After a frustrating outing on the mound in a relief effort against the Los Angeles Angeles in which he gave up three runs, hit a batter and had a throwing error in two-thirds of an inning, Chicago Cubs pitcher Colten Brewer learned that he does not possess enough force to move Wrigley Field.

According to ESPN, Brewer returned to the dugout mid-inning after being pulled from the mound and decided to take his frustration out on the dugout wall.  Wrigley Field dugouts are made of concrete, brick and metal.

The wall won, and while Brewer was smart enough to use his left, non-throwing hand to wallop the wall, he still broke some bones in his hand, landing him on the disabled list for at least two months.  Not to worry, though:  Brewer’s injury likely won’t impact the Cubs’ playoff chances given they’re already eleven games out of first place, nor will it impact his $656,000 salary for 2024.

“Like Stalin said it doesn’t matter how many people vote, it matters who counts the votes. Will see what happens here in November” – Top comment on Breitbart’s article about the French elections.

Come Monday morning it will have been a week since the far right Supreme Court further throttled Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s conspiracy case against convicted felon former President Trump for his failed post-2020 election coup attempt and, minus one federal holiday for the Fourth of July, about three and a half working days have gone by without any response from Smith’s team on what the next step is going to be in the pre-trial motions that can now continue.

Most in the media are, not entirely incorrectly, more focused on the fact that the Supremes just gave the fat fuck a blank check to do whatever he wants if elected again, but the whole reason they made that ruling in the first place is that Team Orange successfully gamed the system he had already rigged and got their interlocutory appeal for “presidential immunity” decided there.

It’s far from over though. Most legal commentators see libs getting a consolation prize of a “mini-trial” in which Smith will have to present to Judge Tanya Chutkan evidence to see if it colors inside the lines of the MAGA majority’s intentionally vague definition of what is and isn’t an official act, all of it expected to be at least as politically damaging on the scale of the House January 6th Committee hearings. Maybe worse, if you want to indulge in some speculation floated earlier this year.

Another option fewer commentators have raised is that the trial is still doable in September if Smith rips out everything that implicates an official act and files a superseding indictment covering only what Trump did as a candidate but it’s unlikely to work given the way the ruling was precision designed to make seemingly everything Trump did potentially an at least “semi-official act” and thus subject to appellate review, allowing him to keep running out the clock past November.

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff tested positive for COVID on Saturday and will remain off the campaign trail, quarantined, for at least the next five days, CBS News reports.  Vice President Kamala Harris continues to test negative, according to an aide to Emhoff.  After experiencing mild symptoms on Saturday, Emhoff reportedly is asymptomatic Sunday but will remain isolated as a precaution.

Four senior House Democrats forcefully called for President Joe Biden to step down from the Party nomination for President during a conference call convened by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Politico reports.

Jerry Nadler (NY), Adam Smith (WA), Mark Takano (CA) and Joe Morelle (NY) called for Democrats to replace Biden on the ticket, while several others expressed doubts that Biden can prevail in November.  (One of those reportedly expressing doubts, Don Beyer of Virginia, later said through a spokesperson, “To be clear [Beyer] supports President Biden and said so on this call and any reporting to the contrary is a misunderstanding of what he said and what he believes.”)

Early projections coming from exit pollings show the liberals in France controlling the most seats in the national parliament.  The centrist party of President Emmanual Macron finished second, and the far-right supporters of Marine Le Pen ended with the third most seats, according to the Associated Press.  No group has a clear majority, so it will take bargaining to form a majority government.

It should be noted that this is the second national election in which polling greatly underestimated the support liberal candidates garnered.  In the July 4th British elections, Labor Party candidates greatly overperformed, taking nearly two-thirds of the seats in the British Parliament.

South Carolina’s Little Pee Dee River has shrunk to an even littler pee dee amid a drought cutting off circulation to the once lengthy and girthy waterway, the Myrtle Beach Sun News reports.

National Weather Service meteorologist Adam Weiner told the Sun News that the drought in Horry County has only intensified, with rainfall shrinking to just one inch in June. There’s a chance it could get wetter later this week, but Weiner stiffly warned that it’ll take more wetness to help.

And to all the readers snickering at this story, just imagine if this was your Little Pee Dee that wasn’t able to flow properly, how painful that would be to experience that and the embarrassment of telling your partner the Pee Dee just can’t get it up, let alone discharge any swimmers. This isn’t funny.

“This evening at approximately 9:20pm, Deputies assigned to the NPSO Patrol Operations Bureau responded to NATCOM 911 Center reports of a group in Kisatchie National Forest needing assistance according to the Natchitoches Parish Sheriff’s Office. The group consisting of recent Houma graduates traveled from Houma to camp out in Kisatchie National Forest approximately 1 1/2 miles down off of Back Bone Trail in southern Natchitoches Parish After setting up camp, one member of the group ranging in ages of 17-18 called 911 frightened requesting assistance because they reportedly heard a growl and saw what appeared to be an animal that had glowing eyes and stood about 5-feet tall. Deputy B Remo and Cpl D Halliburton responded to the area. Deputies arrived on scene and began to walk towards the camp site looking for any suspicious activity or glowing eyes. Deputies then heard the group’s whistle and located them unharmed.”

