Searches for the string “Can fingers be surgically reattached?” on Google spiked dramatically at 2:56 AM EDT on Thursday, July 4th during pre-Independence Day celebrations in the United States, with at least 100 queries to the globally-leading search engine logged at the time, piercing a period of quiet that lasted several hours from 19 of searches for the term at 9:04 PM EDT on July 3rd.

The term “Fireworks mortar to face” saw similar popularity just moments ago, as Google Trends shows at 11:12 AM EDT on Thursday at least 100 users searched for it. “Illegal to shoot a bottle rocket at someone” sure rocketed up the trend chart at 10:32 PM EDT Wednesday too. “Is it dangerous to light Roman candle indoors?” saw steady interest until 2:24 AM EDT on Thursday before plunging to zero, the users evidently learning all they needed to know about the topic.

UK Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride on Thursday told Sky News he sees his Conservative Party headed to an absolutely horrific defeat in the snap election, saying rival Labour is looking at the “largest majority that this country has ever seen, much greater than even 1997’s landslide.”

One poll found Labour winning 484 of the 650 seats up, many more than the 418 won by Tony Blair in 1997 and the Tories hanging on to just 64 seats – the fewest since the party’s founding in 1834.

American airline passengers did not have a fun time on two flights Wednesday.  An overnight flight from Detroit to Amsterdam was diverted to New York’s JFK Airport not for some fun reason like the pilots accidentally ingested laced brownies but because the crew and several passengers ate spoiled food served by the airline, CBS News reports.

At least 70 passengers and ten crew on Delta Flight 136 became ill after eating in-flight meals.  Some passengers reported seeing black mold on the food handed out by the crew in the main cabin.  In response to the incident, Delta said it “proactively adjusted” its “in-flight meal service on a number of international flights” Wednesday.

A different flight from Chicago to Manchester, New Hampshire was exiled diverted to Buffalo after a passenger–who admitted to having whisky and sodas before boarding his flight from Portland, Oregon to Chicago, then a number more in Chicago, and then at least one more on the flight–told police he had a medical urinary condition that caused him to drop his pants and piss in the aisle.  Shockingly, police didn’t believe him and the 25-year-old man was booked with indecent exposure charges, according to ABC News.

In what might be a boost to beleaguered Democrats in at least one must-needed battleground state, organizers fighting for abortion rights in Arizona and Nebraska announced they submitted sufficient petition signatures to get ballot measure guarantee access to reproductive care on their states’ ballots, the Associated Press reports.

The problem is, in Nebraska, there will likely be two competing measures on the ballot:  one to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, like Arizona’s proposal, and one that would enshrine the current state law that outlaws most abortions after 12 weeks.

In Arizona, activists collected 823,685 signatures, far beyond the 390,000-ish needed.  Pro-choice organizers in Nebraska collected more than 200,000 when 123,000 signatures were required.  Officials in each state must certify the signatures, but it appears both measure will be in voters’ hands in November.

“[Kamala Harris] has an inability to communicate common sense to the American people,” South Dakota’s Republican Deliverer of Ditch Death Kristi Noem claims, apparently unaware that Harris’s home state of California has 40 times more people than Noem’s barren state.  “They just can’t relate to her.”  With the charm of your dad’s third wife on her sixth Xanax of the day, Noem seems jealous of Harris’s enthusiasm on the campaign trail.

Arizona Democratic Congressman Raul Grijalva became the second member of the House to call on President Joe Biden to bow out of the Party’s nomination for President in 2024, saying Biden has to “shoulder the responsibility for keeping that seat and part of that responsibility is to get out of this race,” NBC News reports.  NBC News confirmed comments Grijalva had earlier made to the New York Times.

Grijalva, himself a 76-year-old who announced in March that he was undergoing cancer treatment, called Biden “a good man” who he would support if he chose to stay in the race, but he also urged Biden to step aside so that a fitter candidate could challenge Trump.

The number of humans infected with bird flu in the United States jumped by one-third after a man in Colorado became the fourth person in the United States with a confirmed infection, Reuters reports.  All four people infected in the US have worked at dairy farms and contracted the virus there.

While more than 48 million poultry birds have been destroyed because of infections, human infections typically aren’t fatal.  The previous three US patients exhibited eye irritation or slight respiratory problems, but have all recovered.

