Completely detestable piece of shit Republican Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson claims he broke his promise not to run for a third term after his fans tearfully begged him to “help us save this country.”

A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin wouldn’t guarantee that an American captured fighting for Ukraine would not be sentenced to the death penalty by its allied forces in eastern Ukraine, NBC News reports.

Two US military veterans, Alexander Drueke and Andy Huynh, both from Alabama, were captured by Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine.  They were fighting with Ukraine units made up of foreign nationals.  Three other foreigners–two Brits and a Moroccan–who have been captured in the region were sentenced to death by local militia.

Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman, said Drueke and Huynh were “involved in illegal activities” in Ukraine, firing on Russian troops. “Those guys on the battlefield were firing at our military guys. They were endangering their lives,” he said.  “There will be a court, and there will be a court decision.”

Deputies with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department arrested three so-called “sovereign citizens” following a traffic stop when they found caches of ammunition and explosives in the car and explosives at a compound occupied by the group, KCBS CBS-2 in Los Angeles reports.

David Russell, 50, and Jeffery Russell, 46, whose relationship is unknown, were pulled over for a traffic stop.  Officers discovered the pair were prohibited from owning guns, and a subsequent search of the car found ammunition, gunpowder and an explosive device that was disarmed by the sheriff’s bomb squad.

Executing a warrant on a compound occupied by the group in the  Johnson Valley community in the Mojave Desert, deputies found military-style explosives, more ammunition and a cache of firearms.  There, they arrested 54-year-old Venus Mooney.

Two deputies with the Orange County, Florida sheriff’s office have been suspended for about two weeks for leaking details of actor and comedian Bob Saget’s death before the deceased’s next of kin could be notified, the Associated Press reports.

One of the officers was one of the first on the scene at the hotel where Saget was found dead; shortly after arriving on the scene, he told his brother, who immediately posted it on social media.  The other officer, who was off duty at the time, allegedly heard the news on the police radio and told his neighbor.  Saget reportedly slipped, fell or passed out and hit his head on a table, killing him.

“This case highlights how important it is to allow detectives in death investigations the time to ensure next of kin notifications are made before that information is disseminated to the public,” Orange County Sheriff John Mina said in a statement. “The deputies acknowledged their wrongdoing and were disciplined for their actions.”

With the Texas abortion ban bill now nine months old, families are beginning to feel the impact of the rules that make it impossible in the state to get an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.  As the Washington Post details, Texas teenager Brooke Alexander found out she was pregnant two days before the law took effect; by the time she had made a decision to seek an abortion, it was too late.

Like many Texans, Alexander could not afford to miss work, to travel out of state, or to find a private provider who would charge her hundreds of dollars to get an abortion.  So as perhaps one of the first women to be forced into parenthood by the Texas government, the 18-year-old Alexander is now the mother of twin daughters.

Kicked out of her house by her mother, Alexander now lives with her boyfriend’s father, while her boyfriend, the girls’ father, works shifts at a local burrito joint for $9.75 per hour.

Republican officials tell the Washington Examiner they’re increasingly worried a possible Trump 2024 campaign launch before the November could be a drag on their prospects in the midterms as it would refocus and energize Dem voters while depressing turnout among independent voters who might otherwise be amenable to picking GOP candidates.

“Trump being front and center could affect GOP gains in the House by five seats or so. But it could really affect the Senate, which could end up 50/50 again based on how the seats are looking,” said Texas GOP strategist Jeff Burton. “Anything, and I mean anything, that takes the focus off the miserable job Joe Biden is doing is bad for Republicans,” added former Moscow Mitch chief of staff Josh Holmes. Like with all things Trump, his needs – like getting ahead of GOP rivals to box them out and making sure that any prosecution he faces becomes more “political” than it would’ve been without him officially being a candidate – come first, ahead of the Party’s. Sucks for them.

https://youtu.be/r156NzlHmJ4

The Independent reports Facebook removed the ad from Eric Greitens’ page.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s office announced Monday that after months of teetering on the brink, their governing coalition has collapsed, triggering new elections and potentially threatening a return to power for disgraced ex-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the AP reports.

