Samuel Alito, The Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2023:

Congress did not create the Supreme Court. [The Constitution did]. I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it: No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court—period.

In the other corner, the United States Constitution, 1787, Article III, Section 2, Clause 2:

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make. [my emphasis]

Dr. Mary Talley Bowden has become something of a cause célèbre among horse-paste eaters.  A martyr for the cause, they’ll tell you she was fired from her job at a Texas hospital because she supported ivermectin use; in fact, she resigned after she was suspended for giving medical advice online to people she had not examined, and that advice was about ivermectin.  (The more relevant aspect of the story is the dispensing medical advice to patients she didn’t examine, but whatevs.)

Then they’ll tell you that she is having her medical license pulled in Texas because she actually dispensed ivermectin to a patient.  First, laugh at the part where Texas would pull a doctor’s license for prescribing what virtually every Republican leader in the state ballyhooed as a miracle cure.  But note that Bowden’s license is under review for treating a different patient she hadn’t examined in a hospital where she did not have privileges to practice.

The Mar-a-Lago employee referred to as “Trump Employee 4” in the superseding indictment released Thursday has been identified by CNN as Yuscil Taveras, an IT worker at Mar-a-Lago. According to the court filing, Tavares was the individual pressured by Carlos De Oliveira, called by various sources the maintenance director to the property manager, to erase the servers at the direction of “the boss.”

Democratic Virginia Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger told members of her staff and her House Democratic colleagues that she intents to mount a run for state’s governorship in the 2025 cycle, Politico reports.

Virginia’s 7th Congressional district representative, Spanberger won a seat in 2018 that had been in Republican hands for nearly half a century.  It had been held by one-time Republican House Whip Eric Cantor; he resigned after losing the 2014 primary to Tea Bagger Dave Brat, whom Spanberger eventually defeated.

A comparative moderate, Spanberger’s planned departure puts a vulnerable Democratic-held seat into play in the upcoming election if Spanberger decides not to run for reelection to Congress.  She could still run for governor in the off-year election as she serves in Congress if she so chooses.

A photo taken by a source for Punchbowl News’s Max Cohen in the immediate aftermath of Republican Wisconsin Congressman Derrick Van Orden berating a group of Senate pages hanging out in the Capitol Rotunda Wednesday night shows a copious number of empty wine bottles and other alcohol bottles sitting on the Congressman’s desk in his office, raising doubts about the story Van Orden related that he was upset about perceived disrespect the high school students he claims were displaying when he called them “lazy fucks” and “little shits.”

It seems the irrational outburst at the teenagers was due more to doses of Kentucky Gentleman rather than concern for the memory of Union soldiers.

Russians have shifted targets for its attacks on Ukrainian territory, assigning some highly powerful, expensive precise munitions to hit non-military targets like cultural sites and historical structures revered in Ukrainian culture, Newsweek reports.

Last Sunday, Russian missiles targeted Odesa’s historic city center, a UNESCO-designated site of cultural and historical significance, damaging at least 25 historic buildings.  Officials say a precision-guided anti-ship Onyx missile, a $1.25 million munition which carries up to 300 kilograms of high explosive charge, was used to destroy the Orthodox Christian Transfiguration Cathedral, a 230-year-old church in Odesa that Russian see as a symbol of Ukrainian independence and has been first destroyed and deconsecrated when the Soviets occupied Ukraine in the 1930s.  After Ukraine regained its independence in the 1990s, it restored the structure and dedicated the church in 2003.

“At the direction of Crooked Joe Biden and his Weaponized DOJ, Deranged Jack Smith is attempting to destroy the lives of two fine people who have worked for me (and have done a great job!) for a long time. They are being persecuted with one goal, to ‘Get Trump.’ This is textbook Third World intimidation by rabid, lawless prosecutors. These same craven tactics were used, and failed, during the Russia, Russia, Russia Witch Hunt and other Hoaxes. We will not let Radical Lunatics destroy our Country!” Donald Trump posted on his failing social media outlet at 11:25 a.m.

