The Democratic-led House Oversight Committee, chair by New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, has opened an investigation into the Arizona ballot “audit” and is requiring Cyber Ninjas to open up its records to its own audit.

According to a letter sent to Cyber Ninjas CEO Douglas Logan, the company must hand over records relating to how Republicans in the state settled on the company, which has no know previous election audit experience, to conduct the audit of Maricopa County ballots.

The committee also wants to see any communication the company had with the following persons:  Donald Trump; any Trump Administration official; any Trump campaign official; Rudy Giuliani (or any Giuliani representative); Sidney Powell, Lin Wood, Patrick Byrne (presumably the former Overstock.com CEO and not the Bigfoot hunter); Mike Flynn; and Mike Lindell. 

Covid has a very high survival rate for most people. Know what doesn’t? Lawlessness and thuggery in our streets. And we can solve that without forcing shots in arms and infringing on freedoms.

— Tomi Lahren (@TomiLahren) July 14, 2021

COVID deaths in the US in 2020:  367,000.  Roughly 2% of the people who contracted coronavirus died.

Deaths by murder in the US in 2020:  ~20,000.  Roughly 0.0006% of people who used “the streets” were murdered.

“Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol to Hold First Hearing July 27th: Chairman Bennie G. Thompson and Members of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol will hold a Congressional hearing on Tuesday, July 27th, at 9:30 a.m. in 310 Cannon House Office Building, to hear first-hand from members of the U.S. Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police Department” – Capitol Riot Select Committee media advisory via Business Insider Congressional report Grace Panetta.

Detroit Free Press: “A Michigan Republican Party leader who faced grassroots pushback after saying the 2020 presidential election wasn’t stolen and blaming ex-President Donald Trump for the loss has resigned his position with the state party. Jason Roe confirmed he stepped down as executive director of the state GOP, but declined to provide a specific reason for the decision. ‘I resigned my position as executive director and the reasons will remain between me and Chairman Weiser,’ Roe said in a statement to the Free Press, referring to Michigan GOP Party Chairman Ron Weiser. ‘We’ve built an amazing team and I know they will be very successful in 2022. I look forward to helping however I can.’ Roe’s departure comes at a time when Michigan Republican lawmakers and party officials have faced growing pressure from pro-Trump activists to take additional steps to investigate the results of the Nov. 3 presidential election. A Michigan Republican Party spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”

“The news was first reported by The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta. Roe joined the Michigan GOP in February, but it was comments he made last year that landed him in hot water with some of the party base. In November, Roe told [Tim Alberta while he was still with] Politico ‘the election wasn’t stolen’ and that ‘there is no one to blame but Trump’ for the party’s defeat in the presidential election. That eventually enraged some in the party. In late May, Michigan GOP precinct delegates delivered a resolution calling on the party’s leadership to fire Roe because of what he told Politico. Debra Ell, a Republican organizer in Michigan, helped lead the push for the resolution against Roe. ‘He said there was no fraud – again, that’s something that doesn’t line up with what we think really happened – and then he said it’s all Donald Trump’s fault,’ she told the Washington Post. In a Facebook post Wednesday, Ell heralded Roe’s departure. ‘I believe he was fired not resigning. This is just beginning of the RINO Hunt,’ Ell said.”

When your first grade teacher makes a public statement that your story is the “most embellished, crazy thing I ever heard”–after teaching fantasy-prone first graders–that’s saying something.

But that’s exactly how Tucker Carlson’s first grade teacher described his recounting of his grade school experience.  In a 2018 book, Carlson wrote that his first grade teacher (whom Carlson referred to as “Mrs. Raymond”) was prone to wearing Indian-print skirts, sobbing at her desk and abandoning traditional education.

Carlson wrote that even at that delicate age, all he wanted was for her “stop blubbering and teach us to read. . . . Mrs. Raymond never did teach us; my father had to hire a tutor to get me through phonics.”

He didn’t mention that the tutor Carlson’s father hired was Marianna Raymond, Carlson’s first grade teacher at the tony La Jolla Country Day School in a wealthy California community, which was very white and very privileged.  Apparently, Carlson wasn’t a very good student, even back then. 

“Great new book out by Jesse Watters, How I Saved the World. Interspersed are his thoughtful suggestions for overcoming left-wing radicalism, maintaining American democracy, moving beyond aging hippies (like his long-suffering, loving parents), saving the world from social justice warriors and the deep state – all while smirking his way through life in only the nicest way. Get your copy today, congratulations Jesse!” – Statement from the Orange Caligula via Maggie Haberman.

