Patio furniture already in the pool at my Dad’s house in #Tampa in anticipation of #HurricaneIan pic.twitter.com/1FW35jia0V

— Bob Redell (@BobNBC) September 27, 2022

It’s not like a high on bath salts-alligator molesting-golf cart crashing-parrot kidnapping-getting everyone high at a wedding party type Florida thing. We just can’t tell if it’s typical weird Florida or weird but strangely kind of ingenious for Florida. It’s the second one, right?

Jupiter will the brightest it’s been in 59 years in tonight’s sky, as the largest planet in our solar system reaches its opposition, a position in the sky directly opposite to the Sun, the Washington Post reports.

In the “nature is a curious thing” department, on Sunday, Jupiter reached its closest point to Earth, so the gas giant will appear even larger in the sky than usual.  That coincidence won’t happen again until 2139.

“Fascists don’t believe in God, of course.  This is a person publicly professing faith in God,” heir to a $30 million frozen food fortune and ersatz everyman Tucker Carlson emotes.  “That’s so scary!  It is so scary.  SO scary… to the people running and benefiting from our current system.  And why is that?”

“Defendant Peter K. Navarro served as a senior White House advisor from January 2017 until January 2021. During his employment, he was subject to the terms of the Presidential Records Act, which vests the United States with ‘complete ownership’ of ‘Presidential records,’ a term that encompasses documentary materials created or received by ‘the President’s immediate staff, or a unit or individual of the Executive Office of the President whose function is to advise or assist the President, in the course of conducting activities which relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President.'”

“There is no genuine dispute of fact that Dr. Navarro used at least one unofficial email account to conduct official business, that those records are the property of the United States, and that Dr. Navarro has refused to return the records to the United States. Indeed, his counsel has expressly admitted as much. Because Dr. Navarro remains in possession of property that belongs to the United States, this Court should issue a writ of replevin requiring Dr. Navarro to return what he wrongfully continues to possess,” say federal prosecutors in their motion requesting access to former Trump White House douchebag Peter Navarro’s private email account.

Even though more than 22 million American jobs including 1.36 million manufacturing were lost in March and April 2020, the job market has rebounded strongly, recovering all the jobs lost over the following 28 months, with manufacturing jobs surpassing previous levels, the New York Times reports.

As of the September jobs report (reflecting job growth in August), the US has created 1.43 million manufacturing jobs since April 2020, a net increase of 67,000 jobs, typically in middle-class-paying positions that don’t necessarily need a college education.  Many of these jobs are also with union-supported companies, a priority of the Biden Administration.

Perversely, the bump in manufacturing jobs could be attributed indirectly to the pandemic:  as supply chains stopped providing goods–particularly those made overseas–during the pandemic, entrepreneurs and existing companies expanded their operations to fill the gaps, manufacturing those products here in the US.

Wanting retribution for Democratic West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin supporting his Party’s legislative agenda to secure major Congressional wins, Senate Minority Leader and Chelonian-American Mitch McConnell continues to try to whip his caucus for votes to oppose Manchin’s Energy Independence and Security Act of 2022, which would ease some permitting regulation while promoting renewable energy development, Politico reports.

EISA would speed the permitting required for some energy projects, including streamlining environmental reviews, a policy Republicans promoted as a policy agenda they would to push for themselves during previous Congressional campaigns.  However, because this is being pushed by a Democrat, Manchin, who supported programs Republicans don’t like–including pretty much everything put forth by President Joe Biden–McConnell is pushing his members to screw Manchin over.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had made a deal with Manchin for his support on a variety of legislation including the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS bill, promising to bring his bill to the floor and lobbying his members to support the bill.  Still, Manchin needs to get at least 10–and more likely 12-14– Republicans to pass the legislation because of the 60-vote threshold and some Democrats who won’t support the bill because of environmental concerns.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission is a test of current NASA technology to redirect an asteroid to prevent a catastrophic impact.  Launched in November 2021, DART has traveled to 65803 Didymos, a binary asteroid system in the Apollo belt, a band of asteroids that orbits the Sun at the distance as Earth.  Scheduled for 7:14 p.m ET, the DART craft will crash into Dimorphos, the moon in the binary system orbiting the minor planet Didymos, in a test to change the binary system’s orbit.  The program is an experiment to develop a system to potentially divert a near-Earth asteroid that is on a potential crash course with our planet.  

QAnon fan Republican Pennsylvania Governor candidate Doug Mastriano’s big campaign rally drew about 60 fans – roughly half of them already volunteers – to Harrisburg on Saturday, showing the shiny-scalped conspiracy theorist has quite a ways to go and little time to make up for it if he really wants to be in charge of America’s ninth-most populous state, the New York Times reports.

The evil Venezuelan-founded voting equipment company Smartmatic is under federal criminal investigation! It’s right here in a report from that new media company Semafor! Rejoice Trump fans, until you read this: It’s for allegedly violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for bribing government officials in the Philippines for a contract to administer their elections. It has nothing to do with the 2020 election in the United States – in which the only place where Smartmatic machines were used was in Los Angeles County, California and literally nowhere else.

