Evidently riven with angst over each moment being but a grain falling inexorably down to the bottom of his entropic hourglass somewhere deep within the vast, hidden machinery of the universe, Jonathan Turley on Saturday channeled the deep, existential unease over his inevitable end into an opinion piece questioning if another man should share the same worries. We would have read it, but we have our own hourglasses to worry about and spending such precious grains on a guy who’s kind of a loser using another man’s problems to mask his own crushing ennui.

The parents of Brianna Grier called the Sparta, Georgia police Thursday night when their daughter showed up at their house after midnight in the depths of a schizophrenic episode, hoping that police could help control her, the Washington Post reports.

The police took Brianna away in handcuffs, presumably to give her a night in a cell to calm down.  Instead, her parents got a call later in the morning telling them that Brianna was dead from injuries after falling out of the police car as it was traveling down the road.

Grier’s parents knew she was self-medicating with illegal drugs, saying that they helped control her mental illness better than the prescribed medications she was given by doctors.  That night, she had also been drinking, and police ostensibly arrested her for drunkenness. 

The President is defeating Covid!  He is a superhuman on whom germs and viruses have no effect!  He is a superior medical specimen with Herculean strength and godlike immunities!  People are saying he’s impervious to disease!

Oh…. wait… that’s how the previous administration would’ve lied about the then-occupant of the White House.  Now, with more rational leadership, the White House physician–who is not a drug pusher like Republican Texas Congressman Ronny “Dr. Feelgood” Jackson–reports that President Joe Biden’s condition continues to improve thanks to being vaccinated and taking approved treatments like Paxlovid, not a dewormer or a disinfectant, Reuters reports.

Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the White House Physician, reports that the 79-year-old Biden’s lungs are clear and his oxygen saturation levels are normal.  Biden suffers from an occasional “loose cough,” as well as a sore throat, runny nose and body aches.

We said we would check in again a few months after the last time we updated about the incredibly lame $500 alt-right smartphone “FreedomPhone” not updating their website after an initial wave of hype last year crashed up against the reality that it’s a $120 piece of shit Chinese Android model made more “freedom-y” because OAN, Rumble, Parler, Newsmax, and some other MAGA apps coming preinstalled in its “FreedomOS” – which is simply a customized version of the Google-developed Android platform. FreedomPhone is super anti-Big Tech, by the way.

So we checked in again and there still hasn’t been any update since January. No press releases announcing “FreedomPhone 2” or “FreedomPhone Pro” (We kind of understand why they’re not working on a “FreedomPhone 5G” since that wouldn’t really play well with their market). There’s no word on a “FreedomWatch” or “FreedomTablet,” much less a “FreedomOS 2” or even “FreedomOS 1.1” for that matter. In fact we just reused the same screenshot of the “updates” page we had published in March since it still says the exact same thing now. Thanks FreedomPhone!

The World Health Organization declared a global emergency with the rising number of monkeypox cases around the world, an action that provides additional resources to the more than 70 countries impacted by the spread of the virus, reports USA Today.

Approximately 14,000 cases of monkeypox have been confirmed around the world, with the US seeing about 2,600 confirmed cases.  The likely number of cases worldwide is believed to be much higher because many countries do not have testing capabilities, whereas the US has a strong medical reporting system.

The WHO has previously declared global emergencies for the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak, the Zika virus in Latin America in 2016, as well as the worldwide effort to eradicate polio.  The declaration calls on governments to put forth resources and manpower to identify and isolate patients who have been exposed to the virus.

Only five Republicans in the Senate – Concern Lady Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Thom Tillis, RonAnon, and Rob Portman – so far are an affirmative yes on the same-sex marriage protection bill passed by the House last week leaving its final passage still up in the air, NBC News reports.

Since the whole fucking point was obviously to force the Senate GOP to take a stance on the issue – as you see otherwise complete asshole Ron Johnson is a yes because he’s terrified of losing reelection in November – there’s no reason for Chuck Schumer to not bring it to a vote. If it passes, great. Same-sex marriage can’t be outlawed by the extremists on the Supreme Court. If it fails, great. Republicans look bad and want to leave yet another personal freedom vulnerable to being taken away the same as abortion just was last month. Horrific and cruel as being denied access to abortion can be, at least there’s an immediacy and finality to being confronted with it – either a girl or woman can make it to another state to get the treatment she needs or she can’t.

In contrast, voiding people’s marriages, or refusing to recognize them across state borders, is a whole different and much more complex problem, potentially breaking up families, depriving children of their parents, fucking up personal finances, God knows what else. It will get very ugly.

Just like we said you wouldn’t, you didn’t win the $660 million Mega Millions lotto jackpot on Friday, the AP reports. The now $790 million prize, which you won’t win either, will be drawn Tuesday.

