There is an exciting piece deep inside this Daily Beast article regarding just how hard the 11th Circuit slapped down Judge Aileen Cannon whatever the game she is playing was. Cannon took the hit so hard she has reversed her bunk earlier order around the classified documents and Special Master, perhaps eliminating Trump's ability even to appeal the reversal by the 11th Circuit, but that's not the bit that caught my eye.

Finally, the 11th Circuit basically held that the DOJ had already satisfied the most important element of an eventual prosecution under the Espionage Act (18 USC Section 793(d).

Here's what Section 793(d) states:

"Whoever, lawfully having possession of [a document] relating to the national defense which information the possessor had reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation…willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it on demand to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it" violates the Espionage Act and "shall be…imprisoned not more than ten years" for each document willfully retained.

100 classified documents. 10 years per document. I wonder how much ketchup has been splattered against the dining room wall in Mar a Lago?

Business Insider has an expert who says Trump faces a maximum 10 years for this.

Word salad and meaningless statements are like spinach to the MAGA Popeye! Watch as some dude pays money for one of these tee-shirts.

This saxophone duo has an incredible time playing the Venice Beach Ocean Front Walk length. Dancing and wailing down the boardwalk on a beautiful day, this video is a treat.

Image: screen grab

Disney has released a short tribute video to all the Imagineers who have made it so special:

I enjoyed the 2019 Disney+ series The Imagineering Story, it is a fantastic deeper dive into the history of a tremendous group of creative people. I believe the in-service popularity of that series also misled Disney to think marketing the Galactic Starcruiser with Imagineer interviews was "the way." It was not. Imagine if Disney figures out marketing as well as they have entertainment.

Image: screen grab

Episode 5 of Auralnauts' masterpiece "Star Wars: Larry " includes my favorite shout-out in their entire book of work, Anakin recommending Jumbo's Clown Room. Episode 5 is packed with dance fighting and relationship advice.

I love that Obi-Wan took out a "friendship ad."

Image: screen grab

Try as they may, violence will likely not solve this disagreement. Perhaps it was solved by Vodka.

Via Sean M.

Image: Tribalium/shuttershock

Trump's adult children, aged 44, 40 and 38 years old, should not be charged in the NY Attorney General's case against the crime family because they aren't responsible adults. Eric and Don Jr supposedly ran the business while their loving father collaborated with Russia.

I think those three "children" likely meet the standard for independent authority and should be expected not to break the law.

Interstate 40 in Oklahoma was covered in sex toys after a truck spilled them during a crash. The helicopter cameraperson was able to get a decent enough shot to allow folks at home to ID they toys.

The toys were identified as the Adam & Eve G-Spot Touch Finger Vibe.

Yahoo:

The bizarre accident resulted in an awkward exchange between KWTV's anchor Lacey Lowery and the station's helicopter pilot Jim Gardner.

"This is a semi that overturned and lost its load here," Gardner said Lowery. "There is a lot of stuff to clean up."

Lowery asked, "Jim, can you tell what he's carrying there? What's all over the road?" Gardner paused before replying, "Not really. Maybe you can tell. I can't tell…There's a lot of stuff laying on the road…Whatever it is it's going to take a while to clean up."

Thankfully, the accident resulted in no injuries. Several lanes of the highway were closed while authorities worked to clean the mess up.

RollingStone has published a deep dive into the leadership example set by Elon "Pedo Guy" Musk and the harassment suffered by seven women bringing lawsuits against his EV carmaker, Tesla. The lawsuits have been in the news for ages, but the details behind the suffering are new and horrible.

RollingStone:

Shortly after starting, Mederos says, she told her boss that she had problems hearing certain tones and voices with her right ear. This got around, and apparently many of the men she worked with thought she was deaf. A technician allegedly called out "I've never seen a white girl with an ass like her." The same tech guy eventually learned that Mederos was half-Cuban. One day, she claims, he sidled up to her. "That explains why you have an ass." This atmosphere encouraged two other workers to ask her if she could hold a cup up with just her butt. The tech guy, per Mederos' legal filing, also once remarked on the breasts of a girl visiting the center, and was unfazed when he was told the girl was 12. "Those tits are not 12," he allegedly said.

"The place was toxic before Eden got there," says a former Tesla employee who worked with Mederos and left company feeling the culture was inappropriate and obnoxious. "A guy would start there and seem like a nice guy, but then he wanted to be part of the group and just started being awful. Other women got harassed — Eden just got it more."

Andor is delivering on the promise of Rogue One in a big way. Finally, we are three episodes into a story not about kidnapping, stealing, or training a Force-sensitive kid. Instead, we see the dark and gritty awful side of a Republic barely policed by a few thousand misguided religious zealots as it transforms into a fascist state managed by jackasses. Good stuff!

Andor is breaking the mold and offering up great acting, writing, and direction. The storytelling here is wonderful and paced for the 24 episodes we're expecting.

