bigger and better with his next project: Sending 1,000 colonists to go spend the rest of their lives in giant blimps floating perpetually in Venus’s atmosphere, with a target date of 2050 for the first departures.

“Forget OceanGate. Forget Titan. Forget Stockton. Humanity could be on the verge of a big breakthrough and not take advantage of it because we, as a species, are gonna get shut down and pushed back into the status quo,” Söhnlein said of his vision to station the population of a small town in a theoretically habitable sliver of atmosphere approximately 30 miles above the surface of the Stygian nightmare planet in blimps he maintains will be designed to resist corrosion by clouds of sulfuric acid. Addressing the design flaws that caused the little mishap that last month took the lives of his former partner and four other souls, Söhnlein said “I don’t think that should have a negative connotation because you could almost argue that it’s a critical element of humanity moving forward… If we didn’t have people that like this, we’d probably all still be in caves.”

At the DeSantis hospitality suite at the Iowa Republican Conference, where the candidates try to earn the Party members support through earnest debate and discussion of the issues on the minds of the American publ–  Oh, who the hell am I trying to kid:  it’s where the delegates get drunk off their asses and denigrate everyone behind their backs.

Anyway, DeSantis thought it would be particularly special to include a little fun and games with the alcohol, hence the “knock down the Bud Light cans so you can show the world you’re not trans” exhibition.  Per the New York Times’ Shane Goldsmacher, their manifestation of this is the “game” above. Because nothing says “steady, mature leadership” like petty displays of aggression.

The President and First Lady acknowledged their grandchild Navy for the first time publicly, saying that their son Hunter is working with the child’s mother to create a beneficial relationship for their daughter, People magazine reports.

“Our son Hunter and Navy’s mother, Lunden, are working together to foster a relationship that is in the best interests of their daughter, preserving her privacy as much as possible going forward,” President Biden said in a statement provided exclusively to PEOPLE.

“Our son Hunter and Navy’s mother, Lunden, are working together to foster a relationship that is in the best interests of their daughter, preserving her privacy as much as possible going forward,” the president said. “This is not a political issue, it’s a family matter. Jill and I only want what is best for all of our grandchildren, including Navy.”  Many in the conservative echosphere have been questioning why Biden hasn’t publicly acknowledged the child.

Circa 60 year-old pubescent teenager Greg Gutfeld on Friday was confused as to why deleting surveillance camera footage on private property is a crime, obviously talking about how Trump commanded his minions to do so at Mar-a-Lago to cover up their crime of hoarding classified documents stolen from the White House. Gutfeld left out that the indictment specifies that the footage had been deleted after Trump’s lawyers had been sent a subpoena for it which rises to obstruction of justice, but of course remembered to add “it’s not like deleting other people’s emails” to make it clear to the Fox News audience that Hillary bad, Trump innocent.

Two of the Georgia Republican scumbags who signed fake electoral college votes for disgraced former President Trump in December 2020 on Friday joined the twice-impeached and thrice-indicted loser’s still-ongoing efforts to “quash” the special grand jury report and disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting them, Lawfare’s Anna Bower reports.

Georgia state GOP Chairman David Shafer and former Coffee County GOP Chairwoman Cathy Latham – also likely on the hook for even more charges than Shafer as she was involved in that Dominion hack shitshow at the county clerk’s office – each filed motions to “intervene and adopt and join” the case against the likely case against them, one they’ve known was coming since they received target letters last July and probably taking on even more urgency since their 16 counterparts in Michigan are each looking at 85 years in prison for their crimes against Democracy. Apparently it doesn’t matter that the Georgia state Supreme Court already tossed Trump’s case, he’s trying again and these assholes want in on the desperate bid to avoid accountability.

Samuel Alito, The Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2023:

Congress did not create the Supreme Court. [The Constitution did]. I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it: No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court—period.

In the other corner, the United States Constitution, 1787, Article III, Section 2, Clause 2:

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make. [my emphasis]

Dr. Mary Talley Bowden has become something of a cause célèbre among horse-paste eaters.  A martyr for the cause, they’ll tell you she was fired from her job at a Texas hospital because she supported ivermectin use; in fact, she resigned after she was suspended for giving medical advice online to people she had not examined, and that advice was about ivermectin.  (The more relevant aspect of the story is the dispensing medical advice to patients she didn’t examine, but whatevs.)

