Cops in Pakistan have determined that an incident which sparked destructive mob attacks on 17 different Christian churches and at least 100 homes in the Punjab province last month was a false flag blasphemy started by a Muslim jerkoff who planted shredded pages of a Koran in front of the home of Christian neighbor he had suspected of having an affair with his wife, the AP reports.

It’s not clear yet what charges the cuck, Pervez Kodu, and his three brothers will face for staging the holy crime on neighbor Raja Amir (or if Amir really was banging Kodu’s wife), but it would seem like an open-and-shut case of blasphemy as Kodu himself had ripped a copy of the Koran to pin the same offense on Amir. Despite the widespread property damage no one was injured in the riots and local authorities have been handing out cash reparations to families and congregations for repairs.

For anyone wondering how Kodu came up with the idea to sic the dogs on his (possible) dog of a neighbor, look no further than literally the very next story on the “latest” queue of the AP’s home page, headlined “Clashes erupt in Sweden’s third largest city after another Quran burning and at least 3 are detained,” about the latest cry for attention in unhinged Iraqi-born Christian activist Salwan Momika’s ongoing campaign of public antagonism toward IKEAstan’s Muslim community.

Ukrainian leaders are losing their conflict with Russia, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a member of the US House of Representatives from Georgia, told US radio show host Alex Jones:https://t.co/fiiUgFmpJh pic.twitter.com/JUnzfYul5R

— TASS (@tassagency_en) September 4, 2023

Russia’s state-run TASS news agency gave a shot out to Republican Congresswoman and Georgian faun Marjorie Taylor Greene for her support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by repeating Russian propaganda.  And bonus points for doing it on fellow Putin sycophant Alex Jones’s program, Marge!

You can imagine flamingos, native of Mexico and Caribbean nations, being distributed by Hurricane Idalia around Florida as the storm swept through.  It’s not unusual for storms to disperse non-native species–birds, animals and plants–with flamingos spotted from the Gulf shore to the Atlantic in Florida.

But USA Today reports that since Idalia hit the Southeast, the pink birds have been spotted as far north as Virginia and as far inland as Ohio.  One birder in Florida was able to photograph a leg tag seen on a bird, with the information identifying the bird came from a sanctuary in the Yucatan.

Entomology student George Keller was searching for monarch butterflies in Caesar Creek State Park in Waynesville, Ohio when he spotted park employees discussing a small flock of flamingos at one of the parks ponds.  Tour guides at the Romaine National Wildlife Refuge near Charleston, South Carolina photographed two birds there last week.

Ukraine’s President Volodomir Zelenskyy said on Sunday he was replacing the nation’s minister of defense, Oleksii Reznikov, as the government begins investigations into allegations of official corruption, the New York Times reports.

Reznikov himself has not been accused of any corrupt acts, but many who work under him are being investigated for graft.  “Oleksii Reznikov has gone through more than 550 days of full-scale war,” Zelenskyy said in a statement Sunday night. “I believe that the ministry needs new approaches and other formats of interaction with both the military and society at large.”

Zelenskyy is expected to appoint Rustem Umerov, the chairman of Ukraine’s State Property Fund, a state agency that is overseeing the transfer of property that was once state-owned into private hands.

There’s been quite a bit of chatter over the last few weeks on potential efforts to remove disgraced former President Trump from the ballot in a number of states next year. Here’s Virginia Senator Tim Kaine this morning addressing a question on it from ABC’s George Stephanopoulos:

Kaine’s head is the right place, gently calling it a liberal pipe dream that nobody should be taking it too seriously, especially not at the expense of any bandwidth that could be devoted to Dems actually winning a Biden vs Trump rematch outright. Between the longshot nature of it and the sheer amount of moving parts involved across 50 states with really only a handful of them in which such an effort would even make sense to try that makes it almost pointless to even address.

That said, there are a few wild cards worth watching, starting with New Mexico. Alex Curtas, a spokesman for Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver tells Talking Points Memo they’re “aware of and are reviewing the legal theories regarding the 14th Amendment that conclude Donald Trump is ineligible to run for President. If Donald Trump files in New Mexico to run for President, we will make a determination at that time based on our understanding of New Mexico law and the requirements to run for office in New Mexico. Any determination about a specific candidate’s eligibility for the ballot will be made after the candidate filing day in February 2024”

Former Obama Administration Solicitor General and MSNBC legal analyst Neal Katyal on Sunday reported that after a grueling six mile hike through treacherous mud, he escaped the nightmarish disaster that the 2023 Burning Man Festival became when a half inch of rain poured into the normally dry and dusty northern Nevada desert basin hosting the countercultural-ish gathering.

