Is Joe Biden fit to be president?  Will the democracy fall at the hands of a power-hungry felon?  Will Jodie finally tell Danny he’s gay?  This and other hilarities on the upcoming episode of  The Misadventures on the 2024 Campaign Trail.

As expected, convicted felon former President Trump’s lawyers on Thursday filed a motion to vacate his 34 guilty verdicts in Manhattan, arguing that the Supreme Court’s ruling blocking evidence from “official acts” now means the entire trial is moot, JustSecurity’s Adam Klasfeld reports.

Gentlemen in Fort Worth, Texas are no doubt devastated after their club was burned to the ground early Wednesday in a blaze fire officials tell the Star-Telegram is still under investigation.

The gentlemen’s club, which no doubt was a cherished spot for rakes to engage in spirited discussions about topics of economics, politics, philosophy, and scientific discovery whilst enjoying a drink and a cigar, was named “Baby Dolls,” which may have been some sort of cleverly ironic reference like “Bohemian Grove” or the “Hellfire Club.” Fortunately no gents were injured in the conflagration, though the club’s female employees who appeared nude to the merry andrews as part of their jolly bacchanalia involving tossing of dollar notes are sadly without employ.

President Biden has been one of our country’s most effective modern chief executives, and has truly delivered for Americans – signing into law a once-in-a-generation investment in our infrastructure, the most consequential bill ever to fight climate change and protect our water, lowering drug prices for seniors, and turbocharging the US semiconductor industry. But Democrats must have a nominee who can effectively make the case against Trump, and have the confidence of voters to handle the rigors of the hardest job on the planet for the next four years. For the sake of our democracy, and to continue to make progress on our shared priorities, it is time for the President to step aside as our nominee, but only if he does so in a press conference at Area 51 while showing Americans the crashed UFOs and alien bodies the military has been secretly storing there for decades.

It would be a powerful moment and cement his legacy as the greatest champion of UFO disclosure in global history. An American flag-draped flying saucer serving as the backdrop, Biden can go out proudly while showing a massive television audience all the bodies of aliens they have floating in tubular glass tanks. Passing the torch in such a setting would send a clear message that all those movies, comic books, and what not depicting dead extraterrestrials and their spacecraft at the base were right even if the producers obviously had to take some creative liberties on the specifics.

Most importantly it would be a great honor to the American servicemen and women who have shown incredible dedication to protecting Area 51 by summarily executing trespassers who were stupid enough to think they could just waltz in to a top secret military base. In the spirit of their service, Biden can show his commitment to service as well by doing a combination retirement and alien disclosure press conference at Area 51 because that would be really fucking badass.

National Zero will resume our regular news coverage after this heavy hearted editorial endorsing a total and complete disclosure of what the military has been hiding at Area 51 in Nevada.

Bahamian conspiracy theorist Sylvens Metayer is kind of like Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones, constantly ranting about a corrupt and unaccountable “Deep State” targeting him for his work exposing their atrocities… except for the part where shadowy forces probably are actually targeting the guy considering at least two bullets were fired into his apartment in Hollywood, Florida on Monday, striking him in the foot and face while he was streaming to fans, the Miami Herald reports.

“Hey, I got shot… I have been shot in the face,” Metayer said on the livestream after the bullets had crashed through the window. Metayer’s condition is unknown but it appeared the facial wound was relatively minor as he was still able to speak and see while a woman in the apartment called 911. The video is a little too dark to tell where he was hit but it seemed to be his left cheek.

Anyway, if the shooting was random local bullshit it would have been a hell of a coincidence considering that Metayer had been streaming for an hour at that point so anyone watching would have known he was at home and that – importantly – it came just days after he had obtained and shared audio recordings of Royal Bahamas Police Force Chief Superintendent Michael Johnson appearing to accept a bribe from an unnamed wanted criminal. Johnson’s boss, Bahamas Police Commissioner Clayton Fernander, this week announced an investigation into the audio. He should probably also look into who shot Metayer, see if maybe there’s a connection.

An Arizona judge on Tuesday gave permission to fake Trump 2020 elector Nancy Cottle to travel to Milwaukee starting Sunday to attend the Republican National Convention. It’s unclear if Cottle will have any formal role at the fan fest or if she’s just partying it up with her fellow coup plotters.

We just announced an upcoming hearing on the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Donald Trump immunity case.

This misguided ruling immunizes presidents who commit crimes – no matter how serious. They just need to claim they were “official acts.”

That’s incredibly dangerous.

— Senate Judiciary Committee (@JudiciaryDems) July 11, 2024

Also a reminder that Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith has not to our knowledge made any filings in the 10 days and counting since the Supremes handed Trump that blank check.

Asked why she tweeted last year that public schools should have surveillance cameras installed in restrooms to prevent shootings, QAnon freak North Carolina state superintendent candidate Michelle Morrow told WFAE she really only said the cameras should be outside the entrances.

