As it was preparing to enter into an orbit for its planned lunar landing, the Russian unmanned Luna 25 lander experienced an “emergency situation on board” and its control crew is reviewing the situation to see if the lander can make another attempt, CNN reports.

“During the operation, an emergency situation occurred on board the automatic station, which did not allow the maneuver to be performed with the specified parameters,” Roscosmos said in a Telegram post.  “The management team is currently analyzing the situation.”

The mission would have been the first Russian craft successfully landing on the Moon since 1976, and it was thought to be a needed publicity boost for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who experienced a faltering invasion in Ukraine and a military coup attempt.

Two decisions handed down Friday confirmed voting rights advocates’ arguments that Republican-pushed laws in Georgia and Texas instituted unnecessary hurdles and barriers to harass voters.  Per CNN, Trump-appointed federal judge J.P. Boulee struck down two aspects of a controversial Georgia law:  rejecting portions that bar people from handing out food and water to people in line to vote, and another requiring voters to write their birthdates on the exterior of the ballot envelope.

“Given the evidence presented, the Court is simply not persuaded that eliminating the Birthdate Requirement risks introducing fraudulent ballots or threatens election integrity,” Boulee said, essentially saying the Republican state lawyers arguing the case didn’t show people missing yet-another step in a secure process intended to defraud the election.

In Texas, Judge Xavier Rodriguez, a GW Bush-appointee, struck down a portion of the state’s much-derided SB1 law that instituted overly-strict requirements for voters to complete information on mail-in ballot requests and on the absentee ballots themselves.  Plaintiffs successfully argued that trivial errors should not cause an otherwise-legitimate ballot to be voided.  In 2022, more than 40,000 ballots were nullified due to voters incorrectly filling in their information on mail-in voting documents.

Katie Rinderle, a veteran teacher with 10 years’ experience in the Atlanta suburb of Cobb County was fired by the county school district for reading a book supporting children’s journey to coming out as LGBTQ, the Associated Press reports, with the school board saying her decision to read the book to her fifth-grade class violated district policy.

Last March, Rinderle read “My Shadow Is Purple” by Scott Stuart at Due West Elementary School.  The picture book is one of a series of books by Stuart, written for children betwen the ages of four- to eight-years-old that describes a child’s understanding of gender.   The child notes their mother has a shadow “as pink as a blossoming cherry” and their father’s is “blue as a berry,” but theirs is purple.

The board made the decision, on a Party-line 4-3 vote, even though a panel of education professionals including retired teachers from the district recommended against firing Rinderle.  Cobb County School District has a policy against teachers “espousing personal political beliefs.”  The district’s lawyer said “the Cobb County School District is very serious about the classroom being a neutral place for students to learn. A one-sided viewpoint on political, religious or social beliefs does not belong in our classrooms.”

Fires are sweeping through western Canada, with official in British Columbia declaring a state of emergency an at least 15,000 people ordered evacuated, while on Maui, search crews found more bodies in the ashes, bringing the death toll to 114.

The Washington Post reports the Canadian town of Kelowna, with 150,000 residents, has been placed under a state of emergency as fires burn on the outskirts of the city.   “We are facing the worst wildfire season in our province’s history,” British Columbia’s Premier David Eby said Friday. “In just the last 24 hours, the situation has evolved and deteriorated quite rapidly. … If you get an evacuation order, please leave,” he said. “The situation is unpredictable right now, and there are certainly difficult days ahead.”

With the wildfires on the island nearly completely contained, officials on Maui are now sifting through the rubble attempting to identify bodies, per CBS News.  In an address Friday, Democratic Hawaii Governor Josh Green said more than 2,200 had been destroyed and other 500 damaged, with between 1,100 and 1,300 unaccounted for.

• Trump’s irrefutable proof will join his health plan, his wife’s visa explanation and his infrastructure program as things we’ll never see.
• Something feels different about the Fulton County indictments.  While I know there will be more federal indictments from Jack Smith for January 6th, the Fani Willis-led indictments are the first judicial action that’s summarized the points of the plot to overturn the voters’ choice.  
• Is Botox a performance-enhancing drug for professional poker players?
• George W. Bush and Dick Cheney should have been indicted for misleading the world before the Iraq invasion.  Reagan before them.  Nixon before them.  And, likely, at least a handful before him.  I honestly don’t know if any of them would’ve been convicted, but democracy demanded the trials.  We’re at this point because we didn’t do the hard things before.
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CXXXIV”

Speaking to the Washington Post, the leader of the far-right “Alternative for Germany” party credits disgraced former US President Trump’s “style of communication” in its recent electoral successes.

