A 51-year-old Australian sailor and his dog were rescued after being adrift for two months on their voyage from Mexico to French Polynesia, Australia’s 9 News reports.  Tim Shaddock and his dog, Bella, left La Paz, Mexico for the 3,700-mile cruise to French Polynesia, but weeks into his cruise, a storm damaged the electronics of the boat, leaving it powerless.

Shaddock’s boat was spotted by an aircraft in early July and a tuna trawler was able to sail to finally rescue the stranded man and his dog, who were then transferred to a military ship.  Sporting a full beard, Shaddock said they survived by eating raw fish he caught and collecting rainwater to drink. Doctors aboard the ship said despite a forty-pound weight loss, he’s healthy.  Both he and Bella are expected to recover.

Longer than a football field (including the end zones), the yacht of billionaire Walmart heiress Nancy Walton Laurie was struck by environmental activists who spraypainted the stern of the ship with black and red paint in what will likely result in a collective yawn from the shoppers at the stores, but a concerned, “Oh, dear, how rude,” from Laurie’s peers.

According to the Daily Beast, two people from the Spanish environmental group Futuro Vegetal were arrested after they spraypainted the ship while it was docked at Ibiza, where Laurie is slumming it.  Her staff was seen hosing down the paint of the Kaos–who’s logo features a water-rescue ring as the letter “O.”   “The only reason we continue to maintain an economic system that leads us to eco-social collapse is to sustain the privileges of this small privileged class,” the group said in an Instagram post.

Months after the country was rocked by unrest protesting the death of a woman detained for having some hair show from under her hajib while she was riding in a car with her family, Iran has reauthorized its religious morality police to stop women for immodesty, CBS News reports.

Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman visiting her brother in Tehran, was taken from the family’s vehicle and put into a van transporting other alleged violators of Iran’s strict laws suppressing women.  She was beaten in the van according to other detainees,  and she died of a heart attack and a brain injury after reaching the reeducation center.  In the weeks of protests after her death, where women burned their hajibs or cut their long hair, more than 500 demonstrators were killed and 20,000 detailed.

Right wing Michigan oligarch Perry Johnson, who was among the five 2022 Great Lake State GOP gubernatorial hopefuls who found themselves disqualified from the race just prior to primary election day over a ballot access petition forgery scam, came in second in a 2024 Republican presidential primary straw poll of attendees at this weekend’s Turning Point Action Conference, pulling in 7.8 percent support – far behind disgraced former President Trump’s 85.7 percent but ahead of robotic neuroatypical Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s 4.3 percent, the Washington Examiner reports.

Yes, it was conducted by Trafalgar, a right wing pollster notorious for literally making shit up to drive a MAGA narrative. Yes, it was just an unscientific straw poll of a crowd heavily biased by Trump and Johnson’s presence coupled with DeSantis’s absence (at an event in his home state). Yes, it was probably taken right after Johnson spoke to the crowd, skewing it even more. It’s still funny as hell.

In related news, Michigan oligarch Perry Johnson, who was among the five 2022 Great Lake State Republican gubernatorial hopefuls who found themselves disqualified from the race just prior to primary election day over a ballot access petition forgery scam, is running for president.

Johnson, who sank $7.5 million of his own money into the 2022 gubernatorial bid only to be felled by a crew of two bit hustlers who charged $13 for each signature whether they legitimately collected or forged it, is campaigning on a theme of fiscal responsibility and smart management, pledging to “put the bloated federal government on a diet,” according to his website. The site’s merch shop prominently features an “I identify as Non-Bidenary” sticker, a joke ripped off from high school dropout Lauren Boebert. She might’ve stolen it from someone else too though, to be fair.

Alcoholic shitbrain Rudy Giuliani’s reported “proffer session” with Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s team late last month lasted not one, but two days, a distinction that criminal law experts tell the Messenger could be bad news to twice-impeached and twice-indicted former President Trump’s legal team as they brace for the Orange God Emperor and his minions to be hit with a massive federal indictment over their failed post-2020 election coup attempt.

