Detroit Free Press: “Michigan’s chief law enforcement officer, along with state police, will launch an investigation into those who have allegedly peddled disinformation about the state’s Nov. 3 election for their own financial gain. A Republican-led report that found no evidence of widespread fraud recommended the probe. The Michigan Senate Oversight Committee report, written by state Sen. Ed McBroom, R-Vulcan, and adopted by all the Republican members of the committee, called on the attorney general’s office to consider investigating those ‘utilizing misleading and false information about Antrim County to raise money or publicity for their own ends.'”

“Since Nov. 4, when a human error led to an inaccurate report of Antrim County’s unofficial election night results, the county that former President Donald Trump won with 61% of the vote has found itself at the heart of the false conspiracy theory that voting machines were intentionally designed to switch votes. The oversight committee’s report did not mention which individuals should be investigated and Mukomel declined to say who will be investigated because the investigation is ongoing. But the committee’s report discredited many claims made in an election fraud lawsuit against Antrim County that served as a vehicle to advance election conspiracies.”

In a Friday phone call, President Joe Biden warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that the Russians must “take action” against the hackers operating out of Russia or the United States would take action to “defend its people and its critical infrastructure,” the Associated Press reports.

A ransomware attack just before the Independence Day weekend by the Russian group REvil is suspected to have infected the computer systems of more than 1,500 companies in 17 countries after being spread through software provider Synnex.

“President Biden underscored the need for Russia to take action to disrupt ransomware groups operating in Russia and emphasized that he is committed to continued engagement on the broader threat posed by ransomware,” the White House said.  “President Biden reiterated that the United States will take any necessary action to defend its people and its critical infrastructure in the face of this continuing challenge.”

In a newly-released video of the January 6th domestic terrorist attack, an insurrectionist is heard yelling at Capitol Police officers attempting to hold back the attackers, “You’re gonna die tonight,” a sentence not typically heard from tourists at the Capitol.

A former staff member of the Republican National Committee and the GOP Senate caucus pleaded guilty in federal court Friday in a plea deal to one count of possessing child pornography, the second GOP Hill staffer to plead to such charges in the last nine months, Politico reports.

Twenty-seven year old Ruben Verastigui pleaded guilty after admitting to admitted to possession of 152 videos and 50 images of child pornography and to receiving and distributing sexual depictions of children.  Prosecutors said Verastigui sought out images of rape of children during an online chat last year and fantasized online about killing children while abusing them.

Verastigui worked as digital director for the Joint Economic Committee in 2018 and as digital strategist for the Senate Republican Conference from 2019 to 2020, and he was also on the payroll of the RNC from 2017 to 2018.  He faces up to 12 years in prison when sentenced in October.

Fourteen bodies were recovered from the rubble of the Champlain Towers South overnight, bringing the number of confirmed fatalities from the June 24th building collapse to 78, according to NBC News.  Sixty two people remain unaccounted for.

In a midday Friday briefing, Miami Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said that recovery efforts are continuing, but the toll is weighing heaving on rescue workers, families and the community.  “This is a staggering and heartbreaking number that affects all of us very deeply,” she said.

Of the 78 sets of remains, 47 of them have been identified and returned to families.  More than 200 residents and guests in the building have been accounted for over the past two weeks, but more than 60 have not been located.

“The Food and Drug Administration’s acting commissioner, Janet Woodcock, is taking the highly unusual step of asking for a federal investigation of doctors within her own agency who met with the makers of an Alzheimer’s drug prior to the medicine’s FDA approval.” –Wall Street Journal

White nationalist personality Nicholas Fuentes isn’t invited to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas this weekend, but that won’t stop him from attending so he’ll be “physically removed” from the event, in a pathetic “made for social media” kerfuffle.

As Salon reports, Fuentes tweeted to his followers that he’ll be attending the CPAC conference, even though he’s been expelled from previous CPAC events and he even set up his own ultra-right-wing competing event that he called the  America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC).

