“A Gilpin man is facing multiple misdemeanor charges in connection with the assault of a man during his one-man political protest in Allegheny Township. Michael Robert Atwood, 38, has been charged by Allegheny Township police with misdemeanor charges of simple assault and related charges for incidents that unfolded at a grassy intersection along Route 356. The location of the incident is a triangle-shaped median in between Route 356 and South Leechburg Hill Road that’s owned by PennDOT. Retired social worker Frank Ashbaugh, 69, of Allegheny Township, said he’s been protesting various social and political issues without incident for almost a decade from the same triangle area, across from Stanford Home Center” the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports.

“Atwood is accused of attacking Ashbaugh on July 1 as he sat in a lawn chair in the grassy area amid his protest signs. Ashbaugh said he was holding a ‘Trump Is A Loser And A Cheat’ sign when the incident occurred. ‘This guy hit me from behind and I never saw him coming,’ Ashbaugh said of the afternoon attack. Atwood struck Ashbaugh with Ashbaugh’s protest signs, according to the criminal complaint… Other charges that Atwood faces are theft, criminal mischief, and causing damage to property. ‘I think it was premeditated because he parked far away in the Stanford lot and had gloves on when he attacked me,’ Ashbaugh said. In a voice mail left on a Trib reporter’s phone, a man who identified himself as Atwood said he had ‘recently reached out to Mr. Ashbaugh.’ The message said that Atwood ‘agreed to pay for the camera that was accidentally broke’ and that Ashbaugh agreed to drop the charges. But Ashbaugh said he didn’t agree to anything. He said a man who identified himself as a friend of Atwood’s showed up at his door and asked him to drop the charges, and he declined. No agreement was made concerning Ashbaugh’s camera, either.”

At this point, I would lick doorknobs if there was an executive order banning it.

— Matt Rinaldi (@MattRinaldiTX) June 29, 2020

For a few minutes I was worried Matt Rinaldi might not be as unhinged as Allen West. It’s hard to top moments from his predecessor like calling for secession just because Trump lost and ordering a reporter to do 30 push-ups for showing up late to press conference and then doing the push-ups himself when the reporter laughs and says no, and changing the party’s slogan to a blatant QAnon shibboleth, but it sure looks like Rinaldi’s got the goods based on this tweet from last year. We can rest easy knowing that more outrageous batshittery is in store for us.

“Live, small flying insects in kitchen, food preparation area, food storage area and/or bar area. Observed 1 live fly on cookies on prep table by slicer. Operator discarded Observed 3 live flies on prep table across from three compartment sink. Operator killed flies sand sanitized. 3 live flies on meat slicer on prep table in dish washing area. 2 live flies on employee break table in dish wash area. 2 live flies on cases of syrups on storage rack across from office 3 live flies landed on storage rack where sealed breads are storage by sandwich line. 2 live flies on Alto Sham heater next to sandwich line. 1 live fly landed on prep table where breads are toasted 1 live fly landed on rim of uncovered container with buffalo sauce next to sandwich line. 2 live flies on flex glass by cash registers on front-line 1 live fly on counter by register closest to door” – Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation food safety inspection report via WPLG on the Arby’s location owned by RTM Operating at 924 NW 62nd Street, Fort Lauderdale, ordered shut on July 7th.

What the fuck is this shit? I thought Florida was a proud, patriotic state that doesn’t close down businesses owned by hard-working Americans over socialist garbage like public health code violations. This is cancel culture, plain and simple. Denying Floridians their right to purchase a Meat Mountain just because some scumbag bureaucrat with a clipboard didn’t like a few bugs in the kitchen? Might as well rename it “North Venezuela”. RINO Governor DeSantis must step down immediately for allowing this act of poisonous Marxist hatred to occur in his state.

The official death toll from collapse of the Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida rose to 94, with 83 of the victims identified and the remains of 80 returned to families, officials said during a daily briefing.

NBC News reports that 22 people remain unaccounted for.  (Some of the unidentified remains may be of those people still listed as unaccounted for.)  More than 220 people who were in the building when it collapsed have been accounted for since the June 24th early-morning collapse.

The job of recovery and identification is getting more complicated and gruesome  as the remains being found are increasing smaller.  At this point, identification of remains will largely rely on DNA analysis. 

