“A record-breaking 23,903 new Covid-19 cases were reported in Florida on Friday, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” reports NBC News. “This marks the third time this week that Florida has surpassed its record of new daily Covid-19 cases. The state first reported its highest one-day total on July 31 with 21,683 new cases. Then, on Thursday, at least 22,783 new daily cases were reported, CDC data shows.”

OAKLAND — “The California Republican Party has elected not to endorse any of the candidates running to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom in the upcoming recall election, prioritizing unity over a potentially divisive selection. Hours before party delegates were set to choose between four Republican candidates, a pair of party officials circulated a motion to scrap the process and instead issue no endorsement,” reports Politico.

By a 67-27 vote, the Senate acted to clear a procedural hurdle and move the bipartisan infrastructure bill forward Saturday, making it possible for the $1 trillion could pass Congress as early as next week, the Associated Press reports.

Republicans who are trying to hold up the bill’s passage required the Senate to go through thirty hours of debate before allowing the vote to proceed.  The process to pass the bill included reviewing more than two dozen amendments.

The bill would provide funding for roads, water systems, the power grid and broadband access–the largest injection of funds for infrastructure in more than a generation.  Once this bill received the final vote in the Senate, Senators will shift gears to Biden’s $3.5 trillion American Families Act.

You haven’t passed a bill since getting to Congress. https://t.co/y0X0ASq6Ad

— Ruben Gallego (@RubenGallego) August 7, 2021

In a report on the Seattle Police Department Public Relations page, police chief Adrian Diaz let rip on officers Alexander and Caitlin Everett.

Diaz’s statement begins: “Today, I issued my final discipline in the case of two officers found to have been in Washington, D.C., on January 6^th. Based on the evidence presented to me and the statement of the officers themselves, I have terminated their employment with the Seattle Police Department, effective immediately.”

“Corvus Robotics, an electronic drone startup that’s just coming out of stealth, has decided that they want to go after warehouse inventory tracking. That is, making sure that a warehouse knows exactly what’s inside of it and where. This is a more complicated task than it seems like it should be, and not just any robot is able to do it. Corvus’ solution involves autonomous drones that can fly unattended for weeks on end, collecting inventory data without any human intervention at all,” reports IEEE Spectrum.

“Germany’s modern pentathlon coach Kim Raisner will not be part of Saturday’s men’s individual competition at the Tokyo Olympics after she hit a horse with her fist and urged rider Annika Schleu to ‘really hit’ the horse when it refused to jump. The Modern Pentathlon federation (UIPM) said Raisner had been disqualified because of her actions during Friday’s show jumping. Germany’s Olympic team chief Alfons Hoermann said earlier the coach had been pulled out of the men’s individual competition. He also demanded urgent rule changes from the international federation.”

“‘We were all in agreement that the coach will not be at the competition on Saturday,’ Hoermann said. ‘We also consider that an urgent review of the incident is necessary, especially in terms of animal protection, and that the national and international federations draw their conclusions.’ Modern pentathletes, who compete in five different sports for a medal, do not use their own horses for the show jumping discipline but instead draw one at random and are given 20 minutes to warm up with it before competing. Schleu was holding down top spot with a commanding 24 second edge on the field going into the show jumping when each competitor randomly draws a horse. There were signs of trouble ahead as Schleu’s horse Saint Boy bucked and misbehaved during the warmup and soon after was refusing jumps. With each refusal Schleu’s frustration grew, the German finally exploding with a scream that echoed through the empty stadium as tears poured down her face. Her coach urged her to hit the horse. Raisner’s orders to ‘really hit it, hit,’ were heard live back in Germany, triggering a wave of criticism” – Reuters.

Washington Post: “Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin will address an “election integrity” rally Saturday, a politically risky event that Virginia’s two other statewide GOP candidates are skipping. His appearance at the rally – organized by a supporter of former president Donald Trump who was outside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection – will come just days after Youngkin was captured on audio tiptoeing around a supporter’s fantastical claim that Trump could be restored to the White House this month or next. Youngkin took flak all week not only from Democrats accusing him of promoting Trump’s ‘big lie’ but also from Republican activists who said he was not taking a strong-enough stand in support of the former president. Their reactions point to the high-wire act Youngkin is trying to pull off – a preview of the challenge Republicans in swing states across the country are likely to face in the 2022 midterms.”

