“They are trying to deflect blame from the FBI, Democrats, and Biden onto Trump. Also, the original story was Facebook tipped them off. Also, someone explain to me how small local sheriff departments, with no budget, can send two cops out to similar situations and resolve 99% of them peacefully, but the FBI needs to send 50 agents that look like shock troops?” – The current top comment on the Gateway Pundit article “Truth Social Tipped FBI to *Armed* Utah Man Killed in Pre-Dawn Raid,” picked up from the CNBC report how the feds found out about Craig Robertson.

This guy’s pretty butthurt. Who’s “trying to deflect blame”? That was awesome that the FBI helped the scumbag find out after he fucked around. They deserve credit. But the best part is this asshole crying that “the original story was Facebook tipped them off,” as if it has to be mutually exclusive, and that he wasn’t simply also posting the same shit on Facebook who tipped off the FBI too. The criminal complaint against Robertson mentioned a social media handle, @winston4eagles, but not the platform. Surprise, surprise, there’s a locked Truth Social profile “@winston4eagles,” which very strongly the platform took some kind of action against him. It all adds up to a Trump property selling out one of his fans so he be could tracked down and shot dead by federal law enforcement.

Former professional football quarterback Brett Favre will remain on a civil lawsuit seeking the recovery of money swindled from the state of Mississippi’s welfare fund that went into the Hall of Famer’s pocket or into a renovated volleyball arena where his daughter started college, the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson reports.

Favre got the state to spend around $5 million from the state Temporary Assistance to Needy Families fund to pay for a new volleyball arena at the University of Southern Mississippi, where his daughter, a college volleyball player, enrolled; Favre’s daughter, Breleigh, transferred to Louisiana State for her senior year.  Favre was also paid more than $1 million from the same fund to make motivational speeches; there’s no record of Favre making a speech as contracted by the state.

The logic doesn’t work.  The facts are all off.  And the style just screams that she really wants to be an effective storyteller like her Democratic colleague from California Katie Porter, but she just fails so miserably.

“This is corruption on the highest level and it cannot be ignored,” drones Georgia Republican animated talking point Marjorie Taylor Greene.  “But for people who don’t understand, like, why are we constantly fighting this fight in Washington, DC, let’s break it down to where it matters.  Y’know, take for example a single mom that is just trying to feed her kids. When she gets to the grocery store, she can hardly afford cereal and bread.  Do you wanna know why?  Because those products are made with grain, and let’s look at where the breadbasket of the world is.  That is in Ukraine.  [Editor’s note:  the US typically produces about 20% more wheat than Ukraine, and US grain producers won’t like Marge denigrating their work.]. So all of America’s is compromised and this comes all the way down to consumers like a single mom who can’t afford to buy cereal and bread because the price of bread and grain has gone up so much with this war in Ukraine, Ukraine.  You see, you have to connect the dots and this is how it works and this is why we have to do everything we can to impeach Joe Biden because he’s a criminal and he, we have all the evidence that we need to do it and then also do everything we can to turn our country around because Democrat policies are destroying our nation.”

Three Michigan Republicans will face charges in two separate intra-party altercations that went down during state GOP meetings at the Doherty Hotel in Clare, Michigan in April (the trashy Karen confrontation) and July (the balls kicking incident), the Detroit News reports.

Kalamazoo County GOP chair Kelly Sackett and the Macomb County GOP secretary Melissa Pehlis got into a brief shoving match during the state GOP’s meeting over some sort of pissing contest about the Kalamazoo Party’s internal operations. “I felt like I had a target on my back. She was in my face with a cigarette and I had warned her to get that cigarette out of my face. And she didn’t, and it was extremely close to my face, and I felt like I was going to be burned. And quite honestly, the phone was in the hand with the cigarette, so that’s why the phone went flying, it was the cigarette that I hit, because it was right over here by my face,” Sackett told Fox 2 Detroit after the incident.

Clare County Prosecutor Michelle Ambrozaitis charged Pehlis and Sackett Disturbing the Peace and Disorderly Jostling over that incident. Balls-kicker Wayne County GOP member James Chapman was hit with Disturbing the Peace and Assault and Battery for his July balls-kicking of Clare County GOP chairman Mark DeYoung during a meeting of the state party’s executive committee that had been closed to regular members. All charges are misdemeanors. As stupid and embarrassing as all this shit is, it’s still the least of the Michigan GOP’s problems these days given the higher-level officials facing felonies for stealing Dominion voting machines in a stupid attempt to prove they were “hacked” in the 2020 election as well as the 16 MAGA assholes who signed fake electoral votes for Trump. Oh and the state party is essentially broke and its leader is a Q-pilled conspiracy freak.

Florida Man and repeated impeacher Greg Steube thinks he’s got Joe Biden this time, claiming a multitude of evidence that no one else has apparently seen that links the President of the United States to a drug and prostitution money laundering scheme or somesuch nonsense he has no evidence of.  One of the January 6th Congressional insurrectionists who tried to delay the certification of Biden’s election victory, Steube could be scared that the Jack Smith probe is circling in on him.

