“I think that this should be concerning to all Americans that this is attempt the Biden family corruption.  I mean, Mr. Weiss is the single architect over that sweetheart plea agreement deal that the judge in Delaware threw out just a few weeks ago as saying it was off and unfair.  There were provisions within that, that sweetheart plea deal that granted complete immunity to Hunter Biden for these crimes and future crimes, and she’s even stated she’s never seen anything like that before, and who was the architect of that?  Now the person who, Garland, who President Biden’s Justice Department just appointed to be special counsel [but who was named a US Attorney by Donald Trump].  I am very fearful that appointing the special counsel is just an attempt to stonewall Congress’s investigation of the Biden family.”

A day after hosting Republican performance artist Marjorie Taylor Greene to throw out the first pitch, the minor league baseball club in Rome, Georgia, in Marge’s home district, announced it’s going woke and changing its mascot from a derisive Native American image.

“After twenty proud years as the Rome Braves, the time has come to usher in a new era of Minor League Baseball in Rome, Georgia. In 2024, the Rome Professional Baseball Club will take the field under a new name,” the team said in a statement. “Our mission is to give the Rome community a brand as unique and special as the area itself is.”

The club, a minor league affiliate of the Atlanta big league team with which it shared a name, asked fans to submit new names via its website.  In the past decade, a number of teams in various sports on various levels have changed their mascots from images that portray demeaning ethnic stereotypes.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed former US Attorney for Delaware David Weiss to be a special counsel continuing the investigation into Hunter Biden’s alleged criminal activities, NBC News reports.  Weiss, a Trump appointee, led the investigation into Hunter Biden’s conduct regarding delinquent federal tax payments and a federal firearms charge.  MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin reports that Weiss made the request for the special designation on Tuesday, and Garland announced the appointment just three days later.

In a separate court filing, prosecutors state Hunter’s withdrawn plea agreement now appears scrapped and the federal case against Hunter Biden will likely go to trial.  “Since that time, the parties have engaged in further plea negotiations but are at an impasse. The Government now believes that the case will not resolve short of a trial.”  The potential trial venues:  Central California based in Los Angeles or Washington, DC.

With his lawyer claiming he “will scrupulously abide by his conditions of release,” Donald Trump faced DC District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan for the first time Friday, hearing directly from her that his status as a candidate for public office does not impact her decisions in the case, CNN reports.

“This is a criminal case,” Chutkan said during the Friday hearing in Washington. “The need for this criminal case to proceed in normal order and to protect the integrity of the process means there are going to be limits on the defendant’s speech.”  Trump will not be allowed to undertake such actions that would intimidate or slander witnesses who have given testimony to Smith’s office regarding Trump’s attempt to overturn the certified results of the 2020 election.

Chutkan warned Trump that she “will be scrutinizing [Trump’s posting on social media and his public statements] very carefully” for signals he is attempting to intimidate witnesses or obstruct the trial.  She largely leaned toward the wishes of prosecutors in the case to shield witnesses from threats and protecting sensitive information, although she did not impose a blanket protective order as the Special Counsel’s office wanted.  “Even arguably ambiguous statements by the parties or their counsel, if they could be reasonably interpreted to intimidate witnesses or to prejudice potential jurors, can threaten the process.”

Republican Alabama Senator and supposed Russian mole trying to destroy US military leadership Tommy Tuberville’s eligibility for his Senate seat may be in doubt, with AL.com reporting Tuberville no longer owns property in the state of Alabama.  Tuberville sold two parcels of land, one in Macon and one in Tallapoosa, his last property in the state.

Tuberville and his wife, Suzanne, own a house in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, a house the Senator’s office describes as a “vacation house,” and the sales agreements for the July transactions were notarized by a notary in that Florida town.  Tuberville’s wife also holds a Florida realtor’s license; she does not have one for Alabama.  Tuberville’s office says a property listed as belonging to Tuberville’s wife and son in Auburn, roughly an hour’s drive from Santa Rosa Beach, is their primary residence.

There are problems with that explanation, however.  Expense reports show Tuberville flying from Washington, DC to Panama City, Florida seven times in 2022.  Panama City is a 40 minute drive east of Santa Rose Beach–an additional 40 minutes away from Auburn. Many people leaving Auburn choose to fly out of Columbus, Georgia, just a 30 minute drive away.

Lawyers for President Joe Biden are reportedly negotiating with the office of Special Counsel Robert Hur, a former Trump-appointed deputy attorney general assigned to investigate Biden’s handling of government documents found in his possession, NBC News reports.