There’s a lot of stupid shit in the latest rant from the asshole jealous that “Sleepy Joe” is on the verge of getting a major infrastructure bill passed with significant Republican support when he failed repeatedly to do so for four years, but the second paragraph sticks out in particular:

Reuters: “Poland will do away with a disciplinary system for judges which the EU’s top court has ruled violates EU law, the head of the ruling PiS party said, in a bid to diffuse a row that could result in financial penalties against the country. Poland faces an Aug. 16 deadline set by the European Commission to disband the Disciplinary Chamber, which the EU says is being used to pressure judges or to exert political control over judicial decisions, and undercuts the bloc’s laws. ‘We will dissolve the Disciplinary Chamber as it currently operates and in this way the subject of the dispute will disappear,’ Jaroslaw Kaczynski, head of the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) and a deputy prime minister, said in an interview published on Saturday with state-run news agency PAP.”

“Under PiS Poland has clashed with the EU on a number of fronts, such as media independence and the rights of migrants, women and gays. Some legal experts say the dissolution of the Disciplinary Chamber would be a cosmetic change which would not be enough to satisfy the EU’s top court. ‘The mere dissolution of the Disciplinary Chamber doesn’t solve the problem of past, unlawful decisions and sanctions adopted by this body,’ said Laurent Pech, professor of European law at Middlesex University, London. ‘If they want to comply with EU law, it is quite simple. They have to undo everything they have done for the past five years, there is no other way,’ Pech added, referring to a series of measures such as reforms to the Constitutional Tribunal, which will rule on whether the Polish constitution takes precedence over EU treaties this month.”

“Nearly two dozen Texas House Democrats who fled the state last month have sued Gov. Greg Abbott and other GOP officials, alleging their efforts to bring them back to the state Capitol for a special legislative session infringed on their constitutional rights. The 22 plaintiffs have been ‘deprived of liberty for substantial periods of time, suffered much anxiety and distress over separation from their families, and much discomfort and embarrassment,’ the complaint alleges.”

“Abbott, House Speaker Dade Phelan and State Rep. James White are all named as defendants in the case. The lawsuit alleges that the three Republicans have ‘by public statements and otherwise, to attempt to deny, coerce, threaten, intimidate, and prevent’ the Democrats and constituents from voting in elections, speaking publicly about their constitutional rights, and their right to not being arrested without probable cause. The suit comes after Abbott called for the arrests of more than 50 Texas House Democrats who fled the state in July for Washington, D.C., in a bid to stop a Republican-backed voter integrity bill from passing in a special legislative session. It was the second time that Texas Democrats staged a walkout on the voting bill, and left the state’s House of Representatives without a quorum to pass the bill” – Fox News.

Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic: “Tucker Carlson is spending a week in Budapest in order to annoy Americans and everybody else who believes in the ideals of America: the rule of law, a free press, free elections, the conviction that democracy is preferable to autocracy. Showing how much he despises the United States, its Constitution, and its heritage, the Fox News host is celebrating the achievements of a petty Central European autocrat, Viktor Orbán. He seems to believe that by paying homage to Hungary’s assault on democratic institutions, he will make people angry at home, just as his host does. The good thing about Orbán, Carlson told a dinner party in Budapest, is that ‘you’re truly hated by all the right people.’ And yes, ‘all the right people’ includes everyone who still has some faith in the American dream. Carlson is not the first Western commentator to indulge in this particular form of self-loathing international tourism. Just as Hungary now sponsors English-language think tanks designed to promote Orbán’s illiberal ideas, so did the Soviet Union once create phony ‘institutes for peace’ designed to promote Soviet Communism.”

“The aggrieved Americans who now find their way to Orbán or Vladimir Putin also dislike their own country, albeit for different reasons. They cannot abide its racial diversity, its modern culture, its free press. Those who dream of a white-tribalist alternative – one that also puts pressure on gay people and uses anti-Semitic tropes in its propaganda – believe they have found this nirvana at dinners and think-tank events in Budapest. In reality they, like Shaw, have found a Potemkin village: a ‘Christian’ country where, as in Russia, only a minority go to church; a ‘Western’ country that expelled an American university and tried to get a Chinese one to build a satellite campus instead.”

Read more about the Jackson, Michigan Burger King’s sign going quite a bit outside the usual scope of buy one, get one Whoppers or original chicken sandwiches at Michigan Live.

