AP: “A Portuguese teenager has found a message in a bottle that traveled at least 2,400 miles from a Vermont teenager. Christian Santos, 17, was spearfishing in the Azores when he found a crumpled plastic bottle that was tossed into the sea near Rhode Island in 2018, The Boston Globe reported. Santos’ mother, Molly Santos, posted a photo of the note on Facebook asking for others to share the post in hopes of finding the writer to share how far the message traveled. The note inside of a Powerade bottle was written in orange marker on a notecard that reads, ‘It is Thanksgiving. I am 13 and visiting family in Rhode Island. I am from Vermont.’ The note included an email address to respond. Molly Santo said that she sent an email to the address, but never received a response.”

https://youtu.be/2nzU4DzD4F4

ABC News reporter Rachel Scott pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin on his government’s crackdown on internal political opponents in his country, including the assassination or imprisonment of numerous people who have spoken out against Putin, as well as Putin’s outlawing of opposition groups.

Yeah, that’s Osama Bin Laden’s niece, “protesting” the Biden-Putin summit on Lake Geneva in Switzerland on Wednesday. According to Bin Laden’s Telegram post on the parade, Swiss cops showed up and told her pals to get the hell out of there. “Stay tuned for what happened with the police. Two police boats, and further away a military boat, were deployed to stop our ‘operation'” says a tweet screenshotted on Telegram. Bin laden also called Putin an ‘alpha’ in a different tweet.

BREAKING: Congressman Matt Gaetz calls on FBI Director Christopher Wray to fully disclose the role and involvement of FBI operatives during the January 6th Capitol riot.

More details coming. pic.twitter.com/lviUHfhLyW

— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) June 16, 2021

“The Biden-Putin summit is over, a White House official confirms to the pool” CBS News White House Correspondent Kathryn Watson tweeted, shortly after Axios reported “The leaders concluded an expanded bilateral meeting – their second round of closed-door talks – at 11:05 a.m. ET, after about an hour, according to the White House. The session was shorter than expected.”

Monmouth: “Joe Biden’s job rating has taken a dip as progress on his spending plans has stalled. The latest Monmouth University Poll finds a majority of the American public continues to support these plans despite concerns about a potential rise in consumer prices as a result. One question is whether the plans should be passed with or without bipartisan support. A sense that the president has not quite met expectations for boosting the middle class may factor into his strategy on passing these bills. Biden currently holds a job rating of 48% approve and 43% disapprove.”

“This is down from his 54% approve and 41% disapprove rating in April. The president gets a positive rating from 86% of Democrats (down from 95%), 36% of independents (down from 47%), and 19% of Republicans (up from 11%). Prior Biden approval levels registered 51% in March and 54% in January. ‘Biden’s rating is still in net positive territory, but it seems to have taken a dip with the growing uncertainty that his signature spending plans will be enacted,’ said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.”

“Florida is emerging as a cradle of the insurrection as the fallout from the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol building paints a clearer picture of those involved. Florida is tied with Texas for the most individuals facing charges stemming from Jan. 6, with 47 arrests in each state out of the 484 total nationwide, according to a database maintained by USA Today.”

“And Florida leads all states in arrests of individuals associated with two far right groups – the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys – that were active in breaching the Capitol. More than 40% of the Oath Keepers arrested on charges stemming from Jan. 6 are from Florida, and about a quarter of the Proud Boys. Floridians arrested include leaders from both groups who are accused of helping to plan the insurrection, which attempted to overturn the 2020 election results that delivered the presidency to Joe Biden over Donald Trump. Florida’s large number of arrests related to Jan. 6 raises concerns about the prevalence of extremist groups and views in the state. Floridians are accused of numerous acts of violence at the Capitol, with at least nine facing charges that include assaulting a police officer” the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports.

At first glance you might say “Well no shit, these are the two most populated red states, of course they’d have the most rioters”, but also keep in mind, at their closest points within state borders to the US Capitol, the way the crow flies, Texas and Florida are 1,017 miles and 622 miles away, respectively. Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, etc are all within a half-day at most of driving distance range, so you’d think any one of those would be number one, population sizes aside. Maybe this is explained by a sunk-cost mentality like “Well I fucking spent $2,000 for travel and accommodations so you’re goddamned right I’m going to murder Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi”. In any event, big congrats to Florida and Texas.

