A major US discount retailer said it will resume limits on purchases of certain “key” items, including toilet paper and bottled water, with the company’s CFO claiming the Covid-19 Delta variant is driving a major run on inventory. Read Full Article at RT.com

It is Friday. Finally, subpoenas were sent out to some of Trump’s closest dirtbags. The conspiracy theorists take another hit as reality once again gets in the way of their made up election story. Florida Republicans are trying to sink Florida in the name of freedom, and the GOP and its most rabid supporters continue promoting the idea that our country should be turned into a dictatorship of billionaires. You know, to stop the other billionaires. The Biden administration needs to  Here are some of the stories you may have missed today:

An ex-con Russian MMA brawler needed less than a round to knock out his English opponent on his bare knuckle boxing debut in Moscow. Read Full Article at RT.com

The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper has made a name for himself by going to various MAGA and MAGA-adjacent events to interview the participants and see what their positions are. The humor comes from the fact that most Trumper types think with their guts and not with their heads. This is consistent with their anti-science and anti-reality-based positions on elections, on vaccines, and on masks. On Thursday, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah showed Klepper in North Carolina, attending a rally with a section of the electorate fighting against masks, vaccines, critical race theory, and common sense. In his “Jordan Klepper Fingers The Pulse” segment, Klepper begins by saying he is following anti-mask protesters as they march toward “America’s new Thunderdome—school board meetings."

If you already thought the Trump administration’s COVID-19 response resembled two drunk howler monkeys punching each other in the groin on a Tilt-A-Whirl, you’ll be horrified—though certainly not surprised—to discover it was actually worse than previously thought. It’s certainly an open question whether Donald Trump’s flailing monkeys focusing on an urgent crisis is a good or bad thing; in retrospect, giving Trump a binky, a blanky, and a four-year supply of Hibernol on Jan. 21, 2017 might have been the way to go. But handling deadly crises is part of the job description for heads of state. Sadly, Trump never saw it that way. And after Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, Trump doubled down on preventing a competent COVID-19 response by both trying to keep Biden out of the White House and completely ignoring his sworn duty to save Americans’ lives. Now, thanks to a passel of emails obtained by the House select subcommittee investigating the federal government’s COVID-19 response, we’re seeing just how uninterested the Trump administration was in fighting the deadly virus once its cosmic loser leader biffed his reelection.

Imprisoned hacktivist Martin Gottesfeld says the federal prison authorities have cut off his phone access, shortly after he gave an interview to RT and told his wife about a unit manager who was allegedly sexually abusing inmates. Read Full Article at RT.com

Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton send a mechanic flying backwards into the air after smashing into him with his car – then claimed that «we all make mistakes» after his Mercedes team reassured fans. Read Full Article at RT.com

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was roasted after she issued a lengthy press release to explain why she did not vote ‘no’ on a bill to fund Israeli's anti-missile shield, calling herself a victim of “unjust” procedures. Read Full Article at RT.com

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau has announced that Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. who had been in custody in China, were flying back home. Beijing alleged the men were spies hunting for China’s state secrets. Read Full Article at RT.com

New Jersey has made major steps in dismantling mass Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention in the state, most notably the new law banning new contracts. Just this month, Hudson County also said it would be ending its ICE agreement. But rather than just releasing immigrants, immigration officials have been engaged in a steady campaign of transferring them elsewhere, sometimes to remote regions, and in the dead of night. Both of the state’s U.S. senators have now joined the chorus of voices urging an end to this practice.

The campaign finances of Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado have been the subject of a lot of speculation. The seemingly corrupt and possibly illegal ways she has used her campaign’s finances to pay for personal items—like $20,000 worth of gasoline and rent. She’s not particularly bright, but neither are most of her colleagues. She’s petty, suspected of being tied up deeply in the Jan. 6 attempted coup d’etat, and practices a substance- and fact-free style of political theater that was employed most successfully by Donald Trump in 2015.  On Friday, Rep. Boebert did her best impression of whatever it is the GOP think public servants look like and sent out a press release calling for the impeachment of President Joe Biden. Why? Who cares. What is Rep. Boebert offering to do for her constituents? Nothing. Did Lauren Boebert send out this news release with big capitalized signage that reads “IMEACH BIDEN”? Yes. Yes, she did. And while she has since tried to hide this glaring mistake, the internet is forever.

Mason City School Board candidate Cristy Tass has dropped out of the race! That’s the news being reported by the Globe Gazette on Thursday. The Gazette reports that Tass’s Facebook page had a post saying, “It is decided on this day, that I will step down from the school board election. I will help children and teachers in other ways.” While that post is no longer up, Cerro Gordo County Auditor Adam Wedmore confirmed to the Gazette that early Thursday morning that Tass contacted him to find out what her options were for withdrawing from the race. Wedmore says that since she has missed the deadline to withdraw, her best shot was to make a public announcement. "It’s very uncommon that a candidate will go through the process to file nomination papers and an affidavit of candidacy to appear on the ballot and then withdraw. It’s just doesn’t occur that often.” Why did she withdraw? The Gazette notes that the decision came one day after the “Mason City School Board's Objections Committee which ruled that, because of an error in paperwork, she wouldn't be able to run for a full four-year term in the district but could run for the two-year vacancy seat currently held by Peterson Jean-Pierre.” Or maybe it had to do with crazy racist screenshots purporting to show her social media activity?