Apparently a group of his followers who dubbed themselves the “groyper army” are frothing at the mouth to watch the antics.  “I’m going to CPAC in Dallas on Saturday. Well, most likely, I’ll be getting physically removed from CPAC in Dallas on Saturday, but you can come watch if you want,” Fuentes tweeted.  Various respondents commented that they would also go to CPAC and then attend a “White Boy Summer” meetup in the Dallas-Fort Worth area being held this weekend.

Fox News host Trace Gallagher attempted to claim that an isolated road rage incident in Plymouth, Minnesota in which a driver shot and killed a local youth baseball coach was somehow connected to “defund the police” rhetoric, even though no police officer was involved in the incident.

Erik Fadden, the chief of the Plymouth, Minnesota police department, however, expertly pointed out that “there’s no one thing we can point to to explain the increase in violence” in his area.  Fadden did, however, point to an increase in “street racing” leading to road rage confrontations, which shockingly isn’t connected to police reform.

A medical supply manufacturer in Maine that makes the swabs used in coronavirus testing has extended the furlough of 180 employees due to lower demand for testing as the coronavirus has ebbed and the supply of testing kits reaches a peak, the Associated Press reports.

One of the two major suppliers for medical swabs in the United States, Puritan Medical Products originally furloughed the employees at its Pittston plant in late June as demand for the swabs fell.  The other top supplier, Abbott Laboratories, laid off about 400 workers.  Testing has dropped off precipitously as more people get vaccinated.

Puritan said it expects to recall its employees in August after the factory retools to manufacturer other medical supplies.  “Everything about this last year was unprecedented and unpredictable, including the current furlough. Each employee who has worked at Puritan over the past year is a hero,” the company said.

At least 52 people were killed in a fire at a Bangladesh food and beverage factory, with many trapped in the building due to an illegally locked door, the Associated Press reports.  First responders have only been able to search the first floor of the five story building.

The Thursday night fire at Hashem Foods Ltd. factory in Rupganj, just outside Dhaka, sent black plumes of smoke into the sky.  Officials initially stated that only three people were known to have died in the fire, but upon searching the grounds, they found a pile of bodies stacked at the locked front door of the factory.

More than two dozen people were injured after jumping from the upper floors to escape the fire and smoke. 

Cincinnati Enquirer: “A Bible-themed attraction in Kentucky that features a 510-foot-long wooden Noah’s ark is planning to begin fundraising for an expansion. The Ark Encounter said Wednesday that it would take about three years to research, plan and build a ‘Tower of Babel’ attraction on the park’s grounds in Northern Kentucky. A release from the Ark Encounter park said the new attraction will ‘tackle the racism issue’ by helping visitors ‘understand how genetics research and the Bible confirm the origin of all people groups around the world.’ No other details were given on the Babel attraction or what it might look like. Answers in Genesis, the ministry behind the ark, raised private funds to construct and open the massive wooden attraction in 2016.”

“The group preaches a strict interpretation of the Earth’s creation in the Bible. The group also founded The Creation Museum, which asserts that dinosaurs walked the earth just a few thousand years ago, millions of years after scientists say they went extinct.”

“A key adviser to House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy was involved in a behind-the-scenes effort last month to help rehabilitate the reputation of freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, CNN has learned, discreetly facilitating her visit to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum before she issued a public apology for her recent anti-Semitic remarks. It didn’t stick. Greene again made news this week for invoking Nazi-era imagery to mock Covid safety practices, raising fresh questions about whether McCarthy can keep a lid on his increasingly restive caucus with his soft touch and indirect methods, sometimes on his own and sometimes with the help of top allies and lawmakers. In this case, Jeff Miller, who sits on the board of trustees at the museum, orchestrated last month’s trip after Greene expressed interest in attending, multiple GOP sources said.”