I am in love with Bee the droid and have yet to find out their full name. Reminds me a lot of Chopper, and it is lovely to see Cassian's respect for droids go way back. Diego Luna is doing an amazing job as the titular character. Fiona Shaw's Maarva is a wonderful and rare addition to the Star Wars universe, a parent figure that the protagonist apparently doesn't need to kill as they seek to attain attunement with the Force.

I am interested in the idea that a 5-year BBY Empire would rely on local law enforcement for anything and wouldn't be numerous enough to control anything they want, lets see where this goes. I would assume that essentially losing control of a planet to locals over a minor policing issue would imply this plan is bad? This was just Keystone Cops with malintent, and Cassian's hatred of the Empire must come from elsewhere? It sounded like Maarva's problems were with the Republic in the flashbacks.

This is also some visually very satisfying Star Wars. Gone is the flashy clean stuff on Tatooine of that Boba Fett show that seems to be sticking around. This old-style Star Wars was born of slapping model kits together to make cool-looking stuff and add scorch marks. See the downtrodden under the jackboot of the Empire, and I guess its Corporate minions/benefactors! Here is the why of Rebellion, instead of floating rocks around.

Andor is shaping up to be some of the best Star Wars yet.

The Special Master attending the Trump v USA classified documents clearing wants to know why Trump thinks the documents aren't classified. Either Trump magically declassified them, which may be a crime in and of itself, or he stole a bunch of classified documents. The Special Master needs to know which documents Trump claims he declassified and how if he is to have a reason to believe marked documents that the USG claims are classified are not. Trump's team doesn't want to explain how or why Trump had these documents or how he declassified them. Either he claims to have potentially illegally and improperly declassified information, or he stole the documents. Which is it?

Apparently, the Trump legal team has painted themselves into a corner and now needs to admit to the possibility of one crime or the other. Trump has been very vocal about declassifying the documents but his legal team refuses to put it in writing.

Law and Crime:

"The government gives me prima facie evidence that these are classified documents," Dearie said, referring to the plain markings on the records. "As far as I'm concerned, that's the end of it."

Dearie gave Trump's lawyer James Trusty ample opportunity to explain why his consideration shouldn't end there.

On the eve of the hearing, Trump's lawyers had filed a four-page letter urging Dearie to back off from his demand that they disclose declassification arguments.

"We respectfully submit that the time and place for affidavits or declarations would be in connection with a Rule 41 motion that specifically alleges declassification as a component of its argument for return of property," Trusty wrote in the filing. "Otherwise, the Special Master process will have forced the Plaintiff to fully and specifically disclose a defense to the merits of any subsequent indictment without such a requirement being evident in the District Court's order."

Dearie said he agreed that Trump's lawyers have the right to assert that position, but he suggested that they would have to live with the consequences of that course of action.

"You can't have your cake and eat it," the judge said.

The Chief Operating Officer of Beyond Meat is accused of biting the tip of a man's nose in an altercation outside of an American football game. Doug Ramsey is described as having thrown quite the fit when another driver bumped the wheel of his Ford Bronco while exiting a sports match.

This sounds like the aggression some attribute to eating a lot of red meat, but maybe Beyond Meat is that good.

Orlando Sentinel:

A top executive at plant-based food company Beyond Meat has been charged with felony battery after a fight outside a college football game in which he was accused of biting a man's nose.

Doug Ramsey was also charged with making a terroristic threat after the attack Saturday in a parking garage outside a University of Arkansas football game in Fayetteville.

According to a police report, Ramsey was angered when another driver inched in front of him in a traffic lane and made contact with the front passenger wheel on Ramsey's Ford Bronco SUV.

The police report alleges that Ramsey got out of his vehicle and punched through the back windshield of the other driver's car. The driver told police that he got out of his car and Ramsey pulled him close and began punching him. Ramsey also bit the tip of the other driver's nose, ripping the flesh, according to the police report.

A sheriff in Texas has opened an investigation into Florida Gov. DeSantis' shipping of migrants legally seeking asylum around the nation. While the states that Desantis and Texas Gov. Abbott have sent migrants to have welcomed them, the pretenses and promises made by their teams to the migrants seem to amount to kidnapping.

Orlando Sentinel:

Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar investigators have some leads on suspects he would not name who "lured" the refugees to the two planes on Wednesday "under false pretenses."

"I believe they were preyed upon," he said, adding that he was working with private attorneys for the migrants, as well as advocacy groups, on the probe. "I believe there is some criminal activity here. But we're going to keep an open mind."

He said the migrants were in the U.S. legally and they were "hoodwinked" with promises of jobs and other benefits to make the flight to Massachusetts.

The Michelada is a fantastic drink. I describe it to friends and family who are somehow unfamiliar with this Mexican superstar beverage as essentially "a beer bloody mary." Now, you can get them with THC-infused chili powder.

I look forward to trying one.