“In How I Saved the World, Jesse Watters takes readers on a tour of his life from basement-dwelling Fox minion to pampered champion of right-thinking Americans. He has divined great truths about the nature of our country while stumbling across beaches asking oblivious college students basic political questions and while stumbling out of Air Force One with the President. Interspersed are his thoughtful suggestions for overcoming left-wing radicalism, maintaining American democracy, moving beyond aging hippies (like his long-suffering, loving parents), saving the world from social justice warriors and the deep state – all while smirking his way through life in only the nicest way”
– Product description at Shop.FoxNews.com for How I Saved the World, by Jesse Watters.

Talking Points Memo: “‘Who killed Ashli Babbitt?’ It’s a question that, in recent weeks, has become a mainstream rallying cry among the MAGA crew after growing in volume for months on the far-right fringes. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) has asked it repeatedly, as has former President Trump himself. But the thing is, they think they already know. They have a specific individual in mind, a Capitol police officer that they believe to be the culprit in the killing. He happens to be a black man. It’s a detail that, once known, places the calls for the officer to be exposed and punished in a new light. The ensuing witch hunt takes on a racial tinge, casting Babbitt as a defenseless white woman killed by a black man. And it’s a context that has allowed Trump and others to blow the dog whistle as loud as possible. He venerated Babbitt as ‘an innocent, wonderful, incredible woman,’ adding, ‘if that were on the other side, the person that did the shooting would be strung up and hung.'”

“Babbitt was shot and killed on Jan. 6 after trying to break through a window into the House Speaker’s Lobby, where members of Congress were sheltering and continuing to evacuate. In an appearance with Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo last week, Charlie Kirk, the Turning Point USA director, pointed to a story by Paul Sperry, a reporter with RealClearInvestigations, that attempted to identify the officer in question. The same person had been labeled as the culprit by right-wing blogs such as the Gateway Pundit weeks before. Officials have not publicly released or confirmed the identity of the officer who shot Babbitt; TPM has not confirmed the officer’s identity. And while that crucial fact hasn’t been confirmed, some far-right groups have already satisfied themselves that they know who it is, and are using that to build out a palace of grievance over her death.”

Even after a vacation, Peter Doocy never learns.  His first question to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki asked ridiculously if Joe Biden ever “left town to avoid a vote he knew he was going to lose,” completely missing the rules of the Texas legislature that made the move by Texas Democrats not just legal, but effective.

“Welcome back,” Psaki said dryly to the laughter of others in the room, suggesting that Doocy wasn’t really missed by his colleagues in the press room.  Doocy then went on to rail against Democratic efforts to stop the passage of Texas voter suppression laws. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a preliminary estimate showing more than 93,000 people died of drug overdoses during the pandemic year of 2020, a shocking new record that was a 29% increase over the previous year, CBS News reports.

“This is a staggering loss of human life,” said Brandon Marshall, a Brown University public health researcher who tracks overdose trends.

The spike in overdose deaths cames as the nation was largely shut down and isolating due to the coronavirus pandemic.  The nation is also facing a epidemic of opioid abuse, set in motion by the overprescription of drugs like Oxycontin and Oxycodone.  Manufacturers of the drug, like Purdue Pharma, have been fined by federal authorities for misrepresenting the uses and impact of the drug to physicians. 

Meanwhile The Washington Post reports Florida is “reporting daily cases close to four times the national average – 26 new infections per 100,000 residents, the second-highest number in the country. The state’s latest covid-19 death rate is almost double the national figure, and it ranks fourth for current hospitalizations” so this is pretty typical DeSantis.

“A Scottsdale woman has pleaded not guilty to felony charges of using her dead mother’s ballot to cast a vote in the November 2020 presidential election. Tracey Kay McKee is charged with one count of illegal voting and one count of perjury, for allegedly signing her mother’s name in the affidavit box on an early-ballot envelope. The rare voting fraud charges carry penalties of up to two and half years in prison. A spokesman for Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s office, which brought the charges, said he wasn’t aware of similar prosecutions by the AG” NBC 12 reports.