That said, as Semafor notes, this news could be helpful to the numerous defendants targeted by Smartmatic’s defamation lawsuits alleging reputational harm by the MAGA bullshit conspiracy theories. It would be indeed more difficult to disentangle reputational harm caused by false statements from Lou Dobbs, Newsmax, the Kraken, Mike Lindell, etc from reputational harm caused by a legitimate federal criminal investigation, even if bribing certain people is just part of the cost of trying to do business in a deeply corrupt place like the Philippines. Semafor also points out how Trump himself was a vocal opponent of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for that very reason, calling it a “horrible law” that puts US businesses at a disadvantage in other countries and reportedly quietly curtailing enforcement by his Justice Department while in office.

“So the heavy hand of the green energy mob, as some might call it, is coming down on the former Trump appointee who runs the World Bank and the somewhat creepy connection is now uncovered between some of these green groups and China,” Fox hostess nearing her expiration date for the network Martha MacCallum declares as she pushes her network’s pro-pollution standing with a vague “some people say”-esque diversion.

And given that the scientific consensus for and palpable impact of climate change will help direct world economics in the future, yes, Trump appointee David Malpass, the president of the World Bank, has justly been lambasted for repeatedly failing to affirm his belief in the science of climate change, which as we mentioned, will have an outsized role in economic development for future generations.

By an overwhelming majority, voters in Cuba passed an amendment to the government’s “Family Code” that legalizes same-sex marriage through the nation, CNN reports, making Cuba more progressive and human-rights friendly than the Republican Party.

With 74% of voters in the Sunday referendum approving the measure, Cuba now recognizes LGBTQ couples.  After decades where the Castro regime would imprison LGBTQ people in work camps, homosexuality was decriminalized in Cuba in 1979–years before similar sodomy laws were struck down in places like Texas, Alabama and Utah.

Although evangelicals have made a major push to recruit new followers in Cuba, the government put the issue on the ballot in large part thanks to the efforts of Mariela Castro, the 60-year-old daughter of former Cuban president Raul Castro, who used her position as head of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education in Havana to advocate for expanding marriage rights to all.

In the three years since it was established, the Arizona Attorney General’s “election integrity” unit has prosecuted just 20 cases of alleged voter fraud, an increase over 16 cases from the prior six years according to an analysis by the Washington Post cautioning that similar exercises in performative bullshit for MAGA voters being launched currently in other states simply leaves them disappointed and wanting for more action. “It does make you wonder why aren’t they doing anything. Except for a handful of individuals, but that’s nothing new,” said right wing state Senator Kelly Townsend, who herself actually helped launch the unit only to be badmouthing it now.

All told, when you really step back and look at it, the Republican Party of Arizona just invents new ways to fuck over and disappoint its fans. The unhinged maniac Kari Lake has a 44/100 chance to win the governorship per FiveThirtyEight’s forecast, which we guess is okay, but she’s facing a fairly weak Dem candidate in current Secretary of State Katie Hobbs. Things are considerably worse on the Senate side, as total douchebag Blake Masters has a 16/100 shot of taking down incumbent Dem Senator Mark Kelly, who’s not exactly a high-profile personality either.

If you were a Republican Arizonan you should be asking yourself what the fuck this party is doing for you these days. Four years ago you were in a pretty solid red state, which Trump won in 2016 by a comfortable 3.5%, two Republican Senators, and five Republicans and four Dems representing your state in the US House. Even in 2018, when a Dem took one Senate seat, your Republican governor still won reelection by 14%. Now in 2022, both of your Senators are Democrats (even though one’s a DINO), there are five Dems to four Republicans from Arizona in the US House. Your party could’ve nominated Gov Doug Ducey or Attorney General Mark Brnovich – guys who have actually won statewide races – to run for the Senate, instead you’re stuck with this Blake Masters creep who not even fucking Mitch McConnell thinks can win. And you’re more likely than not going to have a Dem governor next year. Why are you even still voting for and giving money to this party if they demonstrably and repeatedly have given you terrible candidates and then jerk you around with this “election integrity” unit that has accomplished jack shit? You should be pretty pissed.

CBO estimates that the cost of outstanding student loans to the federal government will increase by about $400 billion because of an executive action canceling some debt. https://t.co/FgEHBn2XP6

— U.S. CBO (@USCBO) September 26, 2022

After hiding in Moscow for nearly a decade to escape charges for stealing classified documents, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has been granted Russian citizenship by a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin, the Associated Press reports.

The 39-year-old Snowden was one of 75 foreigners who are now under the Kremlin’s protection.  Snowden fled to Moscow in 2013 after he disclosed no fewer than 100,000 national security documents belonging to the US and its allies, Australia and the United Kingdom.  Snowden gave gadfly journalist Glenn Greenwald somewhere between 50,000 and 200,000 American intelligence documents, some of which Greenwald then selectively put online.  Snowden also handed over 58,000 British documents and 15,000 Australian documents, available to the US through intelligence sharing treaties.  Some estimates put the number of files exposed by Snowden at more than 1.5 million.

