City officials have removed the glowing, pulsating “X” Elon Musk erected above the office building that was once home to a popular social media platform, another public humiliation for the wannabe oligarch who purchased Twitter on a whim last year, CNBC reports.

After being stopped from removing the Twitter sign on the side of the building because he lacked the proper permits, Musk left a half-finished job streetside to order, in a Trumpian way, a new garish sign erected on the roof of the building.  The large “X” was installed over the weekend, but workers were seen on the scene Monday morning dismantling it.

Asked if the latest dud of a Blockbuster Star Witness in the GOP attempt to slander Joe Biden, Devon Archer, corroborated various unfounded claims Republicans sling around recklessly about alleged bribes Joe Biden took, QAnon Congressman Andy Biggs of Arizona sounded downtrodden.  “He didn’t know anything about it,” Biggs said as he left the hearing.  When asked specifically about information related on an unverified FBI Form 1023 that transcribes a claim from an anonymous witness, Biggs was also out of luck:  “The 1023?  He didn’t know anything about that.”

President Joe Biden announced that the headquarters for the US Space Command will stay in Colorado, reversing an order by Donald Trump to move the entire operation to Alabama after Trump had a hissy fit when Democrats dominated the 2020 elections in the state, the Associated Press reports.

During a 2020 campaign rally in Colorado Springs, Trump had promised that the commands for the Space Force and other non-terrestrial defense efforts would stay in Colorado, home of the Air Force Academy, NORAD command and nearly two dozen space-centered projects and bases.  The Colorado location was preferred by the commander of US Space Command, General James Dickinson, who cited its altitude, the comparatively consistent weather, the fact that it doesn’t get pummelled by hurricanes periodically, and the security risk a move to Alabama would cause to the readiness of the command as some of the myriad reasons to stay in Colorado.

However, after Democrats dominated the 2020 election in the state with just 42% of Coloradans voting for Trump as he lost the state for the second time.  Democrats also held the Senate seat and their majority in the Congressional delegation as well as picked up a state senate seat.

In an grievance-filled 780-word op-ed submitted to Newsweek, indicted felon Donald Trump rehashes a series of grievances regarding the 2016–not 2020–election, again claiming the “Deep State” acted against his candidacy and that those forces–led by Hillary Clinton and James Comey–are again out to thwart his fourth attempt at the presidency.

Quoting the Fox propaganda network to characterize investigations into his campaign’s admitted connections and discussions with Russia regarding ways in which the Kremlin could help his campaign, Trump claims Barack Obama and Joe Biden attempted to “villify” him through these accusations.  (Note that Fox used the word “villify” while Trump attempts to falsely shape the term to be Obama’s and Biden’s.  Trump continues his lies and misstatements throughout the piece, even mischaracterizing completed investigations by his own political appointees that found no malfeasance into the investigations into Trump’s actions.  Trump’s ongoing delusions have created a history in which his actions that actually happened no longer exist and now he is but an innocent victim of a plot to undermine him for no reason other than his proclaimed love of the American people.

“The Durham Report proves that the key figures involved knew from the start that the Russia Collusion conspiracy theory was a lie. The FBI launched their witch hunt without a scrap of legitimate evidence—and when they came upon exonerating information time after time, they covered it up and kept the hoax going forward,” Trump writes.

A Super PAC supporting the doomed candidacy of Democratic-hopeful and Republican show pony Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. collected nearly $6.5 million in July, with nearly $5 million of it collected as the candidate testified before a House committee where Republicans propped up the anti-vax conspiracy theorist as a viable alternative to President Joe Biden.

As Politico notes, American Values 2024 has received significant support from people who have supported Donald Trump’s candidacy in the past, a sign that Republicans hope RFK Jr.’s visibility will chip away at the incumbent’s support within the Democratic Party, likely hoping to reduce turnout for Biden in the general election, as happened when disaffected Bernie voters failed to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

“The fact that Kennedy gets so much bipartisan support tells me two things: that he’s the one candidate who can unite the country and root out corruption and that he’s the one Democrat who can win in the general election,” Tim Mellon, a Trump supporter in the past two election cycles, said in the press release.  Mellon also provided more than 95% of the donations to Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s $54 million border barrier fund, so his hopes for an RFK ascendance is a mirage.

New York Democratic Congressman and former federal prosecutor Dan Goldman left the hearing featuring Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer unmoved by Archer’s testimony, saying that it did not disclose massive corruption and dirty dealing as Republicans described, but said Archer related generic chit-chat any father would have with associates of his child:

Most of the time, now-President Biden didn’t even know who the people were at the dinner, he was just asked to say hello and he would talk about the weathe– [Devon Archers] described it several time, they asked over and over and over, he described what the weather was, how– ‘what’s going on on your end’–he, the witness, was very, very consistent that none of those conversations ever had anything to do with any business dealings or transactions.  They were purely, what he called, casual conversations.

Days after Republican Florida Governor, presidential candidate and man very particular about the lifts put in his shoes Ron DeSantis was in the community to beg for money from the wealthy, the district attorney for the region sent a letter to US attorney requesting an investigation into DeSantis’s alleged fraud and lies surrounding his publicity stunt involving kidnapping migrants from Texas.

