• Joe Biden has shown remarkable restraint.  All these new presidential powers and immunities bestowed by the Supreme Court and his political opponents still walk free.  
• How morally corrupted have Republicans become under the GOP?  At his behest, the Republican platform will not include, for the first time in nearly half a century, a mandate for a national abortion ban or limit.  It now says the GOP supports “leaving the decision to the states.” It’s the Trump Doctrine of abdicating leadership.
• Please, Republicans, go after Kamala Harris, a former Senator and state Attorney General.  Unleash your base with your attack ads.  Show everyone what you think about a woman of color.  Let your Base show the nation who you serve.  
• The media focused on Biden accidentally flubbing Zelenskyy’s introduction but failed to recall when Trump intentionally said he believed Putin over US intelligence agencies.   The latter is a far bigger sign of both mental instability and disqualification than the former.
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CLXXXI”

Rambling on with his uninformed bullshit about his takes on Joe Biden’s health, Republican Texas Congressman and uniformed drug dealer Ron Johnson Jackson thinks it’s a deep conspiracy that VP Kamala Harris “covered it up and that’s why I don’t think it matters at this particular point if he backs out or not and she becomes the nominee.  I think, like you said, she’s got a double-digit ID.  She’s got to be the lowest IQ vice president that this country’s ever had.”

Dan Quayle and his potatoe would like a word.  Ronny’s staff needs to book him before his Happy Hour, but he’s never up for morning shows.

Scientists studying the commonality of the genomes of living organisms traced back the tree to the earliest living creature common to modern life and discovered it emerged just 300 million years into the planet’s 4.5 billion-year existence, a discovery that greatly changes understanding of early life.

According to About Science, the last universal common ancestor, or LUCA, was likely a single-celled nucleus-missing organism similar to a prokaryote, but the emergence of the organism comes about 700 million years before the oxygen-rich atmosphere we live in now formed, meaning early life survived in a varying environment.

The revelation could also switch how scientists and astrobiologists search for life in alien worlds, with an understanding that an oxygen-depleted environment does not necessarily eliminate the possibility of life.

President Joe Biden is set to address a rally in Michigan at 7:30 p.m. ET on Friday, a day after holding a 50-minute press conference following the NATO summit in Washington, DC.  (We’re winded just reading his schedule.  Joe’s campaigning like he’s got something to prove.)

Saying it has a responsibility to “allow political expression” from the top candidates, Meta announced it repealed limits it had placed on the presumptive GOP presidential nominee and social media threat Donald Trump.  In a statement posted online by Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, the company explained that it was removing “heightened suspension penalties” for violating the community standards on Facebook and Instagram.

“With the party conventions taking place shortly, including the Republican convention next week, the candidates for President of the United States will soon be formally nominated. In assessing our responsibility to allow political expression, we believe that the American people should be able to hear from the nominees for President on the same basis,” Clegg posted.  “As a result, former President Trump, as the nominee of the Republican Party, will no longer be subject to the heightened suspension penalties. In reaching this conclusion, we also considered that these penalties were a response to extreme and extraordinary circumstances, and have not had to be deployed. All US Presidential candidates remain subject to the same Community Standards as all Facebook and Instagram users, including those policies designed to prevent hate speech and incitement to violence.”

@SecretService https://t.co/H9clw15QLJ

— Chris LaCivita (@LaCivitaC) July 12, 2024

The actual important part of the quote in Dylan Byers’s embedded tweet: “Yeah, I wish I had made him an actual martyr,” meaning that the Reid Hoffman guy wished Trump was dead, a sentiment that was, again, too much for super tough MAGA guy top Trump adviser Chris LaCivita to handle.

Still flailing angrily after getting caught in a lie falsely denying his connections to the ultra-fascist Project 2025 policy plan, top Trump propaganda minion Stephen “Baby Goebbels” Miller’s far right Cellino and Barnes knockoff, America First Legal, have asked to have themselves removed from the Project 2025’s website list of “advisory board” organizations, ABC News reports.

