On Monday, MyPillow dipshit Mike Lindell joined Steve Bannon’s Pandemic War Room show to ramble about his upcoming CyberSymposium, which we guess will be on FrankSpeech, and revealed that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo will be speaking at the BIG Lindell “Cyber symposium” on Tuesday, adding a big name in bullshit right wing election fraud conspiracy theories to a virtual Woodstock of bullshit right wing election fraud conspiracy theories.

Bolsonaro Jr’s dad is already under criminal investigation in Brazil for publicly attempting to undermine election integrity before he faces some seriously pissed off voters again in October 2022. It’ll be interesting to see how Eddie’s supposed to explain how Dominion, Smartmatic, Venezuela, and Soros are already rigging a presidential election that’s still over a year away.

“With respect to enforcing any financial consequences for noncompliance of state law regarding these rules and ultimately the rights of parents to make decisions about their children’s education and health care decisions, it would be the goal of the State Board of Education to narrowly tailor any financial consequences to the offense committed. For example, the State Board of Education could move to withhold the salary of the district superintendent or school board members, as a narrowly tailored means to address the decision-makers who led to the violation of law. Education funding is intended to benefit students first and foremost, not systems. The Governor’s priorities are protecting parents’ rights and ensuring that every student has access to a high-quality education that meets their unique needs” – Florida Gov Ron DeSantis statement via CBS Miami.

Florida reported 56,633 new cases of Coronavirus over last weekend, each day officially individually representing a new record single day high, though the exact amount is unclear, as the chart on the CDC’s website says there were 28,316 new cases of Coronavirus reported on Saturday and 28,317 new cases on Sunday. This appears to be the result of some weekend-specific reporting lag where both days are put together and then split in the data. Florida Agriculture Commissioner and Dem Governor candidate Nikki Fried tweeted the two-day total on Monday.

Whatever the true number is for each day is largely irrelevant, as together it’s a staggering 21% increase over the combined Thursday (22,783 new cases) to Friday (23,903 cases) total of 46,686. Governor Ron Desantis sure is kicking ass, owning libs, and un-Fauci-ing his Florida.

https://youtu.be/TWi7SO2Lxw0

Iowa Republican Senator (and man so old he knew the Earth before oil existed) Chuck Grassley defended Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow the free and fair November 2020 elections by claiming Trump was just soliciting opinions and he isn’t guilty of anything because he never actually did it.

“The President has every right to discuss ideas and strategies with his closest advisors,” Grassley claims, apparently ignorant of the Nixon presidency–and please not that Trump was not discussing Executive Branch policies; he was discussing political strategies. 

Independent: “David Cameron made $10 million (£7.2 million) out of Greensill Capital, the now-collapsed bank who he lobbied the government on behalf of, it has been revealed. Documents reported by BBC Panorama show the former Conservative prime minister cashed in $4.5 shares in 2019, was paid a $1 million annual salary as a part time ‘advisor’, and also got a $700,000 bonus. The company left investors and UK taxpayers facing huge losses after collapsing. Mr Cameron hit the headlines in relation to the bank after it emerged he was used his closeness to current cabinet ministers to try and persuade them to underwrite its loans with taxpayer cash.”

“He was unsuccessful in his approaches, though the bank was ultimately given access to another Covid-19 loan facility. The former prime minister has been cleared of breaking any lobbying rules over the affair, but MPs said he showed a ‘significant lack of judgement’. Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said: ‘It is utterly ludicrous that David Cameron walked away with $10m for two-and-a-half years’ part-time work for a company that collapsed, risking thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money. ‘The fact that David Cameron was cleared of any wrongdoing, proves that the rules that are supposed to regulate lobbying are completely unfit for purpose. It’s created a wild west where the Conservatives think it’s one rule for them and another for everyone else.'”

My decision not to get vaccinated does not affect anyone else’s health. Full stop.

The #ScaredVaccinated are dividing our communities and the country.

— emily miller (@emilymiller) August 9, 2021

Not all Red Hats threatened Congress during the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol:  a Massachusetts Trump lover has pleaded guilty to leaving threatening messages to six members of Congress nearly a month before the insurrection attempt.

According to a statement by the Department of Justice, 34-year-old Ryder Winegar of Amherst made early morning phone calls on December 16, 2020, to half a dozen members of Congress, telling them, “I got some advice for you.  Here’s the advice, Donald Trump is your president.  If you don’t get behind him, we’re going to hang you until you die.”

Winegar, who left his name or phone number on many of the messages, also emailed a member of the New Hampshire Legislature to say he was going to pull the member from bed and hang him.   He was indicted in February and charged with six counts of threatening members of Congress and one count of transmitting interstate threatening communications.  He will be sentenced in December.

