“ORANGEBURG, S.C. — A South Carolina police officer is unemployed and facing criminal charges after he stomped on the head of a physically disabled Black man last week. David Lance Dukes, 38, of Orangeburg, is charged with first-degree assault and battery, according to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. He was booked Saturday into the Orangeburg County Detention Center and later released on $10,000 bond. If convicted, Dukes faces 10 years in prison,” reports WSB-TV2.

FX dropped the first teaser trailer for the third season of its anthology series “American Crime Story” and it’s kind of overdramatic, we suppose. The tension imparted by the music and pacing seems a little disproportionate to the subject matter and it’s probably a safe bet for us to assume that such a production style extends to the show itself. Now don’t get us wrong, if it’s anything like the first two seasons – the first focusing on the 1994-95 OJ Simpson murder trial and the second one on serial killer Andrew Cunanan before and after he murdered fashion icon Gianni Versace in 1997, both of which were masterfully acted, written, and directed – Season 3 will be spectacular.

Still though, there’s something a little incongruous about the Clinton-Lewinsky affair being an American crime story. Yes, Bill Clinton did lie under oath and that is felony perjury, but it doesn’t seem like that great of a fit for the series considering OJ Simpson’s crime and what Andrew Cunanan did with a bag of concrete to that closeted old rich guy. The obvious thread between the three is the batshit media environment of the 1990s (which admittedly seems kind of quant compared to today’s). There’s also that Seasons 1 was adapted from “The Run of His Life: The People v. OJ Simpson” by Jeffrey “Oh shit I thought the Zoom meeting ended” Toobin, so his following book “A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President” must’ve been an easy pick for the producers. Small nitpick, but maybe it would’ve been best if this season were its own miniseries, minus the “American Crime Story” marque. That doesn’t even come close to being a dealbreaker, however, and we’re looking forward to seeing Edie Falco’s Hillary throw a lamp at Clive Owen’s Bill when “Impeachment: American Crime Story” premieres.

Holland Hospital in Holland, Michigan severed an arrangement with hometown idol Kirk Cousins, the starting quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League, because Cousins downplayed the effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccine and will not get inoculated, NBC Sports reports.

Cousins has received media coverage Friday after coming back to the team following a 10-day quarantine.  He said he would sit in a plexiglass box to avoid getting the coronavirus, but he’s not going to get vaccinated.

“While we acknowledge that each person is entitled to their own viewpoints, those who speak on our behalf must support messages that align with the hospital’s position on matters of vital importance to individual and community health,” the hospital said in a statement. “For this reason, Holland Hospital will discontinue using Kirk Cousins as our spokesperson for now. We are proud of our association with Kirk. He embodies many values we respect and share as part of our work culture.  However, we must be certain that our communications about COVID vaccination are consistent and unequivocal.”

Miami Herald: “Florida reported a record 22,783 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, its highest single-day case count since the pandemic began last year as the state continues record-breaking hospitalizations for the fifth straight day in a row. The number of cases for Thursday reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control was 1,100 more than Florida’s single-day case count record.”

“On July 31, Florida reported a then-record of 21,683 new COVID cases for the previous day. Florida, which makes up about 6.5% of the U.S. population, accounted for nearly 19% of the country’s new cases on Thursday. based on data the state is reporting to the CDC. The state’s seven-day average of new cases was 18,933, as of Aug. 5, up from a seven-day average of 2,478 on July 5, a 664% increase, stemming from the highly contagious delta variant.”

Bad for trees https://t.co/KoYUjxhcs0

— Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) August 6, 2021

“Texas school districts will not be required to conduct contact tracing this year if a student contracts COVID-19, according to new guidelines issued by the Texas Education Agency this week. The agency said districts should notify parents if the district learns of a student who has been a close contact to someone with the virus. But with the relaxation of contact tracing, broad notifications will not be mandatory” the Texas Tribune reports.

“The TEA announced its rules in a public health guidance issued Thursday. While districts must report positive cases to the local health department and the state, the TEA said contact tracing will not be required because of ‘the data from 2020-21 showing very low COVID-19 transmission rates in a classroom setting and data demonstrating lower transmission rates among children than adults.’ But some public health experts quickly questioned that rationale, noting that the more contagious delta variant of the virus was not prevalent during the last school year. ‘We’re going to find that the transmission rate in schools is going to be much higher with the delta variant and it’s absolutely imperative that people get back to masking,’ said Dr. Marc Mazade, medical director of infection prevention at Cook Children’s in Fort Worth.”

The Florida state Board of Education voted Friday to issue school vouchers allowing parents to send their children to private school if the local school board decides to mandate masks during in-person classes, the Associated Press reports.

The ruling would allow parents to get taxpayer monies from the school district to pay the tuition at any private school, including religious schools, if the school district requires their children to wear a mask.  The move puts Republican Governor Ron DeSantis in the way of local elected officials who attempt to address concerns of public health professionals.

“If a parent wants their child to wear a mask at school, they should have that right. If a parent doesn’t want their child to wear a mask at school, they should have that right,” said board member Ben Gibson.

