A flotilla of eleven ships from the Russian and Chinese navies reportedly on joint exercises near Alaska’s Aleutian Islands were greeted by a patrol of four US Navy destroyers, a joint statement from Alaska’s Senators acknowledged, per USA Today.

“Air and maritime assets under our commands conducted operations to assure the defense of the United States and Canada. The patrol remained in international waters and was not considered a threat,” the US Navy Northern Command told the Wall Street Journal in a statement.

Republicans Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski issued a joint statement acknowledging they had been in contact with Navy officials to ensure Alaskan fishing operations and other commercial sea traffic would not be impeded by the joint Chinese-Russia group.  “The incursion by 11 Chinese and Russian warships operating together – off the coast of Alaska – is yet another reminder that we have entered a new era of authoritarian aggression led by the dictators in Beijing and Moscow,” Sullivan said.

More than 70 Russian rockets, missiles and drones bombarded Ukraine overnight, concentrating on the area around the central Ukrainian town of Starokostiantyniv, Politico reports, killing at least six civilians and putting the town of 30,000 people on edge as the Kremlin took revenge for an attack that crippled Russia ships on the Black Sea.

The Russians used relatively routine drones and missiles to strike the inland city, but also deployed aircraft launched cruise missiles and Iranian-made, Shahed-136/131 strike UAVs.  Ukrainian officials said one of the bombs hit a blood transfusion center where civilians were queuing up to donate.

Ukraine continued to disrupt life around Moscow, sending a handful of drones toward a Moscow-area airport, where travel was disrupted for more than an hour as local authorities assessed the threat.

Trump’s lawyers continue to admit their client, indicted felon Donald Trump, repeatedly broke the law.  John Lauro did it twice on the day Trump was indicted for trying to overturn the 2020 election. And now spokeslayer Alina Habba admits to Fox’s resident delusional Trump sycophant Maria Bartiromo, telling her when asked if the classified docs case can come to trial quickly that defense attorneys need to take special care with the documents that are still classified, despite Trump’s claims he declassified them with his mind and despite how Trump himself handled the documents when was not authorized to possess.

I think realistically you have to remember that a lot of these cases involve classified document and classified records. [In fact, only one of Trump’s cases does.], which means that all the lawyers now have to apply for special clearance, right?  So it’s not a normal situation.  You can’t just take a classified document and review it.  You have to have SCIFs.  You have to have certain procedures put in place.

Donald Trump has no SCIFs at Mar-a-Lago or Bedminister after he left the White House.  She continued to say Jack Smith “didn’t think through” the complications of trial when requesting a speedy trial–which the public has a right to–because the defense needs to get clearances and build SCIFs for documents their defendant claims are his, Habba also claimed, when asked by Bartiromo about the $40 million in PAC money spent on legal fees so far, that Trump is, again, paying his fees out-of-pocket… with donations to his PAC.

Trump lawyer John Lauro is doing a “Full Ginsberg,” DC’s sobriquet for appearing on all five major Sunday morning shows in a row. Rather than have to pick from one or two clips, we’re going to go ahead and run our live blog feed to collect the stupid shit this guy says almost in real-time.

Remember when we wrote an article titled “Orange Satan raises over $6.66 million since indictment” back on June 14th, six days after the disgraced former president was hit with a 37-count federal indictment for stealing and hoarding classified documents? And then “Campaign raises over $7 million since Trump indictment” on April 3rd, just four days after he was charged in Manhattan?

Yeah, we wanted to write another one about how much they’ve raised in the six days since he was charged in DC, but we can’t find anything about it. Nothing on the Trump campaign website, no results from this month in a Twitter search of “Trump campaign raises after indictment.” Of course this could change in the next few days and they’ll release a statement saying they raised so many millions from fans outraged by the newest charges and blah blah blah. But this is another one of those threads where what they aren’t saying is even more important than what they do say. Like Politico pointed out last week, the fat bastard’s mounting legal issues are losing their punch as a motivator for fans to kick in – just as he needs more and more lawyers to defend him.

The overperformances of Democrats in special elections so far in 2023 – up by an average of 10 percent against expected partisan lean of the jurisdictions observed – has a number of Republican strategists pissing their pants over what it might portend for next year, ABC News reports.

“If you’re looking at this plus-22 [pro-Republican] seat and you want to know why this guy won by a lot smaller percentage than what you would have thought … it’s because this issue is still there. Republicans still have to figure out how to address the abortion issue,” Wisconsin Republican strategist Brandon Scholz told ABC News. “I think you have to be very concerned.”

“You could probably make a connection a little bit to the presidential race, that there’s a lot of candidates in right now. There’s the Trump folks and folks that are backing somebody else, and the party’s not united nationally around one candidate right now, or at least not completely. Sometimes that affects turnout and funding,” said Pennsylvania Republican consultant Josh Novotney.