• Josh Hawley’s sprint merits an endorsement deal from New Balance.  
• Who acted more like a leader:  Joe Biden, who’s isolating after being diagnosed with Covid, or Donald Trump, who took a joyride with Secret Service agents and considered ripping his shirt off to expose a Superman logo while standing on Truman Balcony after discharging himself from Walter Reed?
• Don’t forget:  Steve Bannon is literally a convicted con man.  Yes, he got a pardon from a corrupt president which wiped the conviction away, but he was convicted of conning millions of dollars from people.  He is the personification of Republican entitlement.  How many times does he need to be convicted of crimes before the conservative dupes catch on?
• Kudos to the DOJ.  The Bannon conviction was clearly a warning shot to the other people defying Congressional subpoenas.  They went after the low-hanging fruit, got it, and now everyone else will have to reconsider their positions.  Peter Navarro is next.
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume LXXIX”

A Kansas state court found that Republican Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab modified a software platform used by the state to tally election results so that the program couldn’t report data on provisional ballots requested by a voting rights group, the Associated Press reports.

The information requested could have easily been delivered using the software as it was provided by the vendor, the court ruled; however, Schwab had department programmers modify the program so that it would disable the reporting function, making it impossible to assemble in a useable fashion.

Voting-rights group Loud Light had requested the data to aid its effort to help voters avoid the need to cast provisional ballots, which in Kansas are given to tens of thousands of voters whose voter registration information is not identical to what the state has on record.  Voting rights advocates have suspected that those ballots are not properly tallied, and that the people targeted with registration questions requiring them to vote provisionally are voters Republicans don’t want to vote.

On the day he was convicted of two counts of criminal contempt of Congress, future convict Steve Bannon says very confidently, “Well, as you can tell, the Democrats are completely lawless.” Just a reminder: Bannon was convicted of failing to obey a lawfully-issued subpoena, issued in accordance with the Constitution. So by definition, Bannon is the one who is “completely lawless.”

“Audrey Strauss, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and William F. Sweeney Jr., the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (‘FBI’), announced today that DONNELL RUSSELL, manager of music recording artist Robert Sylvester Kelly, better known as ‘R. Kelly,’ was charged in two counts with threatening physical harm by interstate communication, and conspiracy to do the same, for placing a threatening phone call to a theater in Manhattan to prevent the December 4, 2018, screening of a docuseries exploring allegations of R. Kelly’s sexual abuse of minor girls and adult women. RUSSELL is expected to make his initial appearance later today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang.”

“Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said: ‘As alleged, Donnell Russell used threats of violence to stop a screening of a docuseries devoted to exploring allegations of sexual abuse against women and minor girls by the recording artist R. Kelly. By allegedly threatening a shooting at the theater, Russell prevented the screening, which was attended by a number of R. Kelly’s alleged victims. Threats of gun violence aimed at intimidating and silencing victims of sexual abuse are unlawful as well as unacceptable. We are committed to aggressively investigating and prosecuting such crimes'” says a press release from the Southern District of New York.

Vince McMahon, the 76 year old WWE CEO and husband to former Trump Administration Small Business Secretary Linda McMahon, announced on Friday his retirement from the staged fighting soap opera promotion he helmed since the 1970s amid multiple allegations of hush money payments to sexual harassment victims or affair partners or both, the Wall Street Journal reports.

McMahon spent decades as both the real life CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (formerly the World Wrestling Federation until the World Wildlife Fund stole the “WWF” belt circa 2002) and a fictionalized version of himself in the ring. Kind of like his friend Donald Trump, except McMahon’s TV persona of a shrewd and successful executive was kind of accurate, whereas Trump’s was not. Also unlike Trump, McMahon evidently has at least some measure of capacity for shame and is walking away after his horrible private behavior toward women became public.

We keep coming back to this, but this full circle of the WWE and Trumpism is too fascinating not to note here: Around 2000 or so, a right wing Christian activist L Brent Bozell III, whose “Parents’ Television Council” or “PTC” ran an obnoxious moralizing campaign against the WWF’s multiple hours a week of staged violence and borderline pornographic indecency. To mock him, McMahon took one of his midcard punkish wrestlers Stevie Richards and retooled him as “Steven Richards” the head of an obnoxious moralizing wrestler faction called “Right To Censor,” or “RTC.” Richards would disrupt matches between female wrestlers, brainwashed a pimp character wrestler called “The Godfather” and his “hoes” into joining RTC, and other wacky stunts to solidify his heel status.

Two decades later Bozell’s son, L Brent Bozell IV, pleaded not guilty to multiple federal felonies he was indicted on for entering the Capitol and the Senate chamber on January 6th, 2021, trying to overturn the election loss of the president on whose cabinet sat the wife of the man who for at least a dozen hours of nationally televised wrestling had openly mocked his father as being a right wing Christian pussy imposing his dated morality on a generation that didn’t want it. This fucking Bozo is going to prison because he thought the only way to save Christian America from degeneracy was to keep Trump – a man who in more ways than one was linked to the degeneracy of the WWF/WWE that his father used to crusade against – in office.