“Deputies arrived at the camp site and successfully escorted the group out of the forest. Deputies reported the disposition as unable to locate any suspicious activity involving a growl with glowing eyes and standing 5-feet tall. We congratulate the Houma graduates, thank you for visiting Natchitoches Parish, Kisatchie National Forest and good luck in your future,” says a Facebook post from the Natchitoches Parish Sheriff’s Office, dated June 28th and headlined “IT COULD HAVE BEEN ‘BIGFOOT’ OR A BEAR – DEPUTIES RESCUE HOUMA GRADUATION GROUP.”

How the hell could it have been a bigfoot if it was only five feet tall? And what kind of red-blooded American teenager just runs away and calls the cops when encountering a predatory monster with glowing eyes in the woods at night? Shouldn’t at least some of them have been stoned and/or drunk enough to want to fight it with their bare fists while the others filmed it for a TikTok post?

A typically hungover Lindsey Graham on Sunday told CBS’s Rob Costa that there would never be a televised military tribunal for former House January 6th Select Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney after convicted felon former President Trump called for it in a Truth Social post last week. As to whether there would be a closed military tribunal for her Lindsey did not say.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio was a worm as usual on Sunday when CNN’s Dana Bash asked him about that Project 2025 shitbag’s not very subtle threats of a violent, fascist takeover should their Orange Fuhrer return to power, with Rubio equivocating and claiming it’s just some lame think tank that has no connections to the Republican Party or the convicted felon’s 2024 campaign.

“Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, the fake Obama loving ‘journalists’ who have no talent and refuse to write the truth, are failing badly, along with the New York Times. This lovely ‘couple’ is a one-sided, confused, and highly conflicted mess. Baker writes so inaccurately about me that he has lost all credibility, along with the failing New York Times, which at some point will be put to rest in the graveyard of bad and inaccurate journalism. They have called me wrong from day one, even having to apologize to their readers for their fake reporting in 2016. It is going to happen again, but bigger and better than ever before!” posted convicted felon former President Trump on Sunday.

It was in all caps but we had ChatGPT reprint it in normal writing to make it more legible. What specifically Trump is bitching about is unclear as there’s no recent story on either Baker or Glasser’s Twitter feeds about the fat bastard. Maybe they asked him for comment on something bad.

After voicing her enthusiasm for President Joe Biden’s reelection, Vice President Kamala Harris reminds voters that the best way Americans have to protect their hard-fought freedoms and rights is through the ballot box in 122 days.

Mirta Díaz-Balart, Fidel Castro’s first wife who supported him as he rose to power in Cuba but fled after the communist takeover, died in Spain at the age of 95, the Washington Post reports.  Díaz-Balart and Castro married in 1948, honeymooning in New York City.  She was the aunt of Republican Florida Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart.

A member of a once-prominent Cuban family, Díaz-Balart divorced Castro after her husband led failed attacks on military barracks and was imprisoned.  She married the pre-revolutionary Cuban ambassador to the UN, ultimately moving to Madrid, but she would in visit Cuba in trips arranged by her former brother-in-law Raoul Castro.

There appears to be a discrepancy in the claims made by Telegram Channel “GITMO TV” on the value of a “MAGA 2024 Golden Plate: ‘Never Surrender’ Edition” and the small fine print at the bottom of MAGA-Neversurrender.com, the website selling them for $149 each when purchased individually, $349 for a pack of three, $499 for a pack of five, $1,299 for a 10 pack plus three “free,” $2,249 for a pack of 20 plus five “free,” $4,499 for 40 plus 10 “free,” or $5,999 for 60 plus 15 “free.”

In a post headlined “🥇 TRUMP UNVEILS THE MAGA 2024 GOLDEN PLATE: AN INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY FOR PATRIOTS,” the “GITMO TV” channel asserts that “In a recent speech, former President Donald Trump unveiled the latest initiative under his ‘Never Surrender’ campaign: the MAGA 2024 Golden Plate. Addressing his supporters, Trump emphasized the unique investment opportunity these plates represent. ‘Dear patriots,’ Trump began, ‘I would like to announce our latest project of the Never Surrender campaign, the MAGA 2024 Golden Plate. This golden plate isn’t a part of any system, and you don’t need any other products to exchange it.’ According to Trump’s announcement, each MAGA 2024 Golden Plate can be exchanged for $10,000 after a successful election outcome in 2024.” Emphasis added to highlight the part where GITMO TV attributes these statements about the item’s value to the former president in an unspecified speech.

A Texas South Carolina man was utterly stunned and left breathless by an incredible, dazzling 4th of July fireworks display early Monday on Thursday, KSAT San Antonio WPDE in Florence, SC reports.