Several Trump hotels are listed on Groupon, the scammy discount platform that should’ve gone out of business a long time ago, a tip provided by a National Zero reader revealed Friday.

Groupon was popular for a brief period in the late 2000s-early 2010s and raised billions in investor cash as a Silicon Valley unicorn before the inherently predatory nature of its business model became fully realized. For example, a pizzeria would sign on to Groupon and the company would sell coupons for a pizza that ordinarily costs $12.00 discounted down to $8.00 upon which the company would keep $4.00, leaving the pizzeria to collect 33% of gross revenue at 100% food and labor cost. More often than not, the Groupon buyers would be cheap assholes who would simply move on to the next Groupon deal being offered rather than be converted to returning customers. This is obviously the complete opposite of the outcome that any sane restauranteur would want from a vendor/partner and the business model quickly fell out of fashion.

How Groupon is still operating all these years and bad publicity later is a mystery, but that the Trump Organization’s hotels are listed on the platform (though it does not appear there are any discount offers available currently) makes perfect sense. Birds of a feather and all.

https://youtu.be/_enkL0uUBJA

Following in her momma’s footsteps, Jen Psaki’s toddler daughter owns the talking points put forth by Fox News’ Peter Doocy, the kid’s intellectual rival.

Doocy:  [Republican Florida Governor Ron Desantis says his] concern is about harmful emotional, academic and psychological effects of putting kindergartners in masks for hours at a time.  Is there any concern from officials that you guys talk to in your early pre-decisional discussions about that?

Psaki:  No, there is not.  And I will tell you from personal experience that my rising kindergartner told me two days ago, she could wear a mask all day.

NBC Washington’s Scott MacFarlane reports New Jersey gym owner Scott Fairlamb, charged with felony assault for punching cops during the January 6th Capitol riot has pleaded guilty to the charges and faces four years in federal prison under sentencing guidelines.

https://youtu.be/pzk_E1pxvIE

Cementing their position as the coolest group in rock, the Foo Fighters performed an impromptu concert in Bonner Springs, Kansas from a truck bed to disrupt a roadside protest by the homophobes at the Westboro Baptist Church.  Lead singer Dave Grohl preached to the group, “Alright now, ladies and gentlemen, I got something to say.  Because you know what, I love you. The way I look at it is, I love everybody. Isn’t that what you are supposed to do? Shouldn’t you just love everybody? You shouldn’t be hating. You know what you should be doing? You should be dancing!”  Then the group broke into a rendition of “You Should Be Dancing” by the Bee Gees.

This is not a test! We repeat, this is not a test! President Biden is wearing a tan suit at a press conference! The nation’s sartorial security has been threatened again by a president! The horror!

If you find yourself angry about the vaccine but desperately searching for horse paste, hydroxycloroquin, or the my pillow guys latest, you’re doing Covid wrong

— Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@AdamKinzinger) August 6, 2021

“PPP’s new Georgia poll finds that the state continues to be very closely divided, and that Herschel Walker seemingly starts out as the strongest potential Republican candidate for the Senate next year. Georgians are about evenly split on their feelings about both Joe Biden’s performance (46% approve, 48% disapprove) and Raphael Warnock’s (43% approve, 42% disapprove.) Not a lot of minds have changed about either of them since their razor thin victories. Donald Trump fares a little worse with 43% giving him a positive favorability rating and 48% a negative one, but his hold on the GOP is secure with 83% of Republicans rating him favorably and only 11% unfavorably.”

“Herschel Walker looks like the strongest of the most discussed Republican candidates with the party base. He has a 72/7 favorability rating with GOP voters. By contrast Kelly Loeffler has much higher negatives, coming in at 56/21, and Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black is largely unknown with 67% of Republicans saying they don’t know enough about him to have an opinion either way. Walker is also the strongest of the Republican hopefuls with the overall electorate. Among all voters he has a +13 favorability rating (41/28) compared to -19 for Loeffler (28/47). Black comes in even at 15/15. By comparison, Warnock’s approval stands at 43/42. The Senate race next year is likely to once again be a tossup. Walker comes the closest to Warnock, trailing by 2 points at 48-46. Loeffler’s deficit is 47-44 and Black’s is 46-38” – Public Policy Polling.

Politico reports Dem Conor Lamb, who narrowly won a big House special election for a seat in early 2018 against some scrub is launching a bid to replace retiring Republican Senator Pat Toomey. Lamb will officially announce his run at a union hall in Pittsburgh Friday afternoon.

Impressive and important and Lamb’s win was in 2018, he should stay the hell out of this. National Zero are committed John Fetterman stans and hope Lamb drops out before the primary election so he can hang on to his House seat. Wait until the other guy retires, Lambchop.

“The White House press briefing room hasn’t been quite the same since Donald Trump left office. No more presidential promotions of dubious covid-19 remedies. No more lectures to the gathered reporters from Trump’s press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, punctuated by a crisp snap of her binder and a dramatic exit from the podium. But there’s a new miniseries playing out in the briefing room: the daily thrust and parry between Fox News White House reporter Peter Doocy and Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki. Doocy, the son of longtime ‘Fox & Friends’ co-host Steve Doocy, tends to come at Psaki with questions from Fox’s ever-lengthening list of culture-war issues.”