Chris Nicholas, another Keystone State Republican lackey said Democrats “thought [abortion] could juice their turnout, and they were they were successful in that regard. And they weren’t subtle about it at all. They’re just like, ‘We know this is a hot-button issue for us, and we’re gonna keep milking it till it runs dry.’ I think you’ll see that a lot in the fall and next year as well.”

NASCAR driver Noah Gragson has been suspended indefinitely for liking a cruel, shitty Instagram post depicting police murder victim George Floyd’s face photoshopped onto Sebastian the crab from The Little Mermaid with the words “Under Da Knee,” shitty MAGA site the Post Millennial reports.

“I am disappointed in myself for my lack of attention and actions on social media,” Gragson later tweeted. “I understand the severity of this situation. I love and appreciate everyone. I try to treat everyone equally no matter who they are. I messed up plain and simple.” Let’s go Gragson!

As Samuel Alito makes questionable claims about the sovereignty of the Supreme Court, yet another scandal envelops the senior justice on highest court in the land.  Justice Clarence Thomas’s iconic recreational vehicle–seen in an image-defining 60 Minutes profile–was paid for by a rich Republican benefactor, the New York Times reports.

To be fair, a rich Republican donor who made a fortune in health care “financed” the RV for Thomas, meaning there was technically a repayment plan in place at some point.  Someone described as an “old friend” of Thomas’s, Anthony Welters, reportedly paid for the custom RV in 1999.

“Defendant’s Motion for Extension of Time is hereby DENIED. Defendant may continue to confer with the government regarding its proposed protective order before or after the August 7, 2023 5:00 PM deadline for his response. The court will determine whether to schedule a hearing to discuss the proposed protective order after reviewing Defendant’s response and, if included, his revised proposed protective order with modifications in redline,” wrote DC federal Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is not fucking around with fat former President Trump’s stupid games.

“Three days ago, on August 2, the Government proposed to defense counsel a protective order that largely tracked one entered in the defendant’s other pending federal criminal case in the Southern District of Florida,” asserts the Special Counsel’s office in a response written so pointedly, no dully-witted blogger should attempt to improve it.  “In emails not appended to the defendant’s extension motion, the Government followed up on the evening of August 3 and early afternoon of August 4. Thereafter, defense counsel finally responded by sending an entirely different protective order. Since the defendant’s proposal was inadequate, the Government proposed another alternative—this one modeled after a protective order entered in a case before Judge Carl J. Nichols recently tried by one of the defendant’s attorneys present at his arraignment. Defense counsel declined to substantively confer on that proposal on a Friday evening, see id., after which the Government moved separately for entry of the order. The Court ordered the defendant to respond by Monday with a redline of the Government’s proposal. Rather than spend time complying with the Court’s order, the defendant drafted a filing as to why he did not have time to review and consider the 5-page proposed protective order.

After Florida Republican Governor and GOP presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis accepted his challenge to debate, Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom belittled his wannabe opponent for making demands to cut down on the opportunity for DeSantis to make more gaffs, Politico reports.

After an earlier report on the demands for the two to debate–for which Sean Hannity will be moderator–noted that it will like happen in early November in Georgia if it happens at all, the two camps diverged:  Newsom wanted a closed debate stage to DeSantis wanting cheering sections; Newsom wanted opening statements, while DeSantis wanted videos shown.

Newsom spokesperson Nathan Click released a statement calling out some of the DeSantis demands:  “What a joke. Desantis’ counterproposal is littered with crutches to hide his insecurity and ineptitude — swapping opening statements with a hype video, cutting down the time he needs to be on stage, adding cheat notes and a cheering section.  Ron should be able to stand on his own two feet. It’s no wonder Trump is kicking his ass.”

After indicted felon Donald Trump posted a thinly-veiled threat of revenge against anyone who dare attempt to hold him accountable for his criminal acts and the Special Counsel’s office responded by asking the judge in his latest indictments to issue a protective order banning Trump from attempting to intimidate witnesses or disclosing information, Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered Trump to respond to the prosecutor’s motion by 5 p.m. ET Monday.

Trump’s lawyers have responded to that order by claiming they’ll like three more additional days to resolve the matter directly with the prosecutor’s office.  “Additionally, a brief extension would provide time for the parties to meaningfully confer—and potentially resolve—this dispute without Court intervention.  Without doubt, discovery in this case will be extensive and likely present numerous complex issues. For that reason, it is essential to structure the parties’ discussions in a methodical and, ideally, cooperative manner. Friday evening ultimatums, given by the government before even calling defense counsel, are wholly unproductive and undermine the potential for party-driven resolutions. Requiring a Monday response to a Friday evening motion likewise forecloses the possibility of agreement and would encourage such improper tactics by the government in the future.”

CBS News has a provocative report questioning whether the National Institutes of Health killed a study on how best to communicate with the public because of political pressure from conservatives promoting disinformation.

In 2021, retiring NIH Director Francis Collins recognized the ongoing problems battling mis- and disinformation during the coronavirus pandemic, and in his final year in office set up a program called Advancing Health Communication Science and Practice to research the best ways to present prevailing medical understanding about everything from routine health questions to pandemic-level events.  Upon taking over as acting director in December 2021, his successor Lawrence Tabak, put the program on hold; nothing more has been done with the program in more than a year and a half, leading people within the field to believe the program is dead.

