A suit filed in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado is seeking class action proceedings against Dominion Voting Systems. The arguments are laughable, and represent an attempt by Dershowitz to ultimately deny Dominion their right to seek relief for slander, by improperly accusing the firm of using “lawfare tactics” to silence conservatives.

“This lawsuit is not about who is right or wrong regarding the merits of the election or claims of fraud or mistake.” Dershowitz claims. “It is about whether these issues are worthy of debate under the First Amendment, and whether a corporation that has participated in the election as a state-actor has the power to chill such debate by employing intimidating “Lawfare” tactics.”

A Friday News Release from the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports that consumer spending increased by 0.8% in August of 2021. The report’s analysis declared: “The increase in personal income in August primarily reflected increases in compensation of employees and government social benefits. Within compensation, the increase primarily reflected an increase in private wages and salaries.”

“Taliban fighters raided a hideout of the Islamic State group north of the Afghan capital on Friday, killing and arresting an unspecified number of militants, a Taliban spokesman said. Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in mid-August, there has been an increase in attacks by IS militants targeting Taliban members. The Taliban and IS are enemies, and the attacks have raised the specter of a wider conflict between the long-time rivals,” reports ABC News.

“In late August, an IS suicide bomber targeted U.S. evacuation efforts outside Kabul international airport in one of the deadliest attacks in the country in years. The blast killed 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members. Taliban spokesman Bilal Karimi told The Associated Press that Friday’s raid took place in the city of Charikar in Parwan province. He did not provide more details and his statement could not be independently verified.”

“The committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection and former President Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election will issue ‘criminal referrals’ to witnesses who refuse to obey subpoena deadlines, Chair Bennie Thompson said Friday. ‘The committee will probably for those who don’t agree to come in voluntarily, we’ll do criminal referrals and let that process work out,’ Thompson told reporters at the Capitol. In a brief interview, he said the panel had on Friday begun interviewing people who volunteered to cooperate with the investigation. Additional subpoenas would be coming out shortly,” reports Politico.

“Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Saturday announced he was retiring from politics and dropping plans to run for vice president in next year’s elections when his term ends, paving the way for his politician daughter to make a possible bid for the top post. Speaking before reporters, Duterte said many Filipinos have expressed their opposition to his vice-presidential bid in surveys and public forums. ‘The overwhelming sentiment of the Filipino is that I’m not qualified, and it would be a violation of the constitution,’ Duterte said. ‘In obedience to the will of the people. I will follow what you wish and today I announce my retirement from politics.'”

“The 76-year-old leader, known for his deadly anti-drugs crackdown, brash rhetoric and unorthodox political style, earlier accepted the ruling party’s nomination for him to seek the vice presidency in the May 9 elections. The decision outraged many of his opponents, who have described him as a human rights calamity in an Asian bastion of democracy. Duterte announced his surprise withdrawal from the election after accompanying his former longtime aide, Sen. Bong Go, to register his own vice presidential candidacy with the ruling party at a Commission on Elections center. Philippine presidents are limited by the constitution to a single six-year term and opponents had said they would question the legality of Duterte’s announced vice presidential run before the Supreme Court if he pursues his bid” – AP.

“Former U.S. President Donald Trump asked a federal judge in Florida on Friday to ask Twitter to restore his account, which the company removed in January citing a risk of incitement of violence. Trump filed a request for preliminary injunction against Twitter in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, arguing the social media company was ‘coerced’ by members of the U.S. Congress to suspend his account,” reports NBC News. “Twitter and several other social media platforms banned Trump from their services after a mob of his supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol in a deadly riot on Jan. 6.”