Per the Boston Herald, the district attorney for the Cape Cod region, Cape and Islands DA Robert Galibois, sent a letter to Merrick Garland asking the Department of Justice to investigate the circumstances that brought 49 migrants to Martha’s Vineyard after DeSantis-funded operatives told them they would be flown to Boston where food, shelter and work would be provided.  No one in Martha’s Vineyard, which is about three hour drive from Boston, was advised of the migrants’ arrival by Florida representatives, so in fact, no housing or jobs were awaiting them, as they were promised.  Interviews with the migrants done after their arrival shows they were lied to in an effort to get them on the flights, Galibois said.

“I stand behind and support a request made to you on July 6, 2023, from the Governor of California, the Attorney General of California, and the Sheriff from Bexar County Texas (where this and a subsequent comparable journey to California originated), to open federal criminal and civil investigations into these incidents,” Galibois wrote.

Per a post on Truth Social:  “I assume that an Indictment from Deranged Jack Smith and his highly partisan gang of Thugs, pertaining to my “PEACEFULLY & PATRIOTICALLY Speech, will be coming out any day now, as yet another attempt to cover up all of the bad news about bribes, payoffs, and extortion, coming from the Biden “camp.” This seems to be the way they do it. ELECTION INTERFERENCE! PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT!”

As Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira leaves the Florida courthouse where he could not enter a plea regarding the four felony counts he faces for assisting indicted felon Donald Trump’s attempts to obstruct justice to hide national security documents at his Palm Beach supper club, De Oliveira’s non-official lawyer in the case–De Oliveira has yet to find a suitable Florida-licenced attorney to represent him–talked a big game while ignoring the damning assertions laid out in the indictment:  “Now it’s time for them to put their money where their mouth is.  I’m looking forward to seeing what discovery is.”  De Oliveira’s arraignment was rescheduled for August 10th, when he hopes to have a lawyer who can represent him in a Florida courtroom.

Just 60% of the American public have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the US military’s ability to defend the nation from threats a new Gallup poll shows, according to Politico, the lowest such rating since 1997 and a continuance of a five-year downward trend.

While the level of faith in the military is higher than its recent low in 1980, when just 50% of Americans had confidence in the military after the Vietnam era and the Iranian hostage crisis, public opinion has been hit by the withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as continual attacks by right wingers who claim the military’s policies on LGBTQ rights and abortion access have weakened the US military.  In addition, false conservative talking points claiming that the military is running out of ammunition has also likely undermined public confidence in the readiness of our military.

The statute that authorizes monitoring US citizens under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act should be modified to eliminate the law’s application for domestic criminal investigations, a new review by the Biden Administration suggests, Reuters reports.

Criticized by members of both sides of the political aisle, FISA’s Second 702 has been used by the FBI to get evidence against US citizens, including those who participated in the January 6th Republican-led domestic terrorist attack on Congress, not involved with foreign agents.

The White House review recommended Attorney General Merrick Garland “remove FBI’s authority to conduct queries for evidence of a non-national security-related crime in its Section 702 data. … FBI’s use of Section 702 should be limited to foreign intelligence purposes only and FBI personnel should receive additional training on what foreign intelligence entails.”

The first US commercial nuclear power plant built from scratch since the 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island has been put online as the Unit 3 reactor of Tennessee’s Plant Vogtle joins the power grid, the Associated Press reports.

Vogtle Unit 3 began construction in 2009 and was expected to be online by 2016, but environmental concerns after the 2011 Fukushima disaster, one-time owner Westinghouse’s bankruptcy, construction problems and new regulatory issues pushed the initiation date back.  Dozens of nuclear plants that began construction prior to the 1979 TMI meltdown have been brought online, but construction of new nuclear plants was halted until the Vogtle expansion was proposed in 2006.

The unit will generate 1,100 megawatts of electricity, enough to power half a million homes.  Georgia Power Co. now gets 25% of its electricity from nuclear power, a key component in the fight against climate change by reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  And that percentage will increase:  Vogtle Unit 4 has been authorized to be fueled up and is expected to enter service in March 2024.

Three years after receiving a questionable $700 million pandemic assistance loan from the Trump administration, YRC–the company that operates the Yellow and Roadway trucking brands–has shut down operations as of Monday morning, putting 30,000 employees out of work, CNN reports.

The Teamsters, which represents 22,000 YRC workers and which agreed to new contract terms last week to help stave off bankruptcy, said it received a notification Sunday.  “Today’s news is unfortunate but not surprising. Yellow has historically proven that it could not manage itself despite billions of dollars in worker concessions and hundreds of millions in bailout funding from the federal government. This is a sad day for workers and the American freight industry,” said Teamsters President Sean O’Brien in a statement.

Saying the company was vital for the American economy, the Trump administration approved a fast-tracked $700 million bailout in 2020, sending the money just six weeks after the request was submitted, even though the company was being sued by the federal government on claims it overbilled shipments to the US military.  A major investor in YRC, Apollo Investment has close ties to Jared Kushner:  it loaned Kushner $184 million in 2017 to facilitate refinancing its loans on Manhattan properties, and later that year, Kushner recommended Apollo co-founder Josh Harris for a White House advisory board.