The question is, why was a program aimed at improving the dissemination of information from the world’s premier medical research facility dropped?  In the midst of a disinformation war in the country–with Republicans in Congress perversely claiming that by censoring federal public health professionals, they’re fighting censorship–having a study on how to get the public to believe valid information from respected sources would seem logical.

In 23 days’ time there’s going to be a decision of monumental consequence made, one that will set the course of the next year and much beyond in American politics. It’s no overstatement to say that the start date of disgraced former President Trump’s Washington DC trial on charges he conspired to destroy American democracy following his humiliating defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election is going to go a long way toward determining the fate of American democracy itself going forward, and that’s exactly what’s in DC Circuit Judge Tanya Chutkan’s hands on August 28th.

Many, if not all of the gears for a clock that will tick inexorably to a dark midnight for Trump and his fanboys in 2024 are there, waiting for one crucial piece to be added by Chutkan.

“A Texas man who suggested a ‘mass shooting of poll workers’ and threatened two Maricopa County officials and their children was sentenced yesterday to three and a half years in federal prison, announced US Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Leigha Simonton. Frederick Francis Goltz, 52, pleaded guilty in April to interstate threatening communications. According to court documents, Mr Goltz threatened several individuals in Arizona – including a Maricopa County Attorney’s Office lawyer and a Maricopa County elections official – on the far-right-wing social media platforms Patriots.win and Gab.com,” says a Justice Department press release from Thursday.

“In plea papers, Mr Goltz admitted that on Nov 21, 2022, he posted the lawyer’s name, purported home address, and purported telephone number on social media along with the sardonic comment, ‘It would be a shame if someone got to [sic] this children. There are some crazies out there. This kind of info shouldn’t be readily available on the internet.’ On the same date, in response to another post referring to other Maricopa County officials, Mr Goltz said, ‘Someone needs to get these people AND their children. The children are the most important message to send.’ Just two days later, according to court records, Mr Goltz responded to a post about the elections official with the comment, ‘He’s got a WIFE that is a lawyer, too. We need to find out her name and where she works. I don’t think he has kids, but I’m not 100% on that.’ When another user commented that kids should be ‘off limits,’ Mr Goltz responded by saying, ‘NOTHING is off limits. It’s people like you that are supposedly with us, who don’t have the stomach to do what it takes to get our country back.'”

“An FBI investigation into Mr Goltz’s other social media activity revealed a long history of threatening statements against a variety of targets, including government officials, law enforcement officers, and others: For example, according to court records, on Nov 13, 2022, Mr Goltz advocated for ‘a mass shooting of poll workers and election officials’ in precincts he believed had ‘suspect’ results. According to court records, Mr Goltz repeatedly emphasized that ‘children are not off limits,’ and said that going after children is important because ‘it sends a message… people will pay the price for ‘sins of the father.’ Dead children burn into the memories of people.'”

Plainly sweating after Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s team flagged disgraced former President Trump’s “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” post in a request for a protective order (while leaving up to the judge whether it was any sort of violation), the Trump campaign responded with an obviously very hastily-written statement early Saturday morning.

“The Truth post cited is the definition of political speech, and was in response to the RINO, China-loving, dishonest special interest groups and Super PACs, like the ones funded by the Koch brothers and the Club for No Growth,” says the statement which, while we can easily guess what “Truth post” they were referring to, did not actually link it or otherwise specify its content. Or explain how we were supposed to get that it was just political shitposting rather than directed at prosecutors. So yeah, they’re freaking the fuck out knowing the judge just might not take very kindly to the message.

• All those people who have been arrested and jailed, all those already facing charges, and those expecting indictments for their actions to upset the peaceful transfer of power:  Admit that you did it for Donald Trump, not the country.  You don’t want the United States to exist; you want the First Trump Dynasty.  You’ve ruined your life for a politician, not the nation.
• How many people out there sincerely fear they themselves could be Individual 6?  Four?  Maybe five?
• Most important takeaway from the latest Trump indictment:  Trump and his co-conspirators planned to deploy the United States military to enforce their fraudulent plot to overturn the 2020 election.  That, ladies and gentlemen, is a coup that you would literally see in a Third World country.
• Conservatives:  I don’t want my children exposed to LGBTQ subjects anywhere at any time because even being exposed to the idea will lead to adoption.  Also conservatives:  Let’s take the kids to the Trump rally with the guy selling Nazi flags and “Hang Nancy Pelosi” t-shirts out front.
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CXXXII”

Just hours after disgraced former President Trump posted “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” on his shitty Twitter knockoff, Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s team on Friday submitted a proposed protective order specifically citing the purposely vague threat as an example of the “previously issued public statements on social media regarding witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with legal matters pending against him. And in recent days, regarding this case, the defendant has issued multiple posts either specifically or by implication.”