CNN reports Donald Trump’s lawyers are in negotiations with Fulton County, Georgia authorities regarding surrendering himself to face 13 counts relating to his 2020 coup attempt, possibly as early as Wednesday of next week, prior to the August 25th deadline to report to the county jail.

Trump’s lawyers likely want to negotiate conditions that would not subject Trump to the same processing every criminal defendant must go through in the state.  Sheriff Pat Labat has insisted Trump will be treated like any other detainee, including having his fingerprints and mug shot taken.  Local officials must coordinate with Secret Service to ensure the former president gets special treatment to accommodate security needs.

Hours after Fulton County, Georgia Fani Willis announced indictments against him and 18 of his closest co-conspirators on RICO charges, disgraced indicted felon Donald Trump announced he would hold a press conference Monday in which he would present “[a] Large, Complex, Detailed but Irrefutable REPORT on the Presidential Election Fraud which took place in Georgia.  According to ABC News, his lawyers were less than thrilled with the prospect of Trump rambling on about his case, believing Trump would, of course, make things worse for Trump by casually admitting to various elements of the crime.

Various pundits have pointed out that anything Trump says publicly regarding his various legal quandaries can come back to bite him because prosecutors can use his own words to undermine his claims made under oath.  During various speeches, Trump’s vomitous volume of statements typically discloses new evidence prosecutors can use to convict him.

It’s never been said that Republicans make sense:  GOP presidential candidate and political dilettante Vivek Ramaswamy came out against DEI policies again because, he claims, having a native Hawaiian sitting on Hawaii’s water management commission contributed to the damage caused by the wildfires.

“That request went unanswered for hours, withholding critical aid to islanders,” the self-important blowhard declared on Twitter.  “Now we’re learning that the official who delayed the approval is an Obama Foundation ‘Asia Pacific Leader’ & a climate activist who believes water should be ‘revered’ first and foremost.”

As you can imagine, the situation is not as cut-and-dry as Ramaswamy depicts, but to claim “DEI” or the Obama Foundation is responsible for the lack of water in fighting the Maui wildfires is, frankly, irresponsible and ignorant, and it demonstrates Rama-swarmy‘s craven adoption of targeting civil servants for conservative ire with few facts.

Lunar vehicles from India and Russia had established satellites in orbit around the Moon, bringing to four the number of nations currently with lunar orbiters, as the two space programs prepare their respective landing craft ready for the next steps, Al Jazeera reports.

India’s Chandrayaan-3 completed the separation of its lunar lander Wednesday, which is scheduled to reach the Moon’s surface on Wednesday, August 23rd.  While the lander conducts experiments on the lunar surface, the orbiting module will stay aloft and collect data about exoplanets and conduct a spectroscopic study of the Earth’s atmosphere.

In its first lunar mission in nearly half a century, Russia’s Luna-25 craft reached lunar orbit Wednesday morning.  It will orbit the Moon for five days before attempting a landing on Monday, August 21st.  This is an early step in Russia’s plan to establish a Moon base by 2040.

Florida has become a cesspool of disease, skyrocketing inflation, fleeing populations, natural disasters, and eponymous Florida Men (and Women).  Per the Washington Post, along with outbreaks of leprosy and mosquito-borne malaria, the Sunshine State is now hosting an outbreak of Dengue fever, a different mosquito-borne illness that is enjoying a spike is infections thanks to climate change and globally higher temperatures.

Five patients with mosquito-infected Dengue fever have been identified in Florida, but many more infected people could exist because the disease is asymptomatic in many patients.  Between 2010 and 2020, nearly all of the 33,000 US cases of Dengue fever, which can only be transferred via mosquito bite, were found in Puerto Rico.

Maybe this is what happens when you import Joseph Lapado, a research-denying doctor from California to be your state’s Surgeon General, solely because he supports your anti-science, anti-vaccine culture war and not because he had any expertise in virology or public health.

Two brothers who own a massive fruit and nut farming operation in California have sued besieged former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani for $300,000, saying $1 million they provided to fund a 2020 election fraud film went into the suspended lawyer’s pockets, Business Insider reports.

