https://youtu.be/O6KLfVO2wSc

Apparently unaware that his client attempted to cancel the document he refers to, the lawyer for Richard Barnett–the man who put his boots on Nancy Pelosi’s desk and stole correspondence from her office–claimed that the Constitution forces us to be unemotional about insurrection.

“We understand people have an emotional response to January 6th,” the mouthpiece says in response to a question by journalist Scott MacFarlane about why anyone should be concerned about his complaints about jail conditions or trial circumstances.  “We understand that there are people support or disagree vehemently or moderately with the actions that took place that day on both sides.  But the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were formed during times like these for times like these to prevent emotional reactions to situations like January 6th.”

The mayors of two of Florida’s largest counties have defied the commands of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis and reimposed mask requirements, with one of them going so far as to require vaccinations for some county employees, the Associated Press reports.

Miami-Dade County will implement federal guidelines on people at indoor county facilities, recommending that even people vaccinated against COVID-19 should wear facial coverings.  In Orange County, the mayor will also require non-union county employees to be fully vaccinated by the end of September.

“We want to keep our county and theme parks open for business,” Jerry Demings, the mayor of Orange County, said at a news conference Wednesday. “By instituting these measures, we want everyone to know, in Orange County, Florida, we take the coronavirus seriously.”  Orange County is home to Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando. 

The Senate passed the $1.1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill negotiated by the White House and a team of eight key Senators Wednesday, clearing the first major hurdle to getting a significant victory for the Biden Administration, USA Today reports.

By 67-32 vote, the Senate voted to bring the bill to the floor of the Senate for debate, closing the opportunity for Republicans to filibuster the bill.  Seventeen GOP Senators joined all the Democrats on the cloture vote.

The bill is the first of two infrastructure bills to come to Congress; the second will be a $3.5 trillion bill that Democrats will likely pass needing only 50 votes and the Vice President’s tie-breaker.  The bipartisan “hard” infrastructure bill will concentrate on traditional infrastructure programs like transportation and energy projects.  President Joe Biden tweeted earlier that it will be the largest US infrastructure bill in the last century.

“Hard to believe our Senate Republicans are dealing with the Radical Left Democrats in making a so-called bipartisan bill on ‘infrastructure,’ with our negotiators headed up by SUPER RINO Mitt Romney. This will be a victory for the Biden Administration and Democrats, and will be heavily used in the 2022 election. It is a loser for the USA, a terrible deal, and makes the Republicans look weak, foolish, and dumb. It shouldn’t be done. It sets an easy glidepath for Dems to then get beyond what anyone thought was possible in future legislation. It will be a continued destruction of our Country.”

“Our Borders are horrible, crime is at an all time high, taxes and inflation are going way up, the economy is going way down, and now this. Don’t do it Republicans – Patriots will never forget! If this deal happens, lots of primaries will be coming your way!” – Trump statement.

A letter sent to households in an affluent, most-white development outside Dallas threatened to dox people who refused to pledge not to send their kids to an Ivy League school, claiming the admission spots were needed by minority students.  But research done by the Dallas Observer points to a Utah-based conservative PR firm as the source of the threats.

The story made it all the way to Tucker Carlson’s timeslot, where substitute host Mark Stein ranted about it Tuesday night.  The flyer, supposedly sent by a group called Dallas Justice Now, was everything conservatives hate:  racial, a social justice plea and an example of how dastardly liberals are.  And given the amount of time spent on the story by conservative media like The Daily Caller and PJ Media, it stoked a lot of anger.

But after scratching the surface, the story seems to fall apart.  The coding used for the website of Dallas Justice Now appears to have been coded by people at the right-wing firm, Arena, based near Salt Lake City:  the developers who loaded the code up to Github, a code sharing service, identify the origin as the firm. 