“The episode underscores the limits of the McCarthy approach – not just with Greene, but with all of the radical members in his conference. While the California Republican has publicly denounced some of his members’ most controversial actions, including Greene’s Holocaust remarks, none of these lawmakers have suffered any real internal consequences for behavior that includes floating dangerous conspiracy theories, whitewashing the January 6 insurrection or having connections to white nationalists. For McCarthy, he would much rather keep the spotlight on divisions across the aisle. The House Republican leader also believes keeping these fringe members in the fold — rather than ex-communicating them all together — is a better long-term leadership strategy for keeping them in check. Plus, the GOP leader may be reluctant to alienate a group of Donald Trump-aligned Republicans whom he may need to count on for speaker votes one day. But that management style also poses a risk for McCarthy and the GOP, especially as the battle for the House heats up. Absent real punishment, the party’s extremists are not only failing to fall in line, but may only feel more emboldened. And Democrats are already seizing on the GOP’s refusal to exorcise the most radical elements from their party, looking to make it a campaign issue in the 2022 midterms” – CNN.

Daily Beast: “After raising a paltry sum of money from supporters and attracting little interest from former President Donald Trump, a web page created to fundraise for Rudy Giuliani’s legal defense fund has vanished. According to a cached version of that webpage, the sluggish fundraising vehicle was taken offline at some point between Wednesday morning and Thursday. As of early Thursday evening, the ‘Rudy Giuliani Legal Defense Fund’ page had yet to return. Bernie Kerik, another Trump loyalist and a close Giuliani associate who is spearheading the former New York mayor’s fundraising efforts, did not immediately respond to questions from The Daily Beast. On Thursday evening, Giuliani’s lawyer Robert Costello said he had ‘no knowledge’ on the matter.”

“Some of Giuliani’s closest allies and confidants have not been shy about attacking other conservative leaders for refusing to swoop in during the attorney’s time of need. In early May, Kerik complained on Twitter that ‘lawyers and law firms that didn’t do shit [for the Trump campaign’s legal team] were paid lots of money and the people that worked their ass off, got nothing.’ On Thursday, Kerik tweeted that Giuliani ‘was there for the president and country when they needed him, in a crime infested NYC when they needed him, and there on 9/11 when the entire country needed him. Where is the @gop, @GOPLeader @GOPChairwoman @LeaderMcConnell for him?’ and tagged those Republican leaders as ‘#RINOs’ and ‘#Cowards.’ The Giuliani ally conspicuously left former President Trump off of his list of top Republicans who have abandoned the former NYC mayor.”

“Kyle Rittenhouse’s attorney wants a judge to allow him to argue that one of the men his client killed during a protest in Wisconsin last year was a sex offender, in hopes of showing the man was trying to steal Rittenhouse’s gun because he couldn’t possess one. Prosecutors charged Rittenhouse with killing Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber during the Kenosha protests in August. Rittenhouse has argued he acted in self-defense. His attorney, Mark Richards, filed motions Thursday seeking permission to introduce evidence that Rosenbaum was convicted of having sex with a minor in Arizona in 2002 and couldn’t legally possess a firearm. Richards says that bolsters his theory that Rosenbaum was trying to steal Rittenhouse’s gun during the protests” Fox News reports.

Joe Rosenbaum did some sick shit when he was 18. It’s not defensible and probably the reason why he was working at a Wendy’s at age 36 when he was killed. How that’s supposed to be an actual defense, as if Rittenhouse was somehow aware of Rosenbaum’s personal history at that point, is something I guess the jury is just supposed to roll with. And then that also leaves Anthony Huber and the third man who was shot and wounded by Rittenhouse. Are the defense team just going to wing it when they get to explaining why those two were shot?

Zaila Avant-garde of Harvey, Louisiana became the first African-American to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee Thursday night when she corrected spelled the word “murraya,” a genus of tropical trees native to Asia and Australia, the Associated Press reports.