In 2019, while Giuliani was blabbering about a Ukraine scandal he imagined involving the Bidens, Baldev and Kewel Munger wrote a check for the money to fund a film proposed by GOP operative Tim Yale, donor George Dickson III and Giuliani they promised would the dagger that brought down the Bidens.  The film was never made, and the brothers claim Giuliani used $300,000 of the money for his personal expenses.

GLOVES ARE OFF: Donald Trump Jr. slams latest indictment of his father. pic.twitter.com/8fkuHkkDL5

— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 17, 2023

Normal-ish Conservative State Supreme Court Justice Brian Hagedorn majority concurrence in Clarke v Wisconsin Elections Commission: “Our standard approach when receiving a petition for original action is to allow the parties an opportunity to be heard. Doing so here should give us a fuller picture of the issues in this case and from there we can determine how best to proceed.”

MAGA Conservative State Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley minority dissent in Clarke v Wisconsin Elections Commission: “The outcome of this original action has been predetermined. Nevertheless, the majority forces the parties to expend considerable resources -including taxpayer money – to respond to a petition everyone knows will be granted by Ann Walsh Bradley, Rebecca Dallet, Jill Karofsky, and Janet Protasiewicz. Despite receiving nearly $10 million from the Democrat Party of Wisconsin and declaring the maps ‘rigged,’ Protasiewicz has not recused herself from the case. These four justices will adopt new maps to shift power away from Republicans and bestow an electoral advantage for Democrat candidates, fulfilling one of Protasiewicz’s many promises to the principal funder of her campaign” and blah blah blah this crazy woman goes on freaking out about the case that seems all but certain to annihilate the GOP-rigged state legislative maps.

New liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz is making the former Conservative majority’s lives pretty miserable and Assembly Republicans already want to impeach her for not recusing from the case.

After an advocacy group had its first petition rejected because it didn’t have enough valid signatures, the Ohio Secretary of State confirmed that a referendum to legalize recreational marijuana in the state will be on the November ballot, the Associated Press reports.

After the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol added an additional 4,400 signatures to the 123,000 validated signatures previously submitted, moving the measure past the required level.  After the first petition count submitted in July fell short of a preliminary count, Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose gave the group ten days to make up the difference.

With pot legalization and abortion rights on the ballot in November, Ohio may have a significant turnout, giving both measures a greater chance of success.

Sixteen people who survived, uninjured, the racially-motivated shooting at Topps Supermarket in Buffalo, New York in May 2022 have filed a lawsuit against members of gun industry, social media companies, and the gunman’s parents, claiming they all facilitated, enabled or failed to prevent the shooting, the Washington Post reports.

While the plaintiffs were all in the supermarket or its adjacent parking lot during the shooting, none were physically harmed.  The lawsuit, however, bases the case on the psychological trauma and mental anguish the plaintiffs experience having witnessed the event.

Speaking during a Twitter Spaces panel on Monday, Republican Florida Congressman and man who shockingly has not been indicted for anything yet Matt Gaetz admitted that the GOP House Caucus evidence-free effort to impeach President Joe Biden for something won’t succeed, but is necessary to stoke doubts among voters to help the Republican challenger in the 2024 Presidential election.

“The purpose of that impeachment, from my standpoint, is not to force a vote that loses,” Gaetz said according to reporting by the New Republic.  “It’s to put on a trial in the Senate, and by the way, not for the sake of conviction. … There’s no conviction and removal of Joe Biden coming on impeachment. I know that. You know that.”

“If we had the Senate as the stage and the platform for [Republican House Oversight Chair] James Comer to put on his evidence and advance this impeachment, it will not result in a conviction,” Gaetz added.  “But the true verdict can still be rendered by the American people.”

Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs on Tuesday told KTAR that disgraced former President Trump should face charges in the Grand Canyon State following his indictment, along with 18 of his minions, in Georgia on an array of RICO-related charges. “Absolutely. I have been an advocate for holding folks involved in trying to overturn the will of the voters in the 2020 election accountable and this is part of that process,” said Hobbs at an event in Phoenix. Last month Dem Attorney General Kris Mayes’s office announced a criminal investigation into the twice-impeached and four-times-indicted loser and the fascist assholes who signed fake electoral college votes for him in December 2020 after her Republican predecessor Mark Brnovich did jack shit for two years. Just days later Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel unsealed indictments against all 16 fake Trump 2020 electors in her state.