Based on a commitment from Leader Schumer to Senators Portman and Sinema that the Portman-Sinema amendment to be filed will be the substitute amendment, I will vote to proceed to the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

— Leader McConnell (@LeaderMcConnell) July 28, 2021

“Russian state media had a familiar – albeit repulsive – approach to their coverage of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot hearings. ‘The long awaited first hearing in the United States was a total farce,’ scowled the host of Kremlin-funded TV program 60 Minutes, Olga Skabeeva. ‘Imagine that, a huge dark-skinned policeman, his name is Harry Dunn, got teary-eyed like a boy, because the protesters called him the N-word.’ She then proceeded to say the Russian translation of the word out loud, a common occurrence on state television” reports The Daily Beast.

“In Russian, both the N-word slur and the word ‘Negro’ are translated as the same expression. Skabeeva has long-used it with obsessive insistence, often making other panelists uncomfortable while repeatedly acknowledging her awareness that it is offensive. Last year, Konstantin Zatulin, a member of Russia’s lower house of parliament, pointed out that the word in question is deeply insulting and suggested she use the phrase ‘African American’ instead. Skabeeva reacted with a grin and continued to use the same offensive term through many 60 Minutes broadcasts. The pundit’s use of the word can’t be chalked up to a cultural disconnect, either: The TV personality used to live and work in New York, alongside her husband and co-host Evgeny Popov. The cosmopolitan couple frequently vacations in Europe and longingly talks about their great time living in the US, only to return to Russia to spout nasty expressions while hosting their popular program.”

Through some cosmic accident or happenstance of fate this man, possessing all the wit and charisma of a typical Best Buy or Home Depot middle manager, wound up instead the leader of an unruly caucus of over 200 grifters, mental patients, and straight up criminals. It’s a thankless, awful job that would be tough on even the most steeled disciplinarian. For a feckless dipshit like Kevin McCarthy, every day of it is a living nightmare, and it’s definitely getting to him. You can just tell by the nigh-imperceptible quivering in his voice that it’s almost time.

The endless parade of indignities and humiliations from his fat orange absentee boss with his unrealistic demands, his acidic stepmotherly nemesis calling him a moron, the genocidal racist adulteress who won’t shut the fuck up with calling everything she doesn’t like the Holocaust, the spandex wearing wrestling freak telling him what to do all the time, the turtle faced sociopath in the other chamber who makes it look easy… All of this is getting to Kevin and he’s going to snap.

A tense and terrifying exchange was caught on some rightwing dickhead radio host’s show on Wednesday when Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and an unnamed caller got into it over Capitol rioter Ashli Babbitt’s January 6th shooting death at the hands of an unidentified US Capitol police officer.

Axios: “Donald Trump’s advisers are angry at David McIntosh, president of the conservative Club for Growth, for persuading the former president to endorse a losing candidate in the special election for Texas’ 6th District. Susan Wright’s defeat Tuesday in a runoff with Navy veteran Jake Ellzey dealt a blow to Trump’s aura of invincibility as GOP kingmaker. It’s critical to his 2022 midterm endorsements and continued hold on the GOP. Trump advisers have been ambivalent about the Club’s advice and thought he should stay out of this Republican-on-Republican contest. They take the long view and are protective of his successful record – so far – in GOP primary endorsements.”

“Trump himself disputed the result had dented his power. In a phone call with Axios on Wednesday, the former president conceded McIntosh had pushed him to support Wright but blamed Democrats – not the Club for Growth – for Ellzey’s victory. He also said he actually ‘won’ because Wright had bested Ellzey in the initial primary and the runoff came down to two Republicans he liked. ‘I think this is the only race we’ve lost together,’ Trump said of McIntosh and the Club for Growth, before catching himself mid-sentence on the word ‘lost.’ ‘This is the only race we’ve … this is not a loss, again, I don’t want to claim it is a loss, this was a win… The big thing is, we had two very good people running that were both Republicans. That was the win.'”

