Eight people enter. Eight people leave. Let’s face it: nothing’s going to be won or lost at tonight’s GOP Presidential Debate, hosted by the Fox propaganda network in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. While nothing will be decided, a lot of mud will be slung, and the character of the candidates’ campaigns will emerge. Join us as we watch contestants North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, disrupter Vivek Ramaswamy and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis vie for second place after what’s-his-name.

Ep. 19 Debate Night with Donald J Trump pic.twitter.com/ayPfII48CO

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 24, 2023

Wednesday’s GOP Presidential Debate will be the first time a number of these candidates will be seen by voters nationwide–or for Doug Burgum, maybe even in his own state.  Here’s a handy guide for what can help and hurt each’s campaign, as well as a recommended “shot word” for the inevitable drinking game these jungle debates typically require.

Doug Burgum: DO say your name frequently so people figure out who you are.  DON’T put too much weight on that leg.  Shot Word:  “Energy”

Asa Hutchinson: DO stress your long-standing conservative credentials and record in Arkansas.  DON’T let the audience confuse you with Mike Pence.  Shot Word:  “Normal”

Tim Scott: DO continue kowtowing to the evangelical right to solidify that bloc of your base.  DON’T pretend the current rendition of the GOP will vote you to the top of the ticket.  Shot Word:  “God”

Trump minion Harrison Floyd, one of the Orange Warlord’s 18 co-conspirators indicted in Fulton County, Georgia this month for his involvement in the harassment campaign against innocent election worker Ruby Freeman, was arrested earlier this year after becoming violent during a confrontation with FBI agents who showed up at his home in Rockville, Maryland to serve a subpoena to testify to Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s federal grand jury investigating Floyd’s involvement in the Trump Regime’s coup attempt, the Washington Post reports.

According to an arrest affidavit, Floyd, a former Marine who hasn’t yet surrendered to jail in Fulton County, became extremely belligerent toward FBI agents who knocked on his door with a subpoena on February 23rd. “Bro I don’t even know who you are. You’re two random guys who are following me up here, into my house, with my daughter. You’re not showing me a fucking badge, you haven’t shown me shit. Get the fuck away from me,” Floyd said to the agents who dropped the subpoena and left. Floyd then chased them outside and body checked one, screaming “WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?” Floyd was then cuffed by local cops and hit with at least one federal charge.

For a network that railed on Hunter Biden for lapse tax payments, Fox certainly seems to embrace Cornell West, the declared Democratic candidate so fringy, he won’t even top Marianne Williamson in Party polls. But West–who has a documented history of tax avoidance–has mastered the political art of not answering a problematic question.  He’s got a lot to learn from the master, Jim Jordan.

In response to Mark Meadows’ motion to move his RICO trial to federal court under the provision that allows people acting “under color” of their federal office should be tried in federal court, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis noted that Meadows wasn’t acting as White House Chief of Staff and in fact, would have been violating federal law if he was acting in his capacity as Chief of Staff by meddling in Georgia’s vote count.

In his Notice, the defendant makes no mention of the fact that every single one of the activities giving rise to his indictment constitutes impermissible political activity which a Chief of Staff may not lawfully perform “under color of office.” As noted above, federal law forbids any employee of the executive branch from “us[ing] his official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election.” Federal employees are expressly prohibited from using their official title or position while participating in political activity, which is defined as activity directed toward the success or failure of a political party, partisan political group, or candidate for partisan political office

Around one hundred people were evacuated from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon due to flooding in the area after three inches of rain fell on the region near the canyon’s south entrance, the Washington Post reports.  Coconino County officials advised people to stay clear of the region around Tusayan at the South Rim because flash floods may trigger rock and mud slides.

US District Court Judge Steven Jones, an Obama appointee, has denied Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows emergency motions to nullify the Fulton County arrest warrant and to move to move the case to federal court:

Meadows alternatively requests that the Court enjoin District Attorney Fani Willis from enforcing the arrest warrant against him until after the August 28 evidentiary hearing. Doc. No. [17], 9–16. The Court denies this request. While Meadows’s imminent arrest may present an actual injury, there are strong countervailing reasons to not enjoin the state criminal proceedings[.]

Jones simply denied Meadows’ emergency motion to move everything regarding his case to federal court; Meadows can still refile the motion again at a later date under non-emergent circumstances.

Trump co-conspirators Kenneth Chesebro, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell all had their mugshots taken at the Fulton County Jail on Wednesday, with fellow RICO defendant Jenna Ellis joining the Rogue’s Gallery after she was processed.