“One day you don’t know what to make of… Two days though suggests that the DOJ may be considering his value as a witness,” former Trump lawyer Ty Cobb said about Rudy’s two “Queen for a Day” sessions with the special counsel’s office. Former New Jersey federal prosecutor Mike Epner said the double header is “not standard operating procedure.” MSNBC legal analyst and ex-federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti hedged a little on the potential significance, telling the Messenger it could’ve been less due to negotiating a deal and more of simply volume of information from the corrupt wet brained idiot. “Giuliani touched a lot so they have a lot to ask about,” Mariotti said.

A source “familiar with the Trump team’s thinking” tells the Messenger that Rudy’s lawyer Bob Costello would not have let his gassy client meet with Smith’s office under most circumstances – unless they’re working out a deal. “I’m sure the pressure is immense,” the source told the Messenger, adding “At this point in Rudy’s age and career, does that matter?” when asked if Rudy could find himself an enemy of MAGA nation if he flips. Not the kind of tea leaf they want to be reading.

This clip might be the MAGA-est thing ever and it’s almost impossible to choose what to lead with, so we’ll just go in a straight line: Like a number of Twitter users have already pointed out, Turning Point USA is supposed to be a “youth” organization yet just anecdotally it seems as though the majority of attendees are angry, decrepit boomers. Like this guy. And holy shit is he angry.

“I am so tired of hearing we’re gonna hold them responsible,” the man says, his voice quivering with rage, “them” almost certainly referring to Biden, Democrats, the FBI, etc. “I wanna know why AFTER SIX MONTHS, WE CAN’T PUT ANYBODY IN JAIL!!!” he screams to thunderous applause, making it clear that the whole audience thinks the House GOP should be allowed to unilaterally arrest people.

Cruz then delivers a high school civics class lesson, explaining that federal law enforcement is the responsibility of the executive branch and no member of Congress or the judiciary can prosecute an individual. If you read a transcription of it you would think Cruz was calm and collected, as if he’s talking to a room full of teenagers. But on video it’s clear Rafael thinks he needs to match the man’s volcanic fury and basically shouts it out, and the result is fucking hysterical. It’s like he’s saying “Hey you fucking stupid hick, I know our party and media complex intentionally created that expectation that Hunter Biden would go to jail if we won the House to get you to vote for us, but I thought only cynical upper-middle class and above Conservatives who were in on that scam were able to afford tickets to this event. I’m going to have words with Charlie Kirk about raising the admission fees so we can price out uneducated dipshits like you. But since we’re here, I guess I have to explain HOW THE FEDERAL JUSTICE SYSTEM ACTUALLY WORKS to you fucking retards.”

Asked by Fox News media reporter Howard Kurtz to address fat former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s attacks on fat former President Trump on Sunday, hateful little bastard Florida Governor Ron DeSantis captured perfectly how goddamned screwed he is by saying “I don’t do insults, so that it is true. I think getting in this insult game turns voters off” which, lol, that is literally how Trump steamrolled Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Jeb! and the rest of them in the 2016 GOP primary.

After that however Tiny D did sort of hit a stride with attacking Trump on his failures to deliver for the MAGA base while in office, starting with how he broke a promise to “drain the swamp… It got worse! He did not drain the swamp. He promised to build- have Mexico pay for a border wall. They did like 50 miles of wall, there’s massive expanses still there. He said he was going to eliminate the national debt, they added almost $8 trillion dollars to the debt in four years and of course in 2020 he turned the country over to Dr Fauci and those lockdowns” and blah blah blah.

All valid-ish enough hits on Trump’s real vulnerabilities, raising questions of why the hell Mickey Maoist spent the first six months after his reelection dicking around and fighting Disney instead of kicking Trump while he was down after the midterms. It might seem like a lifetime ago, but in poll after poll in late 2022-early 2023 showed Ron in the lead for the 2024 GOP nomination when fanboys were pissed over Trump’s meddling in the midterms. That this scmuck let the opportunity slip away and is only now attacking Donald’s policy record – while avoiding “insults” as if the Republican base is capable of understanding a difference between the two.

