Oklahoma Republican Congressman Markwayne Mullin twice tried to travel to Afghanistan with a large amount of cash in an attempt to rescue five Americans in Afghanistan but was rebuffed by an ambassador and the Pentagon, the Washington Post reports.

A former professional mixed-martial arts fighter, Mullin contacted the US embassy in Tajikistan on Monday saying he was in the Georgian capital of Tblisi with a large pile of cash.  He wanted the embassy staff to help him violate Georgian law to get the cash into the nation; from there, he said, he was going to hire a helicopter to get a woman and four children out of Afghanistan.  The embassy staff refused his request.

One week earlier, Mullin was in Greece, where he demanded the Pentagon give him permission to fly to Afghanistan.  The Pentagon refused his request, which came after the unauthorized showboating trip to Kabul by Reps. Seth Moulton (D-Mass) and Peter Meijer (R-Mich). 

“The FBI’s Public Corruption unit is investigating efforts by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s past and current staffers – including one who is now a federal judge – to push for a closed-door deal to issue tax refunds worth as much as $100 million to aid one of Ducey’s campaign supporters. Grant Nulle, former deputy director at the Department of Revenue, said an FBI agent contacted him in mid-July, shortly after an Arizona Republic investigation uncovered how the Ducey administration had pushed the department to agree to refund sales taxes on fuel for mining companies, even though that tax had been in place for decades. The companies that stood to benefit were represented by Texas tax firm Ryan LLC, founded by Ducey supporter G. Brint Ryan.”

“The top three deputies in Ducey’s administration left their government jobs and went to work for Ryan to push for the tax refund. The men and others working for Ducey met with Revenue officials at least 16 times to insist that the department – which was under their oversight in the governor’s office – agree to stop opposing Ryan and issue a tax refund to one fuel company. That, officials said, would have triggered refunds in all other similar cases, costing the state’s general fund more than $100 million. Nulle, who along with ex-Revenue Director Carlton Woodruff opposed the giveaway, succeeded when an appellate court ruled in their favor and opposed the tax refund claims. Ducey later fired both men” – Arizona Republic.

The US Attorney for the Northern District of Florida indicted Stephen M. Alford for attempting to defraud Don Gaetz, the father of Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz, our of $25 million in a scheme that involved freeing an American being held in Iran.

According to the charging document, Alford told the senior Gaetz in the Spring of 2021 that the $25 million would secure the release of Bob Levinson, a retired FBI agent who disappeared in Iran in 2007, reportedly while on a mission for the Central Intelligence Agency.  As part of the deal, Alford said he would arrange for a Presidential pardon for the younger Gaetz, who was the subject of a federal sex trafficking investigation.  Levinson is believed to have died in Iran in 2020.

Matt Gaetz is implicated in a sex trafficking ring that involved a close friend of his, Joel Greenberg, who has since pleaded guilty to multiple counts relating to supplying young women and underage girls to an influential group of South Florida Republicans.  Gaetz had claimed that the federal investigation into him was not related to sex trafficking but instead was solely a case where he was the victim.

My statement on Democrats asking companies to violate federal law: pic.twitter.com/XELEVNbx65

— Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) August 31, 2021

Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday ordered a probe of Bishop Sycamore High School after the school’s football team suffered a blowout on national television last weekend, leading to inquiries about the legitimacy of the school, Cleveland.com reports.

Bishop Sycamore is a private school operating in Columbus, Ohio and describes itself as a “non-chartered, non-tax supported school.”  However, the address of the school on state documents turns out to be an indoor sports facility in Columbus and the school cannot prove that it holds classes for students.

Bishop Sycamore’s football team lost a 58-0 blowout Sunday to Florida’s IMG Academy, a sports-focused school that recruits athletes from around the country, in a game broadcast on ESPN.  The loss was the second for Bishop Sycamore’s football team that weekend:  it lost a 17-9 game Friday night to Sto-Rox High School, from Stowe/McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania.

“A Pennsylvania Donald Trump enthusiast who attended an event with Rudy Giuliani when he was wanted by the FBI for allegedly assaulting officers at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was ordered held in jail until trial. Samuel Lazar, a Trump supporter arrested last month after being identified as a rioter who assaulted law enforcement at the Capitol on Jan. 6, was ordered held until trial by Magistrate Judge Robin Meriweather. Meriweather said Lazar’s alleged actions showed ‘complete disregard to the rule of law’ and that the evidence against him was ‘overwhelming.’ She said Lazar had a ‘mixed’ personal history which included prior criminal offenses, and that the broader belief in the ‘big lie’ – that the presidential election was stolen from Trump – created a dangerous environment. ‘There is still an ongoing perception or belief by many individuals at this time’ in the illegitimacy of President Joe Biden, Meriweather said” Huffington Post reports.