Then they’ll tell you that she is having her medical license pulled in Texas because she actually dispensed ivermectin to a patient.  First, laugh at the part where Texas would pull a doctor’s license for prescribing what virtually every Republican leader in the state ballyhooed as a miracle cure.  But note that Bowden’s license is under review for treating a different patient she hadn’t examined in a hospital where she did not have privileges to practice.

The Mar-a-Lago employee referred to as “Trump Employee 4” in the superseding indictment released Thursday has been identified by CNN as Yuscil Taveras, an IT worker at Mar-a-Lago. According to the court filing, Tavares was the individual pressured by Carlos De Oliveira, called by various sources the maintenance director to the property manager, to erase the servers at the direction of “the boss.”

Democratic Virginia Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger told members of her staff and her House Democratic colleagues that she intents to mount a run for state’s governorship in the 2025 cycle, Politico reports.

Virginia’s 7th Congressional district representative, Spanberger won a seat in 2018 that had been in Republican hands for nearly half a century.  It had been held by one-time Republican House Whip Eric Cantor; he resigned after losing the 2014 primary to Tea Bagger Dave Brat, whom Spanberger eventually defeated.

A comparative moderate, Spanberger’s planned departure puts a vulnerable Democratic-held seat into play in the upcoming election if Spanberger decides not to run for reelection to Congress.  She could still run for governor in the off-year election as she serves in Congress if she so chooses.

A photo taken by a source for Punchbowl News’s Max Cohen in the immediate aftermath of Republican Wisconsin Congressman Derrick Van Orden berating a group of Senate pages hanging out in the Capitol Rotunda Wednesday night shows a copious number of empty wine bottles and other alcohol bottles sitting on the Congressman’s desk in his office, raising doubts about the story Van Orden related that he was upset about perceived disrespect the high school students he claims were displaying when he called them “lazy fucks” and “little shits.”

It seems the irrational outburst at the teenagers was due more to doses of Kentucky Gentleman rather than concern for the memory of Union soldiers.

Russians have shifted targets for its attacks on Ukrainian territory, assigning some highly powerful, expensive precise munitions to hit non-military targets like cultural sites and historical structures revered in Ukrainian culture, Newsweek reports.

Last Sunday, Russian missiles targeted Odesa’s historic city center, a UNESCO-designated site of cultural and historical significance, damaging at least 25 historic buildings.  Officials say a precision-guided anti-ship Onyx missile, a $1.25 million munition which carries up to 300 kilograms of high explosive charge, was used to destroy the Orthodox Christian Transfiguration Cathedral, a 230-year-old church in Odesa that Russian see as a symbol of Ukrainian independence and has been first destroyed and deconsecrated when the Soviets occupied Ukraine in the 1930s.  After Ukraine regained its independence in the 1990s, it restored the structure and dedicated the church in 2003.

“At the direction of Crooked Joe Biden and his Weaponized DOJ, Deranged Jack Smith is attempting to destroy the lives of two fine people who have worked for me (and have done a great job!) for a long time. They are being persecuted with one goal, to ‘Get Trump.’ This is textbook Third World intimidation by rabid, lawless prosecutors. These same craven tactics were used, and failed, during the Russia, Russia, Russia Witch Hunt and other Hoaxes. We will not let Radical Lunatics destroy our Country!” Donald Trump posted on his failing social media outlet at 11:25 a.m.

Just an hour later, he posted, “They ought to throw Deranged Jack Smith and his Thug Prosecutors in jail, with Meritless Garland and Trump Hating Lisa Monaco. They have totally Weaponized the Department of Injustice. Whatever happened to the Crooked Joe Biden Boxes Case? Why was Hillary Clinton allowed to delete 33,000 emails, many of them Classified, AFTER getting a Subpoena from Congress? Why was Bill Clinton allowed to take tapes out of the W.H. in his socks? Why has no other President ever been charged? ELECTION FRAUD!”

Set aside the idiocy of Trump’s false claims regarding the Clintons and Biden holding on to documents that were clearly their personal work products–things allowed under federal records acts.  Within 60 minutes, Trump goes from decrying an oppressive government to demanding extrajudicial punishments against his political enemies popular with maniacal autocrats.

Poor maintenance, overworked employees and negligent inspection practices of the private company that owns the stretch of rail in Montana caused a 2021 Amtrak train derailment that killed three people and injured more than 40, according to a report by the National Transportation Safety Board, the Washington Post reports.

