Columbia Univesity in New York has informed the editors of US News & World Report that it will not be submitting a review application for its prestigious college rankings after one of the university’s professors released a scathing review of the data the school was submitting.

According to the New York Times, Columbia Professor of Mathematics Michael Thaddeus posted a 21-page critique of the data the university was submitting for review to the news service.  Thaddeus dissected information relating to everything from reported class sizes to the reported percentage of faculty who have terminal degrees to the reported graduation rates.

Withdrawing from the rankings will deal a severe blow to the Ivy League school’s reputation, particularly because Thaddeus essentially accuses university officials of manipulating the data to perform better in polling and ranking services.

“And to say that elections are always square,” candidate for the Wyoming Republican House nomination Anthony Bouchard declares.  “We know in several states they used Covid, they used the ballot process, what about uh, uh, uh, uh, …Facebook… uh… using th-th-th-the system to tah, tah, tah, steer people.  Uh, we-we-we know for a fact all the major internets do that.”

The two messages the House January 6th Select Committee displayed on the screen that were sent by unnamed persons to unnamed witnesses obviously intent on influencing their testimony, were actually both received by Cassidy Hutchinson and at least one of them was sent by a person associated with her old boss, former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Politico reports.

“[A person] let me know you have your deposition tomorrow. He wants me to let you know that he’s thinking about you. He knows you’re loyal, and you’re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition,” read one of the messages. “What they said to me is as long as I continue to be a team player, they know I’m on the right team. I’m doing the right thing. I’m protecting who I need to protect, you know, I’ll continue to stay in good graces in Trump World. And they have reminded me a couple of times that Trump does read transcripts,” said the other, which was so fucking lame how they use that dumb media metonym “Trump World” to refer to themselves.

“No one from Meadows’ camp, himself or otherwise, has ever attempted to intimidate or shape Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony to the committee. Any phone call or message she is describing is at best deeply misleading,” Meadows spokesworm Ben Williamson said to Politico.

“Arh, ah, er, … Our republic is not in danger because of President Donald Grey J Trump.  President Trump was an excellent president for the United States of America and especially for the state of Wyoming,” says the Trump-endorsed Republican primary opponent for the sole Wyoming House seat, Harriet Hageman, who shares her idol’s love of pancake makeup.  “The threat to our republic really comes from other sources, including the fact that right now we’re seeing that we have two different systems of justice in this country where we have one system of justice where you have people like Hunter Biden or ah, ah, Hillary Clinton or even Joe Biden who are not accountab– held accountable for the decisions and the bad acts that they, that they undertake.”

For the record:  Donald Trump was in office for four years.  He had six different people leading the Department of Justice.  No criminal indictments were ever filed against Hunter Biden, Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton, whom Trump audiences insisted should be jailed without a trial, speaking of two different justice systems.

Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony before the cameras during a hearing for the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on Congress might never have happened if she hadn’t done one thing.  She fired her lawyer about two weeks ago.

As the New York Times points out, Hutchinson’s previous counsel, Stefan Passantino, was being funded by Donald Trump-connected groups, either cash from his PAC or remaining campaign funds.  After Hutchinson fired that counsel, her new lawyer contacted Committee investigators to arrange a fourth interview, during which she disclosed sordid details about the actions of Donald Trump and her boss, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

Having a third party pay for one’s legal counsel is not illegal in or out of politics, but in a case as fraught with conflicts of interest as the Trump cabal is, the question of whether the lawyers Trump is paying are representing the client’s best interests, or Trump’s, is relevant. 

The 45-year-old Texas man who abandoned a truck full of migrants in searing heat that led to the death of 53 people was high on meth when he was transporting the people according to Democratic Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar, in whose district the truck was found, Reuters reports.

Homero Zamorano, Jr., the driver, was found in the brush around the truck when it was found on Monday.  Briefed by the US Border Patrol, Cuellar said Zamorano had methamphetamine in his system when he was detained.  Zamorano is charged in federal court with human trafficking, with other charges likely to be added after an investigation.

The truck was carrying migrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.  It was found abandoned in an industrial zone of San Antonio on a day when temperatures in the area hit 103 degrees Fahrenheit.

A group of right wing teachers in Texas – the kind of people who probably object to politically correct bullshit like “birthing person” and “plus size” – have proposed that slavery be referred to as “involuntary relocation” during second grade social studies lessons in the state’s public school system, the Texas Tribune reports. The board pushed back and unanimously directed the nine Rio Grande Valley-area teachers to shut up. “The board – with unanimous consent – directed the work group to revisit that specific language,” the board’s chair Keven Ellis said in a statement Thursday.

A 71-year-old Pennsylvania woman became the third person in a month, and the second in three days, to be gored by a bison at Yellowstone National Park, the National Park Service announced in a press release.

After hiking, the woman and her daughter unwittingly approached the bison at a trailhead where the women had parked.  The startled bison charged at the women, striking the older woman.  The woman was transported to a regional hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

According to the NPS, this is the third time this year that a hazardous interaction between a bison and a human happened at Yellowstone:  On May 30, a woman approached a bison near a boardwalk at Black Sand Basin, and a man approached a bison near a boardwalk at Giant Geyser on June 28.

