• I’m shocked–shocked! I say–that the document Donald Trump claimed he had that would completely exonerate him hasn’t leaked yet.  You’d think he’d want to get something like that out in the public domain to erase any doubt of his guilt, right?
• For someone who’s supposed to be too old and too senile to hold the job, Biden’s kickin’ ass.  But what’s most appreciated is the normalcy brought to the White House.  It’s so calming not having afternoon briefings sound like Jerry Springer episodes every single day.  Now we just have Peter Doocy’s idiocy.
• Despite all the Sturm und Drang about the fake “Biden mandates we can only have two beers per week” panic, conservatives know Brett Kavanaugh would’ve stopped it.
• DeSantis bragged about Florida’s fiscal surplus while on the campaign trail.  Let’s see him apply that money to hurricane relief before he gets a single dollar of federal money.  Americans should not automatically be put on the line until the people who chose to live in Florida–and elect DeSantis–exhaust their resources.  Federal aid and tax breaks–for disaster relief or industry support–should only extend so that entities don’t suffer a loss, not so they don’t lose their profits.
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CXXXVI”

Jack Smith’s office filed notice with the court in the Southern District of Florida that it has completed sending the required evidence to Donald Trump’s legal team regarding his prosecution for stealing and retaining government documents.  The Special Counsel’s office also noted that it supplied potentially exculpatory evidence as required by law, plus it added information about any plea deal prosecution witnesses may have secured.

“On September 1, 2023, the Government provided a fifth production of unclassified discovery to counsel for Defendants (“Production 5”). Production 5 includes, inter alia, witness statements made during the investigation conducted in United States v. Donald J. Trump, Case No. 1:23-cr-00257 (D.D.C), by witnesses who also gave statements in this case and copies of certain materials in the fifteen boxes that Defendant Trump provided to National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”) in January 2022.”

Perhaps afraid he’ll “Chris Christie” his already-sinking chances for the GOP nomination, Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced he will not meet with President Joe Biden when Biden visits hurricane-ravaged Florida on Saturday because it would be bad optics, Politico reports.

“We don’t have any plans for the Governor to meet with the President tomorrow,” a statement from the Governor’s office read making an excuse to be an asshole. “In these rural communities, and so soon after impact, the security preparations alone that would go into setting up such a meeting would shut down ongoing recovery efforts.”

On the first day of school in Russia on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin greeted students in five schools–including one in occupied Ukraine–via videoconference, espousing the glory of the old Soviet Union and touting the newly rewritten history books and military prep programs introduced this year, the Washington Post reports.

The new history books, going to students across the Kremlin-occupied territories, continue glorification of the dismantled Soviet Union, which Putin described as “absolutely invincible”; it’s unknown if the books teach the USSR crumbled in 1991.  They also include what Putin described as the “new territories” freed from “neo-Nazis,” the occupied territory of Ukraine, calling the entire country Russia’s “historical land.”

Putin also touted the new, mandatory “Fundamentals of Life Safety” for grades 5 to 11, which is training in weapons, drones, and standard military training and formations.  Next year, the Defense Ministry will introduce the “Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Motherland” course, which will teach military theory.

How bad was Jesse Watters over the line on “The Five” Friday evening? Enough that Grudge Jerline had to take over “because Jesse doesn’t need to talk” after breaching what another panelist called “the third rail” at Fox: intraoffice romances, outside of defamation, the second-highest legal liability at the network.

Exciting stuff, those monthly jobs reports.  A real page-turner it is.  The top-line story–186,000 new jobs created in August, beating pundits’ expectations–is important enough to provide evidence of economic stability after the Trump turmoil and an ensuing recession risk.  But the real picture of the economic forecast may lie in the release’s last paragraph.

Starting in July, the Bureau of Labor Statistics started revising downward the jobs reports going back to April.  Revisions happen every month:  because the reports are based on mid-month reporting from household surveys, the full month’s picture is only available after the completion of the month.  And even then, only two months after the report month are the figures deemed accurate.  So each month’s report includes a revision of the previous two months’ reports.

