It is Friday. Did anything of note even happen this week? [Looks through papers] Oh, yes. The FBI executed a search warrant, authorized by Attorney General Merrick Garland, at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and removed approximately a dozen boxes from the premises—some of which contained classified documents, possibly including America’s closely held nuclear secrets.
At 9 AM Thursday morning, the FBI office in Cincinnati, Ohio, says that an armed man attempted to “breach the Visitor Screening Facility” at their headquarters. An alarm was set off and the suspect then fled the scene. He has reportedly engaged law enforcement personnel in a chase and there has been a lockdown of Clinton County.
As of the writing of this post, the man remains unidentified, as are his motives.
If you haven’t heard, gotten some kind of notification on your devices, or were stuck inside of a Mar-a-Lago safe for the past couple of hours, the Federal Bureau of Investigation—also known as the FBI—served a search warrant at disgraced twice impeached president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago in Florida on Monday. It’s what the kids call breaking news.
The National Galleries of Scotland have announced quite the find. A previously unknown self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh, arguably the most famous painter in history, has been discovered on the back of another van Gogh painting, hidden behind cardboard and layers of glue.
One of the many museums dedicated to American history is Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello estate. This was the estate designed by Thomas Jefferson, built and worked by African American slaves. Monticello is one of the most famous slave plantations because it was home to one of the “Founding Fathers,” and a very important and powerful American historical figure. About half a million people visit the 5,000 acre Monticello every year in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Ivana Trump, first wife of Donald Trump and mother of Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric Trump, passed away at the age of 73. Multiple news outlets report that the disgraced former president confirmed on Thursday that she passed away at her home in New York City. The Trump family released a statement saying, “Our mother was an incredible woman — a force in business, a world-class athlete, a radiant beauty, and caring mother and friend.
On Saturday, in the greater Houston area of Texas, children played little league baseball. One such game between the 9-and-under Scorpions Baseball team and Prospects Baseball team ended with a Scorpions loss. It happens every weekend—one team wins and the others lose. Little league baseball (like many youth sports) has a great tradition where both teams and their adult coaches line up and then give one another high fives after the game.
On Tuesday, former high-ranking Oath Keeper Jason Van Tatenhove testified during the latest Jan. 6 committee hearing.
Former New York Police Department Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who is best known for his support of the catastrophically racist stop-and-frisk policy, has a son. That kid is named Greg. Greg, like most corrupt east coast officials’ progeny, has found his way into the ultra-right-wing media sphere. He’s a face on Newsmax. Newsmax is where people go when they feel like Fox News is getting too heady to follow.
It is Friday! Exhale. It took two weeks for President Joe Biden to take action on the Supreme Court’s decision to reverse about half of the country’s rights. He took those two weeks on top of the four weeks when we already knew that those rights were being taken away. It is a good thing that Biden took some action, but more is still needed.
Former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter celebrated their 76th wedding anniversary today. How about that? President Carter is one of the most well-liked politicians in modern history, not because of his sabotaged tenure in office, but because he has spent his life being an example of excellence in public service.
James Caan, one of America’s great film actors, has passed away at the age of 82. His family used his popular Twitter account to announce the sad passing: “It is with great sadness that we inform you of the passing of Jimmy on the evening of July 6.The family appreciates the outpouring of love and heartfelt condolences and asks that you continue to respect their privacy during this difficult time.
July Fourth is a holiday filled with cookouts, alcohol, BBQs, family, friends, and fireworks. Lots of fireworks. But fireworks are by nature explosives and parties get out of hand and explosives are … explosive. Every year, more and more Americans are injured or killed in firework-related mishaps. That number has increased over the years as more and cheaper fireworks become available to the public.
On Monday, Major League Soccer’s LA Galaxy faced off against CF Montreal. After the game, veteran Galaxy midfielder Sacha Kljestan came into the press room, sat down in front of the microphone, and said he would be keeping his comments and appearance “really brief” because he didn’t plan on answering any questions about the game. That elicited laughs from the reporters on hand, but the California-born Kljestan wasn’t making jokes.
It is Friday times. The week has been filled with highlights and lowlights, and all of those lights concern an attack on our centuries-old experiment in the concept of representative democracy. The Jan. 6 committee hearings this week saw former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’ top aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, testify about how fully onboard everybody was with disrupting our country’s democratic processes.