President Joe Biden voiced American support for the Cuban people protesting around the island nation about food and medicine shortages as the coronavirus spikes throughout the country, USA Today reports.

“We stand with the Cuban people and their clarion call for freedom and relief from the tragic grip of the pandemic and from the decades of repression and economic suffering to which they have been subjected by Cuba’s authoritarian regime,” Biden said in a statement.

Thousands of people took to the streets in Havana and other cities voicing frustration with the leadership of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel as hospitals fill up with coronavirus patients as the virus peaks three months after the country opened up to international tourism.  People are also frustrated at the shortage of available food and medicine through retail outlets.

WNBC: “Hundreds of syringes found washed up on beaches along the Jersey Shore over the weekend have forced lifeguards to prevent families from going into the water. Beach patrollers picked up dozens of needles on the sand of Monmouth Beach just on Sunday. They were spotted warning beachgoers that there was a high risk of stepping on the needles if they were to go into the water. ‘I warned them so there’s not much I can really do, you know?’ said Danielle Britton with the Monmouth Beach Bathing Pavillion. The syringes have been washing ashore from Sandy Hook to Long Branch after days of storms. It’s due to the sewer systems in New York City and North Jersey bordering the New York Habor that release sewer during heaving rain.”

“Based on past investigations, many of the needles were found are likely from diabetics flushing their used needles down the toilet. All beach officials could do is continuously patrol below the high tide line in search of more needles. Closures are expected to continue until at least Monday because it’s unclear how many more syringes are out there.”

“If you’re waiting to read the Cyber Ninjas’ report about Maricopa County’s election counts to find out what happens next in Donald Trump’s rigged election narrative, don’t bother. The sham audit itself is the endgame. The audit, which began on April 23, was supposed to end by May 14. Now, nearly two months after blowing past that deadline, a spokesman says people shouldn’t expect anything until August. But, really, who knows when, or if, it all will ever end. It’s not like anyone in MAGA land is in any hurry to call curtains on the big show. That’s because the performance, as incompetent as it is, is the point. It’s what’s keeping Trump’s election delusions alive and well; not what will prove or disprove whether the fantasy has merit. The play’s the thing.”

“Besides, haven’t they already won, on some level? It’s not every day a couple of partisans are able to seize millions of ballots and a bunch of expensive election equipment to put on a big, months-long show at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Everybody came, too. Politicos, reporters, elected officials. MAGA propagandists are still capitalizing on all the free content. And donations keep pouring into the coffers of Trump-adjacent grifters all around. Why end it now?”

“Arizona GOP Chairwoman Kelli ‘Stop the Counting’ Ward couldn’t be happier. ‘It is good to know that the Arizona audit is already inspiring others to take important steps to ensure election integrity,’ she said in a video on Friday. ‘Even before its completion, the Arizona audit, America’s audit, is bearing good fruit.’ Joy! The sequel is being planned before the first release even wraps its maiden run! Election Integrity Forever!” – The Bulwark.

The Informant: “It was an email so racist it might make a ku klux klansman blush. An advisor for the influential conservative youth organization Turning Point USA recently published an essay for subscribers of his personal newsletter that, among other things, said Black people have ‘become socially incompatible with other races’ and ‘American Black culture has evolved into an un-fixable and crime-ridden mess.’ It also said white people aren’t racist but ‘just exhausted’ with Black people. It portrayed post-Civil War America as a 150-year-long ‘experiment’ to see whether Black people could be ‘taken from the jungles of Africa,’ enslaved, and then integrated into a majority-white society. It said that experiment had failed. The email, which included Turning Point’s logo and a fundraising appeal for the group, was sent out on April 29 by Rip McIntosh, an 85-year-old white Florida man who sits on the organization’s advisory council, a board that includes the likes of former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and, until his recent death, GOP mega donor Foster Friess.”