Just an hour later, he posted, “They ought to throw Deranged Jack Smith and his Thug Prosecutors in jail, with Meritless Garland and Trump Hating Lisa Monaco. They have totally Weaponized the Department of Injustice. Whatever happened to the Crooked Joe Biden Boxes Case? Why was Hillary Clinton allowed to delete 33,000 emails, many of them Classified, AFTER getting a Subpoena from Congress? Why was Bill Clinton allowed to take tapes out of the W.H. in his socks? Why has no other President ever been charged? ELECTION FRAUD!”

Set aside the idiocy of Trump’s false claims regarding the Clintons and Biden holding on to documents that were clearly their personal work products–things allowed under federal records acts.  Within 60 minutes, Trump goes from decrying an oppressive government to demanding extrajudicial punishments against his political enemies popular with maniacal autocrats.

Poor maintenance, overworked employees and negligent inspection practices of the private company that owns the stretch of rail in Montana caused a 2021 Amtrak train derailment that killed three people and injured more than 40, according to a report by the National Transportation Safety Board, the Washington Post reports.

Eight of the Empire Builder’s ten rail cars, traveling from Chicago to Seattle flew off the tracks outside Joplin, Montana in September 2021.  Investigators found that the single inspector responsible for examing the track was responsible for approving the condition of an average of 73 miles of track per day, including inspecting the condition of the rail and the alignment of rail joints.  On the day of his last inspection of the section of track where the derailment took place, his daily work sheet showed he was supposed to inspect more than 120 miles of rail; that inspection took place two days before the derailment.  Investigators found that the crash was caused by the misalignment of two sections of track that launched the train off the tracks, something that would likely have been spotted with more attentive and frequent inspections.

The NTSB also noted that the high number of injuries on the train were due to passengers not being securely seatbelted in their seats at the time of the derailment, resulting in dozens being thrown from the wreckage.  Unlike planes, trains do not typically recommend passengers stay belted into their seats if they’re not transiting the aisle; the NTSB will consider making repeated announcements with the recommendation mandatory, as is done on airplanes to prevent injuries from severe turbulence.

After a disturbing period of silence as he stood at the podium during a press briefing Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader on Friday restated his intention to stay in office and brushed off concerns about ongoing health issues, USA Today reports.  “Leader McConnell appreciates the continued support of his colleagues, and plans to serve his full term in the job they overwhelmingly elected him to do,” a spokesman told the outlet.

McConnell stood silent and motionless at the podium after stopping mid-sentence during a Wednesday briefing.  He was escorted away by colleagues and reportedly went to his office to recover.  He reappeared at the briefing minutes later, but did not directly address the episode.

Following the incident at the Capitol, reports of other medically-related incidents were disclosed in the press that had previously been unknown, including a July 14th incident where McConnell reportedly “face planted” while deplaning from a flight at Reagan National Airport.  He also fell during a March fundraiser at a DC hotel which resulted in a concussion the kept him from the Senate for a month.

Five officials at Palm Beach [Florida] Central High School were arrested after they repeatedly ignored repeated pleas from a student to investigate and report the sexual assault of a fellow student who later attempted suicide, USA Today reports.  They are all charged with failing to report a student’s sexual assault to police and child welfare services as required by state law.

A friend of the 15-year-old student reported that their friend had survived sexual assaults at the hands of two boys in April 2021 and in August 2021.  In June 2021, the friend–using a pen with pink ink–wrote a letter detailing the April assaults the friend witnessed and noted that her friend had attempted self-harm; she gave the letter the schools choral teacher, 53-year-old Scott Houchins, who told Priscilla Carter, 55, a case worker in the district’s SafeSchools office.  At the start of the subsequent school year, Carter spoke with the student and determined that the victim was not a harm to herself.  During that meeting, the student reportedly told Carter about a third sexual assault that happened earlier in August.

On August 16, 2021, the victim herself told school assistant principal Daniel Snider, 49, of the assaults; Snider asked her to write an account of the assault, which he shared with principal Darren Edgecomb, 58.  After getting no response from the school, the student told the other assistant principal, Nereyda Cayado de Garcia, 37, on August 17th who again informed Edgecomb.  The student then subsequently reported at least one suicide attempt.

White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan arrived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Thursday for talks with crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, the man who funneled $3 billion to Trump administration officials in the past 30 months, in an effort to improve relations with the Middle Eastern leader, NBC News reports.