Now of course this news isn’t particularly surprising given that Hobbs was Secretary of State during the 2020 election and put up with all sorts of bullshit from the fanboys and conspiracy freaks, not least of which were actual death threats. So that she approves of the investigation wouldn’t really merit an article if not for some leftist jerkoff’s tweet claiming “FOX News reports Arizona Gov Katie Hobbs has approved the State Attorney General’s election fraud case which will be the 5th indictment for former president Donald J Trump” that’s been going around more than we can ignore.

Hobbs obviously personally approves of the investigation. It’s likely at some point it’ll get in front of a grand jury. Hobbs will probably testify as a witness and we would imagine she’s looking forward to doing so. Trump and his asshole friends will probably eventually get indicted in a case similar to the one in Georgia. That doesn’t fucking mean that Hobbs had to officially or statutorily approve an investigatory step by the duly elected attorney general in her state. Mayes is not subordinate to her.

Former Trump White House speechwriter Stephen Miller on Wednesday took Democrats to the woodshed for their completely blatant enjoyment of the political suffering and personal humiliation being visited upon the former president and his allies in multiple criminal cases coming in the middle of Trump’s 2024 comeback campaign. “They are giddy about it. They are gleeful. They are excited. Their goal is to pull up Trumpist populism by root and branch from this country,” Miller said during an appearance on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show, absolutely blasting Democrats and media for their elation over the prospect of Trump going to prison. “It’s openly political. It’s an open vendetta,” Miller added, warning starkly that Democrats may use the cases to their advantage in an election year.

A Texas woman has been charged by federal authorities with making threats to kill Judge Tanya Chutkan, the federal judge overseeing Donald Trump’s trial relating to his attempt to undermine the legitimate results of the 2020 election, WUSA CBS-9 in Washington, DC reports.

Abigail Jo Shry of Alvin, Texas, sounds like a charming woman, according to the affidavit:  “On August 5, 2023, at approximately 7:51 P.M., a call was received in the chambers of District of Columbia United States District Judge Tanya Chutkan. According to caller identification on the Judge’s phone, the call came from phone number (832) 537-2180. The caller’s introduction stated, ‘Hey you stupid slave n*****,’ after which the caller threatened to kill anyone who went after former President Trump, including a direct threat to kill Congresswomen Sheila Jackson Lee, all democrats in Washington D.C. and all people in the LGBTQ community. The caller further stated, ‘You are in our sights, we want to kill you,’ and ‘We want to kill Sheila Jackson Lee.’ ‘If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you, so tread lightly, bitch. The caller continued with their threats, stating, ‘You will be targeted personally, publicly, your family, all of it.'”

Two days after the 2020 election and two days before the election was called for Democrat Joe Biden, Trump operative Roger Stone was filmed dictating the entire “fake electors” plot–from the tenuous rationale to the goal of having Republican legislatures undermine their states’ voters–by award-winning Danish documentarian Christoffer Guldbrandsen.  The video, shot on November 5th, 2020 proves that the plot to use fake electors was not an authentic effort to ensure election integrity but in fact, it was a pre-planned effort to subvert the will of voters.

A new Marist College survey finds 52 percent of respondents think disgraced former President Trump should drop out of the 2024 race after being indicted five times for a total of 91 felony counts in four different jurisdictions while 46 percent say nah that’s cool he should still run.

The same number also said they would vote for Trump if the election were held today, while Biden scored only 1 percent more for a 47 to 46 dead heat with the Orange Warlord. A Quinnipiac survey published Wednesday found the exact same split so it’s unlikely to be a fluke. The QU poll also found 68 percent saying “No” to “If a person is convicted of a felony, do you think they should still be eligible to be president of the United States, or not?” which is a hell of an overlap between “Yes Trump” and “No convicted felon.” There’s a pretty solid chance Trump will have already been found guilty by at least one jury by November 2024 and even if most of that 22 percent-ish crosstab is full of shit and will vote Trump anyway, the delta is simply too wide for a “Silent Majority” to plug.