“Dozens of prisoners have to share the same fingernail/ toenail cutter, without it being disinfected between each use… Under the restrictive housing conditions, exercise is limited, whereas others in the jail have more ability to exercise… Access to personal hygiene such as showers is nearly nonexistent, according to our client, and defense lawyers and relatives I’ve spoken with. Those housed in general population are able to take a shower whenever they want. The same can be said for those seeking a haircut – every person we have spoken to has stated that they have been denied a haircut since their imprisonment commenced at the DC Jail”

– Excerpts from a filing by Stephen Metcalf, the defense attorney for Dominic Pezzola, a Rochester, New York Proud Boy being held at a district lockup in DC on conspiracy charges for the Capitol riot, via the ubiquitous Scott MacFarlane of NBC 4 Washington.

BREAKING: Masked whistle man assaults ⁦@RSBNetwork⁩ reporter.

Behold the tolerant, pro-speech Left 👇 pic.twitter.com/yAGZbuQL5q

— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) July 28, 2021

If you don’t feel like wasting 25 seconds watching this, we can tell you the only physical contact between the two was when the RSBN (Right Side Broadcasting Network) woman on the left jabs her index finger into the guy’s chest. Not clear is whether this was before or after Gaetz and the QAnon adulteress hilariously fled the scene in terror with the libs chasing them.

Politico: “Donald Trump tried and failed to pass an infrastructure bill so many times over the course of his presidency that his attempts were reduced to a punchline. Now out of office, Trump is trying to ensure that his successor, Joe Biden, suffers the indignity of the ‘infrastructure week’ jokes as well. The former president has encouraged GOP lawmakers to abandon the talks and criticized Mitch McConnell for even entertaining them. Senate Republicans have said, in interviews, that they have directly asked the former president not just to tone down his criticism but to actually support the infrastructure deal. Trump’s opposition, aides insist, is based on the merits.”

“At a time of fear around inflation, he opposes additional spending tilted towards environmentally-conscious projects and not hard infrastructure. But much of what has driven Trump’s approach to legislation in the past has been self-interest and personal grievance. And in discussing current infrastructure talks, Trump aides concede that they remain upset that a big bill wasn’t passed while he was in the Oval. ‘They had four years to do an infrastructure deal with someone who knows infrastructure and actually builds buildings,’ one Trump aide said. ‘I’m just speaking for myself, he hasn’t said, ‘Oh they should have done it with me,’ but if they actually wanted infrastructure they would have done it when President Trump was in there.'”

Wall Street Journal:  “Google will require all of its workers coming to campus to be vaccinated, joining a number of public and private enterprises taking new precautions as the highly infectious Delta variant of Covid-19 sweeps the U.S.

“The Alphabet Inc.-owned search giant also said it is delaying its work force’s return to offices until mid-October, after previously planning to get most staff back on site at the end of September.

An Ecuadorian court revoked the citizenship of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, declaring that Assange lied on his naturalization application he submitted while he was holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, CNN reports.

The internet provocateur sought asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in June 2012, attempting to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was charged with sexual misconduct relating to allegation made by two women.  Sweden eventually dropped the investigation and Assange was evicted from the Ecuadorian embassy in 2019, with his hosts saying Assange was harassing embassy staff, riding scooters in the hallways and smearing feces on the walls.  He is housed in a London jail cell for bail violation after a British judge turned down a US extradition request, citing Assange’s tenuous mental health.

In 2017, Assange was granted Ecuadorian citizenship by then-President Lenín Moreno.  The court determined Assange, who also holds Australian citizenship, lied on his naturalization paperwork, thereby nullifying his Ecuadorian citizenship.  Assange has provoke criticism from the Ecuadorian government for his support of Catalonian independence movement in Spain, worried that it threatens the country’s relations with Spain.