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: “A Republican state lawmaker sought Friday to seize ballots and voting machines in Milwaukee and Brown counties as conservatives try to ramp up to review a presidential election that courts have already determined was decided properly. What happens next is unclear. A June memo from the nonpartisan Wisconsin Legislative Council suggests the subpoenas may not be valid because neither Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester or Assembly Chief Clerk Ted Blazel’s signatures appear on them. Republican Rep. Janel Brandtjen of Menomonee Falls, the chairwoman of the Assembly Elections Committee, issued the subpoenas as part of a wide-ranging examination of an election Joe Biden narrowly won over Donald Trump. The subpoenas are nearly identical to a letter issued last month by a Republican lawmaker in Pennsylvania. ”

“‘This is not something that we’re going to be doing just in 2020. We’re going to be doing it every year going forward,’ Brandtjen told hundreds gathered on the Capitol steps Friday who were demanding an expansive review of the election. Election officials in the two counties did not say if they would comply with the subpoenas. Only Vos has the authority to issue legislative subpoenas to compel county officials in Wisconsin to testify or produce records, according to a legal analysis by the Legislative Council provided to Democratic Rep. Mark Spreitzer of Beloit.”

• At this pace, 2021 will finish with the greatest US job creation numbers of any year since the end of World War II–and probably ever.  Biden’s created more jobs already than Trump lost in his four years.  Biden’s numbers are greater than six post-war presidents (5 R’s/1 D) and the two Bushes combined.  
• Remember when conservatives lambasted The Chicks (nee, The Dixie Chicks) for complaining about the President while overseas?  Where are they on Tucker Carlson doing the same thing in Hungary?  I guess Tucker doesn’t think the United States is the greatest nation ever anymore.
• Listening to conservatives actively and loudly root for American athletes to fail at the Olympics shows how un-American their hearts really are.  
• Anti-vaxxers are essentially the children who will never eat vegetables out of spite because Mother said they were good for them.  
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume XXXI”

The union representing sheriff’s deputies in San Francisco said a number of them would immediate retire or seek employment elsewhere if the city enforces its vaccine mandate for employees who work in prisons, the Associated Press reports.

Last month, the city government mandated that all employees who work in the city’s jail and other high-risk settings must be fully vaccinated by September 15th.  Approximately 160 of the sheriff’s office 600 employees are unvaccinated, with about 16% of the deputies being unvaccinated.

“There is also an undue and unacceptable health and safety risk that is imposed upon the city, our employees and the public we serve, by those who are not vaccinated against COVID-19,” the city’s Department of Human Resources said in a statement. “Vaccines are safe, effective and readily available to our employees.”

“Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox issued a preliminary injunction against the law that Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed in April banning mask requirements by governmental entities. The ban was being challenged by two lawsuits, including one from an east Arkansas school district where more than 900 staff and students are quarantining because of a coronavirus outbreak,” reports the Little Rock Star Tribune.

“U.S. House Democrats have tapped a former GOP congressman, Denver Riggleman, as an adviser for the committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, sources tell me” reports Bloomberg’s Jennifer Jacobs. Riggleman is semi-ubiquitous as a Never-Trumper talking head on cable news these days having lost his seat in 2020 not to a Dem, but to a MAGA psychopath primary challenger named Bob Good. Riggleman’s main crime was officiating the marriage of two male campaign staffers, but also other various perceived slights against the MAGA Reich.

Riggleman is a former Air Force intel officer specializing in psyops and propaganda, so he brings some actual technical heft to the table on top of the fairly unsubtle political optics. The time he told NBC News “QAnon is for adults who believe The Lord of The Rings movies are documentaries” was hilarious, so whatever speaking time Riggleman gets in hearings ought to be entertaining.

Another Nazi piece of shit with a microphone got his ticket punched by Covid19. “Former South Florida talk show host Dick Farrel…has died from complications from COVID-19,” reports WPTV-5 West Palm Beach. There are so many stories of these right-wing propagandists giving up the ghost that pretty soon we’ll have to just wait for at least four or five to die so each story becomes kind of like a “MAGA Yearbook” entry.

“On Facebook, Farrel advocated against getting the coronavirus vaccine and was skeptical of Dr. Anthony Fauci, Chief of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease…”