Sullivan plans to meet with MbS, the Saudi defense and energy ministers, as well as the head of the Saudi wealth fund, which uses the kingdom’s cumulative wealth to influence other nations’ policies around the world.  The US hopes to push Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel, pull back from its involvement in the ongoing war with Yemen, and to to “advance a common vision for a more peaceful, secure, prosperous, and stable Middle East.”

After being targeted by the Republican presidential candidate so he can gain political points in his one-man culture war, the Walt Disney Co. is ensuring Florida’s chief bigot, Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is held accountable by facing the company’s legal complaint in court, USA Today reports.

DeSantis filed a motion with the court to remove himself from a wide-ranging lawsuit by Disney claiming DeSantis and various minions in his administration illegally violated the US and Florida constitutions and corruptly retaliatory for attempting to punish the private company for speaking out against DeSantis’s policies targeting LGBTQ people and limiting their liberties.  Disney argues that DeSantis cannot hide from his responsibilities as he tries to tout his bigotry as an asset in the GOP primary.

“The Governor seeks to evade responsibility for his actions on a narrower ground, asserting that a governor cannot be held officially liable for implementing, administering, and enforcing state laws that punish residents for political statements violating a state-prescribed speech code,” company attorneys wrote in a legal filing Wednesday, noting that DeSantis was the key motivator and primary cheerleader for pushing the bill through the state legislature.

President Joe Biden will sign an executive order Friday changing the way the military handles sexual assault and harassment accusations in the military, taking the alleged victim’s chain of command largely out of the reporting process to streamline the investigation process, Politico reports.

The new process assigns independent military prosecutors in serious cases to remove the decision-making process from the reporting soldier’s chain of command, which is typically comprised of friends, colleagues and subordinates of the personnel of the accused.  Biden’s order intents to provide more ways for victims to report and pursue serious offenses without fear of retribution from commanding officers and NCOs.

“The historic reforms announced today will better protect victims and ensure prosecutorial decisions are fully independent from the chain of the command,” the White House statement said.

General Abdourahmane “Omar” Tchiani on Friday declared a massive, historic victory over stone cold loser President Mohamed Bazoum in the 2023 Niger coup, the BBC reports. It was sad really, how Crooked Bazoum lost complete control over the country during his failed presidency. Niger was basically a third world country before Tchiani took over and already the General is seeing just massive, historic support like you wouldn’t believe. Big Nigerien men, really tough guys, are probably coming up to Tchiani with tears in their eyes to say “Thank you, sir.” Many of them are farmers.

You know, a lot of people don’t know this but Tchiani is from the western region of Tillabéri where many people are into farming. Tchiani loves farming and knows probably more than anybody about it. Even some farmers who have been doing it for years are very surprised when Tchiani tells them he knows that the male goats have horns. You know Crooked Bazoum destroyed Nigerien agriculture. It was so sad, such a disgrace. He gave it away like no one has ever seen before.

Sources close to President Biden’s reelection campaign tell Axios that the incumbent’s plan is to not just run against his once-vanquished rival, fat former President Trump, but the MAGA movement as a whole for all the white nationalist revanchism and malevolence it represents.

“With every passing day of the GOP primary, the 2024 Republican field lurches further right just to cater to the MAGA base,” DNC spokesperson Ammar Moussa said. “Whoever comes out of this Dumpster fire of a primary to become the GOP nominee will only have done so by being the most MAGA – and alienating millions of voters.” It’s not a bad plan, if a little obvious, given how effective the line of messaging was in draining momentum from the “Red Wave” that wasn’t in 2022.

North Korea’s economy is in pretty rough shape these days, likely to the surprise of however many observers who thought having a totalitarian Marxist regime led by an obese millennial who smokes three packs a day and was simply born into power was superior to capitalist western democracies that, despite their many flaws, continue to be the best system available.

Granted there probably aren’t a lot of observers outside of North Korea who believe this sincerely, but Bloomberg still reported the news as if its readers, many of whom work in the worlds of international finance and economics, were supposed to be like “Oh man, I guess I should tell the guys we have to back out of that new cathode ray tube television factory investment deal even if that malnourished state media minister guy seemed like a straight shooter on ROI targets. Thanks for the heads up, Bloomberg. We could’ve gotten soaked big time on that one.”