Avant-garde had only one word that gave her significant trouble:  “nepeta,” a genus of Old World mints.  Chaitra Thummala, a 12-year-old from Frisco, Texas, was runner-up. Both Zaila and Chaitra are coached by Cole Shafer-Ray, a 20-year-old Yale student who was the 2015 Scripps runner-up.

Saying that spelling is more of “a hobby,” Avant-garde would spend up to seven hours a day practicing her spelling and learning new words.  She says she hopes to play in the WNBA one day, and she’s got skills that can make that possible:  she holds three Guinness world records for dribbling multiple balls simultaneously.

Washington Times: “The Virginia Republican Party on Thursday demanded an ethics investigation into the University of Virginia’s top elections forecaster, Larry Sabato, over his tweets that they say display ‘bitter partisanship’ in favor of Democrats. State GOP Party chairman Rich Anderson sent a letter to University of Virginia president James Ryan alerting the school to the social media posts by Mr. Sabato, the founder and director of the university’s nonpartisan Center for Politics.”

“‘A reasonable taxpaying citizen can readily conclude that Dr. Sabato is demonstrating the rankest form of bitter partisanship,’ Mr. Anderson wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times. ‘In order to have faith in our institutions, it is essential that Virginians hold accountable those public employees and officials who violate institutional values, codes of conduct, and other guidelines of professional behavior.’ Among the tweets that Mr. Anderson listed as examples were several disparaging former President Donald Trump, particularly over his unproven claims of widespread voter fraud in the aftermath of the 2020 election. ‘Cuckoo, cuckoo! Does the plush presidential suite at Walter Reed offer psychiatric treatments? Maybe time to helicopter Trump over again,’ Mr. Sabato tweeted on Dec. 2 in response to a Washington Post article citing a 46-minute video of Trump discussing election fraud. On June 2, Mr. Sabato responded to reports that alleged Mr. Trump believes he will be reinstated into office in the summer. ‘Of course it’s true,’ Mr. Sabato tweeted. ‘Trump, who governed on the edge of insanity for four long years, has gone over the edge. Yet millions of people and 90%+ of GOP members of Congress, still genuflect before this false god.’ Mr. Anderson also pointed to a July 7 tweet by Mr. Sabato which he claims ‘repeats Democratic talking points’ in Virginia’s gubernatorial race.”

Former presidential advisor (and soulless creature of the night) Stephen Miller claims that Joe Biden was left with the United States in peachy-keen condition.

“No president in history has been dealt a better hand on Day One than President Biden.  Think about what President Trump left him and what it’s become.”

A California state judge ruled that victims of a 2019 shooting at a San Diego-area synagogue that left one dead and three wounded may sue the manufacturer of gun used and the gun store that sold it to the 19-year-old shooter, the Associated Press reports.

The shooting, deemed a hate crime by law enforcement, killed a 60-year-old worshiper on the last day of the Jewish holy day of Passover when a shooter with an apparently fully-automatic weapon started firing in the synagogue.  The rabbi and an 8-year-old girl were two of the wounded.  The shooter, then-19-year-old John Timothy Earnest, was apprehended by police two miles from the synagogue after he called 9-1-1 claiming Jews were trying to “destroy all white people.”  He was wearing a tactical vest with five magazines holding ten rounds each.

A 2005 law, passed by a Republican-majority Congress and signed by Republican George W. Bush, shielded gun manufacturers from crimes and damages inflicted by the guns they made.  One exception, however, was when the gun maker were negligent in designing or marketing a weapon.  In this case, Superior Court Judge Kenneth Medel ruled that Smith & Wesson, the maker of the AR-15 used by Earnest, knew that a user like Earnest could easily modify the weapon to be an illegal automatic weapon.

Fox News host (and product of breeding a tree sloth with lime jello) Tucker Carlson is very, very upset that a real journalist was checking on Carlson’s claims that his communications were monitored by the National Security Agency.