There are several problems with Trump’s suit. The first is that the claim Twitter was “coerced” is entirely speculative, and all that’s required to dismiss that claim is for a Twitter representative to deny Trump’s assertion and declare that Trump was suspended for violating Twitter’s Terms of Service which bar using the platform to call for violence against others. The second problem with Trump’s claim is that Twitter is a private company, and is legally able to bar anyone they like from their platform. Twitter is not subject to any kind of “equal time” regulations that require it to maintain accounts for political figures. Twitter is free to suspend anyone who violates their terms of service, and is free to maintain whatever balance of opinions or any kind of political environment they’d like. The company’s decision that they would not apply Terms of Service requirements as strictly for individuals who are public figures was a voluntary policy, and not something that the company was bound to by Federal regulations. For Trump to attempt to seek a legal precedent that would function as a regulation of Twitter and a short list of social media companies that have banned him, but not apply to all media companies as a whole constitutes an attempt at imposing regulation via legal precedent, and thereby ultimately constitutes the seeking of a legal precedent that will function as a bill of attainder, something that our Constitution strictly forbids.

• Take a moment and please bow your head in remembrance of the 700,000 souls lost in the US due to the coronavirus. [ ….. ]  Thank you, and now, back to our regularly scheduled snark.  
• I’m old enough to remember a time, not that long ago, when if someone started talking about a “dark agenda” or “sneaky cabal,” you slowly backed out of the room and hoped you didn’t talk to them again. You never thought they’d appear on Tucker Carlson or become a Supreme Court Justice.  But that is the world we live in today.
• When voters–particularly Republicans–are told the various aspects of Biden’s Build Back Better plan, they’re overwhelmingly in favor of each individual element.  Republicans are going to have a difficult time explaining why they’re against dental care for Medicare and day care for working families.  
• In honor of ROCKtober, Supertramp is still right 42 years later:  “I said, watch what you say or they’ll be calling you a radical/Liberal, oh fanatical, criminal/Won’t you sign up your name, we’d like to feel you’re acceptable/Respectable, oh presentable, a vegetable.”
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume XXXVIII”

The United States passed the grim milestone of 700,000 fatalities due to coronavirus during the pandemic Friday evening, as the country trudges through the third wave of the virus, strengthened with the delta variant, ABC News reports.

The death toll of the coronavirus pandemic makes it the deadliest episode in American history, surpassing the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, which took about 630,000 lives in the US.  The US death toll of World War II:  about 400,000.

Republican Ron Hanks, a Colorado state representative who participated in the protest at the Capitol on January 6th and spouts conspiracies on the floor of the legislature, has filed paperwork to challenge Democratic Senator Michael Bennett in 2022, Colorado Newsline reports.

The single-term state legislator, who was once known as Loren Hanks, ran for Congress in California in 2010.  He lost that election badly to Democrat Mike Thompson.  Hanks has repeated the debunked conspiracy theory that Donald Trump won the November 2020 election.

“State Representative Ron Hanks participated in the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6th and joked about lynching in the 2021 legislative session,” Colorado Democratic Party Chair Morgan Carroll said in a statement.  “He is a right wing extremist and insurrectionist. Hanks’ entry into the crowded GOP primary is proof of Trump’s strong influence over the Colorado Republican Party.”

Trashelle Odom, the high-dollar Republican donor who claimed former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski accosted her at a Las Vegas charity dinner, filed a police report detailing her allegations, Politico reports.

An Idaho resident, Odom has said she was seated next to Lewandowski during the dinner, during which Lewandowski groped her repeatedly and regaled her in his sexual prowess.  He described his genitalia; no report on if a toadstool was used as a benchmark.  Odom said it appeared Lewandowski was trying to intimidate her as she cringed by saying he wielded enormous power.

“Those statements, coupled with his demeanor and aggressive behaviors,” made Odom “intimidated and frightened and fearful for my safety and that of my family members,” Odom said in the statement submitted to the police.  She added that it “was as if he thought he had a sense of ownership over me, from the start.”

Elections experts who reviewed the findings of the Maricopa County “audit,” conducted at the behest of Arizona Republicans and done by Cyber Ninjas, found that the numbers in the final report were so inaccurate it was like they were guesswork, according to the New York Times.

“Maricopa Hoax: The Ninjas made up the numbers,” reads the headline on the experts’ website.  The panel, made up of a GOP data analyst from the state party and two elections consultants from Boston, said the Cyber Ninjas missed thousands of ballots delivered to them at the beginning of the recount in the Spring.  The ballots remained in 40 boxes on a pallet in the arena.