“We have become clearer in what we what we want and what we think. We have more of the Trumpian style of communication,” says AfD’s top candidate Maximilian Krah.

A mysterious, since-deleted tweet yesterday from the official Project Veritas account signaled something was happening:  “SOS Hannah Giles just fired us all.”  Now it seems to be true:  the right-wing muckraking organization laid off 25 employees this week, leaving its staff at just 18 people, the Daily Beast reports.

You may remember Giles dressed as a streetwalker with James O’Keefe as her fake-fur wearing pimp, in promo shots for their groundbreaking scam that dismantled ACORN, a community rights group.  After O’Keefe was ousted from the group for his financial mismanagement, the board installed Giles as CEO.  With her at the helm, fundraising plummeted, and so, staff gotta go.

Sheesh, Rudy Giuliani has become a caricature of himself:

They were real criminals.  They really murdered people.  That’s what RICO is for.  It isn’t necessarily for organized crime, but it’s for a major criminal enterprise. This is hardly that.  This is an election fraud argument.  [Old man gurgles.]  …totally inconsistent with RICO.  RICO is for serious, long-term criminal organizations. They can be political corruption.  The Biden Family is a perfect RICO case!

The animated hair dye dispenser demonstrates why his law license was pulled:  Giuliani used RICO to prosecute “white collar” criminals, too, such as Michael Milken, who didn’t murder anybody.  And you actually need evidence–not GOP accusations–to indict people.

A Virginia GOP Committee member looks to have a habit of putting on outrageous and vulgar displays insulting President Joe Biden looks to have taken his schtick a step too far with his latest stunt.

According to MeidasTouch, Ron Hedlund, a member of the Soviet-sounding Virginia GOP Central Committee, showed up at a youth baseball game with a pickup truck featuring a drawing of an 18-foot penis on the side.  While the kids played the game, he inflated a towering “air man” from the bed of the truck reading “Fuck Biden” down the side.

Hedlund has a history of profane displays in public places.  He was detained by state police for driving onto a restricted area of the Virginia War Memorial with a “Fuck Biden” sign in the bed of the truck during a 2021 Veterans Day ceremony.  And curiously, a zombie Instagram account for @ronhedlund shows a profile pic of the man during the January 6th insurrection, but no media report his participation or arrest.

The FBI will assist state and local law enforcement officials investigating the multitude of threats that have been made against the grand jurors who indicted the previously-indicted Donald Trump and 18 of his co-conspirators, the Washington Post reports.  The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office said its investigators are working with colleagues from local and state agencies, including the Atlanta Metro Police to check into each threat and provide protection to the members of the grand jury.

A member of the Proud Boys from Florida has disappeared days before he is to be sentenced for his role in the January 6th Republican-led domestic terrorist attack on Congress, prompting officials to start a manhunt for the fugitive, the Associated Press reports.

Naples resident Christopher Worrell, 52, had been on house arrest after being found guilty of various crimes for using pepper spray on police officers protecting the Capitol. Worrell was put on house arrest after being released from prison when a judge found his civil rights had been violated because he received poor medical care for a broken hand.  Prosecutors were seeking a 14-year prison sentence.

Block is going to be deleted as a “feature”, except for DMs

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 18, 2023

A morning promise from X-generator and Twitter killer Elon Musk to remove the block function on Twitter has been fact-checked by his own platform. Blocking someone prevents them from viewing your content and commenting on your content; muting someone allows them to see and comment on your content, but you don’t see their posts on any thread.  By not allowing people to block people from viewing content, Musk will encourage harassment of users by trolls and stalkers, which is why the feature is mandated by app stores.

Liberty-eliminating Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis held a 30-minute meeting with democracy-defending Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp Friday, as DeSantis attempts to develop relationships with other Republican governors Donald Trump has attacked.

According to Politico, DeSantis has also cozied up to GOPers Kim Reynolds of Iowa and John Sununu in New Hampshire, both early primary states where a governor’s endorsement goes a long way.  Sources told Politico DeSantis did not solicit, nor even discuss, an endorsement from Kemp.

DeSantis, at this point, is simply trying not to lose.  When Trump’s legal problems finally exclude him from consideration for the nomination, DeSantis wants to have allies in the smoky back rooms of the Republican National Convention to push his nomination.

An aide impeached Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton referred to as his “second son” has emerged as a key part in the impeachment of the beleaguered Texas Republican, having witnessed Paxton planning the renovation of his house that was allegedly paid for by a wealthy benefactor, the Texas Tribune reports.