A 10 foot-tall statue of Greek sea god Poseidon, installed in May on a beach on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula faces removal due to a conflict with a local god, the Mayan deity known as Chaac, lord of water, thunder, and lighting, as well as a lack of proper earthly permits, the AP reports.

A local complaint filed against the statute states that “Poseidon is a Greek god who is alien to our Maya culture. I have a human right for my Maya culture to be preserved.” It’s not clear if this person has filed similar injunction requests against the Catholic Church for placing statutes of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary or why the complainant didn’t ask for the Poseidon statue to be reworked in the image of Chaac, similarly to how Zeus and Odin were just merged in with the Abrahamic God.

This is true leadership and transparency.

Will Joe Biden take a cognitive test with Pres Trump? pic.twitter.com/dFybz5iZBI

— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) July 12, 2024

A New York State judge on Friday tossed alcoholic shitbrain Rudy Giuliani’s bankruptcy claim, allowing victorious plaintiffs, former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shae Moss, to begin collecting whatever they can after having won a $148 million judgment against Captain 9/11 following their federal defamation lawsuit over his lies claiming they were somehow involved in a plot to engineer convicted felon former President Trump’s humiliating defeat in the 2020 election.

Per Jack’s report from earlier this week: Giuliani had consistently missed filing deadlines and refused to comply with demands of information from his creditors, throwing his bankruptcy filing into chaos.

The lawyer representing Freeman and Moss told the judge that Giuliani’s continued refusal to comply could lead to an investigation into obstruction. He now becomes the target of individual lawsuits from his creditors and he faces the complete liquidation of all his assets, including real property and any accounts he holds… which isn’t enough to cover the massive judgment.

Non-governor of Arizona Kari Lake on Friday petitioned the Arizona state Supreme Court to either order a re-do of the 2022 gubernatorial election or declare her the winner, AZ Law reports.

“If this Court mandates proper standards for signature comparisons and denies Maricopa favorable presumptions, reversal must follow. The Court could either set aside the election or proportionally strike 275,000 ballots under Grounds v Lawe, 67 Ariz 176, 183-85 (1948). Because Hobbs eclipsed Lake by more than 10% of Maricopa’s early voting, under Grounds, Lake would win,” the current 2024 Senate candidate’s lawyers wrote in their prayer for relief at the end of the petition.

A federal jury in Manhattan began deliberating in Senator Gold Bars Bob Menendez’s bribery trial on Friday, MSNBC reports. The timing makes it somewhat unlikely the New Jersey Democrat will be convicted before the weekend because there’s a lot of paperwork and stuff to do to render a verdict so we’re probably looking at like 11:30 AM EDT on Monday. But you never know.

That’s cute.

We’ve got free fries every Friday in the app. All year long. https://t.co/GR7i3FiaB4

— Wendy’s (@Wendys) July 12, 2024

Probably. Well it’s still up in the air whether the Nepalese Communist Party’s new governing coalition will definitely end up with their leader Khadga Prasad Oli as the new premier but it seems likely given that the AP reports current Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal lost a no confidence vote on Friday after the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) split from Dahal’s coalition to form a new one with the Nepali Congress Party, so the future looks very much red and socialist-y there.

Wait. Turns out Dahal is the leader of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre). And he led a decade long Maoist insurgency that killed at least 17,000 people before he was mainstreamed in peace talks with the government in 2006. So if anything that means that Nepal is already communist and it’s just Marxist-Leninism replacing Maoism as the sub-ideology. Still was a good headline. No need to change it to reflect distinctions that matter not to us freedlom-loving non-commies.

A group of wealthy Democratic donors are withholding $90 million pledged to the pro-Biden “Future Forward” PAC until the president drops out of the race, the New York Times reports.

There are a whole lot of wild claims about Project 2025 circulating in the alarmist media these days and now once again, conservatives are forced to fact-check them to set the record straight about what it means for everyday Americans once President Trump is rightfully returned to power.

