Republican Oversight Committee chair James Comer was quick to jump in front of television cameras on propaganda outlets friendly to his Trump-supporting messaging on Monday night to promote lies he supposedly got from the testimony of one-time Hunter Biden associate Devon Archer, asserting the accounts he heard in the session conclusively prove the need for an impeachment investigation.

There’s one problem:  multiple sources tell the Daily Beast that Comer didn’t attend the closed-door hearing, nor did he participate remotely in the session.  Still, when a Newsmax host prefaced a question with, “You were in the room,” Comer did not correct the statement.  It was one of at least four television appearances Comer made after the session in which he let the audience believe he was part of the hearing and had heard the testimony himself.

“A few Republicans were disappointed that Chairman Comer didn’t show up to the Archer transcribed interview,” a senior GOP source commented.  “It was like following a general into battle, but the general decided to stay home instead of fight.  Especially when there are other members who would love to have interviewed Archer but aren’t on the Oversight Committee and not allowed in the room.”

During a June lunch at the White House, former President Barack Obama declared his support for President Joe Biden’s reelection bid, saying he would do anything to help the effort, while advising Biden to be wary of Donald Trump’s institutional support among the conservative propaganda ecosystem, the Washington Post reports.

As the pair met for one of their periodic meetings, the two Democrats discussed Trump’s stranglehold on the Republican Party and the GOP’s associated media system, an advantage Obama warned Biden not to underestimate.   Sources close to Biden welcomed Obama’s early offering of support after the 2020 race, when Obama withheld support during the open Democratic primary until Biden secured the Party nomination.

When will the investigation begin on the effort by Hollywood actors to overturn the Presidential Election of 2016?

pic.twitter.com/TSNcCEidOR

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 2, 2023

Let’s just say it:  Republicans are stupid, particularly when they deploy their standard “whataboutism” defense.  Here’s Florida Republican Senator and waste of a seat in the state’s Congressional delegation Marco Rubio demands a federal investigation into political activity of private citizens–the real weaponization of government Jim Jordan claims to be hunting.  Of course, Rubio aims his wrath at celebrities because “Hollywood” is the watchword for conservatives who want to bitch about perceived immorality while they’re supporting the politically desperate antics of a thrice-married admitted adulterer and corrupt reality television star, Donald Trump.  The inherent hypocrisy of Rubio–a United States Senator–apparently authentically calling for an investigation into private citizens using their First Amendment rights to lobby representatives to reject election results in 2016 while his House compatriots hunt for evidence of weaponization of government demonstrates the GOP is a joke.

Multiple media outlets report police and fire department resources in Washington, DC responded to the Rayburn Senate Office Building after an unverified report of an active shooter circulated.  Staffers were evacuated from the building, but after a preliminary police search, no danger was identified.  WUSA CBS-9 in Washington reports no gunfire has been reported, but officials are asking people in the building to shelter in place and request people stay away of the area.

Lost in the immediate frenzy of defending the Constitution from a cabal of power-hungry cultists determined to have their leader illegally installed into the highest office in the nation, we admit we left a number of juicy stories in the past months to wallow.  One was the lawsuit against one of Donald Trump’s unpaid lawyers, Rudy Giuliani, and a lawsuit alleging he forced a female employee to gratify him sexually–oh, and little things like he was selling presidential pardons for $2 million each.

Well, that lawsuit continues its way through the courts, and Business Insider summarizes some of the evidence Noelle Dunphy provided the court, including transcripts of (thankfully only) audio tapes she made of Giuliani as part of their daily operations, including tapes made of him doing Rudy’s version of sexy talk:  “Come here, big tits. Come here, big tits. Your tits belong to me. Give them to me (indiscernible). I want to claim my tits. I want to claim my tits. I want to claim my tits. These are my tits.”

A little late to the party, former vice president and Chalk-American Mike Pence continued his attacks on Donald Trump following yet another indictment for the disgraced former president but doing so in his weak, cooked-spaghetti manner.  Speaking at what appears to be a tractor showcase in Indianapolis Wednesday, Pence said,  “I want people to know I had no right to overturn the election, and that on that day, President Trump asked me to put him over the Constitution, but I chose the Constitution, and I always will.  And I, ah, I really do believe that, um, anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be President of the United States.  And anyone who asks someone else to put themselves over the Constitution should never be President of the United States again.”  Noting that he “dismissed [fraudulent legal theories] out of hand,” Pence went on to say, “Sadly, the president was surrounded by a group of crackpot lawyers that kept telling him what his itching ears wanted to hear.”

Just hours after learning he had been indicted on four counts related to his attempt to subvert the Constitution of the United States, Donald Trump invited two executives from Fox’s cable propaganda network to dine with him at his golf club in Bedminister, New Jersey.