“The safety of our students is a top priority of mine,” said Morrow, who homeschooled her kids, in a statement. “Many families have shared with me that their children are afraid to go into the bathroom at school, leaving many to go the entire school day without using the bathroom. Surveying who goes in and out of the bathroom just like we do at other points of entry will help keep our students safe.”

Problem is she literally tweeted “My plan to stop people having guns in schools. 1. Controlled entry and exit doors (SRO’s and metal detectors) 2. Video surveillance in classrooms, hallways and bathrooms 3. Immediate expulsion for the remainder of the year for any violations 4. Charge parents if it is their gun,” in January 2023, emphasis ours on a policy proposal that’s more than a little incongruous with a candidate whose campaign website has a page headlined literally “PEDOPHILES IN NC CLASSROOMS.” On it, Morrow accuses incumbent state Superintendent Catherine Truitt of allowing at least two convicted pedophiles to obtain teaching jobs at public schools.

Truitt is not Morrow’s opponent in the general election in November however. She’s a Republican lame duck who has already been defeated by Morrow in the primary. Days after Morrow’s win CNN’s KFile found old tweets and Facebook posts of Morrow saying shit like Barack Obama should be executed by firing squad live on pay-per-view for “spying” on Trump and accusing actor Jim Carrey of consuming adrenochrome extracted from children in the satanic Hollywood cabal’s dungeons.

President Joe Biden’s internal campaign pollsters are now testing Vice President Kamala Harris’s support against convicted felon former President Trump, the New York Times reports on what they characterize as an extraordinary step for the campaign to be looking into if the veep is better off.

All of this in the context of the super-ultra-mega important solo press conference Biden has set for 6:30 PM EDT on Thursday which is being view by many in the party as – for fuck’s sake enough of this news cycle already. Yes, it’s a big deal and existential for democracy but how many different ways can the media say Biden is old and then how many times can they repeat the same goddamned point? Why’s it so easy for them to relegate Trump’s fascism and batshittery to the background noise while Biden’s age is like a freaking asteroid barreling toward the planet?

A Burkina Faso court on Thursday greenlit the ruling military junta to advance a new law criminalizing same-sex relations in the country if and when approved by the rump parliament and the national leader, Captain Ibrahim Traore, the BBC reports on some new human rights backsliding.

Picasso-faced Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Wednesday claimed the state House of Representatives is trying to impeach him again after its Ethics Committee scheduled a meeting for next week, in what Paxton says “yet another desperate attempt by the Republican establishment to impeach me. Their bitter obsession with taking me down knows no bounds, and they will stop at nothing to remove me from office,” the Texas Tribune reports on more intra-GOP shit-talk.

A member of the committee, not authorized to go on the record to speak for the entire five-seat panel, told the Tribune there was “no truth whatsoever” to Paxton’s claim. The comically corrupt far right ideologue’s revenge tour against Republicans fell kind of short in this year’s primaries as just 13 of the 60 Republicans who voted to impeach him lost to the challengers he backed and another four declined to run for reelection – and last year’s vote was not a close call. The state House approved the 20 articles against Paxton, 121 to 23, with 60 Republicans among those voting yes, plus all 61 Dems present, in a chamber that’s 86 R – 64 D this session. And those 17 anti-Paxton GOP members are still there until next year anyway, so it’s not like there’s anything stopping them now or later, just as there’s nothing stopping the state Senate’s GOP majority from tossing the articles again – maybe with at least one defection though after Republican Drew Springer asked for a do-over.

The Tribune thinks Paxton’s actually freaking out over a federal grand jury subpoenaing two of his deputies to testify earlier this month in the very long-ongoing criminal investigation into a bribery scam overlapping with a lot of the same shit covered in the impeachment articles.

If you're President Trump, you're calling your advisors @JasonMillerinDC and @MichaelRCaputo and @kleavittnh to stop the Russia Hoax fraud being run by Fox News today.

Pull all the surrogates from appearing on that network.

It's time to disavow the entire place. https://t.co/7CEp5tETtU

— Emerald Robinson ✝️ (@EmeraldRobinson) July 11, 2024

Love how Robinson – famous for being too demented for Newsmax – didn’t say anything about the fat bastard himself, who did that pre-taped interview with Sean Hannity on Monday. It’s also pretty funny how it’s always a coin flip with these things, that either it’s a lie that Russia would ever back Trump or it’s awesome because the Kremlin is ideologically aligned with MAGA.

A woman described only as a Chinese national in her 20s was rescued Wednesday 37 hours after a current swept her inflatable tube 50 miles out from a beach in Shimoda, Japan, the AP reports.

The unnamed woman had been lounging on the tube on Monday evening local time when winds coming down from the mountains on the Boso Peninsula – about 125 miles southwest of Tokyo – had pushed her into the Pacific Ocean’s current. A passing cargo ship spotted her and notified a nearby liquified natural gas carrier, the Kakuwa Maru No 8, asking for help. Two of the Kakuwa 8’s crew jumped into the water and tied a rope to the weakened woman. A Japanese Coast Guard helicopter then responded and took the lucky tuber back to land where she was hospitalized briefly.