“In Biden’s Oval Office, it is the quietest place.  No one’s around.  The only thing is there are cookies, he offers you cookies every time you’re in there, and he goes and gets them.  I mean, it is a depressing moment,” deposed Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy laments about a depression he’ll never re-experience because he shall never set foot in the Oval Office again.

After Stormy Daniels appeared on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show Tuesday night and described how she and her family have been terrorized by Donald Trump’s supporters in the wake of her testimony that led to his Manhattan criminal convictions, a crowdfunding effort to fund a “safehouse” for them is nearly three-quarters toward its million-dollar goal.

Daniels said she and her family have been threatened within their community, with people driving by their home.  After being doxed online, Daniels said she got threats on social media, including one that said the MAGAt would rape and kill her family, including Daniels’ 13-year-old daughter.  Daniels also described efforts to evict the family from their home, which they rent.

“Stormy needs help to relocate her family to somewhere they can feel safe and live life on their terms. She needs assistance to be able to continue to pay the mounting court fees so that Trump doesn’t just win because his pocketbook seems endless. To date, Stormy has had to foot the bill for all of this, and it has depleted her resources and savings,” described Dwayne Crawford, Daniels’ former assistant and tour manager, who launched the fundraiser, adding, “Trump may have a mega fundraising operation to keep him from facing consequences, but that shouldn’t mean that Stormy becomes the sacrificial lamb of a corrupt system.”

As NBC White House reporter and president of the White House Correspondents’ Association Kelly O’Donnell discussed with Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre the possibility of President Joe Biden coming to the press room to take questions during Wednesday’s briefing, a voice from the back of the room–allegedly Newsmax’s James Rosen–pipes up, “if he’s awake!”  O’Donnell snaps back, “That’s inappropriate.” It is, and it should cost that reporter his seat in the room.

CNN reports that Israel and Hamas are in the end stages of negotiating a ceasefire that would include an exchange of hostages that would bring all people being held by Hamas home, according to an Israeli official with knowledge of the talks.  The potential agreement comes eight months after Hamas invaded Israel, pushing Israel to restrict access to Gaza.

Using mediators from Egypt and Qatar, Hamas reportedly sent the Israeli government a peace proposal, a fact that was confirmed by Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency.  The deal must now be approved by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netayahu.

In an all-team conference call for Biden-Harris campaign staffers on Wednesday, President Joe Biden reassured his team that he would remain the Democratic Party’s nominee, saying “I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win because when Democrats unite, we will always win,” NPR reports.

Vice President Kamala Harris reinforced the President’s message saying, “We will not back down. We will follow our president’s lead.”  While some polls have shown a dip in Biden’s support since his embarrassing debate performance last Thursday, others show no significant change in the race, and post-debate fundraising reports show Biden outpaced his opponent.

pic.twitter.com/bY1ee6pLMK

— Capybara every hour (@CapybaraHourly) July 3, 2024

EPIC! You will be shocked at the way a Manhattan sex worker turned the tables on a deadbeat male customer early Tuesday morning in Harlem – or it might have been a chair instead – as police say she savagely beat him to death with a piece of wooden furniture after he refused to pay for a trick!

INSPIRING! Per WPIX, 39 year-old Sabrina Charles, who has a history of prostitution and drug possession charges, was high on something when she bludgeoned the unidentified male acquaintance in front of a building just off 125th Street in Harlem. Charles now faces murder, criminal possession of a weapon, and criminal possession of stolen property charges.

“Sources familiar with conversations” tell ABC News that President Biden is keeping an “open mind” about whether he can remain in the race to save American democracy from convicted felon former President Trump’s plans for a violent fascist autocracy and “privately acknowledged that the next few days are critical to determining whether he can stay in the race for a second term.”

“President Biden has told a key ally that he knows he may not be able to salvage his candidacy if he cannot convince the public in the coming days that he is up for the job after a disastrous debate performance last week. The president, who the ally emphasized is still deeply in the fight for re-election, understands that his next few appearances heading into the holiday weekend – including an interview scheduled for Friday with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News and campaign stops in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – must go well,” the New York Times reports, which we copied verbatim as to not mince words. “He knows if he has two more events like that, we’re in a different place” by the end of the weekend, said the “key ally” whose actual position and agenda went unmentioned.

The Times’s agenda here is also opaque, other than the fact that they’re untrustworthy worms who would print a call for Biden to drop out and then this story. Narrative reliability optional here.