Eight of the Empire Builder’s ten rail cars, traveling from Chicago to Seattle flew off the tracks outside Joplin, Montana in September 2021.  Investigators found that the single inspector responsible for examing the track was responsible for approving the condition of an average of 73 miles of track per day, including inspecting the condition of the rail and the alignment of rail joints.  On the day of his last inspection of the section of track where the derailment took place, his daily work sheet showed he was supposed to inspect more than 120 miles of rail; that inspection took place two days before the derailment.  Investigators found that the crash was caused by the misalignment of two sections of track that launched the train off the tracks, something that would likely have been spotted with more attentive and frequent inspections.

The NTSB also noted that the high number of injuries on the train were due to passengers not being securely seatbelted in their seats at the time of the derailment, resulting in dozens being thrown from the wreckage.  Unlike planes, trains do not typically recommend passengers stay belted into their seats if they’re not transiting the aisle; the NTSB will consider making repeated announcements with the recommendation mandatory, as is done on airplanes to prevent injuries from severe turbulence.

After a disturbing period of silence as he stood at the podium during a press briefing Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader on Friday restated his intention to stay in office and brushed off concerns about ongoing health issues, USA Today reports.  “Leader McConnell appreciates the continued support of his colleagues, and plans to serve his full term in the job they overwhelmingly elected him to do,” a spokesman told the outlet.

McConnell stood silent and motionless at the podium after stopping mid-sentence during a Wednesday briefing.  He was escorted away by colleagues and reportedly went to his office to recover.  He reappeared at the briefing minutes later, but did not directly address the episode.

Following the incident at the Capitol, reports of other medically-related incidents were disclosed in the press that had previously been unknown, including a July 14th incident where McConnell reportedly “face planted” while deplaning from a flight at Reagan National Airport.  He also fell during a March fundraiser at a DC hotel which resulted in a concussion the kept him from the Senate for a month.

Five officials at Palm Beach [Florida] Central High School were arrested after they repeatedly ignored repeated pleas from a student to investigate and report the sexual assault of a fellow student who later attempted suicide, USA Today reports.  They are all charged with failing to report a student’s sexual assault to police and child welfare services as required by state law.

A friend of the 15-year-old student reported that their friend had survived sexual assaults at the hands of two boys in April 2021 and in August 2021.  In June 2021, the friend–using a pen with pink ink–wrote a letter detailing the April assaults the friend witnessed and noted that her friend had attempted self-harm; she gave the letter the schools choral teacher, 53-year-old Scott Houchins, who told Priscilla Carter, 55, a case worker in the district’s SafeSchools office.  At the start of the subsequent school year, Carter spoke with the student and determined that the victim was not a harm to herself.  During that meeting, the student reportedly told Carter about a third sexual assault that happened earlier in August.

On August 16, 2021, the victim herself told school assistant principal Daniel Snider, 49, of the assaults; Snider asked her to write an account of the assault, which he shared with principal Darren Edgecomb, 58.  After getting no response from the school, the student told the other assistant principal, Nereyda Cayado de Garcia, 37, on August 17th who again informed Edgecomb.  The student then subsequently reported at least one suicide attempt.

White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan arrived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Thursday for talks with crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, the man who funneled $3 billion to Trump administration officials in the past 30 months, in an effort to improve relations with the Middle Eastern leader, NBC News reports.

Sullivan plans to meet with MbS, the Saudi defense and energy ministers, as well as the head of the Saudi wealth fund, which uses the kingdom’s cumulative wealth to influence other nations’ policies around the world.  The US hopes to push Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel, pull back from its involvement in the ongoing war with Yemen, and to to “advance a common vision for a more peaceful, secure, prosperous, and stable Middle East.”

After being targeted by the Republican presidential candidate so he can gain political points in his one-man culture war, the Walt Disney Co. is ensuring Florida’s chief bigot, Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is held accountable by facing the company’s legal complaint in court, USA Today reports.

DeSantis filed a motion with the court to remove himself from a wide-ranging lawsuit by Disney claiming DeSantis and various minions in his administration illegally violated the US and Florida constitutions and corruptly retaliatory for attempting to punish the private company for speaking out against DeSantis’s policies targeting LGBTQ people and limiting their liberties.  Disney argues that DeSantis cannot hide from his responsibilities as he tries to tout his bigotry as an asset in the GOP primary.

“The Governor seeks to evade responsibility for his actions on a narrower ground, asserting that a governor cannot be held officially liable for implementing, administering, and enforcing state laws that punish residents for political statements violating a state-prescribed speech code,” company attorneys wrote in a legal filing Wednesday, noting that DeSantis was the key motivator and primary cheerleader for pushing the bill through the state legislature.