Robert Kennedy Jr.’s effort to force Google to repost two of his videos promoting medical disinformation was shut down by a federal judge on Wednesday who said even if Kennedy’s First Amendment argument applied to the private company, it still could have removed the content because it was disinformation, Politico stated.

Kennedy wanted Google, which owns YouTube, to restore two videos he posted that falsely claimed the coronavirus vaccines have significant complications; Kennedy argued Google removed the videos at the behest of the federal government.  However, Judge Trina Thompson, a Biden appointee, dismissed the motion, noting that Google is a private company that can make its own rules regarding moderation:  “The Court finds that the First Amendment claim is unlikely to succeed on the merits because Google and YouTube are not state actors.”

“The coronavirus still poses a health risk to certain individuals, and it would not serve the public interest to let medical misinformation proliferate on YouTube,” the judge added in her opinion, saying there is a “public interest of preventing the spread of illness and medical misinformation.”

Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected Donald Trump’s motion for a stay pending his appeal of the decision in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case, where Trump claimed “absolute immunity” from all legal issues because he at one point occupied the Oval Office.  Kaplan repeatedly noted that Trump’s defense in the case has already been rejected, but Trump and his attorneys continue to lob the same faulty arguments:

Indeed, many of Mr. Trump’s points in his current motion repeat almost verbatim those offered in his prior briefing in support of his assertion that presidential immunity is a non-waivable issue of subject matter jurisdiction. But he does not address any of this Court’s reasoning in rejecting his argument. Nor does he engage in any meaningful way with this Court’s conclusion that permitting him amend to raise his purported presidential immunity defense at this late date in any event would be futile because the defense is legally insufficient. His only other argument – that the Second Circuit has jurisdiction immediately to review the Court’s decision that he waived his presidential immunity defense – is irrelevant to the question of whether he has any significant likelihood of success on appeal.

In sum, Mr. Trump has not provided a single reason for the Court to find that there is any likelihood that he will succeed on appeal, let alone a “strong showing.” Accordingly, this factor weighs against Mr. Trump.

The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, the organization tiny-minded and -shoed Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis designated to oversee the real estate controlled by the Disney corporation, anticipates spending nearly $6 million over through 2024 to defend its authoritarian dicta on the company, targeted because it stood up for LGBTQ rights threatened by the pocket autocrat.

According to Politico, the CFTOD announced at a public meeting that it has already spent more than $1.9 million in 2023 to defend DeSantis’s oppressive orders designed to punish the state’s largest employer, and it’s booking another $4.5 million for legal fees in 2024.  That compares to just $1.2 million spent by the board in 2022.

During the public meeting, community members repeatedly voiced dismay and anger at the situation caused by DeSantis’s need to enflame a culture war.  One firefighter employed by the district lamented the DeSantis board’s decision to terminate the free amusement park ticket policy for employees, saying he could not afford to take his family to the parks he protects on the low salary the DeSantis board pays first responders.

The Fulton County (Georgia) Superior Court has agreed to a $150,000 bond set for former Donald Trump lawyer and co-conspirator Rudy Giuliani in the RICO charges he shares with 18 other defendants for their effort to undermine Georgia voters in the 2020 presidential election, ABC News reports.  He subsequently surrendered to authorities at the Fulton County Jail.

To date, the bond levels set for the defendants are:

Federal prosecutors have informed Yuscil Taveras, the IT employee at Donald Trump’s Salisbury steak emporium at Mar-a-Lago who reportedly started to cooperate with the Special Counsel’s office after he ditched a Trump-paid attorney, that he is not facing perjury charges after admitting to giving false testimony previously, CBS News reports.

After receiving a target letter from Jack Smith’s office, Taveras consulted with a non-aligned federal public defender who gave him independent legal advice.  After the consult, Tavares ditched his Trump-paid lawyer, Stanley Woodward, who is also representing Trump co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira.  He then told prosecutors he lied in previous statements and he wanted to rescind inaccurate previous grand jury testimony to reflect the truth.  Prosecutors informed Taveras that he will not face charges for those lies to the grand jury.

Taveras’s situation demonstrates the complications co-defendants and his fellow co-conspirators face when he and his RICO operation are funding the lawyers representing them:  they don’t know whose best interests the lawyers are working for.  As the case with Cassidy Hutchinson, Mark Meadows’ White House assistant who cooperated with the House January 6th Select Committee who was told by her Trump-appointed lawyer to pretend to not remember details, these defendants may not be getting the best counsel.  Woodward, the Trump-paid attorney, might have racked up a perjury charge for his client if Taveras had continued to retain him.