All that is a necessary prelude to say this:  It’s a good thing for the economy that the revisions have consistently gone downward over the last five months.  Yeah, it sounds weird to say BLS economists overestimating the jobs is a good thing:  you’d think we’d demand accuracy.  But nay, nay.  First, you’ve got to be realistic about how the data are collected; it ain’t never going to be dead-on with the first estimate.  Second, the fact that the economists are overestimating shows that the economy has been slowing down longer than we previously understood and that–again, somewhat perversely–is a good thing.

Ethan Nordean, a leader of the Proud Boys also known as Rufio Panman, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and other felonies, for his actions in the January 6th Republican-led domestic terrorist attack on Congress, Scott MacFarland of CBS News reports.

Nordean was also convicted on charges of obstructing an official proceeding, aiding and abetting injury to government property, disorderly conduct and knowingly and violently entering a restricted building.  His sentence matches the longest received by a January 6th felon:  that of Oath Keepers leader Elmer Stewart Rhodes.

Tipped off on the plan, South African police on Friday thwarted an armored car robbery in Makhado, Limpopo province, about 250 miles northeast of Johannesburg, triggering a 90-minute gun battle that left 18 of the robbers dead, Barrons reports.

Officers surrounded the suspects’ house when a gunfight ensued, killing 16 men and two women affiliated with the gang.  One officer was seriously wounded.  Authorities believe during the gun battle, an explosive the gang had intended to use on a cash repository exploded–police do not know if it exploded accidentally or was detonated intentionally–which resulted in many of the fatalities.  A police raid at another of the gang’s safehouses led to four people being arrested without incident.

Armored car robberies are fairly common in South Africa, with 64 attempted in the first quarter of 2023 alone.  In this case, police were investigating, since January, a gang believed to be responsible for a number of them.

One of Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s few non-culture war programs–a socialized insurance program for homeowners who lost their private coverage–will be put to its first major test since dozens of property policy carriers pulled out from the state.

As the Orlando Sentinel reports, Florida Citizens Property Insurance, the state-operated home insurer of last resort, has seen a significant increase in the number of properties in its portfolio since Farmers and more than two dozen other companies canceled homeowners’ policies or announced their plans to phase out coverage in the state due to Floridians’ persistent habit of having homes destroyed by hurricanes, floods, sinkholes and the odd airborne vehicle.  Annoying the insurance companies even more:  Floridians also have a habit of making frequent claims against their property insurance:  79% of homeowner policy lawsuits come from Florida, likely because the state’s loosely-worded insurance regulations allowed for companies to deny claims that should routinely be covered.

Currently, Florida CPI has more than half a trillion dollars of risk with all the properties it covers.  Initial estimates of the damage from Hurricane Idalia runs from $3- to $6 billion in Florida, with total damage across the US running into the $20 billion range.  Should Florida CPI run out of cash to reimburse policy holders, the state will assess a special “hurricane tax” on all insured property owners in the state, not just the homeowners in the pool, thereby making taxpayers pick up the tab for repairs to homes made in a place so dangerous, it’s not conducive to capitalism for private companies to offer mandated insurance.  DeSantis believes average Floridians should be made to repay a multi-millionaire whose house on the Gulf Coast is destroyed, but he wouldn’t dare make that multi-millionaire pay more taxes to cover healthcare costs for those average Floridian.

Weeks after a devastating wildfire, the people living in the area around Lahaina, Hawaii have started to undertake the massive cleanup effort, with encouraging reports that the death and devastation were less catastrophic than initially feared.

With more than 115 people confirmed dead, Hawaiian authorities are expected to announce the number of people unaccounted for will drop into the double digits–possibly as low as 50–after topping 1,000 about a week ago as more people are able to connect with loved ones.  After officials released a list of hundreds of people others had reported missing, nearly two-thirds of the cases were closed after people reported themselves safe.

The residents of hard-hit Lahaina received some good news Friday after a contractor for the state Department of Land and Natural Resources examined the town’s historic 150-year-old banyan tree and noted that the fire damage to the tree appears to be minor.