“Neither McKee nor her lawyer, Tom Henze, responded to requests for comment. McKee’s indictment gives sparse details of the case against her. A timeline of the month before the election provides a clearer picture of what happened after McKee’s mother died. These key dates were pulled from voter registration records obtained by 12 News through a public records request: Oct. 5, 2020: McKee’s mother, Mary Deloyht Arendt, died at the age of 93. Arendt was a widely known watercolor artist who had lived in Paradise Valley for many years. Oct. 7: Two days after Arendt’s death, early ballots for the presidential election were mailed to Arizona voters on the Permanent Early Voting List. Both Arendt and McKee were on PEVL. They listed the same home address for early ballots on their voter registration cards. Oct. 24: McKee’s mail-in ballot was received by the Maricopa County Elections Office. Her late mother’s mail-in ballot was also returned the same day, 19 days after she died. According to the indictment, McKee ‘not being entitled to vote, knowingly voted’ and ‘knowingly signed the name of (Mary Arendt) to a declaration under penalty of perjury located on the November 3, 2020, General Election early ballot envelope for deceased elector (Mary Arendt).’ McKee has been a registered Republican for the last two decades. Arendt was a Republican for at least 35 years.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will introduce a bill Wednesday that would remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act and allow federal, state and local governments to tax the sale of marijuana, the New York Times reports.

Called the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, the move would decriminalize the cultivation, processing, sales and possession of cannabis and products containing significant amounts of THC, a significant signal that the federal “war on drugs” was largely unsuccessful.

The move would also allow existing cannabis-based businesses in states that have legalized pot for both medical and recreational use to use federally-insured banking institutions, a barrier for many such businesses to use credit card processing and other financial services.

[cue backpedalling sound effect]

“Here’s what I said about a week ago, we’re going to live stream to the world on the 10th, 11th, and 12th of August,” mattress maven and conspiracy kook Mike Lindell explained on Steve Bannon’s radio show.  “But what I said was when you all see what I’ve seen, what I have, the morning of the 13th, you’re going to wake up and go, wow, what are we going to do.  Everyone’s going to know it and that’s when we’re going to bring it to the Supreme Court.  I didn’t say that everything’s going to change the morning of the 13th.  But everybody’s going to know what I know.”

Lindell announced that he, the mattress maven, will hold a “cyber symposium” August 10-12.

Tom Nichols of The Atlantic: “The American working poor, no matter where they are, do in fact need civic representatives from the center-right, people who can talk candidly about the limits of government and who can make a moral case for tough love and personal responsibility, but one based on a sense of shared experience, common values, and genuine compassion. Someone like Vance could be that candidate. Someone like Vance, perhaps, but as we now know, not Vance himself. Not so long ago, he talked about the self-defeating bias against education among poor whites. He acknowledged the self-destructive habits of some of the people he grew up around. Vance wrote, in this very magazine, that Donald Trump ‘is cultural heroin’ – a powerful charge from someone who hails from the epicenter of the opioid epidemic – and provided a ‘quick high’ that could not fix what ails the country. All of that vanished once Vance decided he wanted to go to Washington – and after the Trump supporter Peter Thiel dropped $10 million into a PAC.”

“Instead of a truth-teller in his own community, Vance as a candidate has become a contemptible and cringe-inducing clown. His attempts at authenticity are so grating because they are so blatantly artificial. His recent tweets, for example, attempting to ingratiate himself with rural Ohioans by slagging New York City were embarrassingly amateurish; we can only wonder which social-media consultant thought them up. ‘Serious question,’ Vance tweeted. ‘I have to go to New York soon and I’m trying to figure out where to stay. I have heard it’s disgusting and violent there. But is it like Walking Dead Season 1 or Season 4?'”

“Another domestic abuse allegation surfaces in January 6 case: Matt Bledsoe asks court to remove his GPS ankle tether. Federal prosecutors respond that police were called on Bledsoe in 2014 for punching a pregnant woman and repeatedly kneeing her stomach (He wasn’t convicted)”

The victim alleged that he grabbed her by her throat, punched her in the face, and repeatedly kneed her in the stomach and thighs while she was eight months pregnant. In that case, the victim believed that he was drunk and/or high when he assaulted her. Though Bledsoe was not convicted in either case, the nature of the allegations are such that the government cannot agree to the removal of the GPS location-monitoring tether.

Domestic violence cases often involve a cycle of power and control that perpetuate abuse and prevent victims from pursuing charges, and these cases are frequently dismissed prior to conviction for that reason. The lack of a conviction here does not alleviate the government’s concern about Mr. Bledsoe’s police contacts.

“…and another call in 2020…”

For example, he has been arrested, but not convicted, for domestic assault in October 2020. The allegations were serious—he was accused of breaking down the door of a residence, throwing things, chasing the victim, picking up the victim by the throat, and slamming the victim to the floor in front of a minor child.