And tomorrow I intend to file impeachment resolution on Joe Biden for bribery, ah, for extortion, obstruction of justice, fraud, financial involvement in drugs and prostitution, all of these things you just touched on, the highlights of some of those, well, we have all the facts in evidence now and at the beginning of this Congress, Republicans wanted to make sure we did the investigation, that we got the information before the American people.  You have witness testimony.  You have financial records.  You have the laptop.  You have text messages.  You have phone conversations.  You have all of this evidence now to corroborate and support impeachment articles against the president and I intend on filing those tomorrow on all of these corruption and bribery charges that ah, you just hit the top of the iceberg on.

Two law professors, both respected members of the Federalist Society, debuted a piece scheduled for publication in the University of Pennsylvania law journal arguing that Donald Trump and others are ineligible for public office due to their efforts to undermine the Constitution by obstructing the transfer of power.

Referring to the 14th Amendment’s Section 3, William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas argue, “It is unquestionably fair to say that Trump ‘engaged in’ the Jan. 6 insurrection through both his actions and his inaction,” according to a New York Times summary.  Those acts, the pair say, make him and others shown to participate in the activities that led up to the insurrection ineligible for public office, whether they physically stormed the Capitol or not.  The abstract summarizes, “And in particular, it disqualifies former President Donald Trump, and potentially many others, because of their participation in the attempted overthrow of the 2020 presidential election.”

The paper is not a court order or decision, but the fact that two respected members of the Federalist Society–the Leo Leonard controlled conservative judge funnel from which Republicans pluck their judicial nominees–have such a detailed research paper on the subject could influence the group’s members on the bench.

The New York Times reports that Siamak Namazi, Emad Sharghi and Morad Tahbaz, as well as an unnamed Iranian-American businessman and a previously-unreported unnamed Iranian-American scientist, believed to be a woman, will be allowed to return in the coming weeks, with all of them now removed from Iranian prisons and staying in hotels.

In exchange, once the five are back in the US, the federal government will release a handful of imprisoned felons convicted of violating sanctions against Iran, and it will free up $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds that will be managed by the central bank of Qatar which Iran can use on humanitarian goods like food, clothing and medicines.

Americano Media, the Miami-based media company founded by Trump supporter Ivan Garcia-Hidalgo that hoped to become the Spanish-language version of Fox News needs to find a new investor soon or it will have to shut down, reports the Miami Herald.  Broadcast on a handful of television stations in Florida and California, with a simulcast on SiriusXM Radio, Americano Media staff reportedly have not been paid since May.

“Americano Media is establishing a new multi-media platform during an historic recession, where attracting investment has turned out to be more challenging than we expected,” Garcia-Hidalgo said in a brief statement sent to the Herald. “As a result, our company grew faster than our fundraising. Like any startup, we are making adjustments to move forward. We are committed to paying our obligations, especially back salaries of our team, and to moving forward resolutely into the future.”

Concurring with the Biden Administration, the US Supreme Court rejected an agreement with Purdue Pharma that proposed to settle all outstanding claims regarding its fraudulent marketing of the opioid Oxycontin, the Associated Press reports.

The agreement to end the class action suit would have shielded the controlling Sackler family from civil lawsuits regarding the wealth they amassed while making people addicts, and it would have allowed the company to reform after emerging from bankruptcy protections.  Both the administration and the Justice Department objected to the amnesty the deal gave the Sacklers.

In an interview with local media outlet West Virginia Metro News, Senator Joe Manchin said that he is “seriously” considering leaving the Democratic Party and running as an independent in the 2024 election, although he didn’t specify if his run would be for president or senator.

“I would think very seriously about that. I’ve been thinking about that for quite some time. I haven’t made any decisions whatsoever on any of my political direction,” Manchin told the outlet. “I want to make sure my voice is truly an independent voice, when I’m speaking I’m speaking about the good the Republicans do and the good the Democrats continue to do.”

Manchin said he doesn’t believe a third party presidential candidate would disrupt American democracy.  “The bottom line is–will the middle speak up? Does the middle have a voice? If we can create a movement that people understand that we could have a voice. We could make a big, big splash and maybe bring the traditional parties, the Democratic and Republican Party, back to what they should be today but they’ve gone off the Richter Scale, both sides.”

New York Republican Nick Langworthy got immediately fact-checked on Fox–I know, right?–about the testimony by Hunter Biden’s former business partner, convicted felon Devon Archer and what was actually said.

When asked about the lack of any evidence pointing to Joe Biden taking bribes to change US policy, Langworthy was nonplussed, utilizing goalpost-moving to claim that what the GOP claimed about Biden being corrupt wasn’t actually what the GOP claimed:

Zoe Tillman of Bloomberg reports Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office has requested a January 2nd, 2024 start date for the prosecution of Donald Trump on the charges relating to his attempts to undermine the Constitution by overthrowing his legitimately-elected successor, Joe Biden, in January 2021.

Four Americans held on spurious charges in Iran have been moved from a prison to a halfway house in apparent preparation for a prison swap with the United States, CNN reports.  Siamak Namazi, Emad Sharghi, Morad Tahbaz, and a fourth unnamed person were moved from Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison to a local hotel, a move the government has made to other foreign prisoners set for exchange.