Timeshare salesman Vivek Ramaswamy’s inexperience and ignorance of US foreign affairs stepped into the spotlight again. As he responded to a straightforward question from John Roberts, the Fox propaganda outlet personality, not the Supreme Court Chief Justice.  Asked about US support for Taiwan, Ramaswamy declared the US should abandon its support for Taiwan once the US increases its computer chip and processor manufacturing, something for which the US and the world rely on Taiwan, which makes about 90% of the world’s high-end processors. 

After his wife testified, “He’s a fucking idiot,” Dominic Pezzola, an upstate New York man who joined the Proud Boys in the summer of 2020 as he became more radicalized by the group’s far-right nationalistic message and Donald Trump’s promotion of anti-government paranoia, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in the January 6th Republican-led domestic terrorist attack on Congress.

Pezzola is probably best known for taking a police shield he obtained after charging onto Capitol grounds and using it to smash a window, allowing insurrectionists to get into the building.  Pezzola said in the days leading up to the attack and on January 6th that he would kill Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence if he got his hands on them.

Saying, “I never should have crossed the barrier at the Capitol that day,” Pezzola apologized to the police officer he is accused of assaulting during the attack.  He also apologized to his family, saying he’s sorry he missed his crimes caused him to miss his daughter’s high school graduation.  His wife also testified that since January 6th, the family has been harassed because of Pezzola’s action, although she admitted that that was not a reason to go easy on Pezzola.

Denying a motion by the Justice Department, a panel from the DC Circuit Court ruled that disgraced former president Donald Trump must sit for a deposition for the attorneys for Peter Strzok, the former FBI agent who was forced out of his job after he investigated Trump’s connections to Russia.

The ruling is a minor setback for the Justice Department, which had an obligation to challenge the ruling made by a lower court about a President sitting for a deposition regarding an Executive Branch personnel decision.

In a 2-1 decision, with Biden and Obama appointees voting for accountability and a GW Bush nominee in dissent, the panel determined the unique nature of Strzok’s case required the normal deference to Oval Office decisions be set aside in the interest of justice.  “Before authorizing the deposition, however, the district court held multiple hearings on the relevant issues, considered several rounds of additional briefing, and required respondents to exhaust other means of obtaining the information they sought. The district court limited the deposition to two hours, and to a narrow set of topics it identified. Having employed particular “deference and restraint” considering the separation-of-powers concerns at issue, see Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 731, 753 (1982), the district court ultimately concluded that “extraordinary circumstances” warranted the deposition of the former President.”

As his begging has raked in tens of millions of dollars from gullible dupes who want to fund a self-proclaimed billionaire’s legal bills, Donald Trump has basically disowned his co-defendants in the Fulton County racketeering case, forcing them to scramble to fund their legal defenses, CNN reports.

While Trump has lamented the fact that his 18 co-defendants are being “persecuted” for their roles in his plot to remain in power after he lost the 2020 presidential election, he’s left them to fend for themselves even though his Super PAC has picked up the legal fees for various other members of his cabal charged in other cases.  Trump’s gone so far to distance himself from his co-conspirators that he told Newsmax he didn’t know “a lot of these people.”

While the situation may be financially untenable for the defendants, it may turn into a boon for prosecutors who may be able to flip defendants whose attorneys are not paid for by Trump and who face significant criminal penalties if they were to be found guilty.

Expecting an especially weak and pointless impeachment effort from the House GOP just because the Orange Pharaoh has commanded them to do so, the Biden Administration are taking no chances and preparing a vigorous communications defense to discredit the circlejerk, NBC News reports.

“Comparing this to past impeachments isn’t apples to apples or even apples to oranges, it’s apples to elephants,” a White House source told NBC. “Never in modern history has an impeachment been based on no evidence whatsoever.” The team already has more than two dozen lawyers and other staff ready to savage the limp-wristed takedown attempt over Hunter Biden something something.

Continuing the smoke-and-mirrors saga of the Daily Beast’s investigation into the deeply strange story of disgraced former President Trump – or a deep fake script trained to sound like him – sounding decidedly off during an interview with Real America’s Voice host and discredited propagandist John Solomon, the Beast on Friday updated their article on it with the following:

“This story has been updated to remove quotes attributed to the owner of Real America’s Voice, Robert Sigg, saying he is investigating whether the call was a prank and criticizing network staffers. A Daily Beast reporter had a conversation by text with a person who identified themselves as Sigg, on a number public records show was once associated with Sigg – but a spokesperson for Real America’s Voice said that it was not Sigg and is not his current number.”