A one-time CIA employee who went to work for Dell and later, Booz Allen Hamilton assigned to the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland, Snowden used his position as a system administrator to trick about two dozen other contractors to give him their log in credentials, giving him access to programs he should not have been able to see.  He then did a wholesale download of documents which he turned over to Greenwald, who published them on his website and on Wikileaks.

Kurdish women in a semi-autonomous region of northern Syria staged demonstrations Monday to show solidarity with and support for the women of Iran who have taken to the streets to protest the death of an Iranian Kurd while in the custody of Iran’s so-called “morality police,” Reuters reports.

Twenty-two year old Mahsa Amini died in custody after being detained by Iran’s Gasht-e Ershad, a special policing unit responsible for making sure women in the country don’t dress too seductively because they might use their feminine wiles to tempt weak Iranian men, because she had too much of her hair showing from under her headscarf.

“We support the protests and uprisings in Iran,” said Arwa al-Saleh, a member of the Kongra Star women’s rights organisation that called for the protest. “No to injustice, no to oppression … yes to women’s rights,” she said.

Republican Speaker of the House Robin Vos on Monday sought an court order blocking a subpoena compelling his testimony from the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th Republican-led domestic terrorist attack on Congress and the surrounding plot to undermine the integrity of the November 2020 election, CNN reports.

The January 6th Committee subpoenaed Vos over the weekend seeking his testimony about his January 2022 conversation with Donald Trump about an effort by Wisconsin Republicans to block the use of ballot drop boxes and future efforts the Wisconsin GOP would take to inhibit the ability of voters to cast ballots in the election.  The committee wanted Vos to testify today at 10 a.m. ET, but Vos claims he doesn’t have enough time to prepare.

Vos and Trump spoke in July about a state supreme court ruling blocking the use of some ballot drop boxes.  During that conversation, Trump reportedly asked Vos to get back to him about future Republican voter suppression efforts.  The call demonstrates an ongoing effort by Trump and Republicans to interfere with elections far beyond the November 2020 election Trump lost. Vos is claiming “legislative immunity” in trying to get out of testifying, although there’s no such thing when conspiring to commit a crime.

With 7 out of 8 residents having at least one coronavirus vaccination and the rate of spread in the nation simmering at a low pace, Canada is lifting some of the restrictions put in place to help fight the spread of the virus during the pandemic, the Associated Press reports.

Data show 83% of Canadians are fully vaccinated, allowing the Transportation Ministry to lift the requirement for wearing masks on planes.  (By comparison, just 68% of Americans are fully vaccinated ’cause freedum.)  Canada will also no longer require Canadians reentering the country after foreign travel to prove they are vaccinated, nor will they conduct random Covid tests to people entering the country.

“The removal of border measures has been facilitated by a number of factors, including modelling that indicates that Canada has largely passed the peak of the Omicron BA.4- and BA.5-fuelled wave, Canada’s high vaccination rates, lower hospitalization and death rates, as well as the availability and use of vaccine boosters (including new bivalent formulation), rapid tests, and treatments for COVID-19,” the government said in a release.

At 4:34 PM on January 6th, 2021, the White House landline called a MAGA rioter named Anton Lunyk who had by then probably already left Capitol, CNN reports, following up on former Republican Congressman Denver Riggleman’s weekend revelation of the call. CNN’s report was the first time the recipient was identified as Lunyk (pictured above right at approximately 3:10 PM on the 6th). Lunyk, 26, of Brooklyn, New York, has no known connection to the Trump Campaign, White House, or groups such as the Oath Keepers or Proud Boys. Instead it appears he’s just a regular dickhead Trump fan, who was spotted by a traffic camera leaving New York City at 11:54 PM the prior night, and then returning at 8:28 PM on the 6th so it’s very likely he and his friends were already in the car by the time of the call, which lasted only nine seconds. As ridiculous of a coincidence it would be, it seems more likely than not it was simply a wrong number. If not, and the call was placed correctly, then it would still seem extremely unlikely otherwise to be evidence of coordination between the Trump White House and the rioters given the facts at hand.

A gunman wearing a black t-shirt bearing “Nazi symbols” opened fire at a school in Russia on Monday, killing at least 13 people – seven children included – and wounding 21, the AP reports. The gunman, 34 year old Artyom Kazantsev, reportedly a graduate of the school shot himself at the scene. It’s unclear if there are any links to the ongoing conscription crisis in Russia.

Disgraced former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows had multiple text exchanges with discredited loser MAGA conspiracy theorist Phil Waldron over an attempt to seize voting machines back in late December of 2020 following Trump’s humiliating loss to Joe Biden, CNN reports.

In the exchange, Waldron lamented that a court loss in Arizona in a case where he and other plaintiffs had sought access to the machines was devastating, as the state was supposed to be “our lead domino we were counting on to start the cascade,” to which Meadows replied “Pathetic.”