All that said, the real dream scenario is for Trump to lock down the nomination and then get locked up, tossed in home confinement, stuck with a total gag order or whatever in late July 2024, and refuse to step down because winning the election is his only way of getting out of having to go to prison. Like how awesome would that be if we could cover Trump rallies where Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jim Jordan have to fill the whole time telling the crowd how badly Donald wishes he could be there and that he’s innocent so they should vote for him? We’d have a blast with that campaign. The best part is that “dream” isn’t really all that unrealistic. Trump really actually could be the nominee and prevented from campaigning after pissing off a judge one too many times while he’s out on appeal and/or awaiting sentencing on the federal election coup or Stormy payoff cases.

Documents filed in Picasso-faced far right Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s upcoming impeachment trial allege the scumbag used an Uber account with the alias “Dave P” for rides to go see his girlfriend, four-times divorced former Texas Capitol staffer Laura Olson whose relationship with the married Paxton figures prominently in the tangled shitshow of scandals and possibly criminal liability facing the embattled AG, the Austin American-Statesman reports.

The account was shared with Texas real estate hustler Nate Paul, a close ally of Paxton who was arrested by the FBI just days after the Texas state House impeached Pax over his efforts to interfere with the federal investigation into Paul, according to the filing. Paxton’s defense centers on the “forgiveness doctrine” in which he contends that since Texas voters technically already should have known about the criming when they elected him for a third time last year so the offenses aren’t impeachable – not a terribly bad theory because no shit Republican voters do love corruption – so the impeachment managers are rolling out new details like this to squash it, contending that Paxton’s “denials, half truths and downright lies enabled him to conceal the truth from the public.”

Demonstrating that the clowns in the GOP don’t need to wear makeup, a woman who obtained an iota of celebrity in 2013 for the uproar she caused by taking her six-year-old child to a New Jersey tanning salon has announced she’s challenging Republican Florida Senator Rick Scott in the upcoming GOP primary.

Patricia Krentcil, whose overly-tanned, leathery skin prompted her “Tan Mom” internet moniker, says on her campaign website that she moved to Boca Raton, where she lives as the widowed mother of five children.  “From the attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, equality, diversity, and beyond, Patricia is a champion for those who are underserved, and underheard. As a lover of the outdoors — and yes she advocates for using a high SPF these days — she also is champion for the environment.”  (And yes, I double-checked:  she’s running as a Republican.)

Krentcil, previously of Nutley, New Jersey, was charged with child endangerment in 2013 after her six-year-old daughter showed up at school with a severe sunburn.  While Krentcil claimed her daughter got the burn while playing outside, her daughter told school officials took her to tanning salons.  Krentcil admitted to taking her children to tanning salons but said her children were not injured there.

Secretary of State Tony Blinken spoke by phone with US citizen and Putin Regime hostage Paul Whelan on Wednesday, telling the former Marine being held at a remote prison camp in eastern Russia’s Mordavia region to “keep the faith and we’re doing everything we can to bring you home as soon as possible,” sources in the State Department tell CNN. No further details about how the call was arranged were available. Whelan’s detention in Russia is a bit of a sore spot for Republicans who freaked out when Biden secured the release of Black lesbian pothead Britney Griner instead of the boomer-aged white veteran while trying to sidestep the fact that Whelan was arrested more than two years before Trump – who did nothing to try to get him repatriated – left office.

A 2017 deal made by the era’s Ron DeSantis, former Republican Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, that provided nearly $4 billion in state and local tax breaks, financial incentives and other benefits to Taiwanese electronics company Foxconn to entice them to bring a $10 billion manufacturing project to Wisconsin, has essentially vanished as the company sold off two major plots of land it promised to develop, Wisconsin Public Radio reports.

The original deal, signed by Walker, provided $4 billion to the company, which promised to hire 13,000 people.  To date, Foxconn operates one plant in the state, employing around 1,450 people making flat-screen monitors.  In May, Microsoft bought a property in Mount Pleasant that Foxxconn had bought in 2018.  Foxconn also sold two other properties–one in Eau Claire and one in Green Bay–that it paid a combined $12 million for around the time the deal was signed.

Wisconsin’s current governor, Democrat Tony Evers, scaled back the deal with Foxconn after taking office in 2021, extending just $80 million in tax breaks to the company after it failed to fulfill any of the much-ballyhooed plan celebrated by Walker.