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.

A 27-year-old Black man who applied for multiple jobs at an upscale Detroit hotel but turned away has filed a discrimination lawsuit against the hotel after he changed the name on the resume to a more “white-sounding” and received an interview offer, CNN reports.

With years of experience in the local hospitality industry in positions of increasing responsibility, Dwight Jackson applied for various positions at the Shinola Hotel over a three month period at the start of 2024 and got shit for response despite matching or exceeding the qualifications listed.  In April, Jackson applied for two job openings similar to the ones listed before, but he slightly altered the dates at previous employers and changed the name on the resume to “John Jebrowski.”

Within a week, Mr. Jebrowski was invited to the Shinola for multiple interviews. “Jackson established that the Defendant’s consideration of candidates was based on the racial appearance of the applicant’s name,” his lawyer said in the lawsuit, commenting to CNN, “To be denied a job in 2024 in your hometown, for the color of your skin, goes beyond dollars and cents. It goes into the psyche of a person.”

MSNBC’s second-biggest nerd Chris Hayes sums up how the two major political parties are dealing with questions about their respective presidential nominees:  worried about the future of democracy and the future of the country, Democrats will question the fitness of their leader.  Republicans, fearful for their political futures, cower when faced with a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist.

As the media swirl like sharks around a shipwreck, longtime supporters of Democratic candidates have asked the Biden campaign to disclose the data that shows a viable path for the incumbent to defeat Trump, the Washington Post reports.

In a meeting on Wednesday, union leaders voiced their concerns that the campaign’s response after Biden’s poor debate performance nearly two weeks ago was weak and ineffective.  They reportedly told the campaign that the public’s belief in Biden’s ability to win is waning, and they wanted to see an effective plan of attack to reverse the campaign’s inertia.

One thing to note in the WaPo report is the third-hand account of how “despondent” senior campaign staff members feel, per an unnamed “Democratic strategist.”  Biden’s campaign team didn’t seem to reflect an Eyeore attitude:  “We can either worry or we can work, and this team is doing the work that wins elections,” Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said in a statement.

In an opinion piece in the Washington Post, Vermont Democratic Senator Peter Welch called on President Joe Biden to step down as the Party’s presidential nominee in 2024 after his poor debate performance so another candidate could take on Trump.

“But I, like folks across the country, am worried about November’s election,” Welch writes.  “The stakes could not be higher. We cannot unsee President Biden’s disastrous debate performance. We cannot ignore or dismiss the valid questions raised since that night.  I understand why President Biden wants to run. He saved us from Donald Trump once and wants to do it again. But he needs to reassess whether he is the best candidate to do so. In my view, he is not.  For the good of the country, I’m calling on President Biden to withdraw from the race.”

Welch becomes the first Democratic Senator to call for Biden to step down which is notable, but Welch’s influence is negligible.  Outside of Vermont and maybe New Hampshire, who knew Vermont’s other Senator?  But in the chamber of 51 in the Democratic caucus, one voice could carry.

Thanks to his incompetence and obstruction, former Trump lawyer and landscaper promoter Rudy Giuliani will likely face innumerable lawsuits from his creditors because the judge overseeing his bankruptcy filing said he’s leaning toward dismissing Giuliani’s case, the New York Times reports.

Giuliani has consistently missed filing deadlines and refused to comply with demands of information from his creditors, throwing his bankruptcy filing into chaos.  The lawyer representing two of Giuliani’s creditors, Fulton County election workers Shay Moss and Ruby Freeman, to whom Giuliani owes $148 million from a defamation settlement, told the judge that Giuliani’s continued refusal to comply could lead to an investigation into obstruction.

“So unless your honor wants to entertain putting America’s mayor in prison,” Rachel Strickland said in court, adding the relevant criminal statute, “I suggest you throw the case out.”  Giuliani agreed with this, asking the judge to toss the case as well.

One of the competitors at the Fourth of July Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest on Coney Island cheated to get into a finishing slot that had a cash prize, event organizers determined after looking at the videotape, USA Today reports.

Fourth-place finisher Nick Wehry was spotted fussing around his eating station after the contest ended and moving a plate from a competitor’s section to his.  Judges at the event in realtime count an empty plate as five hot dogs, the amount served on each.  By moving the plate, Wehry was credited with eating 51.75 hot dogs, not the 46.75 dogs he actually choked down, taking the $1,000 prize for fourth place; fifth place didn’t win a cash prize.

After reviewing the tape, however, judges saw Wehry move a plate that should have been credited to another competitor, but Major League Eating, the governing board for the gluttony, declined to change the finishing order announced at the time, allowing Wehry to keep the prize.   Professional eaters rarely make enough to live on, but it’s a way to put food on the table.

New York Democratic Congresswoman and legislative bad ass Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday filed articles of impeachment against Supreme Court Justices and free vacation enthusiasts Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito citing their persistent corruption, ABC News reports.

AOC noted Thomas’s unreported gifts and his refusal to recuse in cases where he has a clear conflict of interest–like January 6th cases where his wife was communicating with White House staff–as charges.  For Alito, Ocasio-Cortez cites his failure to recuse in cases where he has a clear and stated bias as well as his failure to report expensive gifts.

“The unchecked corruption crisis on the Supreme Court has now spiraled into a Constitutional crisis threatening American democracy writ large,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement. “Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito’s pattern of refusal to recuse from consequential matters before the court in which they hold widely documented financial and personal entanglements constitutes a grave threat to American rule of law, the integrity of our democracy, and one of the clearest cases for which the tool of impeachment was designed.”

House Oversight Chairbilly James Comer on Wednesday subpoenaed top White House officials Jill Biden aide Anthony Bernal, deputy chief of staff Annie Tomasini, and senior adviser Ashley Williams for testimony on how they’ve been handling Joe Biden’s health, Axios reports.

The Kentucky jackass feigned “concern” that the three aides are among “several White House staffers who have taken it upon themselves to run the country while the President cannot.”

Failed Republican 2024 presidential candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is expected to speak at the Republican National Convention next week, the AP reports on what we guess is supposed to be some sort of “unity” or “reconciliation” thing after Trump destroyed him.

You can’t make this shit up: The Daily Beast reports that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to report a yacht trip and a helicopter flight to a palace in fucking St Petersburg, Russia as among the graft from right wing billionaires over his long and sordid career.

The only detail that makes this a little less fan fiction-y is that it occurred in 2003, long before the GOP really got in bed with the Kremlin. Senate Dems Ron Wyden and Sheldon Whitehouse listed it as among the “Likely undisclosed gifts from Harlan Crow and affiliated companies.”