According to the New York Times, Trump had dinner with Jay Wallace and Suzanne Scott, Fox’s president and chief executive respectively, on Tuesday.  Sources say Trump’s internal advisor at the network, Sean Hannity, was also supposed to attend but stayed in New York to lie about the four criminal indictments that were handed down earlier in the day.

While no details about what Trump ranted about or what burnt food was served during the dinner, Fox executives are wooing Trump to appear on the network’s planned presidential debate, something the childish Trump had hinted he would skip because he demands complete fealty and Fox’s interviews with his opponents have made him made.

Robert Bowers, a 50-year-old white nationalist, was sentenced to death for the murder of 11 worshipers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018, the deadliest anti-Semetic attack in American history, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.  Bowers’s murder victims ranged in age from 54 to 97-years-old, and he wounded seven; many of his victims were Holocaust survivors.

“Well, one of the reasons I’m running for president, Harris, is to re-constitutionalize the federal government, and these agencies that have become weaponized–the FBI, the DOJ–against political opponents,”  Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis–who is accursed of starting a private military force and using taxpayer money for his political efforts in Florida–says on the GOP’s mainstream-ish propaganda network.  “That’s a result of them not being held constitutionally accountable for many, many years, so when I’m president, we will bring accountability.  We will end weaponization and that regards to new leadership at the FBI, at the DOJ.  We’re gonna take power out of DC.  We’re gonna return it to the American people.”

Just a reminder that DeSantis has used government authority in Florida to criminalize even discussing an individual’s choice for health care, matrimony, and political dissent, not to mention using taxpayer money to kidnap through deception to promote his political ambitions.

Federal prosecutors handling Trump henchman Walt Nauta’s case in Florida filed a motion Wednesday requesting a hearing to review if his attorney, Stanley Woodward, Jr., is conflicted because prosecutors intend to call at least three of his other clients as witnesses in the case, a new court filing shows.

The filing shows Woodward–a lawyer it took more than two weeks for Nauta to find and retain due to the complications of a national security case where the top-line defendant is an itinerate liar, rapist and national security risk–is also representing two people referred to as Witness 1 and Witness 2, as well as the person referred to as Trump Employee 4, who has been identified in respectable media as Yuscil Taveras, the Mar-a-Lago IT director.

Prosecutors have requested a Garcia hearing, a court procedure in which the judge and prosecutors ensure that the defendant is advised of his lawyer’s potential conflict.  In at least one other case involving the Trump plot to overturn the 2020 election, Trump-supporting lawyers did not fulfill their duties to faithfully represent their clients’ best interest:  Georgia attorney Kimberly Bourroughs Debrow, representing a number of the state’s fake electors, neglected to inform some of her clients about cooperation offers from prosecutors that would have resulted in reduced or dismissed charges in a suspected effort to promote Trump’s false election claims.

Payroll processing company ADP reported private companies increased their staff by 324,000 new hired in August, according to Reuters, far more than the number predicted by pundits for business hiring in the month.  ADP reports private wages have increased 6.2% over the previous twelve months, with people who changed jobs seeing a 10.2% wage increase.  The official jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics will be released Friday.

Donald Trump is expected to appear in person for his arraignment in Washington, DC on Thursday on four additional federal charges stemming from his effort to undermine the certified results of the 2020 election, MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin reports.  The judge will set bail and conditions for Trump’s pre-trial release, which will likely include limitations on his ability to contact other witnesses and co-conspirators as listed in his indictment.

Citing an “erosion of governance” illustrated by the unnecessary risk to the US economy caused by Republicans craving performance art, credit bureau Fitch downgraded the US credit rating from AAA to AA+ on Tuesday, NBC News reports.

“In Fitch’s view, there has been a steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years, including on fiscal and debt matters,” the rating agency said in a statement.  Besides the lack of stability in government because of Republican immaturity, Fitch cites increasing federal debt–largely driven by GOP policies lowering taxes while increasing debt and deficits–and a risk of the US falling into recession as other reasons.

Overall, Fitch notes that the US economy has strong underpinnings, but the periodic instability of the federal government–driven by anti-responsibility conservatives who do not believe in fiscal conservatism in paying accrued bills, in the vein of the titular leader of the Republican Party, Donald Trump–is largely driving the rating downgrade.

Once a status symbol illustrating one’s notoriety and fame, the blue checkmark on Twitter has now transformed into a sign that the person financially supports not one, but two wannabe oligarchs who claim wealth and brilliance but rely on the payments by working-class Americans to continue their endeavors.

Now, however, according to the Verge, Elon Musk has recognized the shame heaped on the customers who pay the $8 per month fee to Musk for a handful of additional features, so he’s made the display of the once-prized icon from their user profiles.