Lazar showed up at a May 15th Pennsylvania GOP fundraiser headlined by Rudy Giuliani, posing for a pic with MAGA State Senator Doug Mastriano while the FBI had a federal warrant for Lazar’s arrest. Mastriano’s office did the old “the Senator can’t vet everyone he poses for pictures with” song and dance when asked to comment, which might’ve been more believable if Mastriano himself hadn’t organized busloads of Pennsylvania Trump fans to travel to DC on January 6th and at the very least entered the Capitol grounds during the riot, if not the building itself.

Lauren Windsor, founder of TheUndercurrent.tv, put on a MAGA hat and posed as a fan at an event in Wisconsin with Republican scrotum Senator Ron Johnson, starting in with “You know Joe Biden didn’t win this election” and the “late-night ballot dump” fairy tale. Johnson answers calmly and methodically, explaining with a breakdown of the vote totals for other Republicans in the state in the 2020 election and how Trump fell short of that, concluding “The only reason Trump lost Wisconsin, is that 51,000 Republican voters didn’t vote for him”. When Windsor asks if supports an audit, RonAnon basically says all the Dominion conspiracies are bullshit, and he’d rather “concentrate on” things like ballot drop boxes, the Wisconsin Election Commission (which probably means he doesn’t want them certifying elections anymore), and some shit about Mark Zuckerberg.

“After entering training camp as New England’s starting quarterback, Cam Newton didn’t just lose that job on Tuesday – he lost his roster spot, too. The Patriots cut Newton, the N.F.L.’s most valuable player in 2015, as they began paring their roster to the league-mandated 53 players before Tuesday’s 4 p.m. deadline. The move allows the rookie Mac Jones, who excelled in camp and the preseason, to start in Week 1 against the Miami Dolphins on Sept. 12” the New York Times reports.

“Newton, 32, started all three of New England’s preseason games, including Sunday’s preseason finale at the Giants, in which he played two series. But he missed three days of practice last week because of what the team said was a ‘misunderstanding’ related to Covid-19 protocols after a team-approved medical appointment out of the area. His absence enabled Jones to take more first-team snaps. ‘I feel like everybody’s way ahead of where they were last year,’ Coach Bill Belichick said of Newton on Tuesday, hours before news of his release surfaced. ‘Certainly, he started at a much higher point than what he did last year, so definitely moving in the right direction.’ Not long after he was released, Newton thanked his fans in a statement posted on his Instagram account. ‘I really appreciate all the love and support during this time but I must say… please don’t feel sorry for me!! I’m good,’ Newton wrote.”

Effective September 7, masks will be required in schools and early learning and childcare programs in Pennsylvania.

This will keep our students safer and in the classroom, where we all want them to be.

— Governor Josh Shapiro (@GovernorShapiro) August 31, 2021

“Facebook plans to announce that it will de-emphasize political posts and current events content in the News Feed based on negative user feedback, Axios has learned. It also plans to expand tests to limit the amount of political content that people see in their News Feeds to more countries outside of the US. These efforts are part of a gradual effort by Facebook to make its users’ experiences less political and contentious” Axios reports.

“Earlier this year, the company began testing limiting political content in News Feeds in the US, Canada, Brazil and Indonesia. In January, it said it would stop providing recommendations for users to join civic and political groups. User feedback showed people liked these changes. Following the 2020 election, Facebook tried to limit the amount of political content users interact with on its platform, but it is still regularly criticized over the amount of political misinformation it distributes.”

Axios: “Former President Trump wanted equity in Gettr, the new social media app launched by former Trump aide Jason Miller, sources tell Axios. The former president has yet to join the app, although sources say that conversations about his participation are ongoing. Discussions about equity are likely part of those conversations, and everything is a negotiation point. Miller has acknowledged in media interviews that one of the initial funders of the app is the family foundation of Guo Wengui, a Chinese billionaire. Gettr has yet to publicly state its full list of initial backers.”

The state of Florida changed the way it was reporting coronavirus fatalities in the state, resulting in number of deaths reported each day and backloading data so the current status of the pandemic in the state appears less deadly, the Miami Herald reports.