An unknown enterprising journalist created steadied footage of the time–more than two minutes–after Donald Trump left the stage at the Stop the Steal rally on January 6th when Mark Meadows’ aide Cassidy Hutchinson claimed Trump attacked Secret Service agents who would not drive him to the Capitol, which was already under siege.

While the film is low res, it does appear to show tussling in the back of the SUV before a Murderers’ Row of Trump cabal players march past the vehicle. Is it iron-clad proof? No. Does it raise questions as to why the President’s vehicle sat there for two minutes? Hell yeah.

Clarence Thomas wrote some QAnon shit in a dissent Thursday when the court declined to take up a case from a group of healthcare workers in New York challenging the state’s mandatory vax policy, Politico reports. “They object on religious grounds to all available COVID–19 vaccines because they were developed using cell lines derived from aborted children,” Thomas wrote.

❗ Reminder ❗
The Inter-service Transfer submission deadline is 11:59p.m. today. For more info visit https://t.co/7VxGMpdWDp

— United States Space Force (@SpaceForceDoD) June 30, 2022

A Celebration, Florida man’s dream of proving how awesome he is at security work by stealing a R2-D2 droid prop worth $10,000 from some Star Wars-themed exhibit at Disney World ended in disaster when he was caught and charged with felony grand theft, Fox 35 Orlando reports.

David Proudfoot, 44, became nervous when a real security guard spotted him wearing a fake badge hauling a cart around a hotel on the property of the most magical place on Earth, and quickly called Orange County Sheriff’s deputies. The deputies who responded found that Proudfoot’s story didn’t add up and placed him under arrest. Upon being led out in cuffs, Proudfoot told the deputies he had applied for a security guard job in the park and was just trying to prove to how good he is at security by helping to locate the “missing” oversized toy robot.

The WITCH HUNT committee continues to discredit itself. Why are they still doing this? It’s non-stop LIES, and the American people aren’t buying it. There are MUCH BETTER things we should be doing!

— Ronny Jackson (@RonnyJacksonTX) June 30, 2022

A Florida county circuit court judge issued a stay preventing the 15-week abortion ban ordered by Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis from going into effect, saying that the law plainly violates the state’s constitutional guarantees relating to health care and privacy, the Tallahassee Democrat reports.

“Women have a right to privacy under the state constitution,” Cooper said in stopping the law, which was scheduled to take effect July 1.  Article 1 Section 23 of the Florida Constitution reads:  “Every natural person has the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the person’s private life except as otherwise provided herein. This section shall not be construed to limit the public’s right of access to public records and meetings as provided by law.”

Here’s a tracker.

Now, go down this list and find your Senator. If they only say they’re “open to reform,” that’s not enough. We need a clear position.

If their position isn’t abolished or talking filibuster, or if their answer isn’t clear, CALL THEM. ☎️https://t.co/ojs6J2YdEV

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 30, 2022

Supreme Court Justice Ketnaji Brown Jackson was sworn on to the bench by Chief Justice John Roberts on Thursday, becoming the first ever Black woman to serve on the nation’s highest court.

The FiveThirtyEight midterms forecast puts Republicans at an 87 of 100 chance to control the House and a 53 of 100 chance to control the Senate in 2023. Nate Silver cautions however he hasn’t really incorporated much post-Roe v Wade polling into his prediction model and says it’s not a huge national popular vote gap to close for the Dems in the House.

“The task isn’t that daunting for Democrats. Our model calculates that Democrats would be favored to keep the House if they win the House popular vote — or lose it by less than 0.7 percentage points — something that Democrats did in both 2018 and 2020. Moreover, Democrats are down by only about 2 points in our current average of generic-ballot polls. Given the inherent error in polling, and how much time there is between now and November, it isn’t hard to turn a 2-point deficit in the polls into a 1-point win… If polls come out showing Democrats holding their own among likely voters – such as because of increased Democratic enthusiasm in the wake of Roe being overturned – the model will adjust to reflect that. Put another way, a very strong turnout would give Democrats a fighting chance of keeping the House,” the master election nerd writes.

The Supreme Court on Thursday granted certiorari to a case designed to implement what’s called the “independent legislature theory,” a completely made-up legal fiction designed to empower state legislatures to overturn the results of elections in their states and overrule courts whenever they want, NPR reports. The case will be argued before the court in the fall, where its outcome is not necessarily a guaranteed win for anti-democracy forces given prior rulings by Chief Justice John Roberts, but the fact they’re taking it up in the first place is not a good sign.

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled 5-4, with Chief Justice Roberts and Beer-me Brett joining the liberals, that the Biden Administration’s order to terminate the Remain in Mexico policy did not violate federal immigration law, handing Texas Attorney Ken Paxton a defeat.

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled 6-3 that Congress did not give the EPA the authority to impose emissions caps on polluters in West Virginia v the Environmental Protection Agency.