Using Qatar and Oman as intermediaries, the Biden Administration has been working for years to free the prisoners.  Namazi has been held since 2015; Shargi, a businessman, and Tahbaz, an environmentalist, were detained in 2018.  It’s unclear what and/or who will be exchanged for the four people, but in previous arrangements, the US has released incarcerated individuals as well as released Iranian assets frozen in the United States.

In MAGA World, being a sexist pig is a feature, not a bug.  Donald Trump lawyer Boris Epshteyn, possibly Co-conspirator 6 in Trump’s plot to undermine the Constitution, groped a woman and her sister at a Scottsdale bar in 2021, the Arizona Republic reports.  The advisor for the court-designated rapist allegedly would not stop touching and pestering the two women in the early morning hours of October 10, 2021 at the Bottled Blonde nightclub.

“All night he’s been touching me and my sister, especially my sister. He kind of cornered her and grabbed her and is just making her super uncomfortable,” the 27-year-old victim told police, as recorded on the officer’s bodycam.

Epshteyn was charged with “assault touching,” “attempted sexual abuse,” “harassment-repeated acts” and “disorderly conduct-disruptive behavior or fighting.” In a plea deal, he pleaded guilty in to disorderly conduct and served probation, with the plea set aside–essentially expunged from his record–in January 2023.

Indicted felons Donald Trump and his henchman Waltine Nauta pleaded not guilty to the additional charges added in a superseding indictment issued by Special Counsel Jack Smith’s grand jury in Florida, ABC News reports.

The third co-conspirator in the Mar-a-Lago documents scheme, Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira could not enter a plea because he still has not found suitable counsel to represent him in the federal court in Florida.

With lips firmly planted on Donald Trump’s backside, Florida Republican Anthony Sabatini has ridden his short MAGA-surfing political career from a rising wave in 2018 to a spectacular failure in a 2022 Congressional campaign.  But as the Daily Beast outlines, Sabatini’s credentials are at “Baruch College volleyball player”-level fraud, but it appears to be approaching it.

The 34-year-old University of Florida alum–who got degrees from both the undergraduate school and its law school–appears to have lifted entire portions of the paper entitled “A Profound Logic of The Blood” from Wikipedia and other sources.  The very first paragraph of the paper, available for review on a University of Florida online archive online, was lifted, nearly verbatim, from a 1992 academic review from the University of California.

Another paragraph of the paper replicates, nearly identically, a passage from Wikipedia, with only reordering phrases and inserted superfluous adjectives noted as changes.  Reviewing the work, a Stanford University professor ran the paper through services that check for plagiarism, finding “egregious” copying and duplication of others’ works without credit.

Cautious about the influx of mercenary Russian Wagner troops into neighboring Belarus, Poland announced it will deploy at least 10,000 troops along its 250-mile border with the Kremlin ally, ABC News reports.  It will start with shifting 2,000 troops to the region in the next two weeks.

The repositioning of Polish troops comes as NATO forces monitor the movement of Wagner troops between Belarus and the Kaliningrad Oblast, a disconnected portion of Russian territory sitting on the Baltic Sea but surrounded entirely by Poland and Lithuania. Polish and Lithuanian officials have expressed concern that Wagner troops were using their transit of the Suwalki Gap to infiltrate troops into the NATO countries.

First comes the form to complete listing the names you will allow your child to be called, including acceptable nicknames and reasons why their name may have changed.  Next up:  a list of books you must individually mark to allow your child to check them out of the school library.  Later:  a lengthy form listing what treatments you permit the on-site nurse or medical staff from aspirin to calamine lotion to bandages; it’s unclear if gunshot wounds were included.

According to the New York Times, Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’s culture war on anything that doesn’t comport with a straight, white, “Christian” male’s view of American history has led to millions of parents across the state now faced with dozens of forms to dictate specific things schools are allowed to do.

The problems are obvious and multiple:  schools must now put systems in place to accommodate myriad parental instructions, specific to each child, instantaneously or the school faces potential legal action by the parent, thanks to DeSantis’s new parental rights policy. 

Since he came to the Supreme Court under fire for various accusations of malfeasance, Clarence Thomas  has not slowed down on his grift and perceived corruption.  According to ProPublica, the list of gifts goes way beyond the $5 million allegedly given to him by sponsor Harlan Crow.

“At least 38 destination vacations, including a previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas; 26 private jet flights, plus an additional eight by helicopter; a dozen VIP passes to professional and college sporting events, typically perched in the skybox; two stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica; and one standing invitation to an uber-exclusive golf club overlooking the Atlantic coast,” the non-profit outlet wrote Thursday.

Thomas other patrons include oil baron Paul “Tony” Novelly, AutoNation and Waste Management bigwig H. Wayne Huizenga, and Teton Capital Chair David Sokol.  Each one of their business were directly or indirectly impacted by cases Thomas voted on from the bench.

At least 36 people have been killed in the raging wildlifes that struck the Hawaiian island of Maui on Thursday and consumed the former royal capital of Lahaina, the New York Times reports.