The prestigious medical journal Lancet is in hot water over its latest issue. A quote on the cover from a senior editor has triggered widespread outrage on social media for “dehumanising” and “erasing” women. Read Full Article at RT.com

As Trump spent his Thursday calling Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp a “disaster,” Kemp was busy calling legislators to a special session on redistricting of the state’s congressional, state House, and state Senate maps in a mad effort to keep himself and his cronies in office. Or, as I like to call it, just another Friday in the Southern Republic’s efforts to hold on to systemic racism.  Redistricting or gerrymandering is a play Republicans live by, so it's no big surprise this would be Kemp’s move. Who cares about burgeoning crime rates or expanding Medicaid to poor Georgians? In a state with a million new potential voters since 2010 (according to the recent census), redrawing districts is the necessary power move. 

The deepening energy crisis in Britain has reached fuel supply, with large queues spotted at petrol stations across the country. One of the providers, EG Group, has imposed a £30 limit due to a surge in demand. Read Full Article at RT.com

Facebook is a menace. COVID-19 is a menace. Conservatism is a cesspool. Together, those three ingredients have created a toxic stew of malevolent death and devastation. We can talk about all those things in the abstract, look at the numbers and statistics, and catch the occasional whiff of seditionist right-wing rhetoric. But I hadn’t really fully understood just how horrifying that combination of right-wing extremism, Facebook, and a killer virus was until I became a regular at the Herman Cain Awards subreddit. This series will document some of those stories, so we are aware of what the other side is doing to our country. Today’s cautionary tale is Desire.

Former US top diplomat and failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton became the first female chancellor of Queen’s University in Belfast, but her triumphant entrance was picketed by hecklers protesting her as a “war criminal.” Read Full Article at RT.com

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Earlier this week, 22-year-old Gabby Petito’s remains were recently discovered by police; her fiance is now a suspect in her murder. This is a tragic turn of events. It’s tragic when anyone’s child goes missing. But it would be a lie to say we treat each missing person case as the tragedy it is. The first thing many in the Black, brown, and Indigenous communities thought when Petito went missing was, ‘Why isn’t this much attention paid to our children?’ One family, in particular, was outraged by the level of intense media coverage over Petito’s case, while his son had gotten so little.  David Robinson II is the father of Daniel Robinson. Daniel, 24, has been missing since June 23. He was last seen leaving his worksite in Buckeye, Arizona, driving a blue/grey 2017 Jeep Renegade.

There’s long been a prevailing meme that Republicans are such fans of fertilized eggs that they have to take away women’s rights over their own bodies to protect microscopic zygotes, but so unconcerned about actually living, independent children that they cheerfully withhold funding for extravagances like food and shelter. This meme persists because it’s true. And if anyone needed a reminder, here it comes: According to a poll published in Politico, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is now the favorite candidate of Republicans going into 2024.  Based on how DeSantis’ support in this poll has grown five points in the last few months, it can only be assumed that this action, reported in CNN on Friday morning, will lock down a dozen new delegates. Because from now on, kids who are known to have been exposed to COVID-19 are free to go to school in Florida unless they’re personally showing symptoms. No more quarantine. Which is the viral aperitif for schools where both mask mandates and vaccine mandates are banned. During the delta virus wave, Florida went from having the 27th highest death rate in the nation to cracking the top 10. A list that was once populated entirely by states unfortunate enough to be blasted by the pandemic in its opening weeks, when there were no vaccines and very little understanding about how best to treat COVID-19 patients, is now dominated by red states like Florida, where deliberate action on the part of Republican officials has consigned tens of thousands to their deaths. No content to visit his public health disaster on adults, DeSantis has been particularly cruel in his ongoing fight to see that children face maximum threat. And to underscore the effectiveness of his actions, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on Friday that districts with masks mandates have seen much less growth of COVID-19 in children than districts without such protection. What DeSantis is doing isn’t some abstract argument about “freedom,” it’s a direct assault on human lives.

The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives has passed a bill that would legally protect a woman’s right to have an abortion. However, the vote was a tight one, and Republicans were outraged at its passage. Read Full Article at RT.com

Space billionaire Elon Musk and singer Grimes have split up, Musk has announced, adding that they still “love each other, see each other frequently, are on great terms,” and will share care of their son. Cue social media meltdown. Read Full Article at RT.com

The Duke of York’s lawyers have finally acknowledged he has been served with Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s lawsuit alleging the British royal sexually assaulted her three times, having given process servers the runaround for weeks. Read Full Article at RT.com

The days of the federal government blindly providing Donald Trump with blanket immunity for his crimes against the republic are over. The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection has reportedly made extensive records requests from federal agencies pertinent to its probe. This week the panel also issued subpoenas to four members of Trump's inner circle, prompting Trump to issue a statement  saying he planned to claim «executive privilege» in order to thwart information requests from the committee. But whatever Trump plans to do personally, he won't be getting help from the man currently sitting in the Oval Office. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday that President Joe Biden would not invoke executive privilege to shield his predecessor's records from being released to the committee. 

Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou has entered a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) in the US, paving the way for her to leave Canada, where she has spent nearly three years in detention. Read Full Article at RT.com