The audit, for which Cyber Ninjas provided state Republican senators a report two weeks ago, ultimately found Democrat Joe Biden defeated Republican Donald Trump by an even larger margin.  Cyber Ninjas were paid $150,000 from the state, with an unknown amount paid by private donors.

The Alabama legislature approved a plan to divert more than $400 million from the $1.2 billion federal funding to assist with pandemic response to projects to build two supersized prisons in the state, the Associated Press reports.

The legislation to pay for the prison construction, which has a $1.3 billion price tag, was approved on a bipartisan basis in the state senate.  Republican Alabama Governor Kay Ivey is expected to sign the bill.

“This was the right thing for Alabama to do. We’ve got crumbling infrastructure. We’ve got people housed in places that are filthy. We’ve got individuals in working in conditions that are unsafe, ” Republican state senator Greg Albritton said.

WABC New York:  “The deadline has passed for unvaccinated New York City public school employees to get their first dose of the COVID-19 shot or face suspension and possible termination, after Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor declined to provide a last minute reprieve Friday.  Sotomayor denied the request by a group of teachers for an emergency injunction. She did not issue any explanation or statement, and she did not refer the matter to the full court for a vote.

“As the justice overseeing the Second Circuit, Sotomayor has discretion to address emergency applications on her own.  The city had given its roughly 148,000 school employees until 5 p.m. to get their first shot or be suspended without pay when schools open on Monday.

“Teachers Rachel Maniscalco, Evelyn Arancio, Diana Salomon, and Corinne Lynch petitioned the court, claiming the mandate violates their due process and equal protection rights.  ‘If permitted to take effect, the August 23 Order will force thousands of unvaccinated public-school employees to lose their jobs while other municipal employees, including those who have significant contact with children, are allowed to opt-out of the vaccine mandate through weekly COVID-19 testing,’ the petition said. ‘As the number of unvaccinated is small compared to that of the vaccinated, there is no basis to mandate vaccines in lieu of weekly testing.'”

Associated Press:  “Pat Robertson, who turned a tiny Virginia television station into a global religious broadcasting network, is stepping down after a half-century running the ‘700 Club’ on daily TV, the Christian Broadcasting Network announced on Friday.  Robertson, 91, said in a statement that he hosted the network’s flagship program for the last time on Friday, and that his son Gordon Robertson will take over the weekday show starting on Monday.

“’I will no longer be the host of the “700 Club” after, I think, 54 years of hosting the program,’ Robertson said on the show on Friday, although he vowed to return from time to time, if he’s had a ‘revelation’ he needs to share. ‘I thank God for everyone that’s been involved. And I want to thank all of you.’

“Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network started airing on Oct. 1, 1961 after he bought a bankrupt UHF television station in Portsmouth, Virginia. The ‘700 Club’ began production in 1966.  Now based in Virginia Beach, CBN says its outreach extends to more than 100 countries and territories in dozens of languages through TV and video evangelism, online ministry and prayer centers. The ‘700 Club’ talk show can be seen in the vast majority of U.S. television markets.  Robertson, who ran for president in 1988, also founded the Christian Coalition, galvanizing American evangelicals into a conservative political force.”

New York Times:  “Gov. Gavin Newsom of California announced on Friday that the state plans to add the coronavirus vaccine to other vaccinations required to attend school, such as measles and mumps, starting as early as next fall.  The vaccine mandate, for public and private schools, will be phased-in by grade span — seventh through 12th grades, and then kindergarten through sixth — after the Food and Drug Administration grants full approval to the corresponding age group. Mr. Newsom said that he anticipates the requirement would apply to grades seven and up starting in July 2022.

“The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is currently only fully approved for people 16 and older; the vaccine remains available for children ages 12 to 15 under emergency use authorization. Mr. Newsom said that more than 63 percent of Californians aged 12 to 17 have received at least one dose of vaccine.  Widespread inoculation will be critical to keeping classrooms open, he noted.