In marketing, you typically want to broadcast how many people buy your product; it shows market penetration and promotes the FOMO of buyers to induce them to buy.  Not on Twitter:  Musk is now acknowledging the shame his customers should feel for supporting his destruction of a once-respected brand.

Trump lawyer John Lauro on Wednesday floated another fantasy on television, telling CBS This Morning he’s going to ask DC Circuit Judge Tanya Chutkan to move the disgraced former president’s trial to West Virginia, which Lauro said is “in close proximity” and “much more diverse.”

Yeah, he actually said that “diverse” part about the Mountain State, whose population is 89 percent non-Hispanic white and where Trump won by 39 percent in 2020. We can’t find a clip of it just yet.

Professor defends lack of interest in Barbie movie as a '48-year-old man with erectile dysfunction' https://t.co/tuNBBu6H2b

— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 2, 2023

“I hope the charges brought by the American Javert are thrown out, but the TDS Dead Ender Coalition should listen carefully to what John Lauro told @BretBaier last night: The former president will be subpoenaing everyone who had anything to do with the unusual circumstances of the 2020 election in order to prove his genuine suspicion of the process, which I think means everyone from Mark Zuckerberg who provided the ‘Zuck Bucks’ to the PA Supreme Court to the ’51 former Intelligence Community members’ who signed the ‘laptop is Russian disinformation letter’ to the old execs at Twitter who suppressed the @NYPost story to Hunter and President Biden and on and on and even perhaps to all participants in the Steele Dossier ought to clear their calendars for whenever the trial is scheduled. Show trials are only choreographed in Stalin’s Russia.”

“Lauro made clear this one – if it begins – is going to explore every corner of the 2020 election with former President Trump empowered to subpoena everyone who can help prove his innocence” says right wing radio host Hugh Hewitt on Twitter (or “X” if you’re a douche). Normally we would’ve just embedded the tweet but the frame doesn’t show the whole thing if it’s more than 240 characters.

Anyway this fucker didn’t have to post a near-verbatim copy of our gag article “JUST WAIT FOR DISCOVERY LIBS!” from Tuesday night. It’s like he’s devaluing our hard work by validating our anticipated reaction to the bullshit that Trump lawyer was spewing on TV. What a prick.

Fulton County, Georgia Sheriff Patrick Labat tells the New York Times his office isn’t going to give disgraced former President Trump if (really when) he’s arraigned there in the next few weeks.

“Unless someone tells me differently,” his deputies and staff will use “normal practices, and so it doesn’t matter your status. We’ll have mug shots ready for you,” said Labat. Should be fun!

On June 4th, 2014, the US Senate sort of unanimously confirmed Judge Tanya S Chutkan to US District Judge of the District of Columbia. The vote was 95 to 0, with five Senators not voting for whatever reasons they had that we would probably end up wasting a lot of time tracking down.

Among the 95 yes votes were 17 currently sitting GOP Senators: John Barrasso, Susan Collins, John Cornyn, Ted Cruz, Deb Fischer, Lindsey Graham, Charles Grassley, John Hoeven, Ron Johnson, Mitch McConnell, Jerry Moran, Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul, Jim Risch, Marco Rubio, Tim Scott, and John Thune. Two more, Mike Lee and John Boozman, didn’t vote but they might as well have voted yes if they couldn’t be bothered to show up to register their disapproval of the judicial nominee.

So for the next year or so or however long it takes to resolve the new post-2020 election coup plot charges against disgraced former President Trump and the fanboys scream in pain and horror as Chutkan torments them from the bench, remember this: She’s there with the assent of not just the “RINOs” like Moscow Mitch and Lindsey Graham and Lisa Murkowski, but their heroes like RonAnon, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio. Not an “Obama judge,” a “Cruz-Johnson-Rubio-Paul-Obama judge.” Those fucking losers handed her the gavel she will hammer Trump with.

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’s destruction of the once-vaunted state education system is taking hits from multiple directions as the GOP presidential candidate attempts to legitimize bigotry and slavery in the state schools’ curriculum.

As NBC News reports, DeSantis endorsed the adoption of a new college entrance exam, the Classical Learning Test, an eight-year-old standardized test that claims to provide an alternative to the SAT and ACT, but which concentrates its subject matter on a white, Western perspective, largely ignoring the history and contributions of other cultures.  The Florida Board of Governors will vote in an upcoming meeting on accepting the test, giving it the same weight as the more established exams in admissions for Florida state schools.  The CLT is used at around 200 universities across the United States, primarily conservative, Christian schools that shun ongoing academia, preferring to teach a worldview as believe in a white American suburb in the 1950s.