“Former President Trump and alternate Elector Latham’s motions to preclude any State prosecuting agency from using evidence derived from the Special Purpose Grand Jury’s work are DISMISSED for lack of standing. Their motions to quash (or expunge) the Final Report of the Special Purpose Grand Jury are DENIED as moot. And their motions to disqualify the District Attorney and her office are DENIED,” writes Fulton County, Georgia Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney in a Monday opinion.

If you’re wondering why the fat bastard is still challenging this after the state Supreme Court already rejected the same petition, so is McBurney apparently, as he writes in a final footnote: “Perplexingly, prematurely, and with the standard pugnacity, Trump has filed not one but two mandamus actions against the District Attorney and this Court – one in the Supreme Court of Georgia (case S2301134, which the Supreme Court has already dismissed) and one in the Superior Court of Fulton County (Civil Action 2023CV382670). Peculiarly, neither petition requests the sole relief available under mandamus: an order ‘compel[ling] a public officer to perform a required duty,'” and continuing on and on very eloquently demolishing the fat bastard’s obnoxious and vexatious fuckery.

We’re still not 100% certain what will happen with Devon Archer today as the DOJ wants to arrest him before he’s able to testify.

If they’re willing to publicly show all their cards and arrest Mr. Archer to stop his testimony, what are they willing to do behind the sciences?…

— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) July 31, 2023

This mangling of “behind the scenes” is almost as bad as that one MAGA pedophile who said he was “not vacationed” and the suspected one who said “they indicated” the 45th president.

Sick asshole former Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Sunday threatened to nuke Ukraine if Kyiv’s counteroffensive makes too much progress against Putin’s forces, Reuters reports.

“Imagine if the offensive, which is backed by NATO, was a success and they tore off a part of our land then we would be forced to use a nuclear weapon according to the rules of a decree from the president of Russia. There would simply be no other option. So our enemies should pray for our warriors’ (success). They are making sure that a global nuclear fire is not ignited,” Medvedev wrote in a Telegram message to his fans, not the first nor likely the last genocidal missive from the guy who kept Putin’s seat warm during a 2008 to 2012 interregnum when Vlad served as Prime Minister.

A new New York Times/Siena College survey of Republican voters finds disgraced former President Donald Trump leading incumbent President Joe Biden by a staggering 84 to 8 percent. It’s “staggering” because you would expect Trump to be winning by much closer to 100 percent rather than this lead plus another 3 percent saying they’d support a third party candidate, and 4 percent answering “Not going to vote/wouldn’t vote if those were the choices” in the 2024 election.

Which it’s increasingly likely it will be, as the survey also found Trump leading heels-wearing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis 54 to 17 percent in the GOP primary, with Nimrata “Nikki” Haley and Mike Pence tied for third at a dismal 3 percent, followed by evil yuppie Vivek Ramaswamy at 2 percent.

Two teachers at a public high school in eastern Germany tell the AP they’ve been run out of their jobs in the small town of Burg by Nazi teenagers and their parents after trying in vain to educate the far right bullies in the school about the country’s horrific, genocidal past.

“Teachers and students who openly fight against far-right students and teachers fear for their safety. The problem has to be recognized and openly fought,” Laura Nickel and Max Teske had written in an open letter published by a local newspaper prior to their exodus. “Schools should be places free of fear, full of open-mindedness and safety for everyone and cannot provide a home for the enemies of democracy.” A letter from an anonymous group of parents, probably a German chapter of Moms for Liberty, called for the two to be fired. Stickers bearing Nickel and Teske’s pictures with “Piss off to Berlin” started were plastered on lampposts near the high school.

Teske and Nickel called it quits two weeks ago as the school year ended. “We will continue to be loud, we will continue to make a political impact, and won’t let the far right win,” Teske said, even though she and her coworker… maybe he’s her boyfriend too, not clear… kind of did let them win.

The absolute schlonging of Trump-promoted and heavily astroturfed Sound of Freedom by liberal Hollywood elitist mainstream fantasy comedy Barbie continued this weekend as the iconic doll’s big-screen debut grossed an estimated $351,402,851 total domestically and $775 million globally as of Sunday to the so far US-only QAnon fan film’s $148,972,065 total. Sound of Freedom might see a boost when it begins its international run next month but it’s hard to see its appeal elsewhere.

That’s so fucking embarrassing for the fanboys who attached outsized importance to the Jim Caviziel actioner’s relative early success amid a rough go for hyped mainstream releases earlier this summer. Which is really the only reason we’re reporting this now… Well actually in a vacuum we probably would still have covered Barbie‘s massive box office haul after that sick little freak Ben Shapiro burned the dolls on video in some kind of stupid protest over the movie. And Ted Cruz bitching about it too. So altogether it’s even more of a shining example of a fight the MAGA propaganda circlejerk complex started and could not finish, a game they set the rules for and still lost despite more than a hundred million in fake ticket sales for Sound of Freedom.