Disgraced former President Trump suggested to Fox News idiot Maria Bartiromo that Taiwan can’t count on US military assistance if he’s in office again if and when the ChiComs invade – because they “took” semiconductor manufacturing capacity away from Americans. Which gives the ChiComs the same incentive the Russians have to return him to the White House. But let’s hear the fanboys talk more shit about Donald being “so tough on China” after this and the clip where he praises Commie dictator Xi even to the point where even a sycophant such as Bartiromo’s like “WTF?!?”

A 7.2-magnitude earthquake centered 55 miles south of the eastern Aleutian Islands community of Sand Point, Alaska triggered a tsunami warning for wide swaths of the North Star State’s southern Pacific coast late Saturday, later downgraded to advisory, then canceled altogether after communities on Kodiak Island and other areas observed a six-inch tsunami, KTUU reports.

It’s not clear how officials and scientists were able to tell the “tsunami” apart from just a regular wave. Maybe it moves faster. Also puzzling is why the alert system can’t immediately tell if the quake is the type that actually displaces water and triggers a tsunami – as opposed to a deeper hypocenter that does little to no seabed disruption like this one. No major damage or injuries were reported from the quake itself, however Alaskans in vulnerable areas spent a tense hour or two on edge as tsunami alert sirens sounded off immediately after the initial 10:48 PM AKDT shock.

Heels-wearing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will sit for an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper in South Carolina on Tuesday, the network announced Sunday morning. It’s not clear why CNN is foregoing the town hall format events they held for Nimrata Haley, Mike Pence, and Orange Fatass over the last few months. All of those pre-dated Chris Licht’s unceremonious firing, so it’s possible whoever’s in charge now said no mas. Probably more likely however is that Tiny D sucks at retail politics and can’t even be bothered to sit for the same kind of softball, fans-only crowd Trump got.

Georgia lost 90% of its signature peach crop this year, while Florida’s orange production dropped nearly two-thirds this season thanks to a hurricane and a late winter heat wave that screwed up the natural cycle of the trees.

Florida reported an estimated 15.7 million boxes of oranges for the 2022-23 season, versus 40.7 million boxes the previous year.  Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that the drop in production was due to the trees getting “woke” and deciding they wanted to identify themselves as banana trees.  So woke woke-ity, woke, guns, woke.  Or he probably would have if we would have asked him.

Politico reports the Ron DeSantis campaign laid off a handful of staff, mostly connected with planning live events where the Republican Florida Governor would appear, Politico reports, with most staffers expected to be picked up by the DeSantis-affiliated Super PAC.

DeSantis raised more than $20 million in the second quarter, but 15% of that is designated for the general election–making the huge assumption that DeSantis would be the GOP candidate.  According to financial reports, DeSantis had 90 staffers on payroll, accounting for $1 million in costs.  Also, of that $20 million raised, only $3 million, or 15%, came from small-dollar donors.  Ronny seems to be the candidate of the big-dollar backers.

Charlie Kirk’s “Turning Point Action Conference” is supposed to be a “youth” gathering, but as a number of observers have pointed out, it’s a decrepit boomer-fest through and through.

New York State records via VoteRef.com reveal Long Island architect Rex Heuermann, arrested Friday and charged with the circa 2010 murders of three sex workers whose bodies were found dumped in the brush off of Ocean Parkway in nearby Gilgo Beach – and is suspected in at least seven more murders – is a registered Republican. You are just floored by this, right?

It gets even better: While we can’t ascertain whether or not Heuermann is a Trump fan, there is however possible evidence that he did some work for the Trump Organization, as Twitter user random facts girl, followed by some heavy hitters in the Q research community, names we trust, dug up a New York City Department of Buildings filing showing Heuermann’s firm, REX A HEUERMANN ARCHITECT PC did a job at Donald’s building at 40 Wall Street, Manhattan in 2018.

It’s funny when liberals spend years saying “Republicans need to suppress the Black vote to be able to win” and the MAGA media says shit like “Shut up you commie racist queers! Stop lying!” and then Steve Bannon come out says simply that if they can’t persuade Black voters to support Trump and MAGA then “here’s what we can do at the least – not have them vote for Democrats.”