We regard the Daily Beast as the gold standard of what National Zero aspires to be and commend their integrity and commitment to journalistic ethics. That said, how the Christ did whoever who has Sigg’s old number react so snappily as to know exactly what they were asking about to trick them into quoting them? The person with Sigg’s old number responded with “an internal investigation will be needed” and that the “Trump” in the interview sounded like ChatGPT. How does some random asshole simply come up with that on the fly and convince trained investigators of their sincerity?

Republican Alabama state Representative David Cole on Thursday struck a plea deal with prosecutors after the fucker was caught voting in a district he does not live in, agreeing to resign from office and serve 60 days in jail plus three years probation for the crime, the AP reports.

“Dr Cole admits and takes full responsibility for the mistakes he made in the political process. He entered the process to serve his community. He has lived a life of service including serving for 22 years in the Army with tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt,” said Cole’s lawyer in a statement. We thank him for his service and ask what the fuck that has to do with him getting caught renting a room for $5 a month and not living there just so he could vote and run for office in another district while his party’s been on a non-stop “election integrity” crusade for three years and counting.

The already very weird story of disgraced former Trump’s voice sounding very fucking weird during a phone interview with incompetent propagandist John Solomon on Thursday got considerably weirder early Friday when either Trump himself or more likely one of the minions on his marketing team went and posted a clip of it under the twice-impeached loser’s Truth Social account.

Robert Sigg, CEO of the right wing “Real America’s Voice” streaming network (all too ironically-named given the subject at hand) told the Daily Beast that it sounded like ChatGPT and “an internal investigation will be needed” whether Solomon and crew were somehow duped by an impersonator or an AI bot trained to deep fake the fat bastard’s voice. The Beast were unable to get a comment out of Trump’s campaign for their story and left it up in the air as such. Now this clip gets posted to an official Trump Reich channel, so here we are with a “confirmation” of its veracity and zero explanation as to why he sounded so lisp-y and robotic. Way to preemptively tamp down speculation that Donald is indisposed and they deployed a deep fake voice bot to sub in for him.

“CPAC is being terrorized by a demon self-described as The Daily Beast, The good news is the leadership of CPAC knows how the epic battle against the Beast ends. I’d short the stock,” says dick-grabbing CPAC chief Matt Schlapp through his publicist in a response to a request for comment from the Beast for their story on how Schlapp and his wife Mercedes brought in a Catholic priest to perform an exorcism on the right wing fan-con’s headquarters last spring after a group of junior employees resigned en masse in protest of the asshole’s deranged behavior in the workplace.

The funny thing is the story’s already been confirmed by general counsel David Safavian, who tweeted “Now that we’ve performed an exorcism on a recently vacated office, I’m enjoying my new private cigar lounge,” with a pic of an office building’s roof deck on May 11, 2022. A source tells the Beast that, on top of the usual sprinkling of holy water and blessing the remaining staff, the rite included a “performative” prayer circle in Schlapp’s office. “As the priest made his way through the office, spritzing holy water room to room, employees nudged him towards Matt’s office. The way he had treated junior employees, it seemed to us like he was the one who needed it the most.”

The priest placed medallions to Saint Benedict, the patron of exorcisms above each doorway in the office, a talisman meant for, among other spiritual benefits, “a prayer for strength in time of temptation.” Obviously it didn’t work out, seeing what temptation did to Matt just five months later.

The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, the Pentagon office established to investigate reports of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, or UAPs (née UFOs) has launched a public-facing website where they posted information about its investigations and other issues.

One yet-to-launch feature of the new site: a method for former or current members of the military, government employees or military contractors who had “direct knowledge of U.S. Government programs or activities related to UAP dating back to 1945,” with a footnote that the Congressional mandate for the investigation dictates it also undertakes a historical review.

So if you heard the story from your Uncle Phil about his time in the Air Force when he saw something over Poughkeepsie, sober him up and get him logged in.