The Texas Republican Party’s convention and its revanchist official platform continue to impress us with their sheer insanity, as on top of the scorn heaped on elected members of Congress at the event and the batshit resolutions it produced like declaring “Homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice”, calling for a full national repeal of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, rejecting “the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States,” they also apparently passed secession as an official policy goal, pending final certification of the delegates’ votes.

“Pursuant to Article 1, Section 1, of the Texas Constitution, the federal government has impaired our right of local self-government. Therefore, federally mandated legislation that infringes upon the 10th Amendment rights of Texas should be ignored, opposed, refused, and nullified. Texas retains the right to secede from the United States, and the Texas Legislature should be called upon to pass a referendum consistent thereto,” says the platform’s section on “State Sovereignty.” Under another section titled “State Governance,” the platform says the next session of the state legislature should pass a bill “requiring a referendum in the 2023 general election for the people of Texas to determine whether or not the State of Texas should reassert its status as an independent nation.”

While there has definitely been an increase in rumblings calling for a Texas breakaway in the last few years, most famously former state GOP chairmaniac Allen West suggesting secession in reaction to the Supreme Court rejecting Texas’s lawsuit trying to nullify Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin’s electoral votes for Biden in the 2020 election, this resolution is probably by far the most serious effort to make it actually happen since the last time Texas seceded in 1861. Indeed, of all the 18th and 19th century republics that existed prior to annexation and statehood by the US, Texas is the only one that lasted longer than a year or two and was officially recognized by the United States government. Probably a contributing factor to the Texas GOP’s ballsy assertion of “state sovereignty” and belief they can make it on their own.

Just don’t mind the fact that Republican-governed Texas can’t even fucking handle its own independent power grid, or really everything else about them that might fail to inspire confidence in their ability to function as an independent nation in the 21st century.

Kremlin officials on Monday warned Lithuania they’re risking war by blockading rail shipments of coal, electronics, metals, and other sanctioned goods from the Russian mainland to its Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, the Times of London reports. Putin regime spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian military is preparing “retaliatory Measures” over the “provocative” and “hostile” move.

Documents obtained by the Washington Post from November 2020 show even more evidence the Trump Campaign was heavily involved in making sure the fake electors convened in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on December 14th, 2020. “It may seem odd that the electors pledged to Trump and Pence might meet and cast their votes on December 14 even if, at that juncture, the Trump-Pence ticket is behind in the vote count, and no certificate of election has been issued in favor of Trump and Pence. However, a fair reading of the federal statutes suggests that this is a reasonable course of action,” lawyer Kenny Chesebro wrote.

A former Fox hostess received a $15 million settlement from the network after she raised flags about gender pay disparity at the Murdoch-run company, saying female hosts got paid significantly less than bro hosts, the Washington Post reports.

Melissa Francis, who hosted shows on both Fox and Fox Business between 2012 and 2020, got the settlement after she started investigating the salaries her colleagues made to demonstrate the gender pay gap.  The settlement, on the high side of similar media cases, comes after Fox has made a series of settlements with women harassed by several men–such as Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, Eric Bolling–and Kimberly Guilfoyle at the network.

Fox, being the network one goes to for bullshit issued a statement which said, “We parted ways with Melissa Francis over a year and a half ago and her allegations were entirely without merit. We have also fully cooperated with the New York State Department of Labor’s investigation and look forward to the completion of this matter.”

A bunch of people with waaaayyyyy too much money are being warned by their prepared meal delivery service to immediately run and throw out the French Lentil + Leek Crumbles meal because many diners who mixed and heated the ingredients experiences gastrointestinal distress, NBC News reports.