“Democrat” dead-end 2024 primary presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr revealed why the MAGA kids love him so much with a racist rant about COVID being engineered to spare Jewish and Chinese people at a press event at a Manhattan restaurant this week, the New York Post reports

“COVID-19. There is s an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately. COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese,” said Kennedy. “We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential.”

So yeah, RFK Jr is suggesting that “the Jews” and Chinese communists engineered the COVID-19 virus to cull the populations of non-Jewish and non-Chinese ethnic groups. Fanboys are furious that Biden won’t face this guy a Democratic presidential primary debate, or they were before their Orange Allah made it clear that he’s extremely unlikely to participate in one or more of the Republican primary debates. It’s actually too bad that Trump inadvertently took that heat off of Biden given what RFK Jr just did to himself and his campaign with this racist batshittery.

In a prerecorded interview with batshit Fox News idiot Maria Bartiromo set to air Sunday morning, disgraced former President Trump hinted at a bold new messaging strategy for addressing why it’s someone else’s fault that he picked the “liberal biased” Chris Wray to serve as FBI Director.

Asked by Bartiromo if nominating Wray was a “mistake,” Trump said “Yeah, sadly. It probably was. It was recommended very strongly by Chris Christie, who was, you know, a sad case. I mean, I watch him. He’s a sad case.” Bartiromo did not follow up by asking Trump why he would listen to the advice of “sloppy” Chris Christie, instead letting him ramble angrily about the former New Jersey governor’s polling numbers before segueing into lying about his border “achievements” in the 90 second clip.

For all the felony counts he’s already charged with and the judgment against him for sexual abuse, all the corruption and other shit that would be disqualifying for anyone else in a primary and a general election, this is the one spot where Trump is legitimately vulnerable. It’s not his record of failing Americans, it’s his record of failing his own fans by hiring and/or not firing Wray, Mark Milley, Anthony Fauci, Elaine “CoCo” Chao, Bill Barr, Deborah Birx, and God knows how many others. He was was happy to fire Defense Secretary Mark Esper and election cybersecurity czar Chris Krebs (who likely the vast majority of his voters had never even heard of), but not the other “Deep Staters” who thwarted his America First agenda. That Trump is (almost certainly falsely) blaming fucking Chris Christie for Chris Wray is quite the tell that the twice-impeached loser knows this is a serious weak spot going forward. It’s not always going to be shitbrain Maria Bartiromo asking him about it.

• Ron DeSantis is the Scott Walker of Jeb Bushes.
• Tommy Tuberville personified Republicanism:  a bigoted ignorant old rich self-declared Christian white man, unqualified for his job, who thinks his beliefs dictate he rule over others, regardless of the law.
• Twitter should’ve prioritized an edit button, not platforming bigots.
• It says a lot that the people who want to ban books for racism are overwhelming (if not all) white.  It’s like they want to wipe the existence of racism away.  You know who’s not pushing for those books to be removed?  Black people, because they know it’s real, they experience it, and they want to teach their kids.
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CXXIX”

In 2008, Sarah Palin, the now-former half-term Republican governor of Alaska, was supposed to be the future of the GOP.  Turns out, that wasn’t far off.  A social media influencer before social media was pervasive, Palin is a jobless divorcee fired after failing at her last–oh–fifteen jobs, shacking up with an old hockey player.  But sure, the woman who hasn’t won an election since 2006 has enough political savvy for Newsmax.

It wasn’t exactly Ocean’s Eleven.  A former Las Vegas police officer was convicted by a federal jury of robbing three casinos between November 2021 and February 2022, netting $165,000, brandishing his department-issued service weapon during one of the robberies, KSNV NBC-3 in Las Vegas reports.

Caleb Rogers’ younger brother testified about how the two pulled off the first heist, taking three hours to detail the planning and execution of the job for the jury.  Prosecutors say Rogers then conducted two more robberies on his own because, they said, he was a gambling addict.  Rogers was an active police officer with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police at the time of the robberies, but he was on unpaid leave since his arrest.