Convicted felon former President Trump’s minions have told European officials the fat fuck plans to restrict or cut off entirely the US intel community’s sharing of info with them should he be returned to power, Politico reports on his designs to make it easier for Russia to attack.

“Russia right now, they’re committing actual acts of arson and sabotage and planning assassinations on allied soil all in an effort to undermine support for Ukraine amongst our domestic populations,” a senior NATO official told Politico. “The US has increased intelligence sharing within NATO in order to help support the response to these sabotage campaigns. And that’s having a real impact.”

In related news, the New York Times reports that the Orange Slob is expected to host more electorally-successful fellow dictator, Hungary’s Viktor Orban, at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday.

I wonder what could have caused Joe Biden’s rapid physical and cognitive decline? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/p83tQbrfVt

— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) July 11, 2024

“The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers declined 0.1 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis, after being unchanged in May, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 3.0 percent before seasonal adjustment. The index for gasoline fell 3.8 percent in June, after declining 3.6 percent in May, more than offsetting an increase in shelter. The energy index fell 2.0 percent over the month, as it did the preceding month. The index for food increased 0.2 percent in June. The food away from home index rose 0.4 percent over the month, while the food at home index increased 0.1 percent” says the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s monthly Consumer Price Index Summary for June 2024, showing inflation continuing to cool.

Stock futures jumped across all major indexes as the CPI was 0.2 percent lower than the Dow Jones survey of economists while the core’s 0.1 percent increase beat an expected 0.2 percent, per CNBC.

More than 1.3 million Texas homes and businesses remain without power since Hurricane Beryl slammed into the eastern side of the state on Monday and the deadly consequences are starting to rack up as at least two were killed by carbon monoxide poisoning from generators being run to keep air conditioning on during the heat while the third – a 71 year-old woman near Crystal Beach – died after her oxygen machine ran out of battery power and her generator shut down, CNN reports.

The post-storm blackout death toll comes on top of at least 11 dead across Texas and Louisiana from Beryl itself. Governor Greg Abbott remains in South Korea on an economic business something trip, having declared an emergency after Biden Administration officials had to track down Abbott and his staff to get him to formally do so to allow for federal relief efforts to be deployed.

A new ABC News/Washington Post survey of registered voters finds Vice President Kamala Harris leading convicted felon former President to 49 to 47 percent among registered voters in a hypothetical matchup while President Biden is tied with Trump in the not hypothetical matchup.

It’s almost like it was written by some librul Hollyweird screenwriter and made into a movie by former Trump Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin:  A way-past-his-prime politician receives a call from the local minor league baseball team in dire need of a starting pitcher, so he made his debut before a crowd of constituents and pitched a gem from the mound.

Described by Sports Illustrated (which mercifully disposed of the “politician producing from the hill” pun early in the story), that’s exactly what happened to 44-year-old Democratic Iowa state legislator J.D. Scholten, who was volunteering at a local music festival when he got the call from Sioux Falls Explorers manager Steve Montgomery.  With a bullpen exhausted from two long games, Mongomery needed someone to face the Milwaukee Milkmen after the starting pitcher fell ill.  He went through his contact list of recent releases or retired pitchers, but no one was available on Fourth of July weekend.

Enter Scholten, a former minor league player who had been played for the Explorers two decades earlier.  He returned the voicemail message Montgomery left as Scholten helped at the festival–after determining it wasn’t a joke–and within hours he was at the stadium, signed to a $1,400 per month contract, fitted with a uniform, and in the bullpen warming up.  While his new teammates joked that he’d earn their votes if he pitched a shutout, Scholten had a very respectable outing, going 6 2/3rds innings while giving up only two runs.

Asked if he will vote for Donald Trump in the upcoming election, Republican Utah Governor Spencer Cox doesn’t hesitate to obfuscate, but ultimately says he won’t.  “I’ve said before, I haven’t voted for the top of the ticket since 2012.  I’ve certainly had my concerns, one of those is what happened on January 6th.  I’m hopeful.  I want my Party to win.  They chose a candidate this time around that was not my first choice; it wasn’t my choice last time either, but the Party’s spoken.  That’s who they have chosen, and so I’ve said I’m not going to vote for either Presidential candidate this year.  I’ll write somebody in as I’ve done in the past, but I do want Donald Trump to succeed, I want my Party to win.  We desperately need the right people in the right positions.”  And then he pivots to Trump’s VP selection.

That’s something that you won’t hear on the Democratic side:  no Democratic leader is saying they will not vote for Joe Biden or any other Democratic candidate.  While Democrats are concerned about Biden’s vigor, no Democrat says they will not vote for him if he stays at the top of the ticket.