LA Taco:

"Mota Mix" is not the first mota-infused michelada mix our newsroom has seen in its many years of abuse. Still, its widespread availability has us excited for the mind-expansive, pain-of-life-numbing implications of having this in our lives.

Normally, anyone inclined to merge cannabis and ethanol into one crossfading whole will have to drop an ounce or two of their preferred spirit into a pre-bottled THC beverage. A few shots of Tequila blanco in a 16oz. bottle of weed lemonade and you've got a cool, refreshing treat we like to call "rocket fuel," cause baby, it'll be a pleasant minute before touchdown brings you round again.

With Mota Mix, the whole point (as we see it) is to easily combine the THC chile-powder with booze in one convenient cup of Michelada you can then carry around all day like you're Lil' Wayne or something.

Republicans are suddenly concerned that just being near a drug will turn you into a foaming-at-the-mouth addict. The National Chairperson of the Republican party acts as if she believes that touching a fentanyl pill can kill someone. She heard it from another not-a-doctor, right?

Doctors and science are pretty straightforward. You can not die from touching a pill. If you could transdermally absorb the drug so quickly and effectively that swallowing the pill, or injecting it, would be unnecessary then you should assume hospitals would not tell you to swallow the pill, let alone an injection.

Detroit Free Press:

"If you could absorb drugs by touching them, why would people bother to inject them?" said Dr. Andrew Stolbach, a medical toxicologist and emergency physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He also is an expert on the subject of fentanyl exposure.

"Drugs like fentanyl and analogs of fentanyl aren't absorbed through the skin very well at all," Stolbach said. "So brief, incidental contact isn't going to cause somebody to absorb a therapeutic dose, let alone a toxic dose."

The most interesting thing about this new revelation revealed in yet another tell-all Trump book, that FOX News Host Brett Baier wanted the outlet to lie and claim Trump was winning an election he was not is not his lack of ethics or dishonesty but rather the fact that FOX is so proud of it.

We expect FOX to lie.

Daily Beast:

"The leading news anchor for Fox was pushing not just to say Arizona was too close to call but to pretend that the president had won it," wrote Baker and Glasser.

Despite the pressure from the Trump White House, the network stood by its Arizona decision—though Fox would eventually fire longtime political editor Chris Stirewalt who defended the decision desk's call. (The network framed the termination as a "restructuring.") Additionally, Fox News DC managing editor Bill Sammon retired shortly after the 2020 election.

"FOX News made an election night call of historic magnitude and was first to do so," a network spokesperson said in a statement. "We stood by the call in the days that followed, it was proven correct, and other news organizations eventually joined us."

I have shopped at Mami Wata. Their clothing and surfboards are incredibly beautiful. It is a shame that such a cool little local boutique suffered such a bold smash and grab.

I haven't seen more on this robbery via local news sources, but who knows.

Image: screen grab

Matt Gaetz appears to have been worried about the investigation into his alleged sex crimes. While Gaetz and his friend former President, Donald Trump, claim no pardon was requested, many close associates of theirs keep stating otherwise.

Orlando Sentinel:

Gaetz did not specify the investigation, but also told McEntee he asked White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows for a pardon, the Post said.

A spokesman for Gaetz told the Post that the Congressman from North Florida stands behind Trump's statement that Gaetz never sought a pardon from him.

Other witnesses close to Trump have also testified to the committee that Gaetz was seeking a pardon, though he never actually received one.

Several news outlets have reported Gaetz is under investigation into whether he had sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl whom he paid to travel out of the country with him.

Unable to respect the Constitution of the United States of America, to which she has sworn an oath to defend, Georgia's most outspoken member of congress wants to end the separation of church and state. Celebrating a political rally that she feels was more like a "Christian revival," Marge made her intentions clear.

Crooks and Liars:

Controversial Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was in attendance, and she had some thoughts on religion in America.

"We're seeing a resurgence; it's like a revival," she said. "It's really a Christian revival. I want to see the church in America come to life and save this country. Because the church in America is the American people. The constitution was founded by Christian men."

First of all, the Constitution wasn't founded. It was drafted. And Trump supporters are worshipping a false idol at his rallies.

There has been a recent surge in attempts to ban books across America. Conservative political groups seeking to block books with storylines about minorities and LBGTQA+ folks are mounting more organized and more frequent attacks on our freedoms. Libraries are an incredible public resource that should not be forced to suffer this terrible political theater.

NPR:

Throughout the 2021-22 school year, more than 1,600 book titles were banned, according to a new report by the group PEN America, which advocates for freedom of expression.

According to the report, the surge in book bans is a result of a network of local political and advocacy groups targeting books with LGBTQ+ characters and storylines, and books involving characters of color.

"While we think of book bans as the work of individual concerned citizens, our report demonstrates that today's wave of bans represents a coordinated campaign to banish books being waged by sophisticated, ideological and well-resourced advocacy organizations," said Suzanne Nossel, chief executive officer of PEN America.