Convicted felon former President Trump did not have a great morning at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals when his lawyers tried to get the verdict in EJ Carroll’s first defamation lawsuit verdict against him tossed. Already the fat bastard started this press conference by complaining about the Justice Department indicting those Russian scumbags and exposing the influence network.

This is supposed to be a press conference too. We’ll see if he actually answers any questions.

An excerpt from The Fund, a 2023 book about hedge fund Bridgewater Associates by New York Times finance reporter Rob Copeland, picked up by GoErie.com, reveals that then-co-CEO and current Republican Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dave McCormick pressured a woman who claimed she had been groped at a party by then-CEO Greg Jensen. Billionaire founder Ray Dalio, who is supposedly pretty anti-MAGA, had examined footage of the alleged groping and told the woman, Katina Stefanova, he didn’t see any evidence that the touching had occurred.

“She reminded (Dalio) that she had never recanted her story. ‘Maybe you’re remembering it wrong,’ Dalio offered. Stefanova assured him that she wasn’t… McCormick piped up, leaning in, ‘Maybe the issue is that you aren’t being a supportive public presence for us.’ Finally, Stefanova understood the urgency of the meeting… Dalio and McCormick had just wanted to remind her that they had the power to destroy her business if she didn’t toe the line,” Copeland wrote in the book. It’s not the only such episode – another clip describes how McCormick cornered another woman who said she’d been pressured by another man and then quit. “Shortly before leaving, she also received an unexpected in-person visit from Bridgewater co-CEO David McCormick. He told her that if she ever broke the agreement, she would be in litigation for the rest of her life.”

Then there’s that McCormick had asked LGBT employees not fly a Pride flag because it would upset partners from the Middle East, and how he’s invested the hedge fund in positions in companies tied to the Chinese military or involved in fentanyl production. So real stand-up guy, this Dave McCormick.

It’s not clear what the hell actually happened before this brawl between two MAGA hicks to break out at a meeting of the Saline County, Arkansas GOP. KARK doesn’t know, simply describing it as a disagreement between the two women in line to speak to the whole floor that led to the fight.

Let’s just go ahead and guess that it was a false accusation that one of them was a “groomer,” a Chinese-paid communist, a Jew, or something like that. Pretty much every internecine conflict in MAGAmerica deals with purity or lack thereof to the cause of subjugating American democracy.

It was kind of like OJ Simpson’s infamous police chase in that a Ford Bronco was the pursued’s vehicle and it ended with his arrest. But in other respects, it was different. The Bronco was red. The chase happened in Ontario, Canada. And finally the suspect was trapped at a Tim Hortons donut shop drive-thru when he almost drove the SUV over the hood of a patrol car in the drive-thru.

The CBC reports the unnamed 25-year-old suspect on Tuesday had stolen the Bronco from London, Ontario and was at the Tims in nearby Mississauga, when cops responded to reports of the suspect’s presence as he had been spotted shoplifting items from another store nearby just a few weeks ago. The chase was very brief, about as long as the drive-thru outside the Tims. The suspect tried to ram his way out of the police cordon and ended up driving up on the hood. He was then tased and dragged out to face Canadian justice for his crime spree. It’s not clear how many cops who had responded took advantage of the location following the suspect’s apprehension.

“Today, the US Department of Transportation (DOT) launched an inquiry into the four largest US airlines’ rewards programs that is aimed at protecting rewards customers from potential unfair, deceptive, or anticompetitive practices. As part of the probe, US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg sent letters to American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, and United Airlines ordering them to provide records and submit reports with detailed information about their rewards programs, practices, and policies. DOT’s probe is focused on the ways consumers participating in airline rewards programs are impacted by the devaluation of earned rewards, hidden or dynamic pricing, extra fees, and reduced competition and choice,” says a US DOT press release.

“Points systems like frequent flyer miles and credit card rewards have become such a meaningful part of our economy that many Americans view their rewards points balances as part of their savings,’ said US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. ‘These programs bring real value to consumers, with families often counting on airline rewards to fund a vacation or to pay for a trip to visit loved ones. But unlike a traditional savings account, these rewards are controlled by a company that can unilaterally change their value. Our goal is to ensure consumers are getting the value that was promised to them, which means validating that these programs are transparent and fair.'”

As election nears, last-minute motions could prove pivotal for criminal cases against Trump https://t.co/lwknLX0hLc

— John Solomon (@jsolomonReports) September 6, 2024

“Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 142,000 in August, and the unemployment rate changed little at 4.2 percent, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in construction and health care. This news release presents statistics from two monthly surveys.”

“The household survey measures labor force status, including unemployment, by demographic characteristics. The establishment survey measures nonfarm employment, hours, and earnings by industry… The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for June was revised down by 61,000, from +179,000 to +118,000, and the change for July was revised down by 25,000, from +114,000 to +89,000. With these revisions, employment in June and July combined is 86,000 lower than previously reported. (Monthly revisions result from additional reports received from businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates and from the recalculation of seasonal factors),” says the US Bureau of Labor Statistics in its monthly jobs report for August 2024.