Drew Wicker was present during a meeting between Paxton and a home renovation contractor where Paxton was gushing of $20,000 of marble countertops that he wanted installed in his home.  The contractor repeated noted he’d have to talk with “Nate”–believed to be real estate developer Nate Paul, who had cases before the Attorney General’s office–implying he would have to get Paul’s approval for the cost.  Wicker took the statements to mean Paul would be the one picking up the tab, and he asked Paxton about it later; Paxton assured the aide he would be paying for the renovation.

That doesn’t seem to be what happened, though.  According to documents filed in Paxton’s impeachment, Paxton didn’t pay a dollar for the granite countertops or for tens of thousands of dollars of other renovations done to the house owned by Paxton and his wife, a Republican Texas state senator. 

Republican Florida performance artist and dirty diaper baby Matt Gaetz, somehow still a member of Congress after reportedly hiring the services of trafficked underage sex workers, has introduced a censure of federal district court Judge Tanya Chutkan who is overseeing Donald Trump’s federal case regarding his attempt to undermine the Constitution.  The measure also calls for the further weaponization of House committees by the GOP, demanding an investigation into Chutkan so that Republican members of the House can attempt to harass, intimidate and slander her.

According to Forbes, Gaetz is upset about a number of things relating to Chutkan’s independence as a jurist and her past statements, saying that she’s obviously prejudiced against Trump and therefore should have recused herself from the trial, a demand he’s never made about conservative judges and justices who have stated defined opinions about cases they adjudicate.  Gaetz is particularly upset about comments by Chutkan that called comparisons between January 6th Republican-led domestic terrorist attack on Congress and the 2020 BLM protests “a false equivalency” and that such comparison “ignores a very real danger that the January 6 riot posed to the foundation of our democracy.”

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko told his state-run television network that he would not hesitate to use the nuclear weapons Russia deployed in his country starting in June if he believes the nation is being attacked, UPI reports.  Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the delivery of tactical nuclear missiles to Belarus as a reward to Lukashenko for supporting Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Belarus became home to thousands of Wagner mercenaries after a stalled coup sent Putin temporarily into hiding.  Using Belarus as a jumping-off point, Wagner fighters have transited a narrow strip of land between Poland and Lithuania to get to an isolated outcrop of Russian territory on the Baltic Sea.

Polish and Lithuanian officials have expressed concerns that the Wagner troops are infiltrating their nations.  One possible concern is that the Wagner troops could be used to instigate a false flag attack on Russia or Belarusian territory, thereby giving the Kremlin an excuse for military action against its NATO neighbors.

Classic pop music performer and right-wing tool Kid Rock will likely be spared becoming the target of the hypocritical rightwing even though he was photographed at a Nashville concert Thursday night drinking a (gasp!) Bud Light, the trans-friendly brand he shot up with a semiautomatic rifle to show how manly he is.  He did, after all, show his performative violence by blasting cases of the beer to placate the violence-loving Trump supporters who constantly question their own sexuality when faced with LGBTQ issues.

Unsurprisingly, GOP presidential nomination frontrunner with multiple criminal indictments, Donald Trump, will skip Wednesday’s televised Republican candidates debate to do a sit-down interview with freelance liar and misogynist Tucker Carlson online, the New York Times reports.

Too much of a coward to face the multitude of accusations about poor management, high deficits, skyrocketing federal debt and a lack of success at any of his key goals (except a tax break for himself), Trump will seek to avoid answering for his poor performance in office and his criminal activity out of it.

Angry that a memo leaked detailing his conflict of interest between his position on the state ethics committee and a $400,000 per year job being Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s “muscle” harassing Disney, Glen Gilzean accused the committee he once led of “weaponizing” the information to make him look bad, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

“[I]t is deeply inappropriate that your legal opinion was disseminated to the press at the same time you sent it to me,” Gilzean wrote in the email whining to the commission. “As far as I’m concerned, someone on your staff knowingly leaked this memo and weaponized it, how did this happen?”  The memo, in fact, had not been leaked and was released pursuant to a public records request from a journalist.

Gilzean was chosen by DeSantis to head the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, the new organization DeSantis created to replace the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the entity that provided oversight of Disney development, because Disney opposed DeSantis’s anti-LGBTQ policies that criminalize discussing non-straight Christian relationships and target minorities for scorn and violence.  Gilzean, who led the non-partisan ethics committee–claimed he did not know he could not take a public sector job and remain on the volunteer ethics committee, even though the rules for members on the committee expressly bans it.