Police report an active shooter at the Jacksonville Zoo, presumably a human.  While the zoo was closed to the public today, a group was having a special event at the location and upon hearing gunshots, all attendees were rushed to a cafeteria where they were sheltering in place, Fox3 reports.

The shooter has not been located, and police have cordoned off the zoo, and they’re searching the area around the zoo in case the shooter had already fled the area.

Thanks to Jak for the tip.

Alcoholic degenerate white nationalist Steve Bannon was convicted of criminal contempt of Congress on Friday for defying his September 2021 subpoena from the House January 6th Select Committee after just about three hours of deliberations by the jury (including lunch), Politico’s Kyle Cheney reports and not MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. That guy’s a dick. No word on sentencing yet, however Empty Wheel’s Marci Wheeler believes Bannon will remain free during his appeal.

A federal judge on Friday tossed disgraced and fat former President Trump’s claims against former FBI Director Jim Comey, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and “lover” agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page in the Donald’s massive and massively fucking stupid lawsuit over the 2016 election and the subsequent Russia investigation, Bloomberg reports. The dismissal was a quick and easy call for Bill Clinton-appointed US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks as the four Deep Staters are protected by a 1988 federal statute barring civil claims against government workers acting in their official duties. The DOJ entered as substitute defendant and also motioned for an immediate dismissal.

The Fantastic FBI Four’s walk leaves only Hillary Clinton, HFACC, the Democratic National Committee, DNC Services Corporation, Perkins Coie, Michael Sussmann, Marc Elias, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Charles Halliday Dolan Jr, Jake Sullivan, John Podesta, Robert E. Mook, Phillipe Reines, Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson, Peter Fritsch, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr, Orbis Business Intelligence, Christopher Steele, Igor Danchenko, Neustar, Rodney Joffe, Kevin Clinesmith, John Does 1 through 10 (said names being fictious [sic] and unknown persons), and ABC Corporations 1 through 10 (said names being fictitious and unknown entities), as the remaining defendants.

It’s not clear why Tim Kaine was left out, but that’s okay since he forgot he was Hillary’s 2016 running mate too. Middlebrooks is still weighing a separate motion to dismiss from Hillary and pals.

I can’t figure out if this is what happens when you tell your local Avon lady to make you look like a mix of Melania Trump, Kimberly Gargoyle and Kristi Noem, or if she’s a circus clown who forgot to put on whiteface before the rosy cheeks, big nose and oversized lips.  Regardless, this is Ceci Thomas and she’s got somethin’ to say.

Going on the “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” tirade, Ceci the Clown says, “When I am voted into Congress, I will never be voting for same sex marriage for these reasons:  because I hold to Biblical true conservative values.”

So if she holds on to Biblical True Conservative Values, she must then be supportive of revoking laws against incest, given that the Bible says Adam and Eve begot three sons:  Abel (a murder victim), Cain (a murderer) and Seth (an underachiever).  According to the Bible, there were no other women, so the only person those men could have bore children with was… their mother, Eve.  (There’s the question of Lilith, Adam’s first wife God created who Adam found too strong so God smited her, but that’s for another story.).

So the incest caucus of the US Congress will have a new member, and I’m sure cousin-humper Rudy Giuliani would be very interested in her campaign.  (And by the way, Ceci, God didn’t give you those lips, a bad botox injection did.)

Three people were shot dead at a state park in Iowa in the latest Red State mass murder, with the gunman, a 23-year-old white male, taking his own life, KCRG ABC 9 in Cedar Rapids reports.

Anthony Sherwin, of Nebraska apparently opened fire on the group as they were camping in Maquoketa Caves State Park Campground on Friday morning.  Around 6:30 a.m. local time, authorities responded to reports of gunfire at the park and found the four bodies.

The park was evacuated of visitors as a precaution.  The campers and counselors of Camp Shalom, a Jewish organization dedicated to promoting peaceful co-existence, was being held at the park at the time and all were evacuated.  The identities of the victims were not announced.

Shitty Korean car company Hyundai’s US manufacturing operations may have used parts sourced from a subsidiary’s factory using child labor in third world shithole Alabama, Reuters reports. Children as young as 12 allegedly worked the assembly line at a metal stamping plant owned by Hyundai subsidiary SMART LLC located in the impoverished, quasi-sovereign backwater that still hasn’t recovered economically from a devastating civil war in its not very recent past.

Other more recent embarrassments to Alabama’s stature in the intranational community include replacing a respected former lawman with a semi-functional retard football coach as its highest-ranking delegate to the assembly and the sampling of its subnational anthem into a song about white trash people in Northern Michigan intercut with another song about werewolves in London.

Far-right chameleon Arizona gov candidate Kari Lake was locked out of Twitter for posting what appears to be her rival Karrin Taylor-Robinson’s personal cell phone number in a video, the Daily Beast reports. It’s one of those hostage situations blue checks are given the chance to delete the offending tweet to unlock their account while us plebes would’ve been just banned for life.