In a poorly-timed Thursday interview with Breitbart, coming apparently just moments after he had been informed he had been hit with three more charges in a superseding indictment over his theft and hoarding of classified government documents at Mar-a-Lago, disgraced former President Trump promised to fire Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith if he’s reelected in 2024.

“I wouldn’t keep him,” Trump said when asked if he would fire Smith. “Jack Smith? Why would I keep him? He is – look, he’s gone after other people. He’s been overturned unanimously in the Supreme Court. He’s destroyed a lot of lives. Lives have been destroyed. He’s destroyed people – he’s destroyed lives… He was Lois Lerner and the IRS case, which was one of the most egregious abuses what happened. The government had to apologize to people. He went after Christians. This is a guy – he’s a wild man. I call him deranged. He’s been overturned. He went after the governor of Virginia – overturned unanimously. He went after another senator or something and was overturned. What he’s done is just horrible. The abuse of power – it is prosecutorial misconduct.”

The interview article contains several such paragraphs of agitated ranting by the fat bastard but this was the dumbest/funniest one. Also a pretty stupid question on Breitbart’s part, like that’s somehow the most salient issue in a guaranteed end of the prosecution against him should this demented, racist loser end up scamming his way back to the most powerful office on the planet.

The Webb Telescope has identified water vapor in discs of rocky material circling a young sun that could eventually form a proto-planet, the first time scientists have found signs of water early in the formation of a planetary system, CNN reports.

The discovery of water in planetary discs in a solar system with a star that is just 5.4 million years old–compared to ours, which is 4.6 billion years old–contradicts the theory that water vapor would be destroyed by the solar radiation coming from the star before the planet could form.

While astronomers have identified water on exoplanets in the past, the discovery of water in such a young solar system in a proto-planet that will become a rocky world in the so-called “Goldilocks zone” indicates the frequency of Earth-like worlds may be greater than expected.  It could also change the theories on how and when Earth collected its water.

Further illustrating Speaker pro tem Kevin Meow-arthy‘s incompetent management of the House, the New York Times reports that in the last hours of the session before Congress is scheduled to begin a six-week recess, House Republicans attempted to pass a critical $25 billion funding bill for the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration–y’know, nothing critical; just the people who safeguard our food supply–but could not come to an agreement because the far-right wing of the caucus demanded the legislation include provisions to bar organizations that provide abortions from benefiting from the bill.

Instead of telling the anti-choice zealots that the bill is for vital services from the Department of Agriculture, McCarthy and GOP leaders decided to table the bill until after the recess, adding another essential bill to the pile that needs to be passed by October 1st.  The sheer volume of bills needing floor votes combines with the insolence of the far right-wing makes a government shutdown more likely in the fall.

The superseding indictment issued Thursday against disgraced former President Trump and his minions over the Mar-a-Lago classified documents shitshow specifically adds to the charges the unlawful retention of the now-infamous Iran war plan the fat bastard was caught on tape in July 2021 showing to dickhead former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’ ghostwriters during an interview for Meadows’ lame memoir in which Trump complained about Joint Chiefs Chair General Mark Milley.

“At the time of this exchange, the writer, the publisher, and TRUMP’s two staff members did not have security clearances or any need-to-know any classified information about a plan of attack on Country A [Iran]. The document that TRUMP possessed and showed on July 21 2021, is charged as Count 32 in this Superseding Indictment,” Smith’s prosecutors wrote in the complaint. The addition of the Iran document raises questions of why it was left out of the first complaint against Trump even as the transcript of the audio of him showing it to the ghostwriters was included.

CNN first reported the existence of the Iran war plan document and the interview audio on May 31st, following up on June 2nd with sources telling them the file’s whereabouts were unknown and that Smith had issued a subpoena for its return in mid-March. That the document was not included in the first indictment just days later would have seemed to confirm that Smith’s team didn’t have it yet, which of course Trump and his fanboys seized on as proof that it never existed. Then as more details and then the actual audio of the exchange steadily leaked out they stuck to that, with Trump also for some fucking insane reason claiming it was “actually an exoneration” and even pretending to a Semafor reporter that he had been lying to the Meadows memoir ghostwriters and was trying to impress them while waving around newspaper articles or some bullshit.