About three weeks ago, the Florida Department of Health changed their dataset to record the date of the death of patient, rather than the day the death was officially recorded, as most other states do.  The result is that as fatalities are reported, they are posted on past days, giving a false picture of the current impact of the virus and an overly rosy forecast on the seven-day trend.

If one were to chart the last week’s fatalities in Florida using the previous method, it would show Florida with an average of 262 deaths over each of the past seven days.  Using the current method, Florida’s Department of Health is able to record just 46 “new deaths” on average over the past week. 

“U.S. wind power capacity grew at a record pace in 2020, with $25 billion invested in 16.8 GW of capacity. Wind energy output rose to account for more than 8% of the entire nation’s electricity supply, and is more than 20% in 10 states. At least 209 GW of wind are seeking transmission interconnection; 61 GW of this capacity are offshore wind and 13 GW are hybrid plants that pair wind with storage or PV” says the toplines of the US Department of Energy’s 2021 Land-Based Wind Markets report, showing America’s freight trains have a lot more work to do if they want to prevent spread of the leading cause of windmill cancer and migratory bird decapitations.

ABC News reports on MAGA lawyer John Pierce, who on Monday prosecutors told the court was unresponsive and on a ventilator: “Some of his clients have begun to worry. Paul Rae, an alleged Proud Boy from Florida who has pleaded not guilty to multiple counts related to the riot, told ABC News on Monday he was ‘a bit concerned’ about the situation after he learned of the government’s filing from the news. Pierce’s associate, however, subsequently reassured him on Monday evening that Pierce was not on a ventilator and was on the mend, Rae said. ‘Unless I’m being lied to, I’m hearing ‘Don’t be concerned,” Rae told ABC News. ‘I don’t know what’s going on.'”

“After a court ruled Friday that school districts can enforce temporary mask mandates to contain the spread of COVID -19, Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran announced he has begun withholding money from the Broward and Alachua school districts, which went against the governor’s now-invalidated order. In a news release issued late Monday, Corcoran said he is following through on the orders of the State Board of Education, which directed him to review options for punishing the school districts that defied an emergency rule by the Department of Health prohibiting school districts from mandating that students wear face coverings in school.”

“Broward and Alachua counties were the first two school districts to impose a mandatory mask requirements for students returning to school and, after aggressive questioning of the district superintendents two weeks ago, the Board of Education ordered Corcoran to pursue penalties. ‘The withholding of funds will continue monthly until each school board complies with state law and rule,’ Corcoran wrote on Monday.” – Miami Herald.

The first Black principal of a Dallas-area high school was put on paid administrative leave after a failed Republican school board candidate accused him of promoting Critical Race Theory, the Fort Worth Star Telegram reports.

Colleyville Heritage High School Principal James Whitford denied teaching or promoting the theory, which is a law school-level theory about race-based injustice in the legal system and society in general.  Whitford said in a July Facebook post that he promotes equality in education and in the classroom.  He noted that he has been the subject of racially-motivated hate speech since he was named principal in 2019, particularly after he spoke out against police violence following the murder of George Floyd.

National Zero’s second video article about a train wreck in Texas on Monday is definitely harder to watch. The Australian Broadcasting Company’s Sarah Ferguson pulls virtually no punches with Sidney Powell, all but asking “what the fuck is wrong with you?” when probing why Kraken went after Smartmatic when their tech wasn’t used anywhere besides Los Angeles County, California in the 2020 election, prompting Powell to walk out. She comes back and acts as if she can’t talk about ongoing litigation and then asserts THEY took over the county in a “bloodless coup”.

After demeaning military leaders for determining Kabul airport was a better option than Bagram Air Base by putting on a troll voice, frozen food heir and wannabe revolutionary leader Tucker Carlson said on his Fox News program that people should revolt against government and military leaders.

“‘Close Bagram and focus on Kabul’,” Carlson voices.  “We did that and now a lot of people are dead and a lot are still stuck there.  Once again, to beat a dead horse, no one has apologized.

Associated Press:  “Secretary of State Antony Blinken says fewer than 200 Americans remain in Afghanistan who want to leave and the U.S. will continue to try to get them out.  Blinken says the number of Americans left may be closer to 100. He says the U.S. would work with Afghanistan’s neighbors to secure their departure either overland or by charter flight once the Kabul airport re-opens.

“Speaking shortly after the Pentagon announced the completion of the U.S. military pullout Monday, Blinken said the U.S. Embassy in Kabul will remain shuttered and vacant for the foreseeable future.  He says American diplomats who had worked from the now-closed embassy will be based in Doha, Qatar.”