The 142,000 jobs comes in slightly weaker than the 161,000 expected by Dow Jones, though the rate matched the estimate, according to the Wall Street Journal. It’s not clear yet how the numbers will affect the size of the very long-anticipated interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve Bank.

Right wing crypto douchebags tell Politico that Don Jr and Eric Trump are – shocker – fucking up at their attempted foray into the scammy world of imaginary digital fiats given the shaky rollout of the nebulous “World Liberty Financial” platform that was marred this week by other scammers who hijacked Lara and Tiffany Trump’s Twitter accounts to post fake URLs. Then there’s a fake Telegram account posing as World Liberty that has lured tens of thousands of users into a different scam. Lol.

“This is a huge mistake,” says complete tool Nic Carter, a Trump fan and founding partner at the crypto-focused VC firm Castle Island Ventures. “It looks like Trump’s inner circle is just cashing in on his recent embrace of crypto in a kind of naive way, and frankly it looks like they’re burning a lot of the goodwill that’s been built with the industry. Maybe it doesn’t move the needle for most people, but if this thing is hacked or regular folks lose money on it or it opens up the door for the SEC to investigate, it only looks like it has downside risk. It looks to have very little upside risk.” Lol.

An anonymous crypto lobbyist said he’s got “a laundry list of concerns,” particularly that Uday and Qusay’s incompetence and dipshittery that it could reflect poorly on the industry as it pushes for policy changes that would help legitimize the sector in Congress and regulatory agencies. Lol.

Crypto news outlet CoinDesk printed an article this week describing Super Trump Bros Crypto Coin Inc as “a borrowing and lending service strikingly similar to Dough Finance, a recently hacked blockchain app built by four people listed as World Liberty Financial team members.” Lol.

A new Emerson College survey of likely Florida voters finds skeletal white collar criminal Senator Rick Scott leading Dem challenger Congresswoman Debbie Murcarsel-Powell 46 to 45 percent, while convicted felon former President Trump leads Vice President Kamala Harris 50 to 45 percent.

By this point Emerson’s record of putting out polls showing the Republican candidate leading by 1 percent only for the Dem to win by 5 should be well-established with our readers. Obviously there’s still uncertainty, not just over the weighting adjustments Emerson may or may not have made since the last election they polled, but that 9 percent are still undecided leaves a lot of room for late breaks toward Scott. What is certain however is that Dems should pour a shit ton of money into this race. It’s absolutely winnable and it would be insane to pass up the opportunity to flip the seat back to Blue, especially when abortion is literally on the ballot with the Amendment 4 measure.

Emerson also polled Ohio: Trump 53 to Harris 43, Brown 46 to Moreno 44, Texas: Trump 50 – Harris 46, Cruz 48 – Allred 44, and California: Harris 60 – Trump 36, Schiff 55 – Garvey 33.

Peruvian officials on Thursday announced they had seized hundreds of dead endangered frogs from Lake Titicaca illegally caught and killed to be sold as aphrodisiacs, AFP reports in a story billing the meat of the rare Telmatobius culeus amphibians as the “Andean Viagra.” The shipment of the frogs was bound for the capital city of Lima, where presumably regular Viagra and Cialis are difficult to come by, leading men suffering from erectile dysfunction to eat goddamned frogs.

Wildlife experts estimate the population of the Lake Titicaca Frog has declined as much as 80 percent since 2009 due to loss of habitat, pollution, and being rendered into “Andean Viagra.”

Maybe this is a little Rorschach test-y where plenty could watch this argue that Dan Bongino, one of the leading lights in the right wing media-industrial complex grifter set, is doing what he and his cohort are wont to do: react to the new Russia shitshow by spreading conspiracy bullshit and paranoia about the “Deep State” coming for them. After all it was taped on a day that ended in “y.”

Still, he seemed awfully specific in his warnings here, that Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin, and the rest of their crew being exposed as Russian agents are just the first few dominoes to fall and that Bongino himself, as well as the people he was accusing non-specifically, could be next.

Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign hauled in $361 million from nearly 3 million individual donors in the month of August, her team said Friday morning in a press release calling it the “best grassroots fundraising month in presidential history,” bringing the total haul since her campaign launched on July 21st to $610 million. The August total is nearly triple the $130 million convicted felon former President Trump’s bid raised last month, and at $404 million cash on hand, Harris has a $109 million advantage over Donald’s $295 million war chest. It’s a $159 million net swing in cash on hand since June when Joe Biden’s campaign account was $50 million behind Trump’s.

Several leaders in the Caucasian Evangelical movement tell Politico that, even though convicted felon former President Trump announcing he’ll vote against Florida’s Amendment 4 ballot measure last week might have calmed some nerves, they’re still concerned with his overall flakiness on their most important issue: Denying proper reproductive healthcare to women nationwide.