“The newsletter, which McIntosh says has more than 25,000 subscribers and which he sometimes publishes as often as five times a day, is frequently filled with culture war rants, conspiracy theories, racism, and other types of bigotry, but this email stood out even among that toxic stew. In an interview, McIntosh said neither Turning Point nor its co-founder Charlie Kirk, whom he considers to be a personal friend, has any role in the publication of his newsletter. McIntosh also denied writing the essay, which was published under the fictitious byline ‘E.P. Unum.’ ‘That’s a nom de plume of a friend,’ McIntosh told TPM and The Informant. ‘He doesn’t want his name out there because he’s a teacher. He doesn’t want to be canceled.’ The essay, titled ‘On the Question of Systemic Racism in the United States,’ was emailed out just hours after Sen. Tim Scott, a Black Republican from South Carolina, gave a nationally televised speech on behalf of the GOP in which he said ‘America is not a racist country,’ a claim that was debated for days afterward.”

https://twitter.com/sebgorka/status/1414416753766055940

“State Republican lawmakers around the country are pushing bills – at least one of which has become law – that would give unvaccinated people the same protections as those surrounding race, gender and religion. These bills would tie the hands of private businesses that want to protect their employees and customers. But they also show how deep into the political psyche resistance to coronavirus vaccine requirements has become, and how vaccination status has rapidly become a marker of identity. On a national scale, well-known GOP figures have recently escalated their rhetoric about the vaccination effort, comparing it to Nazi Germany and apartheid” Axios reports.

“At a state level, there’s more bite to the bark. Many Republican-led states have enacted some kind of restriction on vaccine mandates or vaccine ‘passports.’ And some state lawmakers are trying to it illegal for employers, governments or private businesses to treat unvaccinated people any differently than vaccinated people, using the same language found in federal civil rights law. ‘When we think about the normal discrimination statutes… we have protected classes based on something that is sort of inherent to you, with religion maybe being the one that is a choice,’ said Lowell Pearson, a managing partner at Husch Blackwell, which has been tracking the bills. ‘But vaccination status you certainly can control.’ The states with restrictions on vaccine requirements tend to have lower vaccination rates than those without such laws, and cases are on the rise in several of them. Most of the measures are full of loopholes or have limited application, meaning unvaccinated residents may still face consequences for their decision.”

CNN: “Tucker Carlson is furious with Fox News executives for not vigorously defending him amid his evidence-free claims that the National Security Agency spied on him in a conspiracy to destroy his TV show, according to people familiar with the matter. One of the sources described Carlson as ‘furious’ with network executives, especially the public relations team, ‘for not backing him up.’ ‘Tensions are sky high,’ the person said. Another source pointed out that Carlson has ‘always had tension with’ management, but said right now he’s ‘extra pissed.’ Carlson has complained to colleagues and associates about what he perceives as a lack of support.”

“Two Fox News spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment over the weekend. In a text to a CNN reporter Sunday night, Carlson called the allegation that he is angry with Fox executives ‘absurd.’ ‘I’m not mad at anyone at Fox,’ he said. ‘If I was, I’d say so. I’m mad at you for lying relentlessly. What a loathsome person you are. Please print that.’ For the better part of two weeks, Carlson – the highest-rated host on Fox – has repeatedly claimed that the Biden administration was spying on him. Fox pointedly has not covered his claims on its newscasts, even though such an intrusion would normally be a significant news story. Fox has not shown any outward signs of investigating Carlson’s claims, either.”

Haitian federal law enforcements arrested a Florida-based Haitian-American doctor, accusing him of being one of the plotters behind the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse last week, the New York Times reports.

Sixty-three year old Christian Emmanuel Sanon is the third American to be implicated in the assassination plan, which killed Moïse and seriously injured his wife in an early morning attack on the presidential residence July 7th.

“He arrived by private plane in June with political objectives and contacted a private security firm to recruit the people who committed this act,” Haitian national police chief, Léon Charles, said. The firm, he said, was a Venezuelan security company based in the United States called CTU.

“An unopened copy of Nintendo’s Super Mario 64 has sold at auction for $1.56 million.  Heritage Auctions in Dallas said that the 1996 game sold Sunday, breaking its previous record price for the sale of a single video game.  A spokesman did not immediately respond to an inquiry about who purchased the game.

“Super Mario 64 was the best-selling game on the Nintendo 64 and the first to feature the Mario character in 3D, the auction house said in a statement.  The sale follows an unopened copy of Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda selling at auction Friday for $870,000. Valarie McLeckie, Heritage’s video game specialist, said the auction house was shocked to see a game sell for more than a $1 million two days after the Zelda game broke its past record.