“’We want to end this pandemic. We are all exhausted by it,’ the governor, who has four small children, said.  Mr. Newsom’s announcement would make California the first state to mandate the Covid vaccine for in-person school attendance.  Independent study will be offered for unvaccinated students, he said, and rules for students with medical and other exemptions will be determined through a public rule-making process. California has nearly 7 million students in public and private schools.

A former Republican candidate for a Florida Congressional seat who also served as an Army Green Beret has been charged for his role in the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol after being turned in by one of his fellow insurrectionists.

According to the affidavit by an FBI special agent, Jeremy Brown invited a number of other mob members to stay at his home before traveling to Washington, DC to take part in the protest and attack.  Referring to his RV as “Ground Force One,” Brown laid out preparations he and his associates would undertake before leaving:

GROUND FORCE ONE Departure Plan: If you can, come to my house anytime Saturday. You can stop by and drop stuff off, or stay the night. This way we can load plan, route plan, and conduct PCIs (Pre Combat Inspections). I would LIKE to depart by 0645 on Sunday morning, Jan 3rd. Push through to the NC linkup on the 3rd, RON (Rest Over Night) there, then push to DC on the 4th. This will give us the 4th/5th to set up, conduct route recons, CTR (Close Target Reconnaissance) and any link ups needed with DC elements. If you need to be picked up, then we will work that into route plan and will provide exact pickup time by Saturday evening. Please have EVERYTHING ready once we arrive. It will be an ERO (Engine Running Onload). IF YOU ARE RIDING WITH ME, dm me with your plan to come here or be picked up. I will send address via the dm. I am willing to make adjustments all the way up until we pass your ass headed north, but it is now time to shit or get on someone else’s pot. READY? GO!!!

Ivan Harrison Hunter, 24, of Boerne, Texas, pleaded guilty of one count of rioting in federal court Thursday for firing more than a dozen rounds from an AK-47-style rifle into a Minneapolis police station during the unrest following the murder of George Floyd last summer, Minnesota Public Radio reports.

A self-labeled Boogaloo Boi, Hunter said he traveled from his home in Texas to Minnesota to pretend to be a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement so he could gin up violence during the unrest.  The Boogaloo Bois are a group of white nationalists who are attempting to use violence to overthrow the government and start a racial war.

Hunter is seen in video of the incident firing at least 13 rounds into the 3rd Precinct police building, then turning to another rioter and yelling “Justice for George Floyd!”  No one was injured during the shooting. 

A Louisiana gun dealer with a federal firearms license will likely lose his license and his gun store after federal agents tracked a gun he had reported stolen from a gun show and discovered he had been circumventing federal gun laws to sell weapons and accessories illegally.

Jeremiah Deare contacted Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office to report a firearm he was trying to sell at a gun show had been stolen.  Owner of Dave’s Gunshop in Lafayette, Deare had a federal firearms dealer license which required him to run background checks on the people he sold weapons and accessories to, but he claimed he was at the gun show as a private individual.  The weapon he reported stolen had last been registered with a different licenced dealer, located in Florida, in 2010.

The FBI agent looking into the case obtained a warrant to search Deare’s home and business in February 2021.  Law enforcement found 247 weapons and accessories at his home and 372 guns and accessories at his store that were not properly listed in account records for his store or were not listed in inventory records required for license holders. 

In the wake of a murder case involving one of its officers, the Metropolitan Police of London have issued a statement advising women in the city to be skeptical of people claiming to be plain-clothes police officers working alone and to seek help if they feel uneasy in one’s presence.

Wayne Couzens, a Met Police officer, was found guilty this week of abducting, raping and murdering 33-year-old Sarah Everard.  He was sentenced to life in prison.  Under the guise of the coronavirus restrictions imposed during a national lockdown in March, Couzens told Everard she was under arrest.  He then took her to a secluded location where he attacked and killed her.

The Met said that in response to the abduction and murder of Everard and the murders of three other women in public places in London, the police were advising women to be skeptical when they are approached by single men claiming to be police officers.