The white man who shot three people in at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville wanted “to kill n*****s,” the local sheriff said of the shooter, who entered the store with an AR-15 assault-style weapon and a handgun, NBC News reports.  “This shooting was racially motivated, and he hated Black people,” Jacksonville County Sheriff T.K. Waters, who is Black, said at a news conference. “He wanted to kill n*****s.”

A tropical depression destined to become Tropical Storm Idalia has formed in the Gulf of Mexico, starting on a path that will cross over Florida and up the Atlantic seaboard through Thursday, WNCN CBS-17 in Raleigh reports.

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, in a rare moment when he wasn’t campaigning, declared a state of emergency, presumably prompted by the hurricane but likely to prompt DeSantis to bar the teaching of the women’s suffrage movement because Idalia attacked Florida.

The leaders of the Rusich Group, a brutal Russian neo-Nazi paramilitary group that supported the Wagner Group’s coup attempt in April says that the Kremlin abandoned its chief after he was detained in Helsinki, and its members will not fight in Ukraine until his return, the Telegraph reports.

“Since July 20, Yan Petrovsky has not been visited by either the Russian consul or a lawyer. The Slav [Petrovsky’s militia call-sign] is threatened with extradition to Ukraine either directly or through a third country in a fictitious criminal case,” the group said on its Telegram channel.  “Rusich stops performing any combat missions.  If a country cannot protect its citizens, then why should citizens defend the country?”

The impact isn’t expected to be as great at Wagner’s revolt:  Rusich members number in the dozens, not thousands.  And these motherfuckers are considered more brutal than Wagner troops:  they’ve posted video of themselves beheading a Ukrainian prisoner and literally killing puppies.

Long past the ten-year loan agreement from 2000, three giant pandas at the National Zoo in Washington, DC will be returned to China in December USA Today reports, leaving Atlanta the only US city to host the Asia species.

The three pandas–Mei Xiang (female) and Tian Tian (male), and their male cub Xiao Qi Ji– will be returned by December 7th.  Mei Xiang has given birth to seven cubs at the National Zoo; three did not survive into adulthood.  By agreement, all panda cubs had to be returned to China.

Mei Xiang and Tian Tian were the second pair of pandas sent to the National Zoo as part of a research and breeding program. Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling died at the Washington zoo in 1999 and 1992 respectively.

A new Yahoo News/YouGov survey finds that in the ten months since they last asked the question of whether “US government decisions were altered to benefit the Biden family, or that President Biden may have received bribes, or that there are direct links between the older Biden and Hunter Biden’s business deals, discussions or payments” – before Republicans took the House majority and launched all their stupid bullshit investigations – the number of respondents who say yes went up from 42 to 44 percent, well within the margin of error standard to such public opinion polling.

The “positive” news for the GOP, if you can call it that, is that more respondents think Hunter Biden did something illegal than they did in October 2022, up to 64 percent from 51 percent. Might’ve helped that Hunter was going to plead guilty to crimes before his deal collapsed. Yay for MAGA!

The massive slowdown in Chinese economic growth coupled with an implosion in the communist hellhole’s real estate sector isn’t going to cause any headaches for the American economy yet given the limited exposure of US manufacturing and financial sectors but that could change if the problems accelerate into a full-blown meltdown for the Xi Regime, the New York Times reports.

“It doesn’t necessarily help things, but I don’t think it’s a major factor in determining the outlook in the next six months,” said global finance egghead Neil Shearing in a recent webinar presentation, adding “Unless the outlook for China becomes substantially worse,” with the Times saying the main danger would be to US manufacturing if a slowdown drives them to undercut prices on exports.

“The Security Tapes from Mar-a-Lago that evil and sinister prosecutor, Deranged Jack Smith, ‘leaked’ or otherwise stated were deleted or altered were, in fact, NOT deleted or altered. It was a Fake Story put out by the government THUGS. Those tapes were openly handed over, without protest or litigation, and then the ‘Deranged One’ makes me look as bad as possible. The whole case is FAKE because I come under the Presidential Records Act. Biden or Pence did not!” wrote fat former President Trump at 1:35 AM EDT Saturday, calling a criminal indictment a “fake story.”

• Sixteen years ago tonight, Rudy Giuliani was the leading candidate for the GOP presidential nomination.  This week, he had his mugshot taken.
• Prison’ll change you.  Some get out and dedicate their lives to redeeming themselves.  Others restart their Twitter account.
• I didn’t think Giuliani would get a mug shot.  I didn’t think daywalkers could be photographed.
• Vivek Ramaswamy is the love child of Andrew Chang with Kari Lake.
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CXXXV”

“The Republican Party controls the offices of governor, secretary of state, attorney general, and both chambers of the Georgia state legislature. If they fail on this the party can go immolate itself on a golf course” – The current top comment on the PJ Media article “BREAKING: Trump Turns Himself in Again as Calls for Fulton DA Impeachment Grow.” Gas prices aren’t so bad these days.

“Beyond disgraceful; a day that will live in infamy” – Top comment on RedState.com’s article “Here It Is: The Trump Mugshot Democrats Have Been Praying For.” It takes more than just prayer, dipshits.

“Should’ve refused bail and let America see Georgia put a candidate for 2024 race in jail” – The current top comment on the Town Hall article “BREAKING: Trump Mugshot Released by Fulton County Sheriff’s Office.” We agree 110 percent. Trump absolutely should’ve done that.