“It was an incredibly harrowing 6 mile hike at midnight through heavy and slippery mud, but I got safely out of Burning Man. Never been before and it was fantastic (with brilliant art and fabulous music)… except the ending,” Katyal wrote on Twitter. It’s not clear if there were any other cable TV legal nerds currently or formerly stranded at the ruined gathering. Other sites are reporting that a number of “real” celebrities escaped on foot as well. A simple search on Google or other resources can return articles about those escapes for readers interested in those stories.

“I would not have nominated slates of phony electors,” hip-hop loving millennial “Republican” Vivek Ramaswamy told known Democrat propagandist George Stephanopoulos on his Sunday morning lamestream media show. “I disagree with a lot of what he did [on January 6th, 2021]… I think it’s different than saying he should be prosecuted.” When asked about President Trump’s taking of his documents from the White House, which he’s already completely exonerated for because of the Clinton socks case, the squishy RINO said “There’s different between bad judgment and a crime.”

Longtime Oregon Republican National Committeeman Solomon Yue, a Chinese-American businessman who immigrated to the US in 1980 and has since been a vocal critic of the ChiCom party who likes to throw around the nickname “Beijing Biden” to mock the 46th president’s perceived weakness against the Xi Regime, tells the Daily Beast other Republicans are accusing him of being a fifth columnist sent to spy for the commies simply because, well, he’s from China and nothing could convince the racist MAGA assholes who he thought were his friends otherwise.

“Those people try to basically attack and defame me, and I assume probably you got a call from the people in Oregon,” Yue told the Beast when they reached out for comment, adding “I actually catch Chinese spies infiltrating the RNC and the Trump campaign,” and that he’s introduced resolutions to “hold CCP China accountable for Wuhan Virus” should be proof his commitment to the GOP.

A US-based think tank determined the Russian forces fighting on the line of the Ukraine war no longer have the ability to return artillery fire in key areas at the front, a detriment that may have led to Ukrainian gains in the previous weeks, Newsweek reports.

In a report released Friday, the Institute for the Study of War said Russian commanders have long warned the Kremlin that the Russian military was losing its “counter-battery capabilities” in Ukraine.  Russian Battalion commander Alexander Khodakovsky said that his units have been under intense shelling, leading to a breakdown of battle readiness and moral, particularly because Russian forces cannot return the fire.  “Khodakovsky expressed concerns about whether distressed and exhausted Russian forces will be able to defend against a future Ukrainian offensive in this sector of the front,” the report reads.

The ISW noted that the situation is not consistent across all Russian units.  “However, Khodakovsky’s comments likely accurately reflect the situation in his limited but important sector of the frontline as well as the situation for often neglected proxy military formations such as Khodakovsky’s Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) ‘Vostok’ Battalion,”

Trump Media and Technology Group’s planned $300 million merger with the financial fund Digital World Acquisition Corp. faces a September 8th deadline to close the merger or the deal, like everything else Donald Trump touches, dies.

Per the Washington Post, DWAC has asked its shareholders for one more extension for the deal, which was originally supposed to wrap up within 12 to 18 months of the July 2021 announcement.  The merger would inject hundreds of millions of dollars into Trump’s Truth Social platform, which has been struggling to find users and advertisers, stuck with just MAGAts and Trump.

The deal has been delayed because of a number of investigations into DWAC, including accusations of a board member’s insider trading, the dismissal of the group’s CEO, and a $18 million fine from the SEC for giving false information to investors and the agency.  The current management will make a pitch on September 6th to secure the support it needs to extend the deadline.

A Florida state judge rejected a Congressional map designed by Republican Governor and GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, saying it illegally attempts to pull representation from the state’s Black voters, the Miami Herald reports.

DeSantis attempted to pass a highly manipulated Congressional map that would hand Republicans multiple seats despite earlier court orders to draw the districts to fairly represent the populations.  Second Judicial Circuit Judge J. Lee Marsh found DeSantis’s map violated the state constitution’s Fair Districts Amendments passed in 2010 through ballot measures.  DeSantis, a Yale law school alum, tried arguing that Florida’s Fair Districts Amendments violated the Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution.

While Marsh’s decision will only impact his district in the Panhandle, but it could be used by other plaintiffs in multiple suits around the state making the same case against DeSantis’s refusal to follow court orders regarding their districts.