“In April, the auction house sold an unopened copy of Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. that was bought in 1986 and forgotten about in a desk drawer for $660,000.” –Associated Press

Project Veritas and other conservative activist organizations employed a female former reality television contestant to try to “honey trap” Democratic staffers and operatives, recording their private conversations in the hope of obtaining embarrassing or compromising information, the Daily Beast reports.

Anna Khait, who appeared on the 32nd season of the Mark Burnett-produced television show Survivor, was hired by Project Veritas and another group called Accuracy in Media to deceive men into thinking she was romantically interested in them so that they would take to her about her employers and associates.

Using multiple names but fond of the name “Hope Higgins,” Khait would meet the men and enter into a fake relationship with them.  She’d send them flirty emails and messages.  One, Michael Kolenc, was a former campaign staffer of Democratic Oregon Governor Kate Brown.  Khait surreptitiously recorded some conversations in which Kolenc complained about Brown and some of the campaign staffing decisions.

Thousands of Cubans have taken to the streets of Havana to protest rising pricing and spreading food shortages in what is one of the largest demonstrations against the Cuban government in recent memory, the Associated Press reports.

Protestors changed “freedom,” “unite,” and “enough” during the three hour demonstration, which blocks main streets in the Cuban capital before police moved in an broke up the protest.  A demonstrator flew an American flag, but that was quickly taken and hidden by others fearing an immediate and harsher crackdown by government forces.

Cuba is experiencing a new spike in coronavirus cases after it allowed foreigners to again travel as tourists to the island nation in April.  It recently reinstituted a number of rules and regulations for residents and visitors as cases have risen in the past few weeks.

“Thousands of Cubans took part in rare protests Sunday against the communist government, marching through a town chanting ‘Down with the dictatorship’ and ‘We want liberty.’ The protest in San Antonio de los Banos, a town of some 50,000 people southwest of Havana, came as Cuba is experiencing its toughest phase yet of the coronavirus epidemic, the same day it reported a new daily record of infections and deaths. Some of the demonstrators, mainly young people, shouted insults against President Miguel Diaz-Canel who turned up at the event, according to amateur videos posted online, while others proclaimed: ‘We are not afraid'” AFP reports.

Since we all know that – had this happened a year ago – the Trump fanboys would be screaming their Orange beacon of freedom was solely responsible, National Zero is going to get ahead of this imagined outcome and assign credit to the real President, Joe Biden and the real Vice President, Kamala Harris should the Cuban Communist Party’s reign collapse. We’ll say that the Cuban people were inspired to rise up by Biden and Harris’s “306. Landslide. Blowout. Historic” win against a similarly autocratic and incompetent regime that also didn’t give a fuck about the pandemic.

We’ll make memes of Fidel Castro burning in hell while Biden and Harris laugh, and throw in a crying Pepe the Frog for good measure. They’ll also say “CUBA LIBERADA! BIDEN Y HARRIS LIBERATADORES!” in the Impact typeface, white with a 3px black stroke, as is standard. It’ll be such spectacular fun, it’s tempting to just go ahead and count the chickens before they hatch, act as if the Cuban commies’ end is already a done deal. It’s what the MAGA kids would’ve done.

“The current 7-day moving average of daily new cases (14,885) increased 16.0% compared with the previous 7-day moving average (12,832)…for the week ending July 7th.” reports the CDC.

Over 33,600 cases of Covid19 were reported to the CDC in the past week. There are four variants of concern currently circulating in the United States.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called for an investigation into the National Rifle Association to determine if the gun manufacturer lobbyist attempted to defraud courts by filing a fraudulent bankruptcy claim to avoid liability in a number of legal probes, the Associated Press reports.

In May, federal judge rejected the NRA’s claims that it was financial insolvent, citing as evidence claims by NRA leadership that they were in a strong financial condition and they put the organization into bankruptcy so they could avoid New York state litigation and reorganize in Texas.

“They recently told the judicial branch of government that they are bankrupt after the lawsuit by Tish James, and at the same time they’re saying they’re bankrupt, they’re spending millions of dollars on ads to stop universal background checks,” Schumer said, referencing New York Attorney General Letitia James. “That demands an investigation by the Justice Department.”