“It’s disastrous that he’s attempted to run against his own track record,” said Southern Baptist Theological Seminary head Albert Mohler. “There is a real danger to the Trump campaign that pro-life voters just don’t turn out for him with the intensity that he needs.” Sounds very concerned.

MAGAchurch Pastor Tony Perkins said “You’ve got to be more than voting against someone. You’ve got to be voting for what someone else has to offer. It’s just on the margins, but it’s the difference in many elections. Not just voting against a set of ideas and policies and the personality to actually be for a set of policies and principles that you are enthusiastic about, that makes the difference in elections, and that’s where we’re not at yet.” Endorsement not so excited and intense-y.

“I know theologically conservative and politically conservative evangelicals who are not going to vote for Donald Trump – and not a small number. The message I would send to the campaign is: Do not do anything to add to that number,” said Andrew Walker, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a professor of Christian ethics at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Very sad.

“Well, I would do that.  And we’re sitting down.  Y’know I was, um, somebody we had Senator Marco Rubio and my daughter Ivanka was so, ah, impactful on that issue.  It’s a very important issue.  But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about that because child care is child care couldn’t, y’know, something you have to have.

“In this country, you have to have it.  But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels they’re not used to but they’ll get used to it very quickly and it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country.  Ah, those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about including child care.  It’s gonna take care, we’re gonna have I, I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time.

Theilian Vice President Model 1.0 JD Vance raised shadows of one of his running mate’s more notorious comments when he told a rally crowd that in the wake of a Georgia school shooting that killed four, people need to understand school shootings are just “a fact of life,” the Associated Press reports.

“If these psychos are going to go after our kids we’ve got to be prepared for it,” Vance said. “We don’t have to like the reality that we live in, but it is the reality we live in. We’ve got to deal with it.”  Like every one of his Republican colleagues in Congress, Vance failed to provide a solution to gun violence.

Earlier this year, after a school shooting in Iowa in January, Trump told a rally crowd in the state “to get over it” rather than offering any response.  “I want to send our support and our deepest sympathies to the victims and families touched by the terrible school shooting yesterday in Perry, Iowa.  It’s just horrible, so surprising to see it here. But have to get over it, we have to move forward,” said Trump during a rally before the Iowa caucuses after a shooter killed a six-year-old and wounded seven others.

Here's why I am asking all of my supports to vote for President Trump. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/YV7R9sXOMY

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) September 5, 2024

Sure, the typo in the tweet is sad, but hey, who are we to mock the odd typo, right?  More importantly, Bobby Kennedy notes that the reason he’s supporting Trump–though maybe not voting for Trump, depending on what state Kennedy’s voting in–are the shutdowns during Covid (which happened when Trump was in the Oval Office) and a “shift of $4.3 trillion” to billionaires (which may be a reference to the debt incurred by the Trump tax cuts of 2017). That endorsement touting by MAGALand may not be as good as they thought.

The father of the 14-year-old Georgia school shooter who killed four people on Wednesday was arrested on state murder charges in connection to the deaths, ABC News reports.  The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said 54-year-old Colin Gray will be charged with our counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children.

Two teachers and two students were killed, with another eight students and a teacher wounded at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia.  Fourteen-year-old Colt Gray surrendered at the scene and has been charged with four counts of murder, with additional charges expected.

Sources tell NPR that the two shitbags on convicted felon former President Trump’s cabal who shoved an Arlington National Cemetery employee last week are deputy campaign manager Justin Caporale and Michel Picard, a member of Trump’s advance team. The campaign still hasn’t released their footage of the incident which they claim will exonerate them completely and totally.

Asked by the Daily Beast why the Trump campaign is still so obssesed with “Stolen McValor,” angry, large-headed spokesman Steven Cheung responded in an email asking “Why won’t [Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign] just provide real documentation and proof [that she worked at an Alameda, California McDonald’s in 1983]? The onus is on them. What does she have to hide?”

We love the Daily Beast, but it’s hard not to notice the quality going downhill since their ownership did a mass buyout of all their top talent like Jake Lahut, Jose Pagliery, Justin Baragona, Emily Shugerman, and other sharp-witted pros. It most certainly shows in this piece, which says “Trump’s attacks on Harris’ Mickey D’s bonafides presented a similar quandary” to the Obama birth certificate scam, “and one that should be addressed. While the Harris campaign may not have wanted to gratify the attack by trying to disprove it, the [former Obama] strategist said, ‘This seems to be an easier biographical question to answer than anything else.'” Jesus freaking Christ.

The Beast is actually dignifying this horseshit, writing this as if everyone’s supposed to keep a fucking “long-form” paystub from a goddamned McDonald’s in case they run for president four decades later. What is this shit?!? Did the New York Times secretly brainwash this reporter?