Pablo Ruiz, 43 Allen Ray McGrew, 41, was [probably] drinking heavily and lighting off fireworks with friends when he decided to make things even more exciting by placing a mortar upright on his head and lighting it… and yeah Ruiz McGrew was pronounced dead at the scene by police.

This article originally appeared on National Zero under the headline “Texas man absolutely blown away by amazing fireworks display” two years ago to the day. Minor edits have been made to adjust for details, as we don’t know if McGrew was definitely drunk. His family members did try to stop him too. In Ruiz’s case we don’t know if anyone told him not to do it or if he was encouraged.

“Crooked Joe Biden should ignore his many critics and move forward, with alacrity and strength, with his powerful and far reaching campaign. He should be sharp, precise, and energetic, just like he was in The Debate, in selling his policies of Open Borders (where millions of people, including record numbers of Terrorists, are allowed to enter our Country, from prisons and mental institutions, totally unchecked and unvetted!), to Ending Social Security, Men playing in Women’s sports, High Taxes, High Interest Rates, encouraging a Woke Military, Uncontrollable Inflation, Record Setting Crime, Only Electric Vehicles, Subservience to China and other Countries, Endless Wars, putting America Last, losing our Dollar Based Standard, and so much more. Yes, Sleepy Joe should continue his campaign of American Destruction and, MAKE CHINA GREAT AGAIN!” posted fat former President Trump – or one of his minions as “alacrity” seems a little outside his repertoire – on Saturday.

It was already obvious enough that Team Orange would prefer to face Biden. Donald doesn’t really need to be telegraphing that he’s spent three years running a campaign against Joe and that he’s going to have a hard time pivoting if Dems do end up with a new nominee for November.

In a text exchange last month former Trump 2020 campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis told former Trump 2016 campaign staffer AJ Delgado that the Orange God Emperor’s second White House run “settled multiple suits” against someone named “Boris,” the Daily Beast reports citing a motion filed Thursday in Delgado’s long-running case against Team Trump over her affair with Donald’s longtime political spokesman Jason Miller, who knocked up Delgado and tried to feed her an abortion pill milkshake.

Delgado had asked Ellis specifically if anyone on the 2020 team had “complained of gender discrimination, pregnancy discrimination, or sexual harassment,” leading Ellis to mention “Boris,” a person whom the Beast concludes is almost certain to be piece of shit Trump consigliere and failed crypto entrepreneur Boris Epshteyn – who’s also Ellis’s co-defendant in the Arizona Attorney General’s office’s case against Team Orange for the fake Trump 2020 electors scam. That Epshteyn was convicted in 2021 for sexually assaulting two women at a nightclub in Arizona, his current legal expenses are being paid by Trump’s “Save America” PAC, and that there’s no other publicly known Trump minion named “Boris,” would all strongly indicate that the man in question is in fact Epshteyn.

Not to mention that it’s very much on-brand for Team Trump to refuse to fire a violent, sexually abusive degenerate. And of course the fact that they’re led by the most notorious of them all.

Nigerien junta leader General Abdourahmane Tchiani will on Saturday host Burkina Faso’s Captain Ibrahim Traore and Mali’s Colonel Assimi Goita as part of initial talks for the three junta leaders to form their own little regional bloc of West African juntas, BBC News reports.

Top on the agenda will be security as all three military dictatorships seized power in response to democratically-elected governments’ failures to quell jihadist violence, but the cooperation won’t stop there as the neighboring countries will also look at launching a new common currency, maybe calling it JuntaBux or something funny like that, as well as leaving their current larger regional bloc, ECOWAS. The BBC notes that the three juntas have so far failed to contain ISIS.

• The Supreme Court got it completely wrong:  the Presidency is a position held by a citizen imbued with additional responsibilities and authority by the Constitution.  The job does not, however, give the officeholder additional Constitutional rights.
• The goals of the two candidates for between now and the election are clear:  Joe Biden must never wheeze, and Donald Trump must not test out his theory about shooting someone on Fifth Avenue.  
• The Heritage Foundation president saying he’ll lead a bloodless revolution “if the left allows it to be” is nothing short of a threat of violence, and it should be treated that way by federal law enforcement investigating domestic terrorism.  They’re telling you they’ll use violence; believe them this time.
• I was okay with the traditional performative patriotism that would occur on holidays like July 4th, Memorial Day, Veterans Day and even Labor Day.  But it loses all meaning today when one side demands constant über-patriotism to show your fealty to Dear Leader.  Demanded patriotism isn’t patriotism.
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CLXXX”

Even though it has less than 2% of the population of California and therefore merits two Senators, North Dakota is largely a vacant field with sporadic signs of human existence.  That was lucky on Friday after 29 rail cars carrying hazardous material derailed and burst into flames; it continues to burn more than 12 hours later, ABC News reports.

The train derailed 140 miles from Fargo in farmland, spilling anhydrous ammonia, sulfur and methanol.  A massive operation was launched to evacuate the twenty people who lived in the impacted area as plumes of smoke launched into the sky.  (For comparison, the East Palestine, Ohio derailment, with similar dangerous chemicals, had 38 cars derailed.)