“He can be aggressive in his questioning, sometimes interrupting Psaki mid-answer to make another query. The 34-year-old reporter learned his way around Team Biden by covering his presidential campaign last year. Psaki, 42, usually maintains her cool, calmly reciting facts and counterarguments in reply. She often seems to anticipate what Doocy will ask but at times seems mildly exasperated by him. Her tell is sarcasm: ‘Welcome back,’ she said amid scattered laughter last month, after Doocy returned to the briefing room from a brief hiatus and attempted to corner her again. Rather than grumbling about Doocy’s approach – as her predecessors in the Trump administration did when confronted by reporters such as CNN’s Jim Acosta – Psaki has acknowledged that the White House needs Doocy. He is, after all, a conduit to Fox News’s sizable audience, which is unlikely to hear the White House’s side of the story from the network’s opinion hosts and pundits. Psaki seems to recognize that the best way to guarantee a sound bite on Fox – especially about critical vaccine information – is to engage with its reporter. And so the two battle on, amid cheers and jeers from their audience on social media” – Washington Post.

Miami Herald: “DeSantis’ handling of the pandemic has elevated his national profile, more so as he attacks Biden and Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert. DeSantis’ political team, for example, is selling ‘Don’t Fauci My Florida’ drink koozies and T-shirts and regularly sends out fundraising emails attacking Fauci’s ‘lockdown policies.’ In response, Fauci has said DeSantis is ‘doing egregiously political things’ as part of his response to the pandemic in Florida, where this week there’s been record-breaking COVID-19 hospitalizations. ‘I don’t want to get into a tit-for-tat with DeSantis. I don’t want to go down to his level. He’s doing egregiously political things, having T-shirts that say ‘Don’t Fauci my Florida,’ selling beer mugs with derogatory statements about me – raising political money by trying to discredit me. So I don’t want to get into the mud with him,’ Fauci said during a Wednesday interview with McClatchy. Meanwhile, DeSantis’ political team is bragging that the anti-Fauci merch is ‘FLYING off the shelves, with orders coming in from coast to coast!'”

“DeSantis’ political arm is also fundraising off of his feud with the White House over mask mandates in schools. On Tuesday, Biden delivered a stern message to governors like DeSantis who are pushing back against mask mandates in schools: ‘Get out of the way.’ A day later, the governor held an official press conference in Panama City to talk about Hurricane Michael recovery efforts. But what got the most attention was his response to Biden, who he accused of ‘helping facilitate’ COVID-19 by not securing the border with Mexico. ‘Why don’t you get this border secure?’ DeSantis said. ‘Until you do that, I don’t want to hear a blip about COVID from you.’ A few hours later, his political team sent out a fundraising email using the governor’s statements almost verbatim. ‘Until Joe Biden gets the border secured and this crisis under control, I do not want to hear a blip about COVID from him or his administration,’ the fundraising email said.”

The video is long but definitely worth a watch – check out this CNN.com article summarizing where Mike Lindell’s head is at these days too. Probably the best part is when CNN journalist Drew Griffin asks Lindell bluntly “Could you possibly be the victim of a scam here?” to which the former crackhead shouts “Then why don’t you come to the cyber symposium and make five million dollars?” before rambling into “No! You’re lying! You’re lying!”, Lindell’s voice steadily rising as Griffin peppers him with questions he can’t answer (starting at 5:53 in the video).

Griffin then briefs Anderson Cooper and says “After our discussion, I’m not convinced Mike Lindell understands how voting works, period, let alone he has proof of a massive voting conspiracy”

WNBC: “The highly transmissible delta variant continues to burn through New York City, now accounting for 83% of all positive samples – and every key indicator in the city is moving in the wrong direction. The situation is deteriorating so quickly, in fact, that as of Friday, all five boroughs of the city now meet the CDC guidelines to be considered ‘high transmission’ areas where extra precautions should be taken, including universal indoor masking. New confirmed plus probable cases are up 25% in the city versus a week prior, and up 70% two weeks prior. The seven-day rolling averages for positive tests in general, and positive percentages of all tests, hospitalizations and deaths are all higher than the 28-day averages, suggesting a steepening curve.”

“To be sure, there are some faint signs of optimism – the daily new case totals did finally drop a bit this week after weeks of unabated increases. Vaccinations are on the rise too, spurred by the city’s offer of $100 for every first dose, as well as new measures increasingly closing daily life to the unvaccinated. But the fight against the delta variant isn’t anywhere close to over, it’s only just beginning, as Mayor Bill de Blasio and other city leaders have made clear.”

“Honestly, at this point, if you are still on facebook or twitter, you are an idiot”

– The current top comment on the Breitbart article “Exclusive: Despite Facebook Bias, Breitbart News Destroys Establishment Media on Platform“, posted Early Friday.