Justice Department press release: “One Florida man and one Georgia man were indicted last week for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, which disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress that was in the process of ascertaining and counting the electoral votes related to the presidential election. The indictment further charges co-defendants with additional federal offenses. David Moerschel, 43, of Tampa, Florida, and Brian Ulrich, 43, of Guyton, Georgia, are charged with federal offenses that include conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding and aiding and abetting, and entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds.”

“Moerschel is additionally charged with destruction of government property and aiding and abetting. Ulrich and Moerschel are the latest of 18 defendants to be charged in this case. As alleged in the indictment, the defendants agreed to plan and participate in an operation to interfere with the certification of the electoral college vote by coordinating in advance with others, using social media to recruit participants, and traveling to Washington, DC, with paramilitary gear and supplies including firearms, tactical vests with plates, helmets and radio equipment.”

A Colorado Rockies fan accused of yelling a racial slur at Marlins outfielder Lewis Brinson during a home game at Coors Field was actually yelling for the team’s mascot “Dinger”, CBS Denver reports.

Rockies team officials asked players, stadium staff, and other fans if they had indeed heard the unnamed fan scream the N-word at Brinson, who is Black, while he was at bat in the bottom of the 9th inning during the Rockies 13-8 win. Though the television broadcast picked it up and the announcers both believed they had heard the slur, no one on the field or in the stands visibly reacted. Then there’s also that when one’s team is ahead by five in the bottom of the ninth with two outs is probably the least likely time a fan would angrily scream racial abuse at an opposing player.

No word yet if Dinger, a purple triceratops character, heard the man’s shouts for his attention, or what the man’s intent was in doing so. We shudder to think it could be furry fetish-related.

School districts in Texas and Florida have announced Monday that they will require their students and staff to wear masks when in-person classes start later this month, defying their states’ Republican governors’ orders and risking funding.

ABC News reports that two Florida school districts, the 30,000-student Alachua County School District and the 34,000-student Leon County School District, will counterman Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’s order that prohibits schools from requiring mask wearing.  Florida is home to one-in-five new coronavirus cases during the latest surge.

In Texas, Dallas Independent Schools, the 17th largest school district in the country with more than 155,000 students, will require students and staff to wear masks, the Dallas Morning News reports.

The Pentagon will announce Monday that all US troops in all branches of military service will be required to be vaccinated by September 15th or sooner, depending on the date the Food and Drug Administration clears the vaccines for general use, the Associated Press reports.

“I will seek the president’s approval to make the vaccines mandatory no later than mid-September, or immediately upon” licensure by the Food and Drug Administration “whichever comes first,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says in the memo to troops, warning them to prepare for the requirement. “I will not hesitate to act sooner or recommend a different course to the President if l feel the need to do so.”

The FDA is expected to give final approval to the vaccines in the coming weeks, far ahead of the typical drug approval process which can take years.  Relatively few cases of adverse reaction to the vaccines have been documented after more than 160 million Americans are fully vaccinated and approximately 30 million have received one of two required shots. 

NBC News: “Texas Democratic lawmakers who fled the state to block Republicans from passing a voting bill started to head home this weekend, securing a legal win on Monday that may allow them to return to the state and still obstruct legislation. A group of Democratic lawmakers secured a temporary restraining order on Sunday, blocking Republicans from having them forcibly returned to the House chamber. The order prevents the Texas Democrats from being arrested, detained, or confined in any way for two weeks. Republicans will have a chance to fight the order in a hearing scheduled for August 20th. Of the 57 Democrats who traveled to Washington and used their physical absence to paralyze the state Legislature, about 26 remain, state Rep. Ron Reynolds told NBC News on Sunday night – not enough to deny Republicans of their needed quorum in Austin.”

WinRed PAC, a for-profit entity which built and maintains the WinRed campaign fundraising platform for Republican campaigns nationwide has reported to the FEC almost literally jack shit in operating expenses for the entirety of 2020, says a new report from the Daily Beast.

For comparison, per the Daily Beast, the Dem platform ActBlue, which WinRed is essentially a complete ripoff of, reported over $42 million in operating expenses and payables to vendors, while WinRed spent $1,502.22 – at a vendor called “WinRed Technical Services” for “merchandising”. Republican campaigns pay a pretty exorbitant 3.8% plus 30 cents per transaction processed on WinRed and have no idea where any of that pound of flesh is going and whom exactly is profiting.