After noting Florida Governor Ron DeSantis chose not to meet with the President of the United States while he toured hurricane damage in Florida on Saturday, Joe Biden said his message to DeSantis is simple: “We’re gonna take care of Florida,” like the President of the United States should.

No self-glorification.  No demand for political worship from a leader to a subordinate.  No insane boast about “the best response to a hurricane ever, in the history of our country, people are saying.  No one’s seen anything like this.” No adding on “again” to note how many times the Biden Administration has had to aid Floridians after one disaster or another, from hurricane recovery to civil rights violations ordered by the governor. Just calm, quiet competent governance.  From Biden, I mean.  DeSantis, on the other hand, is being a cowardly snowflake.

A 54-year-old Delaware man received a $50,000 judgment with the Delaware State Police for violating his civil rights after state officers cited him for flipping the bird to officers and then standing on the roadsign with a sign warning of an upcoming speed trap.

Per NBC News, three officers stopped as Jonathan Guessford stood on the side of the road holding a hand-written sign that read “Radar Ahead!”  The officers warned Guessford that he could be cited for impeding traffic, but Guessford rebutted that he was on the side of the road.  As a car drove by, Guessford raised his sign to inform the driver, prompting one of the officers to grab the sign and tear it in half.

The officers released Guessford without a citation, but as he drove away, he gave the three troopers the Finger.  The officers stopped him again–one of the patrol cars recorded exceeding 100 m.p.h. in a 55 m.p.h. zone to catch Guessford–citing him for “using an improper turn signal.” The officers are heard laughing on their bodycam audio about hanging the charge on Guessford; that charge was later dropped.  One of the officers that the trio could arrest Guessford for disorderly conduct, confiscate his car, and send his child to a foster home.

With a slow-moving storm crossing the area, dumping water on traditionally arid lands, authorities have told the 73,000 people attending the Burning Man festival that they must shelter in place until the risk of mudslides and washed-out roads passes, USA Today reports.

As of 5:00 a.m. local time, the exit gates to the 4,000 acre festival grounds were closed, and organizers informed attendees to shelter in place as well as to prepare for an extended stay.  “If you are in [Black Rock City], conserve food and water, shelter in a warm space.”  A small airport nearby was also shut down.

The road closure means service contractors cannot reach the festival site, and some trash facilities and port-a-potties have started to fill, leading many attendees to start comparing this year’s Burning Man to the disastrous Fyre Festival.  Scheduled to end Monday, the festival got off to a rocky start when organizers kept the festival grounds closed to early arrivals last week due to the remnants of Hurricane Hilary sweeping through the region.

Hospitalizations for Covid have started to increase in the United States as the nation enters the last holiday weekend of summer, jumping nearly 19% from the previous week, with public health authorities fearing rapid spread of the virus with a new school year starting, CBS News reports.

More than 15,000 people were hospitalized for Covid last week, an 87% increase from the previous month, but still only a third of the number of hospitalizations a year before.  Officials forecast that the spread of the virus will continue through September, with some predicting as many as 9,700 daily hospital admissions by the beginning of October.

“NASA’s LRO – the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter – spacecraft imaged a new crater on the Moon’s surface that is likely the impact site of Russia’s Luna 25 mission. During its descent, Luna 25 experienced an anomaly that caused it to impact the surface of the Moon on Aug 19.”

“Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, published an estimate of the impact point on Aug 21. The LROC (short for LRO Camera) team and the LRO Mission Operations team were able to design and send commands to the LRO spacecraft on Aug 22 to capture images of the site. The sequence began on Aug 24 at 2:15 pm EDT (18:15 UTC) and was completed about four hours later, at 6:12 pm EDT (22:12 UTC). The LROC team compared images taken prior to the impact time and the sequence taken after and found a small new crater… The new crater is about 10 meters in diameter and is located at 57.865 degrees south latitude and 61.360 degrees east longitude at an elevation of about minus 360 meters. The impact point was on the steep (greater than 20-degree grade) inner rim of Pontécoulant G crater, about 400 kilometers short of Luna 25’s intended landing point at 69.545 degrees south, 43.544 degrees east,” says NASA in a statement so detailed it could not be anything other than shade and lots of it for rival Russian space agency Roscosmos, scarcely concealing mockery of last month’s failed landing, which came just days before India’s successful Chandrayaan 3 mission.

• 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.