Timeless quotes from Kamala Harrispic.twitter.com/XqcRa17Fow

— GOP (@GOP) July 3, 2024

The MAGA Reich on the other hand obviously prefer Biden to stay in but are simply covering their bases in case of a rapid Kamalascendancy. An anonymous House Republican this week told Fox News that “it’s probably good for Joe Biden that he’s now probably not going to have to be subjected to this another four years. But for the party, it’s not great. It’s not clear to me that it’s good for us, either,” adding that another Dem nominee makes it “a tougher race” for their Orange God Emperor in November. It changes everything. It’s just a completely unknown wildcard right now.”

Again, we’d like to stay out of this and focus on the singular goal of ending the threat Trump poses to American democracy. The simple truth is that something has to end: Either Biden’s candidacy or this fucking insufferable circlejerk in the media over it. This can’t continue and we’re absolutely rooting for Joe to pull through this critical stretch. If he can’t? There’s one option.

Citing that their “current insurer has advised us that they will not be renewing our Abuse Liability (AL) and Employment Practices Liability (EPL) coverage as of June 30, 2024,” and that “after an exhaustive search, most other insurers have declined to offer us this coverage,” in an email update to congregants, Toronto, Canada-area Evangelical megachurch The Meeting House have at least temporarily but indefinitely ceased all operations, the Christian Post reports.

The deprivation from earthly protection comes after no fewer than four of their former ministers, including “teaching Pastor” Bruxy Cavey who faces trial on charges stemming from an abusive relationship with a woman in her 20s, have been implicated in sexual misconduct since 2022.

“The US Fish and Wildlife Service is announcing its final environmental impact statement analyzing proposed barred owl management alternatives to protect northern and California spotted owls in Washington, Oregon and California from invasive barred owls. The Service’s preferred alternative is the implementation of a proposed Barred Owl Management Strategy, which would result in the annual removal of less than one-half of 1 percent of the current North American barred owl population. Northern spotted owl populations are rapidly declining due to competition with invasive barred owls and habitat loss. California spotted owls, which are proposed for ESA listing, face a similar risk as barred owl populations continue to move south into their range.”

“If the proposed strategy is adopted and fully implemented, lethal removal of barred owls by trained professionals would occur in less than half of the areas where spotted and invasive barred owls co-exist within the northern spotted owl’s range; and would limit their invasion into the California spotted owl’s range. Public hunting of barred owls is not allowed under the proposed strategy and lead ammunition will not be used for any lethal removal actions. Barred owls are native to eastern North America but started moving west of the Mississippi River at the beginning of the 20th century. This expansion was likely due to human-induced changes in the Great Plains and northern boreal forest. As a result, barred owls now surpass northern spotted owls in numbers across most of California, Oregon, and Washington,” says a statement from the US Fish and Wildlife Service on the plan to save the owls by slaughtering hundreds of thousands of other owls.

The staff at Villages-News.com could have at least written the headline as “Trump has been the only clear anti-(((globalist))) president” if they didn’t want to go that far. The guest editorial writer Bill Nitardy also misspelled World Economic Forum chairman Klaus Schwab’s name while suggesting that his lieutenant, (((Yuval Noah Harari))), is actually the real power center of the WEF cabal.

“For the first time in years, Harris seems to be having a genuine moment – fueled by speculation that she, not Biden, would be the more competitive nominee,” writes Politico Playbook on Wednesday morning, sampling the “buzz” from in and around the White House and the Dems under the obnoxious “Kamala Harris vibe shift” headline. The Playbook newsletter team, all adults, express surprise that “the strange new respect developed without any nudge from Harris herself, who at every turn since Thursday’s debate has defended Biden and batted away questions about a bow-out,” as if a fucking palace coup would somehow be a smart thing to do for the vice president.

We’re going to declare neutrality on the prospect of Harris as the Dem nominee. Running her instead of Joe Biden would have implications that are impossible to foresee. That said, she’s literally the only other option for reasons both legal – Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, etc cannot actually replace Joe Biden because there’s no way to transfer $240 million in campaign funds to a new candidate – and political – how would it look to minority and female voters that the actual constitutional successor, a highly intelligent and accomplished woman of color, got passed over?

It’s either Biden or Harris. That’s it. And if she’s going to run then she might as well already be the incumbent, as in Joe Biden should resign so she can go into the election as the 47th President of the United States… after he’s ordered a few strategic drone strikes with his new powers.