A 57-year-old Queens, New York man wearing a homemade glove festooned with blades and knives who attacked Black Lives Matter protesters in the summer of 2020 has been convicted of myriad felonies related to those attacks and a later attempt to run demonstrators over with his SUV, ABC News reports.  Frank Cavalluzzi was convicted after a two week trial of nine counts of attempted murder in the second degree, nine counts of attempted assault in the first degree, seven counts of menacing in the second degree, criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree and reckless driving.

Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro, one of his client’s co-defendants in the Georgia RICO prosecution and as-yet-unindicted Co-conspirator 5 in Donald Trump’s federal indictment for attempting to overthrow the Constitution, has filed his motion for a speedy trial in the Fulton County case.

Such a move counters Trump’s preference to drag out his various legal entanglements for as long as possible to take them past the 2024 election, when he believes he’ll win his return to the White House so he can issue himself a pardon.  That’s a fine strategy for Trump, whose legal bills and living expenses are being paid for by his gaggle of loyal suckers.  But to the “lesser” defendants who don’t travel on their own private jets and must get on with their lives, a faster trial meets their needs better.

Ten people including Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the mercenary Wagner Group force that fought Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine,  have reportedly been killed in a small aircraft crash north of Moscow, Sky News reports.  The passenger list of the Embraer aircraft, en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg, included seven passengers and three crew.  Prigozhin’s name was listed on the passenger manifest.

Prigozhin, known as “Putin’s chef” for going from a Moscow caterer favored by the Russian leader to the head of a private military force frequently called on by Putin, attempted an apparent coup in June, sending thousands of fighters out of Ukraine toward Moscow, with Prigozhin saying he demanded better supplies and support for his fighters.

Once a headline-creating far-right muckraking operation, Project Veritas has effectively thrown in the towel, announcing that due to budget issues, it was shutting down its New York office, outsourcing content development and making its remaining few employees work from home, the Daily Beast reports.

After the board of directors ousted founder James O’Keefe for mismanagement and self-dealing, the group known for making outrageously deceptive “sting” videos continues to struggle to find donors willing to finance its stunts.  It’s dropped its staff from 43 to 18 people, and it’s essentially ceased its performance art productions.

“Project Veritas is in a tough situation,” recently-retained CEO Hannah Giles, best known for deceptively dressing like a streetwalker for one of the group’s early successes in conservative media, said. “It was made tough by O’Keefe leaving, and made doubly challenging by mismanagement before I was hired. I wish we could have kept everyone on and grown the organization but I’ve been put in the situation where I have to cut and refocus so we can get to growth. I’m not going to fight in the press over complaints from laid off staffers, I’m going to keep doing the work to rebuild this organization from the mess it was left in.”

Five-time indicted felon Donald Trump will hold a $100,000-per-plate fundraiser for his co-conspirator in his effort to undermine the presidential election Rudy Giuliani to help the disgraced former mayor of New York City pay for his lavish lifestyle and legal bills, the Newsweek reports.

Rudy, along with fellow roadkill Jenna Ellis who find themselves run over by the Trump bus, have noted that the Trump-aligned SuperPAC is not picking up their legal fees, incurred as they tried to undermine the Constitution to illegally install Trump in a second term.

The September 7th event, promoted through a Twitter post, will include a roundtable with Trump and Giuliani, during which the hardest question that will be asked is, “President Trump, how do you manage to be soooooo supreme when you’re constantly betting struck by Democrat arrows fired by Hillary Clinton and George Soros?”

After images spread around the country of mothers being pulled by state troopers out of a House committee meeting for silently holding signs decrying gun violence, a Tennessee county judge has suspended new Republican-passed state legislature rules banning signs from the gallery, the Tennessean reports.

In the aftermath of their embarrassment for expelling two young Black Democratic lawmakers for supporting a gun violence protest in the state house gallery, Tennessee Republicans passed a rule essentially banning all kinds of protests, including silent, non-disruptive demonstrations, during all state house proceedings.  This included displaying any message on a sign or a shirt that expresses an opinion even if the demonstrator doesn’t say a word or move out of their seat.

After Allison Polidor was removed from a Tennessee House Civil Justice Subcommittee hearing for clutching a sign reading “1 kid > all guns” to her chest and refusing to put it out of the sight of legislators, two other protesters were also taken out by troopers as parents of children killed in the Covenant School shooting expressed their displeasure at the committee for failing to take action on gun crime.