An interview with the subject of an investigation typically takes place towards the end of an investigation, and with Biden’s full cooperation, Hur has been looking into the causes a handful of classified documents ended up at Biden’s home in Delaware and at the Chinatown office in Washington he operated as part of his stint with the University of Pennsylvania.

Michigan MAGA power couple State Representative Matt and former state GOP co-Chair Meshawn Maddock aren’t doing so great these days owing to the 85 years in prison Meshawn faces following her recent indictment, along with 15 of her compatriots, on eight felony charges related to her signing a fake electoral collage ballot for fat former President Trump in December 2020.

On Thursday the Detroit News reported that a judge had denied Meshawn a pass to travel out of state to attend MyPillow assclown Mike Lindell’s “election summit” in Missouri. “Meshawn Maddock has been denied the opportunity to attend a Republican political summit hosted by Mike Lindell,” lawyer Nick Somberg wrote in a Facebook post. “Astonishingly, the reason is that the AG disapproves of the meeting’s content… The assistant attorney general argued it’s akin to allowing a drunk driving defendant to partake in a wine tasting summit,” Somberg added with extra butthurt.

Then on Friday the Messenger obtained audio of a speech by Matt at a “Free The 16 Electors Poolside Party!” they hosted earlier this month and yeah he just wants all out civil war over his wife getting nailed to the wall for trying to help overturn a free and fair election. “If the government continues to weaponize these departments against conservatives and the citizens that are then the taxpayers, you know what’s going to happen to this country… Someone’s going to get so pissed off, they’re going to shoot someone. That’s what’s going to happen. Or we’re going have a civil war or some sort of revolution. That’s where this is, where this is going.” Meshawn then took the mic for brief remarks, saying only it was “really better for none of us to say anything, which is hard, because I like to say shit.” The party was BYOB, per an invitation, which also asked for donations “for the 16 Michigan Electors fighting the politicized attacks from the Evil AG Dana Nessel!”

Right wing propaganda oligarch Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, publisher of the New York Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Australian, the Times of London, and the Sun, among others, recorded a 75 percent decline in net profit from $760 million in 2021-2022 to $187 million in 2022-2023, mostly owing to lower advertising revenue for the empire’s outlets in Australia, the Guardian reports.

The profit hit has the douchebags who run the vast array of media outlets (separate from Fox News and other television properties) naturally looking at AI-generated content as a means of trimming expenses. “That momentum is surely gathering pace in the age of generative AI, which we believe presents a remarkable opportunity to create a new stream of revenues, while allowing us to reduce costs across the business,” said News Corp Chief Executive Rob Thompson, adding “We are already in active negotiations to establish a value for our unique content sets and (intellectual property) that will play a crucial role in the future of AI,” whatever the fuck that actually means in practice.

A federal grand jury has been hearing testimony about Picasso-faced Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s ties to indicted real estate developer Nate Paul, the Austin American Statesman reports.

Justice Department press release: “A Follansbee, West Virginia, man was arrested today on criminal charges related to his alleged obstruction and witness tampering in a federal trial. Hardy Carroll Lloyd, age 45, was taken into custody early this morning without incident. According to the criminal complaint, Lloyd began commenting online about the federal hate crimes trial in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, of Robert Bowers, the Tree of Life Synagogue mass shooter.”

“Lloyd, a self-proclaimed ‘reverend’ of a white supremacy movement, made threatening social media posts, website comments, and emails towards the jury and witnesses during the trial. Lloyd also placed or had others place stickers in predominantly Jewish areas of Pittsburgh, directing people to the website containing his threats and antisemitic messages. Lloyd is charged with obstruction of the due administration of justice, transmitting threats in interstate and foreign commerce, and witness tampering. He faces up to 10 years in prison for the obstruction charge, up to five years for the threats charge, and up to 20 in prison for the tampering charge.”

Humanoid Squidward Stephen Miller and his group of nuisance lawsuit lawyers at America First Legal have filed a lawsuit against Kellogg’s for a limited edition Pop Tart–yes, the former White House advisor is suing a toaster pastry–commemorating LGBTQ Pride.  In the complaint filed (for some reason) with the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, reported by The New Republic, Miller claims the brand’s goal is to “politicize and sexualize its products” in its marketing to children.  “Kellogg’s is yet another big corporation that will break the law and hurt its shareholders’ interests to serve the twisted woke ideology of its officers and directors,” AFL charged.

“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.