Let’s start with the lie that all Jewish Americans will be forced to register with the federal government by February 15th, 2025: It’s a simple process that will determine by personal background and/or career choice as to whether they’ll have to remain on the registry. Once the check is complete and there aren’t any red flags in the person’s voting records or social media history the registration will be simply deleted from the Treasury Department’s new database and that registrant will not be required to wear any electronic tracking device.

This policy may be adjusted on an ad-hoc basis but for now the leftists screaming that all Jews will be forced to register with the government are overreacting as usual. They’re also purposely mangling the intent – Republicans are just trying to protect Jewish Americans from radical, pro-Palestinian Antifa protestors. It’s the same thing with the anti-abortion measures in Project 2025.

BRUTAL: @Peoples_Pundit says Kamala Harris would stand NO CHANCE as a contender against Donald Trump.

“She collapsed during her run for president for a reason. She is UNLIKEABLE! Even in his diminished capacity, I would argue that Scranton Joe is still a more appealing candidate… pic.twitter.com/G4lNudXNtQ

— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) July 12, 2024

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Friday issued an incredibly vague statement on his meeting with President Biden on Thursday night following the alright performance by Joe in the big press conference, writing “Over the past several days, House Democrats have engaged in a thoughtful and extensive discussion about the future of our country, during a time when freedom, democracy and the economic well-being of everyday Americans are on the line.”

“Our discourse has been candid, clear-eyed and comprehensive. On behalf of the House Democratic Caucus, I requested and was graciously granted a private meeting with President Joe Biden. That meeting occurred yesterday evening. In my conversation with President Biden, I directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward that the Caucus has shared in our recent time together. As House Democrats have done throughout this Congress, we will continue to work in the best interests of everyday Americans. Thank you for your continued leadership in service of the communities we are privileged to represent.”

Actually can’t even tell if the meeting was before or after the press conference. What Jeffries didn’t do was offer full support, so it looks like this is all still stuck in limbo indefinitely.

Brainwormed independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr last week apologized to former family babysitter/assistant Elia Cooney after Vanity Fair published some of her diary entries detailing a sexual assault that had occurred in 1998, the Washington Post reports.

“I have no memory of this incident but I apologize sincerely for anything I ever did that made you feel uncomfortable or anything I did or said that offended you or hurt your feelings,” Kennedy wrote to Cooney in a text on July 4th. “I never intended you any harm. If I hurt you, it was inadvertent. I feel badly for doing so. If you feel comfortable, Id [sic] like to tell you this by phone, and preferably, face to face. I recognize that this might not be possible. I have no agenda for sending this text other than making the most sincere and ernest [sic] amends,” he continued. Jesus Christ, what an asshole.

Cooney told the Post she was disgusted for obvious reasons. “It was disingenuous and arrogant. I’m not sure how somebody has a true apology for something that they don’t admit to recalling. I did not get a sense of remorse… Meet ‘face to face?’ What woman wants to do that?” she said.

Was tempted to write this as a “because Bidenomics” satirical article, but the story’s stupid and kind of sad enough on its own: Redbox is shutting down all 24,000 of its DVD rental kiosks and going out of business completely, with all 1,000 or so remaining employees laid off without any severance, benefits, or even the last few weeks of salary as owner Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment was unable to come up with a repayment plan for creditors, NBC News reports.

First off, lol at the “Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment,” because who was actually aware that fucking brand still existed. Safe bet that their incompetence was a major factor here as, in spite of the real decline of physical media outside of millennial dorks reviving vinyl, there absolutely still would have been a market to be found even if they had to downscale dramatically.

Millions of Americans live in rural areas without access to broadband good enough to stream movies and there are no doubt at least maybe a couple of thousand RedBoxes out there that pulled in just as much revenue as they did in 2009. And that’s just for movies. More urban locations could have shifted to video games as there’s no way to simply rent new releases these days. Now it probably wouldn’t have been sustainable in a decade but it absolutely would have bought time to wind down properly, unlike these Chicken Soup dipshits who are stiffing their workers out of their salary.