The Daily Beast goes on to detail a potential loophole that WinRed is probably exploiting via the use of a “nonfederal” account, but the experts quoted aren’t sure if doing so is definitely legal given the total opacity. There’s a still-open complaint filed by liberal watchdog CREW over a similar campaign disclosure scam pulled by none other than the Orange Kingpin himself, per the Daily Beast.

“The United States will on Monday impose fresh sanctions on the regime of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who is accused of a brutal crackdown on opponents, a White House official told AFP. President Joe Biden will sign an executive order targeting Lukashenko over an ongoing ‘assault against the democratic aspirations and human rights of the Belarusian people, transnational repression… and corruption.’ In power since 1994, Lukashenko has been cracking down on opponents since unprecedented protests erupted after last year’s elections, deemed unfair by many observers. The sanctions to be imposed by the US Treasury on Monday will mark the anniversary of the elections, which the US official described as ‘fraudulent'” – AFP.

A host of top comedians will perform at a September 12th show at Madison Square Garden to raise funds for 9/11 charities as the nation approaches the 20th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in history, the Associated Press reports.

Conceived by “Saturday Night Live” cast member Pete Davidson, whose father was a firefighter who died in the collapse of the World Trade Center, “NYC Still Rising After 20 Years: A Comedy Celebration” will feature performances by Dave Chappelle, Jon Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, Amy Schumer, Bill Burr, Colin Jost, Colin Quinn, Dave Attell, Jay Pharoah, John Mulaney, Michael Che, Ronny Chieng, Tom Segura and Wanda Sykes.

Pre-sale for the will start at noon Wednesday on Live Nation, Ticketmaster.com and MSG and runs until 10 p.m. Thursday, with general tickets on sale starting at noon Friday at Ticketmaster.com.  Proof of vaccination will be required to attend the show.  No details about a television broadcast were available. 

Photo of former Wisconsin state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, hired as a “neutral” overseer of the state’s review of the 2020 election by the Republican speaker of the State House. The photo appears a tweet linked to a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article about Gableman, but not the (unfortunately subscriber-only) article itself for whatever reason.

The article is pretty standard shit for swing state Republicans and their lost cause: Gableman told a crowd at a Milwaukee Stop the Steal rally last November “Our elected leaders – your elected leaders – have allowed unelected bureaucrats at the Wisconsin Elections Commission to steal our vote”, and then denied he ever said it in a recent TV interview. There’s not much more we can say about a grown man who wears fucking braces on his teeth (as opposed to the plethora of more subtle wonders of orthodontistry available nowadays – and well within the means of a successful attorney) and also believes in juvenile MAGA stolen election fantasies that his smile hasn’t already.

AP: “Senate Democrats unveiled a budget resolution Monday that maps $3.5 trillion in spending boosts and tax breaks aimed at strengthening social and environmental programs, setting up an autumn battle over President Joe Biden’s domestic policy ambitions. The measure lays the groundwork for legislation later this year that over a decade would pour mountains of federal resources into their top priorities. Included would be more money for health care, education, family services and environmental programs and tax breaks for families, with much of it paid for with tax increases on the rich and corporations. The measure’s introduction marks the start of a long legislative trek through Congress of legislation that Democrats hope will result this fall in a progressive reshaping of government. To succeed, they’ll have to overcome likely unanimous Republican opposition and find the sweet spot between the demands of their own often antagonist progressive and moderate factions.”

“For months now, Trump has consistently ignored or rejected Giuliani’s pleas for assistance. And it’s not just that Trump and other prominent Republicans have been unwilling to open up their wallets or war chests to help offset Giuliani’s mounting legal costs; in many cases, Giuliani’s former Trumpworld comrades have declined to even acknowledge the existence of his legal defense fund, which has struggled to raise much of anything from the public. To Giuliani and his remaining confidants, Trump’s glaring (if predictable) refusal to come to his loyalist’s rescue has been a borderline betrayal of a lawyer who’s landed in legal jeopardy precisely because of how zealously he worked to please Trump. Still, Giuliani and his advisers are going out of their way to not publicly voice their displeasure with the ex-president’s lack of action or financial relief.”

“According to a person with knowledge of the matter, Giuliani has reminded those close to him to not name Trump when complaining in public or on social media about how top Republicans have abandoned Giuliani in his time of distress. ‘We are allowed to call out the RNC and other Republican leaders,’ this source said. ‘But not Donald Trump.’ Though the former president has remained stingy toward his former top attorney, that hasn’t stopped Trump from throwing Giuliani a bone every once in a while. On Thursday, when the ex-president delivered remarks at a New York GOP fundraiser, he made sure to call Giuliani to the stage, telling attendees, ‘We love Rudy'” – Daily Beast.