The Supreme Court, filled with truly mediocre-minded wannabe conservative Christian clerics, has spent this last session of the court taking away reproductive rights, everybody’s Miranda rights, the separation of church and state in the classroom, and the ability of our government to regulate greenhouse gases that have driven anthropogenic climate change.
It is Friday. We knew it would be bad. We all hoped for a miracle. There are no miracles, just work to be done. The Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—most likely leaked by a conservative clerk hoping to secure the votes of theocratic members on the Court—was made official today in a ruling that undoes 50 years of established law protecting reproductive rights in our country. The decision, a 6-3 ruling to overturn Roe v.
Welcome back to another Friday! Remember how all of those children and all of those Black folks were murdered with legal high-powered weapons over the past couple of weeks? Remember how the Republican Party jumped past thoughts and prayers and into saying everything is political and something about how we didn’t ban planes after 9/11? Those Senate Republicans are now scuttling the compromised gun safety bill that they agreed to. Yes.
Republican Rep. Tom Rice of South Carolina was one of the architects of the enormous tax breaks for the rich that the Republican Party passed during the Trump administration. While it was wildly unpopular and led almost entirely to further extremes in wealth inequality in our country, it may be considered the only piece of Republican legislation to actually be passed during all of the years the GOP enjoyed majority control under Trump.
It is Friday. It is the day after the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol held its first “prime time” public hearing on the evidence they have been collecting for the last 18 months. The GOP, having chosen to align itself with an attempted coup d’etat, is defending itself by alternately saying nothing happened on Jan.
On Wednesday, a clip of Florida man and suspected child sex trafficker Rep. Matt Gaetz speaking with carpetbagger Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene went around the internet. In it, Gaetz said that Rep. Jamie Raskin was “unable” to do his job as a Jan. 6, committee member. Why? Because Rep. Raskin’s son died by suicide.
First they came for Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina. Now, as foretold, they are coming for Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado. The battle for control over what will be the Neo-fascist Republican Party continues as a new leak of dirty dealings makes its way back into the public sphere. Boebert is running for re-election in Colorado’s 3rd District, and the conservative Super PAC group that helped run media attacks on Rep.
On Friday, a federal grand jury indicted Peter Navarro for his failure to cooperate with a congressional subpoena issued to him by the Jan. 6 committee back in February. Navarro was disgraced former President Trump’s trade adviser, and while he made some money shilling for his memoir—in which he boasted about all of the conspiratorial work he did in service of thwarting our country’s democracy—he did not want to have to go on the record, so to speak.
Welcome to Friday! Another week down! President Biden took one step forward to right the wrongs of predatory loan sharks pretending to be education-supporting businesses. No movement forward on gun safety as the Republican Party and their gun lobby overlords continue to run the same old bloody playbook.
The Qronicles is a series that will collect some of the news, videos, and general mis/disinformation roiling around the conspiracy world of QAnon. You can cringe, you can laugh, but these folks are organizing and showing up at the polls!
This has been a hard week in America. They’re all hard weeks, but this one was particularly difficult.
It is Friday. This week has been a brutal reminder of what divided opinions on “American exceptionalism” in our leadership class really are. Children were murdered this week in a way that otherwise only exists in countries being bombed by missiles. While the overwhelming majority of Americans are demanding that action be taken to make our country safer for children going to elementary schools, corporate gun lobby money is a more powerful master to conservative lawmakers.
Jimmy Kimmel has used his late-night platform to call out the hypocrisies and grotesqueness of the right-wing media machine. He has openly challenged the fascist lies of people like Marjorie Taylor Greene. He has attempted to speak to the MAGA crowd and tried to use humor in pointing out the … inconsistencies between Trump’s promises and his actions.
What a week. Did you know that the only evidence of people tampering with voting equipment is evidence against Republican officials? True story. Did you hear about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife, Ginni Thomas? There are new revelations about her heavy involvement in trying to overthrow our government this past election.
The week ends with a busy day of news that includes Republicans—the keepers of the pro-life flame—wanting to starve immigrant babies, a MAGA candidate on steroids that is surging in Pennsylvania’s Republican senate primary, Mitch McConnell continuing to pretend that gutting Roe v.
Welcome to Thursday. The GOP continues moving forward with its only policy platform: taking away Americans’ rights. In the case of LGBTQ+ Americans, they are doing this by way of attacking children. Because the only “life” they are “pro” is contained to just the gestation period of fetuses, they are also proceeding with their policy of taking away more than 50% of our population’s rights to bodily autonomy.