Morning Consult: “New Morning Consult/Politico polling reveals that a large chunk of the GOP voter base is following his backward-looking lead – with just over half saying they believe that the reviews could overturn 2020’s results. Three in four Republican voters (74 percent) said they support state-level efforts to review the 2020 presidential election results, and another 51 percent think the reviews will uncover information that will change the election’s outcome. The results follow another survey which found that roughly 3 in 10 Republicans say it’s at least somewhat likely that Trump will be reinstated as president this year, a fantasy that the former president has relayed to a number of close confidantes, according to Maggie Haberman of the New York Times. Trump’s loss – and his repeated insistence that the 2020 election was a ‘fraud’ – has contributed to a decline in confidence among Republican voters about the U.S. electoral system itself, a figure that has remained stubbornly low since Biden’s victory. ”

“It’s concerning to a number of Republican strategists, who partly blame Trump’s behavior for a decline in turnout that led to the party’s losses in two Georgia runoff elections for Senate and continued in a New Mexico special election earlier this year, and believe it could threaten their efforts to gain control of Capitol Hill for the second half of Biden’s presidency. To their point, polling conducted in April found Democrats were beginning the 2022 cycle with an edge over the GOP in voter enthusiasm. ‘The danger with him is always that he juices turnout – Democratic turnout, that is – and that he continues to remind people why they turned him out last year,’ said Scott Jennings, a former campaign strategist for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). ‘He could also put GOP candidates in awkward positions if he continues to relitigate and make false claims about the 2020 election.’ ‘The great mystery is whether these low- or no-propensity Trump voters show up,’ Jennings said. ‘Nobody knows.'”

No, there isn't going to be a 'second inauguration' for Donald Trump this summer and you can't buy tickets https://t.co/sEYWDz2pV4

— ABC10 (@ABC10) June 15, 2021

“On Jan. 6, Nevada personal injury attorney Joey Gilbert stood on the Capitol steps leading to the U.S. Senate and implored far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to join him above the sea of rioters. ‘Alex! Come up here!’ Gilbert shouted, bundled in a peacoat and purple scarf. A video of the violent protest then shows Gilbert worming his way after Jones, chanting ‘1776!’ and angling for attention among the bodyguards surrounding the internet entertainer. He didn’t get it. After asking the crowd to be peaceful and leading a brief ‘U-S-A!’ chant, Jones and Jan. 6 organizer Ali Alexander moved elsewhere. Soon, a group of Oath Keepers militia members ascended the East steps in military ‘stack’ formation. And the crowd pounded on the Capitol doors. But now, as he announced last week, Gilbert is running for governor of Nevada.”

“‘The most important message I can leave today for all of you is that, if you sat on your hands and you censored the truth, and you peddled the fear – you’re out,’ Gilbert said in his June 12 announcement speech. ‘If election integrity isn’t the No. 1 issue of these guys running, then they’re either lost, confused, or too stupid to be running,’ he said, falsely claiming that Donald Trump – the ‘real’ president – won Nevada by 44,000 votes. From there Gilbert went on to accuse Dr. Anthony Fauci of ‘murder,’ telling the crowd that the nation’s top infectious disease specialist was a ‘psychopath’ who ‘should be in prison.’ The crowd responded with whistles and cheers. Gilbert – a former cagefighter and boxing champion and current Reno-based lawyer and conspiracy theorist – made headlines throughout 2020 for his fringe right-wing activity and COVID-19 denialism. In October 2020, he began working with America’s Frontline Doctors, a group of discredited conspiracy theorists and anti-mask advocates whose founder, Simone Gold, was arrested in January for her role in the Capitol riot” – Daily Beast.

CNN: “The highly-anticipated summit between US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin has now started, but the media spray at the top of the meeting got off to an unusual start amid a chaotic scrum of reporters from both countries. Reporters were seen blocking cameras while other people were talking to each other as the two presidents were trying to give their opening remarks to each other. As a result, the situation got incredibly tense between the two traveling press corps from the US and Russia, according to CNN Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins. Collins explained the ‘pool’ is a media practice where one representative for every medium is permitted to go into the room for a spray at the top of a meeting. That, she said, is usually one person representing television, one person with a camera, a print reporter, one radio reporter and so forth – usually about 15 reporters in addition to photographers.”

“Collins reported she was told of some combative exchanges and that the full American press corps did not actually make it into the room for that top spray, which is thought to be the only access media would get from within Villa La Grange for the next few hours. ‘We’re told it started before they’d even actually made it into the building. There was pushing and shoving and yelling happening outside as all of these reporters were trying to get inside to go in and see these two leaders sitting down with one another, even though of course not all of [the reporters] are sanctioned to be there,’ Collins said.”

Hard-hitting right wing media outlet Fox News has an article category devoted entirely to Kylie Jenner on its website, a visit to the site by National Zero staff revealed Wednesday. Dozens, possibly hundreds of Fox News articles are viewable on the page, which also reports on important matters related to government, politics, and national security. Changing the “Kylie” in the URL to “Caitlyn” – as in Kylie’s… mother (?) Caitlyn Jenner, a candidate for governor of California, the wealthiest and most populated of the United States, returns a 404 error.

“Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is frequently late at high-level meetings, arrived on time at the 18th century Villa La Grange in Geneva for his high-stakes summit with President Joe Biden. The Russian leader landed in Geneva and traveled to the summit venue, located in the Swiss city’s largest park, in a Russian-made Aurus limo that was airlifted from Moscow, along with a fleet of other vehicles. Putin, 68, who has received a Russian-made vaccine against the coronavirus, wasn’t wearing a mask. However members of his delegation were wearing masks” – AP.

In a scathing op/ed in the Washington Post, Democratic House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff states that the actions of Donald Trump, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III and William Barr severely damaged the legitimacy of the Department of Justice, and he calls for Attorney General Merrick Garland to undertake a significant effort to reestablish the credibility of the DOJ.

The target of a grand jury subpoena issued by Justice Department lawyers during the Trump Administration to obtain his phone and email records, ostensibly while investigating a leak of classified information, Schiff was one of more than a dozen people–all Democrats, Democratic staffers or their families, including a minor–to have their phone records turned over by Apple.

Schiff compares the act to the criminal acts of the Nixon-era Justice Department, saying that like Nixon, Trump sought to have the Justice Department act as his personal lawyers and enforcement agency. 

The Daily Beast has the coda to the story of Victoria Hecker’s career in mainstream news, now officially fired from her job at Fox 26 in Houston. It turns out her “exposé” of her employer amounted to them telling her that people watching local news at 5pm weren’t interested in Bitcoin coverage, and to stop cherry-picking Hydroxychloroquine research to spin it as a cure for Coronavirus. Hecker’s a fan of the infamous “demon sperm” doctor, Stella Emmanuel too.

The rest of it is pretty run-of-the-mill Project Veritas bullshit. One of the “stings” is they follow an ad sales guy from the station to a bar to ply him with drinks to get him to admit that the CDC (through the Ad Council) regularly outbids other advertisers for spots to run Coronavirus-related PSAs on the channel, as if they’re revealing some massive conspiracy over hand-washing.

The Daily Beast points out that the whole thing feels like Hecker’s audition for a role at Newsmax or OANN. Given the bridges she’s burned with Fox, they’re probably her only hope for a TV job now.

As of June 15th, 2021, Schuyler County, NY has the highest Covid19 infection rate in NY State, with a rate of 6.4 confirmed cases per 100,000 of population.  That active infection rate is more than double the same day rates in the New York City Metro area, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester or Buffalo. The rate could also be substantially higher than that, as Schuyler County has only one  hospital, and the Schuyler County public health website only lists three Covid19 testing sites in the whole county, and then asks residents to “call around” to see if their nearest CVS store is still doing testing. According to the New York State Covid19 Vaccination Tracker website, just over 50% of adults in Schuyler County are fully vaccinated against Covid 19. This suggests that the actual case rate may be much higher than the 6.4 per 100,000 rate that’s currently reported.

https://youtu.be/A5z5AGFl_7k

Citing something called “Revolver News,” Tucker Carlson states that the January 6th domestic terrorist attack was actually an operation organized and planned by the FBI.  He’s basing this on the claim that 20 people mentioned in the Oath Keepers indictments have not yet been charged or named.

The Southern Baptist Convention elected a moderate Alabama pastor to be its next president, bucking an effort by conservatives to continue controlling the religious group, AL.com reports.

Ed Litton, pastor of Redemption Church in Saraland, Alabama since 1994, ran on a platform of seeking racial justice and promoting racial reconciliation for the 14 million member group, which is made up of more than 40,000 independent congregations.

Litton defeated the conservative favored Georgia pastor Mike Stone 52% to 48% among the messengers, or delegates, sent by the various congregations.  Stone belongs to a Conservative Baptist Network, a conservative coalition within the Convention that vowed to “take the ship” to maintain conservative control of the Convention. 

Claiming that Hamas has sent incendiary balloons into Israeli territory from Gaza, the new coalition government of Israel has resumed bombing runs in Gaza, the New York Times reports.

Israeli military leaders said its aircraft “struck military compounds belonging to the Hamas terror organization, which were used as facilities and meeting sites for terror operatives in Hamas’ Khan Yunis and Gaza Brigades.”  There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The new coalition running the Israeli government, led by Naftali Bennett, a far-right religious conservative, gave a permit to a far-right Jewish group to conduct a protest march through a Palestinian section of Jerusalem, stoking tensions between the groups.

Bennett, who was just inaugurated on Sunday, tweeted that the balloons were launched by “terrorists,” adding  “An explosive balloon is like an anti-tank missile….  [W]hoever launches one is a terrorist who is trying to murder Israelis and must be hit.”