“This is at least the second January 6th defendant who was accused of assaulting a pregnant woman prior to the insurrection. Oh… and Bledsoe is asking the court to remove his tether device because he: 1) Owns a moving company 2) Is working a lot 3) Wants to wear shorts 4) Can’t wear shorts, because of ankle tether 5) Says it’s ‘hard’ to conceal ankle tether” – NBC News National Security reporter Scott MacFarlane, (edited and condensed for clarity/continuity).

Axios: “Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was admitted to a hospital in Brasilia after experiencing abdominal pain earlier in the day, local media reported, citing the presidential palace. Bolsonaro had been complaining about persistent hiccups and was taken to the hospital to investigate the cause. He will be under medical observation for 24 to 48 hours, but is not required to stay in the hospital. Bolsonaro’s health has been an issue ever since he was stabbed in the abdomen in 2018 during the presidential campaign. He suffered severe intestinal wounds and lost about 40% of his blood.”

It’s almost like a higher power is telling us something.

When was the last time you heard of a brick building being destroyed by lightning? I am a builder and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of it. https://t.co/6l1f2t9nd0

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 14, 2021

View WTVG’s photos of the destroyed mural in Toledo, Ohio here. Had this been an Ashli Babbitt mural we’d probably be seeing Don Jr’s theory of how the libs put some kind of lightning rod in it.

Former Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale is a weirdo and his dad Dwight, a former Kansas Assistant AG is even weirder, according to an excerpt from “Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost” by the Wall Street Journal’s Michael C Bender:

“Dwight, a former assistant attorney general, spent two decades practicing law, but left the field after getting so upset at a ruling, he told friends, he wanted to ‘beat the crap’ out of the judge. Brad described his upbringing as ‘not overly redneck.’ Dwight had also run, unsuccessfully, for a series of political offices, including a U.S. House seat before Brad was born, and Kansas attorney general in 1990. The two were close. When Brad accepted a scholarship to play basketball at the University of Texas at San Antonio, Dwight moved the family to be close to him. Dwight had hoped some of Brad’s political success in 2016 would help revive his own ambitions, and in 2018, he ran for Republican chairman of Bexar County, Texas. Dwight had been endorsed for the Bexar County position by the outgoing chairman, Robert Stovall, who vacated the seat after Brad endorsed him in a Republican primary for a congressional seat. Stovall and Dwight both lost.”

“Dwight again appealed to Brad for work in 2020, asking his son to have Trump appoint him director of the FBI. When Brad refused, they stopped speaking for a stretch… Brad would repeatedly find similarities between his father and Trump: Both men were 74 years old, prone to conspiracy theories, and had businesses that went into bankruptcy and Brad maintained complicated relationships with each that were often knotted around money. Brad also had a tendency to view himself as another of the Trump kids. He took it as a sign that while he, Don Junior, Eric, and Jared were all born in different years, their birthdays fell within the same eleven-day stretch between December 31 and January 10. ‘That’s statistically very rare,’ Brad told them when he first put it together. ‘I don’t know if it’s celestial, but if you’re born in the cold weather, it affects how you approach the rest of your life.’ Don Junior and Jared were less amazed. ‘So what, Brad?’ Jared said.”

“The committee charged with helping Republicans wrest control of the House in 2022 raised $45.4 million over the last three months, a record quarterly haul during a year without a national election. That total was bolstered by $20.1 million raised in June, the highest ever monthly off-year total, according to numbers shared with The Associated Press before a public filing deadline. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee last week announced that it had raised $14.4 million in June, bringing its second-quarter total to about $36.5 million – its best ever for that stretch. The large sums signal that excitement is high among donors to both parties as they prepare for what is expected to be a contentious midterm election season. Democrats hold a razor-thin majority in the House, but Republicans have history on their side: The party that occupies the White House typically sees large losses in both the House and the Senate” the AP reports.

“GOP fundraising has also been bolstered by former President Donald Trump, whose name continues to dominate fundraising pleas for small-dollar contributions, even as he continues to spread lies about the 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. In its next filing, the National Republican Congressional Committee will report that it raised $79.2 million during the first half of the year, besting the $44.5 million raised in 2019 and marking the most ever raised for that period in the committee’s history. The committee now has $55 million cash on hand, versus more than $44 million for the DCCC. But this year’s numbers were also bolstered by major contributions from Republican leadership accounts. House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy has transferred $12.76 million to the NRCC’s coffers this year, while Whip Steve Scalise has sent $8.39 million.”