Axios: “After weeks of long nights and endless Zoom calls, a bipartisan group of senators finally reached a deal on ‘the major issues’ in their $1.2 trillion ‘hard’ infrastructure package, GOP senators involved in the talks announced Wednesday. It will likely be days before the group finishes writing the bill, but the Senate can begin debating the legislation in earnest now that they have resolved the outstanding issues. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that the Senate could vote as early as Wednesday night to advance the proposal, the second time they will vote on this procedural measure. The deal is expected to cost $1.2 trillion over eight years, or $974 billion over five years, and offers more than $579 billion in new spending.”

“Ken Bennett, the one #AZAudit leader with election experience, confirms he is resigning as State Senate liaison” reports ABC15’s Garrett Archer. While the whole story is one densely complicated clusterfuck laid on top of an incompetent and corrupt clusterfuck, it would appear that Bennett’s departure marks a serious escalation in the deadly Cyber Ninja battle royale.

Bennett served as Arizona’s Secretary of State from 2009 to 2015 and had been brought in by State Senate president Karen Fann to lend a patina of legitimacy to the scam, but apparently things had gone south in recent days after Bennett had broken the Cyber Ninja code of silence and shared some of the initial findings of the “audit”, after which was the incident where a security guard present, hired by unknown parties, had tried to prevent Bennett from talking to a reporter at the audit site. Then he was permanently barred from even entering the building on Friday. So yeah, everything’s going great for this shitshow that supposedly wraps up on Saturday.

“A witness told me they saw GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert throw a mask back at a floor staffer when she was offered one while trying to walk onto the floor maskless. Members can now be fined in the House when maskless” reports CNN Congressional Correspondent Manu Raju.

WBRZ: “At least one judge in East Baton Rouge is offering some people on probation the option to get the coronavirus vaccine in place of some of their court-mandated service hours. Court records obtained by WBRZ show Judge Fred T. Crifasi allowed at least two different people the option to take the vaccine in lieu of finishing out their remaining community service hours.”

“Those documents show one of those offenders owed 33 service hours and was allowed the option to skip the remaining hours in exchange for getting the shot. Prosecutors say judges offering unique alternatives to community service is nothing new. ‘Judges do innovative things like this all the time. For example, you have probably seen or heard in the past the judge would allow your donation of blood instead of community service work or instead of payment of the fine,’ District Attorney Hillar Moore explained. ‘If a judge is going to make this offer, I think it’s a reasonable one.’ Though not everyone in the justice system thinks the incentive is an appropriate offer. ‘I don’t think the government is necessarily the right entity to be involved in me injecting something into my body,’ Defense Attorney Jarrett Ambeau said. ‘Judge Crifasi himself, individually, is incredibly fair. The point is when a government actor steps in to ask you to do something like, ‘will I suffer for not doing it?’ And that is the question.’ Moore said anyone who’s uncomfortable with the offer can always opt to not take the deal. ‘These judges in these circumstances are being totally reasonable, but I do understand that someone may think that way. And if that’s the case, don’t get vaccinated.'”

“U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell blamed misinformation for the low rates of COVID-19 vaccination among Americans, which are fueling a rise in coronavirus cases, particularly in Republican-dominated states. ‘There is bad advice out there, you know. Apparently you see that all over the place: people practicing medicine without a license, giving bad advice. And that bad advice should be ignored,’ the 79-year-old Kentucky lawmaker told Reuters.”

“‘Not enough people are vaccinated,’ said McConnell, a polio survivor. ‘So we’re trying to get them to reconsider and get back on the path to get us to some level of herd immunity.'” McConnell, who was vaccinated for COVID-19 in December and has been promoting vaccinations in public remarks ever since, plans to run 60-second radio ads on more than 100 Kentucky radio stations in the coming days promoting the vaccine with money from his re-election campaign. Many congressional Republicans have refused to say publicly whether they have been vaccinated, and some have attacked the shots as unnecessary or dangerous. This continues a pattern that began early in the pandemic when conservatives protested social-distancing restrictions meant to slow the virus’ spread. The federal, state and local governments had been counting on rising levels of vaccination to allow them to safely lift those restrictions” – Reuters.