Leeks, which people typically trot out to impress people but they’re basically overgrown scallions, were not the culprit causing the cramps.  Instead, Montezuma’s Revenge seems to have been the culprit in this caper.

A small number of customers have reported gastrointestinal discomfort after consuming our French Lentil + Leek Crumbles,” the email said, adding it “launched an investigation with internal and external experts throughout our supply chain and in accordance with regulatory procedures.”

Here is the letter. Addressed to my wife, sent to my home, threatening the life of my family. The Darkness is spreading courtesy of cowardly leaders fearful of truth. Is the what you want @GOP? Pastors?

https://t.co/YimZJcFp4W pic.twitter.com/BBgZ6Teur3

— Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@AdamKinzinger) June 19, 2022

Former guerrilla Gustavo Petro defeated assholish populist outsider Rodolfo Hernández in Colombia’s runoff election Sunda, capturing more than 50 percent of the vote with 99.45% counted, ensuring he would become the first ever leftist president in the South American nation’s turbulent 200 year history, the Associated Press reports. Petro’s lead in the May first round had freaked out Colombian Conservatives, with third place Conservative candidate Federico Gutierrez asking his fans to consolidate support around Hernández, calling Petro “a danger for democracy.”

Right wingers have been taking a beating in South American elections recently, with Chile and Peru’s presidencies now occupied by insurgent leftists taking down established Conservative candidates over the last year. MAGA Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is already freaking out and taking steps to “Stop the Steal” well ahead of an October election he is widely expected to lose pretty badly to leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Former Trump White House aide Alyssa Farah Griffin told CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday that the Orange Tyrant admitted to her he had lost to Joe Biden in November 2020, recalling that Trump had “blurted out watching Joe Biden on TV, ‘Can you believe I lost to this guy?'”

Griffin said she doesn’t think it’s the “smocking gun”, however, explaining “I’m not of the mind that this is going to take down Donald Trump in a legal sort of way. But I do think it’s going to inform the public about a man who lost and couldn’t do what we’ve done for the entirety of our history, which is allow a peaceful transition of power.” Trump himself seems very fixated on this “I actually believed it” defense, ranting on Truth Social Sunday “The highly partisan Unselects are trying to create a FAKE narrative, for whatever reason but only with evil intention, that ‘He (me) knew he lost the Election.’ This is completely false. I felt the Election was RIGGED & STOLLEN [sic], have from the very beginning, & have only gotten stronger in that belief with time & large amounts of additional evidence and proof. In my mind I have, & HAVE HAD, NO QUESTION” and blah blah blah.

“Like clockwork, the Fake Media will latch onto any story, regardless of its validity. Kari Lake is serving Mr. Stevens a defamatory lawsuit and is more than happy to do the same to Media outlets that report these lies as truth. This New Republican Party fights back. The AZ Media is disgusting. They wrote a hit piece against Kari’s daughter for working at Turning Point USA, a Non-Profit.”

“What the hell needs to happen to make them report on Joe Biden’s son? Or our stolen election? Or the U.S. involvement in the largest invasion and human trafficking operation in history? These animals are salivating over a fake story, pulling out every stop to hurt our America-First Movement in Arizona. Why is the Media fighting so hard to defend the Grooming of our Children? We encourage these outlets to remember what happened in the Nick Sandmann case and think twice about defaming Kari Lake” – Kari Lake campaign statement via Twitter champ Ron Filipkowski.

Extra special thanks to Ron for tweeting our original report Saturday. We already owed him big time for all the past reporting we’ve sourced from his feed, this makes us indebted on a cosmic scale.

Congressman Adam Schiff told CNN Sunday the House January 6th Select Committee have evidence tying Trump directly to the fake 2020 electors scam, Reuters reports. “We will also again show evidence about what his own lawyers came to think about this scheme, and we’ll show courageous state officials who stood up and said they wouldn’t go along with this plan to either call legislatures back into session or decertify the results for Joe Biden,” Schiff said.