“So when does Stacey Abrams get arrested for questioning election results??” – The top comment on Breitbart’s article “Donald Trump Arrested by Fulton County Sheriff’s Office.” Never. Fuck you, lol.

“Praying for our world to be saved and that evil will be taken from all our governments around the world. Praying that these ‘Evil’ people will ‘WAKE UP’ and realize that they have this one last chance to give their lives over to Jesus. For the Lord does not want none to perish. In Jesus holy name. God bless our world. Amen” – Top reply to a post on QAnon fan site GreatAwakening.win “Q – ‘Sometimes you must sacrifice yourself for the greater good… The enormity of what is coming will SHOCK THE WORLD. Pray’” written by a guy with an avatar of beatific Christian icon Pepe the Frog.

Glenn Youngkin's path to White House must plow through teachers union monopoly in education https://t.co/cs4eup6ljx

— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 25, 2023

Ukrainian forces on Friday launched at least 42 drones on Crimea and fired a missile at Moscow amid Kyiv’s ongoing Independence Day celebrations, Reuters reports citing Kremlin statements.

The missile was supposedly shot down about 200 miles outside of Moscow, but the drone swarm on Crimea may have done some damage to naval facilities in the critical Black Sea port of Sevastopol.

Former Trump Justice Department official and current co-conspirator Jeff Clark showed up for booking early Friday at the same jailhouse his Orange Master had just hours earlier, NBC reports.

https://t.co/MlIKklPSJT pic.twitter.com/Mcbf2xozsY

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 25, 2023

In a Truth Social post we might’ve embedded if not for the redundancy on our home feed, fat former President Trump on Thursday posted his mugshot with the words “ELECTION INTERFERENCE -NEVER SURRENDER!” along with his campaign website URL. Trump literally surrendered to arrest and booking for his crimes in Fulton County hours earlier. Not surrendering would have made him a fugitive from justice but also would have been tonally consistent with the message to his fans.

And he’s already selling a really cheap looking t-shirt saying the same thing… for $47.

CNN reports the above image is indeed the official mugshot of disgraced former President Trump, a historic photo that he really should’ve smiled for if he wanted to sell more official campaign merchandise with it. He’ll sell plenty, sure. But a big shit-eating grin would’ve been better.

Five-time indicted felon Donald Trump reports to the Fulton County Jail to be processed through the system–for fingerprints, mugshots, and arraignment paperwork–just as would happen to any other criminal defendant.

Donald Trump will use a commercial bail bondsman to secure his release from the Fulton County Jail.  According to the New York Times, Trump will pay Charles Shaw of Foster Bail Bonds, the bail bondsman to the stars (who get in legal trouble in Atlanta), $20,000 cash to cover his $200,000 bond.

A new Yahoo News/YouGov survey finds President Biden leading disgraced former President Trump 47 to 38 percent in a 2024 rematch “if Trump is convicted of a serious crime in the coming months.”

A writeup from Yahoo News says “support for Trump falls by 3 points, from 41% to 38%, while the overall number of voters who say they’re not sure (9%) or that they would not vote (6%) increases by 3 points” even though the crosstab data doesn’t appear to show the non-convicted Trump matchup numbers, so the race as it stands is Biden 47 – Trump 41. Among Republican respondents, Trump would still lead the GOP field 35 percent to heels-weaing Florida Govenor Ron DeSantis’s 20 percent under if convicted before the primary contest is decided – less likely than November 2024 and really would have to come before Super Tuesday on March 5th at the absolute latest.

Other findings: Large majorities, 66 percent and 70 percent, say stealing classified documents and trying to overthrow democracy are serious crimes, respectively, underscoring the potential political damage the Orange God Emperor faces in going on trial for those offenses during his campaign for “retribution.” A tenth of respondents overall and 22 percent of Trump 2020 voters said the January 6th insurrection was justified – 21 percent overall and 25 percent of Trump voters said “Not sure” which sure as shit is closer to saying “Yeah it was justified” than that it wasn’t.

“<i>GOP failing with viewers as well as voters</i>” would be how a dishonest former media columnist would characterize the ratings plummet from the first 2016 GOP presidential debate to its 2024 descendent.  Per CBS News, Wednesday night’s program shown exclusively on Fox drew 12.8 million across all platforms, about half the audience that tuned in to the first GOP debate in 2016.  [There were no GOP debates in 2012.]. During the 2020 cycle, Democratic debates averages about 11 million viewers.

How quickly the mob can turn on you:  Oliver Anthony, the bluegrass balladeer whose song “Rich Men North of Richmond” became such a conservative anthem it was the opening act for the GOP presidential debate, is now facing the conservative backlash for being too “woke” during a Fox network interview.

Anthony has frequently described his political views as centrist.  He appeared on the Republican propaganda network because the video of his song, which decries greedy, self-serving, rich leaders disconnected from their constituents, has somehow been coopted by Republicans who, lacking an iota of self-awareness, use it to point a finger at Democrats for corruption.

According to the Daily Beast, Anthony is drawing fire from far-right influencers for saying on Fox something that was too “woke” for their tastes:  “I don’t see our country lasting more than another generation the way we are headed.  We have to go back to the roots of what made this country great in the first place, which was our sense of community.  We are the melting pot of the world. And that’s what makes us strong, our diversity.  And we need to learn to harness that and appreciate it and not use it as a political tool to keep everyone separate from it.”